WEBVTT - Sara Fischer, AXIOS media reporter, calls in from DC 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:03.880 I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:05.720 going to have to start making better content. I think 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.240 we're gonna be talking about this for a long time. 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:10.280 When you program for everyone, you program for no one. 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:12.360 I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.720 trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:19.319 happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? And 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:23.960 it really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.120 Alexa Kristen. Welcome back to episode I don't even know 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:31.240 what we're on two, and we have some special announcements. 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.800 We're taking this show on the road, on the road 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.879 and I R l yes. So we will be opening 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.360 up the I A b S Annual Leadership Meeting in 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:44.600 February out in Palm Desert, California. Big focus on direct 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:48.000 to consumer brands and how incumbent brands can learn from 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.080 new startups and direct to consumer brands, and how the 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:56.920 whole ecosystem of supply chain and um reaching audiences has changed, 0:00:57.120 --> 0:00:59.920 and why direct to consumer brands are coming into their 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.680 own at this point. It's really going to be an 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.479 interesting conversation. So we're excited to be there and big 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.280 thanks to I a b for having us come out totally, 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.520 and we're also excited to announce that we'll be doing 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:13.520 two of our favorite things, talking and eating, yeah, talking 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:15.800 any with a bunch of friends. We're going to be 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.960 launching an inaugural dinner series starting at the on air 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:22.919 fest with our friends at Work by Work. We're excited 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:25.360 to be doing that in Brooklyn at the White Hotel 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.720 in February as well. And stay tuned because they're going 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.600 to be more at Landia Dinners and you may have 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.200 a chance to come and join us. So today we 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:38.520 have a special caller, probably the hottest media trends reporter 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.400 in the industry right now, wouldn't you say, I would 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:44.920 say hottest and still not known about enough. Right So 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:46.720 we're going to get on the phone with Sarah Fisher 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:51.080 from Axios Media Trends newsletter. I love her background, So 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:53.200 she's going to tell you about how she actually got 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.760 to Axios and what she was doing before. And I 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:59.120 think there's actually a signal in the noise here. Um 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:00.920 And so when you list and you hear her talk 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:04.559 about her background and add sales and on the business side, 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.320 I think it actually gives so many people on the 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.800 business side, something to hold onto and say, wait a second, 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.080 I can have a perspective beyond what I'm selling, right, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.240 like walking in with just a proposal and selling to 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.200 a brand or a publisher or a client or whoever. 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:26.800 Right that everyone in this space should and can have 0:02:26.919 --> 0:02:30.240 a perspective on the business And I love that, right. 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.440 I think what was interesting about her point of viewer. 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:34.520 What is interesting about her point of view is the 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:38.520 perspective around how to fish for information. Right. If you're 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.720 thinking about how you're selling, you're asking for client objectives, 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:44.640 trying to figure out where you can slot in. You know, 0:02:44.800 --> 0:02:46.800 your unique point of view is what you just said 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.440 to get something sold. But I think that there's something 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.640 interesting about how you know, when you think about the 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.560 seller buy a relationship and you think about that dynamic 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.560 at the table of what they need to pull from 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.080 you to get to, you know, to the point of 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:02.880 how we make this deal happen. It's interesting to see 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.000 her translate that over to the journalism front. And it 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.720 comes down to ask the right questions, asking the right questions. 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.560 And yes, it doesn't mean it's more work sometimes absolutely, 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:14.919 but it also means that you have a more meaningful 0:03:15.040 --> 0:03:17.160 relationship with the people that you're talking to and selling 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.920 to totally what I appreciate it, and I think, you know, 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.720 having chatted with her quite a bit, it's interesting to 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.200 see sort of where at Landia has sprung up in 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.560 the market, where Axios Media has sprung up in the market, 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.720 and the different unique point of view you get from 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:33.040 people who are in it right, the people who are 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.640 grinding it out, the people that have expertise and have 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.440 practiced um and how they're able to take points from 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:42.120 brands or points from publishers and able to shape it 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.520 into a conversation that actually extracts value because you know, 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.320 you get it. So I think that's really interesting. So next, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:04:17.920 let's call Sarah cam dialer up. Hi, this is Sarah Fisher. 