Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's a word purpose driven platform. Like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance? How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
Speaker 1: really is? What's up? I'm Laura Curni and I'm Alexa Kristen.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Atlantia. April showers, bring May flowers. So
Speaker 1: today we're talking about ladies. Yeah, we're going like Beyonce
Speaker 1: just did Bacello. Well, we're going rides. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: have ari Wen Groff, publisher of Broadley, on the show.
Speaker 1: Broadley being the women's platform on Vice. So we wanted
Speaker 1: to have arian other than her being a total badass,
Speaker 1: she is a total bad super smart and super crazy smart.
Speaker 1: To talk about publishing for female issues looks like today brands,
Speaker 1: how brands can get around it, and how brands maybe
Speaker 1: aren't getting around it, and also like, what is content
Speaker 1: for women actually look like? What does that actually mean?
Speaker 1: Or does it mean anything? Can we categorize it? And
Speaker 1: so we wanted or should we categorize it? And I
Speaker 1: think for us, one of the things that Laura and
Speaker 1: I have talked a lot about is that a lot
Speaker 1: of publishers have come out with kind of female adjacent
Speaker 1: content to their general content. Being adjacent adjacent keyword. And
Speaker 1: I think that Vice was one of the first who
Speaker 1: actually created a female platform, right which was not influenced
Speaker 1: or informed by other topics that existed, but rather was
Speaker 1: hitting issues that went deeper than sort of surface pop
Speaker 1: culture that you can catch in any of the glossy
Speaker 1: magazines or celebrity rags. Yeah, totally. I think you can
Speaker 1: go to school on culture through a female lens in
Speaker 1: some ways with broadly, so like the topics are, they're
Speaker 1: intense there in the intensely also educational right from the
Speaker 1: standpoint of what's happening in other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: and are He's going to talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the the places she's gone, some of the people
Speaker 1: that she's talked to, and the growth that they're going
Speaker 1: to be seeing globally and that intensity just to touch
Speaker 1: on it, because I think it's super important that intensity
Speaker 1: is now part of this woke American culture right. It
Speaker 1: is part of not the subconscious, it is a part
Speaker 1: of the conscious of young female audiences. And I think
Speaker 1: for as you were just alluding to, for brands to
Speaker 1: sort of miss the opportunity to not just get on
Speaker 1: the bandwagon, but truly find a purpose within that platform.
Speaker 1: Are He's going to talk to us about why that's
Speaker 1: important now more than ever? So with that A hundred
Speaker 1: emoji A hundred are you GLF, We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: We're back in this studio at Lantia with a very
Speaker 1: special guest, ari Wen Groff, the publisher of Broadly Advice.
Speaker 1: Good to be here. So all right, we were just
Speaker 1: shooting the ship a bit about your background, and you've
Speaker 1: been at vice for about four years, right, But you
Speaker 1: came from politics. I came from politics. I got my
Speaker 1: start working for Governor Shumlin, who ran for office in
Speaker 1: when all of the other Republicans one across the country.
Speaker 1: He was one of the few Democrats that one, and
Speaker 1: then worked for him as press secretary and worked for
Speaker 1: the party for a long time, did some consulting, and
Speaker 1: then ended up switching over to media. And I love
Speaker 1: that you were just telling us like I knew that
Speaker 1: I could create socially responsible legislation potentially if you could
Speaker 1: get if you could get it past, and then you
Speaker 1: started thinking about media because you felt like you could
Speaker 1: do this in media, but at a broader, probably faster
Speaker 1: pace level of change. Yeah. I mean, if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: when you're working for a state house or on the hill,
Speaker 1: you could get one two pieces of legislation done. And
Speaker 1: in Vermont there was a lot more pressure because there's
Speaker 1: like less than six hundred thousand people in the whole state.
Speaker 1: So someone calls you and says this is important to me,
Speaker 1: and you don't do it, You're going to see them
Speaker 1: at the fair and they're going to bring it up
Speaker 1: to you. Whereas if you wanted to do something larger
Speaker 1: and moved to d C, especially because it was Republican
Speaker 1: controlled Congress, there was a zero percent chance of getting
Speaker 1: anything done. And so I wanted to move into a
Speaker 1: space where I could actually take the same issues that
Speaker 1: I cared about and have a larger impact. But you
Speaker 1: had no idea who vice was, Oh my god, none,
Speaker 1: like like the story, like a hundred percent zero clue.
Speaker 1: Um I was. I was essentially doing all these informational
Speaker 1: interviews and got really connected by all of these amazing women,
Speaker 1: and it was Peggy Panosh connected me to Meglow connected
Speaker 1: me to Ellen East and who who said when I
Speaker 1: met with her, there's a small group of women who
Speaker 1: look out for each other. So if you need anything,
Speaker 1: let me know. But none of those meetings felt right.
