A few days ago I came back from Digiday Publishing Summit in Monaco where I had the pleasure of meeting with some of our customers and prospects and discussing what they see happening in our industry. As we often do, we wanted to share with you some some of these trending topics.

Trend 1: Get the platforms working for you, not the other way around

  • Until now, publishers have been relying a lot on social platforms to get more reach. But Facebook’s latest algorithm changes made publishers realize that they are over reliant on social platforms and they have not been investing enough in direct relationships with users.
  • Publishers have cited some concerns regarding Amazon but, they acknowledge that it is a good way to diversify the risks from depending too much on Google and Facebook. For example, one publisher stated:

“We can trust Amazon as long as we recognize that Amazon has its own agenda and cares about Amazon, and ensure that we diversify.”

  • Publishers like Vice Media are using platforms in a very innovative way and it has helped to get their newsroom to produce information differently via deeper collaboration with platforms like Snap or Twitter and content teams. Platforms such as these are  is change the way people consume content (Snap’s success with “discover” is a good example of how publishers can change approaches).

Trend 2: Ad Fraud continues to cause consternation

  • Many publishers believe that demand side’s desire for cheap inventory and some companies willingness to accommodate are to some extent responsible for ad fraud not being fought hard enough.
  • Publishers admit that pressure to always create more revenue and short-term strategy does not help to get rid of low value inventory and think long-term. For example, few publishers have the guts and patience to run initiatives like Figaro in France turning down most middle men of seeing revenue improve and margins go up.
  • The massive roll-out of ads.txt had a positive effect but we are still far from an optimal situation.

Trend 3: Branded-content studios are “the new thing”

  • It seems that branded-content studios are definitely the trendy thing for european publishers to get new budgets. The idea is for publishers to act as an agency to work more closely with the Brand to create engagement. The idea for the Brand is to be closer to group like millennials and build communities using the publisher’s brand.
  • There are other examples with publishers like Hearst creating various “experiential” events to create ambassadors for the client brands.

That’s all from here. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

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