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:23.160 Sarah Fisher. Hey, Sarah, it's the ladies from Atlantia are Hey, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.560 thanks for having me. Good morning, Good morning. So you 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.880 have the hottest media newsletter in the industry right now, 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.320 Axio says Media Trends. Can you tell us, Sarah, how 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:37.400 you got started and why you made the jump over 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.400 to Axios two put this out into the world. Yeah, absolutely, 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:43.480 and thank you so much for the kind words. I mean, 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.280 It's kind of serendipitous how it happened. I was in 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.040 ad sales for the majority of my career. I sold 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:53.120 advertising at Politico, and when the founders of Politico jumped 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.080 to create Axius, they wanted to create a product that 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.359 looked at the business and technology sides of media, and 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.520 they wanted a reporter who they wouldn't have to explain 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.320 what a CPM was, or they wouldn't have to explain 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.000 how how tor bidding worked, and that can be kind 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.880 of challenging to find, especially because we're headquartered here in Washington. 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.000 And so they figured, let's see if Sarah would be interested. 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:18.320 Even though she comes from the business side, she's not 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.440 really a writer, we know she gets those important topics, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.040 and it just sort of worked out really well. I 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:28.240 started before the company launched last November. We launched the 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:31.120 newsletter in June, and it's sort of taken off from there. Wait, 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.280 so you went from ad sales to journalism. You had 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.320 not been a journalist before. No. I spent a few 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.840 years during my sales career. It took some time off 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.719 and went to CNN, and I learned some of the 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.160 editorial concepts that you need for report to be a reporter, 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.200 you know, how do you initiate something off the record 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.280 on the record. But for the most part, I've never 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.320 been a writer, and then when they brought me on 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.000 to do this, I kind of had to wing it. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.599 But luckily for us Axios, our format is, you know, 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:00.240 really short writing. It's not using a lot of words, 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.640 it's just sort of leading on expertise. So it turned 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:04.160 out to be a good fit. So how are you 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.480 sourcing stories? Because obviously there's a ton of media trade 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.120 organizations that are out there reporting on very similar issues, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:12.920 but you seem to have found an angle in a 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.919 bend in that was able to cut through very quickly. 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:18.560 How are you sourcing those stories? And what are you 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.440 looking for in the market to really find your point 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.360 of differentiation and Axios Yes, So I'd say that every 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.359 time you read the newsletter you'll probably find that between 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.520 the five to seven items that I include, there's three 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:31.880 to four people that are on the record. But what 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.960 you don't see are the you know, thirty or forty 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.200 people I talked to that week, whether it was on 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.960 the phone, on background, off the work record, in an interview, 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.080 at a conference, in a conversation just to be able 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:48.200 to better form an opinion or a perspective that could 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.640 help me shed light on some of these really nuanced 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.400 topics to readers. And so when it comes to sourcing, 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.760 it runs the gamut. This is like the most important 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.440 skill that I took from sales and I brought to reporting. 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.480 It doesn't matter who you are, where you are. Everyone 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.360 has an interesting perspective when it comes to media. So 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.320 sometimes I'll talk to the folks that I used to 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.920 sell ads to, some of the adviers. Sometimes I talk 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.080 to regulators because I'm here in Washington about what do 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.720 you know about how this industry is transforming that maybe 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:20.559 some many times the industry parties don't even know about 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:22.920 because they aren't looking at it from such a high level. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.040 Or I'll talk to brands. You know, it really runs 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:28.840 the gamut, but there's no sort of equation like I 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.080 call this person every day. I call that person every 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:34.960 day because I'm covering such a wide scope of things, 0:07:35.040 --> 0:07:40.920 everything from media trends in publishing, telecom technology, business deals 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:43.720 that you can't allow yourself to you know, only talk 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:45.560 to the same like ten people. You just got to 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.400 talk to everyone. Well, I think it's really impressive is 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.640 that there's so much noise out there and you distill 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:59.559 your newsletter into really smart, really pointed topics, and um 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:01.640 they is that people need to be paying attention to 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:03.960 and when you're talking everybody, how do you do that? 0:08:04.000 --> 0:08:06.080 How do you Lauren, I talked about spotting the signal 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:07.880 in the noise? How do you spot the signals and 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:10.360 the noise? It's a great question. One of the things 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.000 that I did have to do when I was at scene, 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.120 and which was hard, was they put me in this 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.760 thing called the feeds from and you'd have to listen 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.880 to like hours and hours of White House briefings, Pentagon briefing, 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:23.000 Stage department briefings, and then you have to send a 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.239 note to the network of like the top five things, 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.760 like what were the biggest things after five hours of 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:30.480 listening to people? What are the five minutes that matter? 