Speaker 1: And I got connected through a friend of mine to
Speaker 1: the general council at Vice and literally didn't even realize
Speaker 1: that he was a general counsel because if you look
Speaker 1: back at my cover letter, I called him the president
Speaker 1: CEO of a company, so clearly didn't even know who
Speaker 1: Shane was at the time and obviously didn't think about
Speaker 1: it seriously enough to put in the research. And I
Speaker 1: got called in and from the time I went in
Speaker 1: for the first meeting to two weeks later, there was
Speaker 1: a new wall in the building and there were still
Speaker 1: two entrances into it at a time. But it was
Speaker 1: just crazy, like to me, it was so unlike anything
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, and it was just attractive. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was attractive to feel like I could walk in and
Speaker 1: make any stamp I wanted and that that would be
Speaker 1: supported and and very much the philosophy of ice at
Speaker 1: the time and still now is nothing starts with no
Speaker 1: like I could bring anything up, I could join any meeting,
Speaker 1: I could raise my hand. I had to raise my hand,
Speaker 1: but I could participate. And to me, that was an
Speaker 1: incredible structure coming from the political world where I was
Speaker 1: always young and I could be on the fringe of
Speaker 1: the room, but no one ever thought that I necessarily
Speaker 1: should be in the room. And when you were working
Speaker 1: at Vice at the time, there were so few people.
Speaker 1: You were there because you were supposed to be there
Speaker 1: and everybody was just running up a hill. Did you
Speaker 1: question yourself when you had to raise your hand? I
Speaker 1: think when you felt that eat, You're like, I have
Speaker 1: something to say or was it just so open? Yes,
Speaker 1: I definitely questioned myself, particularly because I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about media. Like when I look back, I spent a
Speaker 1: long time listening first, Like, I definitely didn't put myself
Speaker 1: out there, but when I felt comfortable to, I did,
Speaker 1: and I started taking on side projects and working a
Speaker 1: lot more on synergy within the company. You know, at
Speaker 1: the time, Viceland was an idea. We didn't even have
Speaker 1: a linear channel. But when I started to gain confidence
Speaker 1: in that, then I just went for it. And Shane
Speaker 1: was always supportive of me, and that I mean when
Speaker 1: Gloria first came to the office. We're talking about Gloria
Speaker 1: when she first came. UM, it was just supposed to
Speaker 1: be a meeting with Shane and Gloria and Amy Richards,
Speaker 1: who's her sort of advisor and confidant. And I said
Speaker 1: to him, you know, I like Gloria Steinam, Can I
Speaker 1: be in that meeting? And so I joined him. By
Speaker 1: the end of it, Um he was like, Ari, I'll
Speaker 1: run this with you, and then I just took it.
Speaker 1: But it turned into a show that we made on
Speaker 1: Viceland called Women of Cloria Steinham, which was around international
Speaker 1: women's issues and how if we continue to silo them,
Speaker 1: we won't move forward systemically. And that really came out
Speaker 1: of seeing that at the time there weren't stories that
Speaker 1: we're talking to women around in depth um international issues
Speaker 1: in the way that I felt there should be, and
Speaker 1: so this was kind of our view of doing that
Speaker 1: in the vice way. So fast forwards, it's certainly the
Speaker 1: year of the woman or women are just the whole
Speaker 1: damn girl squad. And you find yourself as the publisher
Speaker 1: of Broadly, Can you talk about that journey and what
Speaker 1: the founding sort of principle principle yeah, was around the
Speaker 1: development of that project and now it turned into a
Speaker 1: full fledged platform. Yeah. When I was creating Women UM,
Speaker 1: at the same time Vice was working on Broadly. And
Speaker 1: that started because we always knew that there was a
Speaker 1: home for women at Vice, but not enough women knew it,
Speaker 1: and we didn't want to take like ten years or
Speaker 1: however long it would take naturally to bring that in UM.
Speaker 1: And so we felt like creating broadly, which is what
Speaker 1: we believe is we don't undermine women's intelligence, we speak
Speaker 1: to it. And so in that we decided to take
Speaker 1: what device do better than anyone else, and that's video,
Speaker 1: and let's take it for women. UM. And so when
Speaker 1: I was creating Woman, we were creating Broadly, and we
Speaker 1: actually had Unilever as our launch partner for that. And
Speaker 1: two and a half years later, it's still our most
Speaker 1: successful digital launch to date. It's our second youngest audience,
Speaker 1: most mobile UM. We've won a Lifestyle Webby for a website.
Speaker 1: We're up for it again. So we really feel like
Speaker 1: there's still nothing that quite compares to what we do UM.
Speaker 1: Of course, there are other really great sites out there
Speaker 1: for women. But it's so interesting because you know, we
Speaker 1: call it the Year of the Woman, but some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that's coming up just like blows my mind.