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.400 And so it really helps hone your editorial judgment. And 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.520 I like to sort of apply that same thought process 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.600 when I write the newsletter. It's like, Okay, I have 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.000 lists that I've made all week of things I've heard, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.040 things that are interesting. But if I'm a business executive 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.520 and I need to get smarter about my media business, 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.160 What are the five things that I have to know? 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:51.960 And so, honestly, it just comes down to ranking. It 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:54.320 becomes it comes down to just having good news judgment, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.600 going with your gut and ranking things. And sometimes I'll 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.640 identify something that no one else is talking about, and 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:02.560 I wonder, oh, my gosh, am I missing? Am I 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.640 missing the mark? Like? Am I the one that's just 0:09:04.679 --> 0:09:07.680 going totally off the cliff here? And then people will 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.600 respond and be like, thank god you wrote that. I've 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:11.600 been thinking about that, or I hadn't thought about it 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.120 this way. I'd say, like, the best example is when 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:17.680 I talked about some of the issues that we're facing 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:20.120 with like Chinese investments in media, or you know, I'm 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.920 going to have something tomorrow on you know, Comcast and 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:28.680 NBC their merger sort of remedies expired this past weekend, 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:30.120 Like what does that mean for a T? T? Time 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:31.600 Warner And what does that mean for you if you're 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.440 looking to advertise with a T and T. So a 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:36.280 lot of it is just me kind of going with 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:38.760 my gut, and sometimes I guess I could be off, 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:40.880 but it seems so far that people have liked my gut, 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:42.760 you know, It's interesting when you talk about being able 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:44.559 to distill it down in five points. I think there's 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.080 a side hustle in there for you, because if I 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.120 read one more sales deck that goes fifty pages instead 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:52.760 of five points and four pages, I think there's something 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.440 there where you could uh kind of consult with folks 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.680 on how to get straight to the point. So you've 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:01.840 been obviously on you know, some of the hot tips 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.840 coming through, and you you dropped a very special edition 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.200 UM in the middle of CS last week around the 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:11.880 news relative to Facebook. Yes, can you give us the 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:16.559 background on what you see being the most important facets 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.880 UM for our listeners around the news of Facebook changing 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.560 their algorithm to focus on engagement with posts, which obviously 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:28.280 are going to have negative applications on brands and publishers. Yeah. 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:30.200 So I'd say the most important thing is that if 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.600 you take a look at traffic patterns, any sophisticated publisher 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.280 that's eyeing or analytics, And by publisher, I'm referring to 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.720 brands too, because they published on Facebook, they should have 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.720 seen this coming. I mean, the amount of referred traffic 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.800 from Facebook and comparison to Google and others has just 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.160 been waning for months, and so you shouldn't be surprised 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.120 by what you're seeing. However, you should expect for it 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.800 to continue to ramp up, meaning that less and less 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.400 of your posts will have visibility, will have exposure. I 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:00.760 think here's the sneaky to ways where it's going to 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.120 creep up on publishers and brands that they might not realize. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.520 One is so many people who do long form natives 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.439 rely on Facebook to distribute traffic to those native pieces, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:13.600 and that will become much harder. Did you day just 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.280 wrote a piece on this If you had bought, you know, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.439 a one hundred thousand dollar native execution with a publisher, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.080 but on your media plan there was like a eighty 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:26.760 thousand dollars social distribution Like most of those clicks you 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:28.880 were banking on from Facebook, You're probably not going to 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.240 get in half as much as those. So that's one 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:33.199 big side effect that I'd say is going to have 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.120 on brands and publishers. The other is there have been 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.840 analytics to support this, and we've run a purse on 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:41.520 this throughout the year, but short form video for the 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.480 sake of short form video is just not going to 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.040 be an option for developing an audience anymore. And we've 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:50.960 written about this extensively, particularly as we mentioned actually a 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.839 few editions ago, how it will help other sort of 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:58.360 technology advancements like voice or et cetera, become bigger. But 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:00.680 you can't just create Facebook is to try to go 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.200 viral anymore and get more people to like your page 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:05.760 and maybe sign up for your newsletter subscription. You're gonna 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:09.640 have to rely on much more strategic, much more well 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.920 crafted types of editorial or content. Is. You can't just 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.560 make spami videos anymore. Hasn't it been that way actually 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.400 for a long time. Now it's officially that way now 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.000 with Facebook going down this direction, it's definitely going to 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.840 be a marked difference. But I would say if Brand's 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.160 thought for the last three years that they were getting 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:33.760 real virility out of Facebook without giving them significant spend, 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:35.839 they're wrong. Well it's interesting, right, Like one of my 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:38.400 favorite tweets that I read that came in the feed 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.640 right afterwards was, you know, we talked about it all 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.200 this time, the difference between delivering traffic versus delivering engagement 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.640 and true audience, and people are going to start finding 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.120 out to your point, Al said that you know, this 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.440 whole time. It was volumes and volumes and volumes and 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:54.280 scale and scale and scale. But the reality of the the 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.120 situation was how many of those folks that were coming 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.680 across your post or watching your video or actually qualified 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.880 audience that was going to stick around and engage with 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:03.640 the brand or were they getting real morality? I think 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.360 the question for me is was anyone getting real virility 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.120 at this in the last few years with Facebook anyway? 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.400 I don't think so. Yeah, I completely agree with that. 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.000 I think there was a lot of inflated virality and 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.280 inflated engagement through paid Now we've heart you know, we've 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.120 quoted analysts saying that it's you know, organic reach is 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:22.960 basically going to be dead on Facebook and you're gonna 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:24.920 have to buy a lot of your reach. I think 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.600 that's one thing publisher should be really wary of is 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:33.160 if you're not creating incredibly culturally timely relevant content, Like 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.559 if you feel like you have to pay to elevate 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.160 your organic stuff, your organic stuff could be stronger. And 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:40.240 so I think brands are going to have to think about, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.200 how do I create more like culturally relevant moments, How 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.480 do I create more authentic content that breaks through the 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.200 noise without me having to pay for it to break 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.640 through the noise. And so you're right, it's been happening 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.360 for a long time. But I think this is the 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.240 way of Facebook putting me icing on the cake. We 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:59.720 keep talking about Facebook. Let's talk about everything but Facebook. 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.320 So like, where's the opportunity. I was reading an article 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:09.440 recently where the CEO of Fatherly was saying that a 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:12.320 lot of his traffic is coming direct from pinterest. Is 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.440 this an opportunity for other tech players like a Pinterest 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.400 to come in and create a whole new environment for 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.880 brands and publishers. It is, And we talked about this 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:23.400 a lot of accius and we get a ton of 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.800 our traffic from Flipboard. It depends on what type of 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:28.600 publisher you are. If you're a lifestyle publisher, if you do, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.560 you know, sell home decre or something like that, then yes, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:33.800 Pinterest would be phenomenal for you. If you're a news publisher, 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:38.040 something like Flipboard or Google News or Apple would be 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:39.680 great for you. The thing that publishers are going to 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.200 have to think about, though, is that we got into 0:14:42.200 --> 0:14:44.640 this situation where we were signing deals with the devil. 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.640 We were signing away our I P and are content 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.040 to these different platforms, and we weren't getting enough of 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.960 a revenue share in return. We're at the point now 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.920 where if you want to develop strategic relationships with your audience, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:57.720 if you want to be able to make you know, 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:01.520 sound financial investments, you can't just rely on traffic from 0:15:01.560 --> 0:15:04.280 these platforms. You have to rely on a strategic relationship, 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:07.040 a strategic investment where you're getting revenue in return. And 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.040 so this is one of the problems that some publishers 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.960 crist out with Apple News. It's that where's the revenue share? 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:13.640 Is it good enough? Are we making enough money from 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.440 that partnership. I know Snapchat has been really vocal that 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.040 they're trying to make this better. They're announcing a publisher 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.400 summit where they can focus on AD rev share agreements, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:26.360 I mean the most important thing. There are different distributors 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.840 that are going to rise as Facebook falls, like Apple News, Flipboards, Snapchat, Twitter, etcetera. 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:32.920 But publishers are going to have to be pretty picky 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.840 about the ones they choose to really invest in unless 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.440 they're getting a big return on that investment, either through 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.040 an AD revenue share or content license. Agreement. They need 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.840 to be really picky about where they just hand over 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:46.400 their I P because then they're just going to fall 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:50.280 into the same trap as Facebook. How do they vet that? Like, Yeah, 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:52.280 you gotta have a smart audience development team that's in 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.320 constant communication with the partner. I mean, I don't know 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:57.920 if you remember seeing there was a CNBC article about 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.520 how Amazon reps can be really hard to get in 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.960 touch with and to sort of work with. I mean, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.880 Amazon has a relatively nascent advertising business. It's growing faster 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:10.240 than everybody else's, but some of that institutional infrastructure of 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.640 how do you create sales partnerships, how do you create 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.480 smart revenue partnerships and content are just newer to them. 