Speaker 1: Like even the Pulitzer announcement today was by a woman,
Speaker 1: which is the first time, and it's hundred in two
Speaker 1: year history that that's happened woman headlining. Right when that
Speaker 1: in the morning, I had to watch it. Everyone was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It was incredible. So so I think what you're you're
Speaker 1: just bringing up is interesting that there's certainly a lot
Speaker 1: of women's content out there, but not many things, like
Speaker 1: Broadly Anti said, haven't been a female first platforms that
Speaker 1: have taken off quite in the way yours has. I
Speaker 1: think we can count on our hands a number of
Speaker 1: you know, female first. What do you think about the
Speaker 1: Lenny Letter of the World, the Lily from Washington Post,
Speaker 1: But that actually feels and I'll just I love the
Speaker 1: Washington Post, love you, but it feels adjacent. It feels
Speaker 1: still to the side. And I think what what I
Speaker 1: always found it interesting about Broadly and about Lenny Lenny
Speaker 1: is all about females. Broadly was one of the first
Speaker 1: right that also to your point, didn't play Kate, but
Speaker 1: but actually intrigued. Yeah, well, and that's the core of
Speaker 1: what broadly is right, Like, we're not going to create
Speaker 1: something where every single headline has to remind you that
Speaker 1: you're a woman. We're going to provide value in the
Speaker 1: content that we're making for you, and we want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're providing value to our audience. I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually do think that that is what
Speaker 1: teen Vogue as well is doing right now. You know,
Speaker 1: the truth is is right now we see for broadly
Speaker 1: women and LGBT content because truthfully, the younger generation doesn't
Speaker 1: see gender as a huge part of their identity. You know,
Speaker 1: it's what we're talking about in terms of the year
Speaker 1: of the Woman, Like, the change of how we feel
Speaker 1: we're presented as women versus young sixteen year olds is
Speaker 1: so different. They don't see it like that. The idea
Speaker 1: that these things adjacent, I think is a great word
Speaker 1: live adjacent to the male dominated content. Do you think
Speaker 1: are that that is a part of the issue, and
Speaker 1: then that it's not this integrated thing and that you
Speaker 1: went out and said we're going to remove female from
Speaker 1: even the headline. We're going to create content that speaks
Speaker 1: to a broad audience with a specific segment in mind
Speaker 1: is a huge part of the problem. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things that works about broadly is that when
Speaker 1: we grew its original Facebook audience, we did it based
Speaker 1: off of the vice Facebook when we would be sharing
Speaker 1: so broadly, audience isn't even percent female. It changes based
Speaker 1: on the topic that you're talking about, and we're therefore
Speaker 1: introducing content around and about women to men that therefore
Speaker 1: wouldn't be seeing it otherwise. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: huge part of it, Like you're siloing out women's content
Speaker 1: to women who already know their women and they know
Speaker 1: what they want, and you're not telling these stories to
Speaker 1: the men that aren't taking the time to listen. And
Speaker 1: that's part of why they're not able to adjust. And
Speaker 1: women have such a huge spending power, they have such
Speaker 1: a huge consumption, right, and yet we're like these things
Speaker 1: are so surprising to us. I think it'll be a
Speaker 1: long time. It's going to kill some sites because they're
Speaker 1: not adjusting fast enough. What is the conversation with advertisers.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many companies out there and so
Speaker 1: many brands who have taken on diversity, who have taken
Speaker 1: on um female issues and female content and marketing to females.
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure that there's systemic change, and you
Speaker 1: can see that in some of the kind of partnerships
Speaker 1: and conversations around partnerships. Yes, we've been lucky at Vice
Speaker 1: that there's no compromising around the fact that we will
Speaker 1: work with a brand to tell the best story possible
Speaker 1: as opposed to trying to tell something that they already
Speaker 1: think their audience knows. So, for example, we did a
Speaker 1: partnership with Smyrnoff this year where they wanted to increase
Speaker 1: their relevance around women, and so we noticed that only
Speaker 1: of headliners for DJs were women, So why don't we
Speaker 1: make a goal to double that? So we worked with them,
Speaker 1: we worked with Spotify to do that to double that number,
Speaker 1: and then we did a long form doc about it.
Speaker 1: Um it actually was voted with ad Age is the
Speaker 1: number one branded partnership this year and was nominated for
Speaker 1: a Webby because we're telling a story. Like I always
Speaker 1: say when I'm in brand meetings that what Vice and
Speaker 1: what broadly does best is that in the same way
Speaker 1: that kids will remember a song that they like because
Speaker 1: more than like a homework assignment or a math problem
Speaker 1: because I actually like the song. We're going to tell
Speaker 1: a story that that kid or that young person is
Speaker 1: going to like, and therefore they're going to internalize it
Speaker 1: in a different way. So when we're talking to brands,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. It was a huge mission for
Speaker 1: me in broadly to not um work with just a
Speaker 1: beauty partner for our initial launch. Our initial brands, like
Speaker 1: the brands that we work with, we have a couple
Speaker 1: that I can't announce today but that are coming out
Speaker 1: soon that are traditionally male focused, but we're doing a
Speaker 1: program with them for women because they see the value
Speaker 1: in that. But most of the time when I am
Speaker 1: talking to brand still they will first bring up beauty fashion,
Speaker 1: what is the broadly woman, who does she look like?
Speaker 1: And while that's important and what her style is is important,
Speaker 1: it's more important for us to talk about what she's
Speaker 1: interested in, listening to what she wants to watch, Like
Speaker 1: our auto and finance brands coming to you. Auto yeah,
Speaker 1: Finance no, But I actually think finance is still such
Speaker 1: a missed opportunity in general. Like, you know, most of
Speaker 1: the stuff that they're doing and you'll still see it.
Speaker 1: Most of the things that people are interested in financing
Speaker 1: our lists. They don't really want to get into something
Speaker 1: that they feel subversive, and anything around women is subversive
Speaker 1: to them, right, let's be honest. And women don't want platitudes.
Speaker 1: They want to feel like there's action around them and
Speaker 1: for us right now. I mean, that's why we started
Speaker 1: the Broadly Film Fund, and that actually gives brands an
Speaker 1: opportunity if they want to make content around the films,
Speaker 1: to actually feel like they're taking apart and empowering a
Speaker 1: young next generation of creators. But most of the time
Speaker 1: when you talk to them about it, everything is a
Speaker 1: little bit too scary. Look at these female adjacent brands
Speaker 1: around traditional or legacy media companies, Um, they've merchandized it
Speaker 1: with the word woman or women in the headline. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about the fundamental difference in
Speaker 1: why you chose to go broadly um, and what sort
Speaker 1: of the development of that platform looked like when you
Speaker 1: were conceiving it, Like, what were the filters that you said,
Speaker 1: this can't look like this, because if we do this,
Speaker 1: we will just have ended up like everybody else who
Speaker 1: is badging our content with a female lens. When we
Speaker 1: were creating broadly, and we went through many iterations of
Speaker 1: what the name could potentially be. We actually felt like
Speaker 1: it was important to reclaim that word, which had previously
Speaker 1: been seen in some ways as a negative connotation for
Speaker 1: what uh so when we were doing broadly because we
Speaker 1: felt like speaking to women's intelligence was at the core
Speaker 1: of what we wanted to do. We also felt like
Speaker 1: it had to be a journalism first sight, Like when
Speaker 1: I'm explaining broadly, I don't necessarily people always say to me,
Speaker 1: what's your twenty nine rooms, right? And I really yes,
Speaker 1: And I have to say I compare Broadly much more
Speaker 1: often to something like a long form underground New Yorker
Speaker 1: or I want to find those not And it's nothing
Speaker 1: against refinery, but I think it's important that we speak
Speaker 1: to what the other pillars of interest are to that woman,
Speaker 1: and that's what we wanted to show. We wanted we
Speaker 1: didn't want to make a reactive site that was reacting
Speaker 1: to news or pop culture. We wanted to make the
Speaker 1: news in the same way that Vice doesn't respond to
Speaker 1: breaking news, like kindergartener's playing soccer and everyone's running after
Speaker 1: the ball. They go and tell the story before, and
Speaker 1: they tell it after and we reflect that in our journalism.
Speaker 1: Um and so as as the site has evolved, we
Speaker 1: are trying to incorporate now more of an LGBT audience
Speaker 1: into that as well. So going back to Gloria, Gloria, Yes,
Speaker 1: she's amazing to work with it because she's a hundred
Speaker 1: percent herself, which is why she fit with VICE. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no other company still I think that would have
Speaker 1: screen lit a show with at the time, an eighty
Speaker 1: two year old woman that's focused on a millennial audience.
Speaker 1: Right now, she's eighty four. At the time she was
Speaker 1: eighty two. She's extraordinary and and in working on the show,
Speaker 1: she was just a great compass because we knew how
Speaker 1: to We knew how to put someone that was young
Speaker 1: on the ground telling the story. And what we wanted
Speaker 1: to do was to allow someone who couldn't go there
Speaker 1: themselves to bear witness in order to create change, and
Speaker 1: then Gloria could provide the context for what we should
Speaker 1: be talking about. Did she feel like we've gotten further
Speaker 1: down the road in our crusade for equality and female rights?
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I can't speak for her, but I
Speaker 1: think if she were here, she would talk about the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, she's seen many decades of progress
Speaker 1: over time, right, and it gives you a little bit
Speaker 1: of perspective. So even if you're having a day where
Speaker 1: you're taking a step backward, you know that overall you've
Speaker 1: taken ten steps forward. I mean, in the seventies, women
Speaker 1: couldn't even have their own credit cards. So when you
Speaker 1: put it into the context of now, we've we've made
Speaker 1: some strides. And I interviewed her after Trump was elected.
Speaker 1: I interviewed her at the Women's March. I said, what
Speaker 1: do you think about this? And she said, well, at
Speaker 1: least we're not looking upwards, We're looking at each other.
Speaker 1: And there's this level of social consciousness that he has
Speaker 1: brought out in all of the horrible things and conversations
Speaker 1: that have come from it, their conversations that we didn't
Speaker 1: think our nation had to have any more, and they do.
Speaker 1: And Gloria has always been very present for those and
Speaker 1: continues to be in continuous to evolve and be creative.
Speaker 1: The conversations that you're having on broadly the social topics
Speaker 1: that you're covering, borrowing from what has happened during Gloria's
Speaker 1: heyday till now um how are you selecting those conversations
Speaker 1: and how is the selection of those conversations. I won't
Speaker 1: use the word dictated because I know it's editorial, but
Speaker 1: in consideration with how brands are thinking about and weighing
Speaker 1: heavily in on purpose, yeah, how are you kind of
Speaker 1: converging those things right now? On the brand side, we've
Speaker 1: been very conscious of not trying to talk about things
Speaker 1: that are commonly spoken about for women. So for example,
Speaker 1: for Vassiline, which is the power of healing, we created
Speaker 1: a piece that was in Haiti and we worked with
Speaker 1: a woman who used voodoo to bring in spirits to
Speaker 1: create healing after the floods, and so we wanted to
Speaker 1: tell that story and talk about the community and talk
Speaker 1: about an issue there through a lens that only Vice
Speaker 1: could with a brand that was focused in that way.