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.240 That's not what they focused on. They were an e 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.800 commerce platform forever, and so you need to choose your 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:23.200 partners that have experience and that are committed to getting 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.640 that sort of publisher relationship right. And that means having 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:31.080 a lot of uptrunk conversations with their sales teams about 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:33.240 what does the revenue share look like? Am I going 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.640 to be contract? And how long does this contract expire? 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.000 Where are the flexibilities in this So that if we 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.840 have a huge enormous bumping traffic that we can get 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.480 earned for it because we're bringing elevation to your platforms. 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:47.200 All of these things are conversations that brand's got to 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.560 have with the distributors, and unfortunately, not all distributors are 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.000 at the level where they're sophisticated enough and developing these 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.160 types of contracts. If you take a look at what 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.920 cable has done with some of the networks or cable 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.520 satellite companies, that those partnerships have been solidified over a 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:05.600 long period of time, starting to get a little bit 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:10.240 rustled now with redistribution agreements, but they've been solidified. We're 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.639 still at the point where we have not created a 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.520 really solid distribution ecosystem for digital Regulation is going to 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:18.119 have some stuff parts to do with it, but I 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.320 also just think time and experience are going to help 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.399 to you know, it's interesting, UM, what you were just 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.719 talking about in terms of content I P and not 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.440 necessarily just giving away the milk for free. I think 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.879 it's something we've talked about at Nausea and probably on 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:36.280 this show, is that publishers UM and media companies in particular. Um, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:38.280 it's almost like you need to turn the mirror inward 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.320 and start taking a deeper look at what you are 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.280 bringing to the table um and some of the content 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.600 um that has been you know, chasing the lowest comments dominate. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.480 You're looking for scale and finding these partners just to 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.159 put it out wherever anybody wants to view it. I 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.040 think as an industry we need to reevaluate that distribution 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.679 strategy because at the end of the day, if you 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.440 have an asset or you have content um that people 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.719 are willing to pay for, um that people can't get 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.320 anywhere else, I think people are willing to come and 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.560 look for it, and I don't necessarily think that that 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.920 has to be in the Facebook feed UM. So would 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:14.800 be curious to get your thoughts on that. I mean, 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:17.080 I couldn't agree more. This is the lens that I 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:19.520 would approach to the people's way of thinking about this. 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.000 For so long we measured success in media by reach 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:27.000 Nielsen ratings. How many people listened consecutively for one minute? 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.320 What was that reach? Radio? Same thing, what was that 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.479 reach over a fifteen minute measurement period? Even in digital 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.920 when we first started out, we were measuring things by 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.520 unique visitors. Over the past really I'd say two years 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.160 because reach has become democratized through smartphones, you can reach 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.479 anyone at a time. What has become the shift is 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.200 how engaged how much of someone's time can you capture. 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:52.800 And so when we're thinking about i P and we're 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:56.560 thinking about just making our content free and accessible, you 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.879 don't need to reach everybody any more. That's not the 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:03.120 metric of success. You're hand pumping. We're hand pumping. The 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:07.760 metricup success should be how much does your content engage 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:10.920 someone so that they can have an positive brand lift 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:13.040 and help get you to a point of sale if 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.719 you're trying to sell product, or how much does your 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:19.239 product give you a positive brand lift so that if 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.080 you're a publisher, you can develop that direct to consumer 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.119 relationship to monetize it in other ways. And so if 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:27.119 you're thinking about I just need to get my i 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.240 P out there, I need to scale my audience. I 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:32.439 need growth. I need growth. I mean, stop trying to 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.600 grow so fast and start trying to grow smart. Where 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:37.679 can I put my IP in a place that I'm 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.760 going to get value from it and my consumers are 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:41.680 gonna get value from it. Because one of the other 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.399 issues is you totally dilute your brand. When you just 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.800 try to kind of push all of your content everywhere 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.359 without being strategic, a half of it doesn't become viewable, right. 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.880 Impressions aren't viewable in the US anyway, So why are 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.560 you spanning it on crappy programmatic channels and b when 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.040 it does get viewed, if it's not contextually relat in 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.359 like what we're saying before, the impact is so much less. 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.240