Speaker 1: So broadly has always tried to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of a weirder, more magical lens in that approach. For woman,
Speaker 1: which is a bit more serious, every single pitch was
Speaker 1: around like sex trafficking and prostitution, and we just wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about stories that weren't being brought up every
Speaker 1: single day. So we did femicide in El Salvador. For
Speaker 1: the US, we did sexual assault in the U S Military.
Speaker 1: We did a piece with Vice President Biden at the
Speaker 1: time around sexual soul in college campuses, and then in
Speaker 1: Canada about murdered and missing Indigenous women there. So it's
Speaker 1: not stuff that you're going to read on CNN every day,
Speaker 1: but stuff that is affecting large populations of people. Broadly
Speaker 1: likes to feel that our audience that is intelligent, they're curious,
Speaker 1: but they're very optimistic. You know, nine six percent of
Speaker 1: women and men on our audience feel that gender equality
Speaker 1: is important. We're not going to preach to the choir
Speaker 1: around something, but we are going to talk about Danna Carome,
Speaker 1: who was one of the first transgender women to win
Speaker 1: a race this year in the US. We followed her
Speaker 1: story very intimately. And how are brands reacting? All right?
Speaker 1: Because those headlines that you just gave us are intense,
Speaker 1: they're controversial, um in the in the marketing world, right,
Speaker 1: So where's the balance and are you saying we're going
Speaker 1: to print with this anyway? And brands are saying we're
Speaker 1: either getting on board and we're supporting that because we
Speaker 1: know that these are real and their important issues or
Speaker 1: that's one step too far. It's so funny because I
Speaker 1: got into publishing because I knew if I had the money,
Speaker 1: I could make the decisions, not because I was interested
Speaker 1: in sales. And now that I am interested in sales,
Speaker 1: I am interested in having brands be more open to
Speaker 1: those headlines. There are brands that are and you know,
Speaker 1: you have like your Patagonias out there who are have
Speaker 1: such social driven There a lot of Patagonias, No there's not,
Speaker 1: but there's not a lot of brands that will survive
Speaker 1: in the same way that Patagonia will, you know. And
Speaker 1: every single brand now has to have some kind of
Speaker 1: identity tied to what they are and who they are,
Speaker 1: and we provide that, and we did that before a
Speaker 1: lot of others have come around to it. So some brands,
Speaker 1: of course freak out about that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: these are the issues that our audience cares about, and
Speaker 1: so therefore they're going to see they're going to have
Speaker 1: a very high stickiness rate, and we're not going to
Speaker 1: do it in a way where it's not going to
Speaker 1: work for the brand. There are many brand marketers who
Speaker 1: listen to our show. Um many don't often get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to sit with the publisher of a female first platform.
Speaker 1: What would you say to them? I mean you you
Speaker 1: know your audience best. How would you make a case
Speaker 1: to them to say, these conversations are happening. How do
Speaker 1: your consumers or your readers want to engage with brands
Speaker 1: around it? I would remind the brand that two percent
Speaker 1: of our audience believes that the social platforms that they
Speaker 1: consume have to express their values and their belief system.
Speaker 1: And if these brands are not willing to step to
Speaker 1: the table, that doesn't mean go a hundred miles an hour.
Speaker 1: You can dip your toe in the pool and you
Speaker 1: can still participate in the platform. You know, our horoscopes
Speaker 1: on Broadly actually has the highest returning and loyalty of
Speaker 1: any audience on Vice overall. And so we can be
Speaker 1: more playful. What are you guys doing around events? We're weird? Like,
Speaker 1: for example, we're planning right now this Broadly maze. So
Speaker 1: the idea with the maze, I can't name the brand yet,
Speaker 1: but it's essentially a maze where you go in and
Speaker 1: it will have the brand designed throughout the maze, but
Speaker 1: then you get lost and there will be like a
Speaker 1: room with a phone that connects to another prone where
Speaker 1: you can talk to each other, and then in the
Speaker 1: middle there's a party. We have something called Broadly Plays,
Speaker 1: which is concerts with up and coming female artists and
Speaker 1: then they curate playlists and then we do a gallery
Speaker 1: around them. Everything that we do with Broadly has to
Speaker 1: have mentorship at its core. So even for example, we're
Speaker 1: doing this new Artist in Residency series where we pick
Speaker 1: up and coming artists that have big social followings. They
Speaker 1: make content for us that lives on the site. Ultimately
Speaker 1: they have it, but they're pushing us and we're pushing them.
Speaker 1: I would love to see Broadly do something in the
Speaker 1: corporate space, like corporate mentorship. I hate mentorship the term term,
Speaker 1: but coaching, yeah, well know for sure. I mean of
Speaker 1: men feel like they're ready for their next job and
Speaker 1: women do so. Can I tell you what an amazing anecdote?
Speaker 1: So I went to go speak to a group of
Speaker 1: young women at a local high school around topics for
Speaker 1: women um relative to International Women's Day and the celebration
Speaker 1: of careers. And as a part of that, there was
Speaker 1: a group of panelists that included everything from doctors to
Speaker 1: lawyers to entrepreneurs in the sense of women who own
Speaker 1: barbershops went on a photography studio, and yours truly as
Speaker 1: somebody who was representing women in business, and as a
Speaker 1: part of the discussion. At the very end, we were,
Speaker 1: you know, asking the young girls what do you want
Speaker 1: to be when you grow up? And it went from
Speaker 1: everything from chemical engineers and astronauts to music teachers and
Speaker 1: to public servants and everything in between. At the very end,
Speaker 1: when the young girls were invited to come up and
Speaker 1: you know, ask any final questions to pictures over the
Speaker 1: case was it was like the parting of the Red seay.
Speaker 1: Half the group went over to the attorney and the
Speaker 1: other half went over to the doctors, and I was
Speaker 1: standing in the middle, part stroking my ego, part trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what has happened. It was very apparent
Speaker 1: to me, as I reflected back on a few minutes prior,
Speaker 1: that not one young woman in the audience said they
Speaker 1: wanted to be a CEO, they wanted to run a company,
Speaker 1: they wanted to be a badass in a boardroom. It's
Speaker 1: just it was very apparent that that wasn't a path
Speaker 1: that they thought was available to them. And after speaking
Speaker 1: with a couple of the guidance counselors after it dawned
Speaker 1: on me that there is such a lack of acknowledgment
Speaker 1: or example setting in the market for young women to
Speaker 1: think about this as an opportunity for them. Oftentimes they're
Speaker 1: brought into that sphere of possibility in college and at
Speaker 1: that point it's too late. Well, I don't even think
Speaker 1: growing up, I knew what a CEO meant, Like, what
Speaker 1: does it mean? You know? I think that is a
Speaker 1: big piece of it, Like the education of it is
Speaker 1: really in any job, what is finance? What would you
Speaker 1: do on a day to day basis? I think in
Speaker 1: our industry and media, That's why I'm so excited about
Speaker 1: the Broadley Film Program, because when you're looking at women
Speaker 1: who are in the film industry or TV, there's this
Speaker 1: fiscal cliff around what they can do. Only eight percent
Speaker 1: of top grossing directors were women. Most of the time.
Speaker 1: They're coming in and they're directing TV shows which are
Speaker 1: paid substantially less, and then you've got one gig and
Speaker 1: not many people are going to see it, right, So
Speaker 1: there has to be actually a better relationship to get
Speaker 1: into the door where you have a lasting career with
Speaker 1: a mentor who's really been successful, and we put so
Speaker 1: much pressure on women's success in any category. Right now,
Speaker 1: it's a multigenerational plan. Would you guys do this with business? Yeah? Percent,
Speaker 1: And we're actually offering and we're working. We're going to
Speaker 1: be working with a bunch of different brands actually around
Speaker 1: content that will be made with some of the directors.
Speaker 1: So I want for every single brand that wants to
Speaker 1: do anything around the Broadley Film Fund, they have to
Speaker 1: hire that emerging director to actually shoot the spot for it.
Speaker 1: These are the conversations that we're missing. There is no community,
Speaker 1: there is no content. There is no brand that is
Speaker 1: standing up a platform that says, at the age of
Speaker 1: thirty in fourteen fifteen, sixteen years old, you can be
Speaker 1: a CEO. This is where the online offline thing gets interesting.
Speaker 1: Well then yes, then you start getting into like local
Speaker 1: community that I r L is broadly getting into business
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, I mean blisten Like, we're focusing so
Speaker 1: much of it around film right now. We actually have
Speaker 1: a course that was based on women that's at usc Annenberg.
Speaker 1: It's called Creating Change through Media. We're going to show
Speaker 1: all of their videos and content that they make on
Speaker 1: the Broadly site and get them started in the two
Speaker 1: years old but Broadly business, Yeah for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: I actually we start funding. Like I literally had a
Speaker 1: conversation last week on Friday with someone from another media
Speaker 1: company that I can't say right now, but we're actually
Speaker 1: going to be doing a jobs fair together because there
Speaker 1: are all of these young people, especially young women and
Speaker 1: young queer people, who make less money than everybody else.
Speaker 1: But I also find it fascinating that most in real
Speaker 1: life events that happened with different publishers and media platforms
Speaker 1: are aimed towards older women, even when they're speaking to
Speaker 1: younger women. Therefore, people who can pay an ex urban
Speaker 1: an amount to get tickets, and there for sponsors who
Speaker 1: are sending ten people from that company to attend and
Speaker 1: congrat generally congratulate each other for being there. It's very
Speaker 1: rare that you have someone that comes forward and says,
Speaker 1: I'd like to do something and provide an opportunity for
Speaker 1: these young people where they don't have to pay anything,
Speaker 1: but they can just come and learn. You know. I
Speaker 1: was meeting with Delaney tar who was one of the
Speaker 1: Parkland survivors. It was a very strange, very short meeting
Speaker 1: in DVF studio like a few weeks ago, and I
Speaker 1: was chatting with her and she was talking about social media,
Speaker 1: and I was really taken aback by the fact that
Speaker 1: she found Twitter to be a safe space and was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I grew up at a time when social media was
Speaker 1: new and it was really seen as something that is
Speaker 1: for bullying and hate, and there's so much fear within
Speaker 1: that um and we still see that in conversations we
Speaker 1: have all time and with brands, and she was talking
Speaker 1: about how no, it's a place where I can find
Speaker 1: my community and anybody that has anything negative to say
Speaker 1: to me, like fuck them, their haters. And this young
Speaker 1: generation that she's sixteen seventeen, they don't think even about
Speaker 1: platforms in the same way that we do, right in
Speaker 1: the same way that like the tribe, whereas the tribe,
Speaker 1: our audience that comes to broadly believes in body positivity
Speaker 1: and sexual freedoms. Like we have a column called Our
Speaker 1: First Time and that's all about different things around sex
Speaker 1: and sexual education, and there's all of the stigma you know,
Speaker 1: actually when we talk about words that are brand safe
Speaker 1: and not brand safe, that's around sexual health and then
Speaker 1: and that's really like an underserved topic that we have
Speaker 1: our audience that comes to UM politics and then our
Speaker 1: third largest one is actually around health. So what's next? Like,
Speaker 1: as you're kind of venturing into this film space as
Speaker 1: your event imagining your event world, you know what is
Speaker 1: the future broadly in the next twelve eighteen months look
Speaker 1: like to you, we'll be expanding more into product in merchandise,
Speaker 1: and on top of that, we'll be making some some
Speaker 1: m and a some march. I'll send it to you
Speaker 1: when it's ready. I also think that the Middle East
Speaker 1: opening up is a fascinating commercial space and speaking there,
Speaker 1: I was just speaking in Riad and Saudi Arabia at
Speaker 1: the Women Economic Forum. I spoke about increasing women and
Speaker 1: content pipeline and and there was young young girls who
Speaker 1: are very excited to be creating stories. You know, young
Speaker 1: people in Saudi are the number one consumers of YouTube.
Speaker 1: And that is happening because in the world, Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's happening because they are sitting there and they're hungry
Speaker 1: for good content. They have a high scripted is it news?
Speaker 1: Is everything just content? You have to think about the
Speaker 1: fact that Saudi right now has a really high unemployment rate,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of time, and they have their phones
Speaker 1: open to snapchat constantly. I mean I literally was photo
Speaker 1: bombing as much as I could when I was at
Speaker 1: the conference for that um And there's one point two
Speaker 1: billion Muslim people in the world and there's not that
Speaker 1: many commercial opportunities that are reaching them. So I actually,
Speaker 1: on top of that, we're going to be doing a
Speaker 1: summit that's going to be here in New York that's
Speaker 1: essentially going to take the Women's Economic Forum and bring
Speaker 1: all of the top women in the Middle East to
Speaker 1: New York and have it so that brands can actually
Speaker 1: meet and interact with them in top think lead there's
Speaker 1: here because most people aren't don't even know that they exist,
Speaker 1: and they have more money than everybody else. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you look at what Dubai is doing, they're essentially
Speaker 1: making like a Noah's Ark of young smart people over there,
Speaker 1: and they're saying come here and no taxes, we'll take
Speaker 1: care of you and we'll find your projects. And they're
Speaker 1: doing that with females. Yeah. Yeah. The UAE actually has
Speaker 1: more women in their cabinet than the United States does,
Speaker 1: and senior positions in our do do you see broadly
Speaker 1: getting into any form of like I don't know, like
Speaker 1: influencing legislation more directly, Yeah, broadly actually has We're going
Speaker 1: to be doing something this year for the mid terms
Speaker 1: which is called the Next Female President, and it's going
Speaker 1: around the country and actually talking to all of these
Speaker 1: different young people and not in cities, in rural areas
Speaker 1: around what issues they care about and why they want
Speaker 1: to run or what they would want to see change.
Speaker 1: And so we're working with organizations like Emily's List and
Speaker 1: she should run to work with them on that. And
Speaker 1: then they're specific legislation that we cover in the same
Speaker 1: way that Vice Impact, which is our global response to
Speaker 1: the issues that our audience cares about. We'll focus different
Speaker 1: campaigns we do that with broadly around certain legislation. Of course,
Speaker 1: for us, anything that's around abortion or access to reproductive
Speaker 1: rights is always our biggest is shoe interesting to see
Speaker 1: this young cohort, the fourteen to twenty two year old
Speaker 1: a dreams that you just talked about have gone from
Speaker 1: like Saturdays at the movies to like Saturdays of marching
Speaker 1: and like this active collective you know, migration around you know,
Speaker 1: to your point around Delaney tar like, I'm galvanizing my
Speaker 1: community Monday through Friday, and then we're hitting the streets
Speaker 1: and we're advocating for change, and we will come out
Speaker 1: and vote you out, you know, and if and you
Speaker 1: see that immediate reaction. Now though a brand or a person.
Speaker 1: We were just talking before this about Starbucks what happened
Speaker 1: over the weekend, and the CEO is there in fl
Speaker 1: Philly right now, there is no tolerance. How are you
Speaker 1: leveraging the power of vice to scale this message? Now?
Speaker 1: You talked about be ready for our audience to grow significantly. Um,
Speaker 1: given that you're on the heels of being in the room.
Speaker 1: How many countries vices? And yeah, I mean what well
Speaker 1: we have offices in thirty six. How are you leveraging
Speaker 1: that though, are because that, I think is that huge
Speaker 1: advantage for Broadly to go big for sure. I actually
Speaker 1: think that's one of the most exciting things about Vice
Speaker 1: and that's where the Broadly film's fun idea came from.
Speaker 1: Is when when we're in other territories, particularly where they
Speaker 1: haven't had a strong history of gender equality, we have
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're not just franchises, they're fully
Speaker 1: part of our Vice ecosystem at home and that we're
Speaker 1: building a family wherever we go and in some of
Speaker 1: these places, like for what we're doing an a pack,
Speaker 1: like in Indonesia and India like these have some of
Speaker 1: the highest number of young people in the world, and
Speaker 1: they have not had access to great content, particularly because
Speaker 1: it's been really hard to do it, and because VICE
Speaker 1: can be in other countries and actually come from a
Speaker 1: space where you're talking more about culture, and people don't realize,
Speaker 1: particularly the governments, that news is sliding underneath that always.
Speaker 1: So there's been a ton of change Advice in the
Speaker 1: last year. How has broadly or has broadly had more
Speaker 1: of a voice even in your internal cultural change? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think we have to recognize that VICE
Speaker 1: has had some challenges over the last few months and
Speaker 1: is committed to making our company the safest and most
Speaker 1: progressive workplace, not even just in the industry, but in
Speaker 1: the world, particularly because we are serving so many people
Speaker 1: around the world. You know, we have over five thousand
Speaker 1: employees and I think it's over over of those employees
Speaker 1: have joined the company in the last two years. So
Speaker 1: it's been incredible growth um and we were doing some
Speaker 1: things like committing to pay parity in creating our d
Speaker 1: n I board from its inception broadly has had a
Speaker 1: zero tolerance for bullshit. So when there are issues that
Speaker 1: come to the forefront as a channel, it always covers them.
Speaker 1: It's done a lot of work around me too and
Speaker 1: sexual harassment and trying to create progressive legislation, and you know,
Speaker 1: the list goes on and on. I think internally, we've
Speaker 1: had an incredible group of women, uh and allies at
Speaker 1: VICE that have come together and through this, actually, I
Speaker 1: think we've created a lot more structured internal communications and
Speaker 1: processes where they are having a say, are part of
Speaker 1: the conversation, They are aware of the day to day
Speaker 1: and they are committed to helping secure Vice's future, not
Speaker 1: only for themselves but for the next generation of talent
Speaker 1: that are coming in. All right, now the time. Now
Speaker 1: you can do your damn d I y okay, uh, alright, Well,
Speaker 1: I hope this doesn't sound corny, but I would kill
Speaker 1: the idea to advertisers that women are a niche audience
Speaker 1: or need to be siloed as a community. I had
Speaker 1: someone tell me once that women were an underserved community.
Speaker 1: I was just horrified. Um, So I would kill that
Speaker 1: like so fast. Um, for By, I wouldn't buy anything
Speaker 1: right now. I would wait six months and let the
Speaker 1: duopolya Facebook and Google play its hand, and then when
Speaker 1: media companies are cheaper, I would buy them. She's super savvy.
Speaker 1: May I should follow your your investment stress and for
Speaker 1: d I y what you were talking about earlier. I
Speaker 1: would do a version of Girls who Code, specifically around
Speaker 1: educating young women for finance and business skills. Oh, let's
Speaker 1: do it. I think that's something we would very much
Speaker 1: like to particel. Let's do it listening. Yeah, we're ready
Speaker 1: to make, ready to fund it. Fund come on board.
Speaker 1: So if there was one thing you would want to
Speaker 1: leave the community with, whether it is about vice broadly
Speaker 1: or women in general, what is the biggest misnomer in
Speaker 1: your mind in that you plan to address on broadly?
Speaker 1: I would a dent say that nothing is off the
Speaker 1: table in terms of what you think is brand safe
Speaker 1: and not brand safe. Being a woman is a fully
Speaker 1: encompassing thing. Women are challenging and difficult, but they are people,
Speaker 1: and therefore people are challenging it difficult and um our
Speaker 1: audience will only continue to grow, So should ride the
Speaker 1: wave with us. Thanks, If people want to reach you,
Speaker 1: where can they find you? They can email me Ari
Speaker 1: A r I at vice dot com or all my
Speaker 1: handles are just a when Groff. Thank you, Ari so much,
Speaker 1: so fun having you in this video. Big thanks to
Speaker 1: our new producer, Laura Morris. How fun is it to
Speaker 1: have an all female cast? It's fun and kind of
Speaker 1: torturous for me that now they are to Laura's so
Speaker 1: thank you. To all of our friends and family, a
Speaker 1: panoply Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, Jacob Weisberg. We'll be back
Speaker 1: with an all new episode in two weeks. M H
Speaker 1: Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own