BeetCast

The events business has been crushed by the pandemic and physical events won't come back until next Fall. As events producers and publishers shift to virtual events, the results have been mixed, observes Brian Morrissey, long time editor-in-chief of Digiday, who stepped down from his position in October.

He suggests that events scheduled this Spring as physical events will inevitably become virtual. In my podcast with Brian, he points to the upside of virtual events of allowing more extensive programming with speakers being more readily available via a Zoom call from home.

On the downside is the business imperative for sponsors who expect in-person networking. And admission prices are nearly free now, making the business of event registration problematic. There are too many events and they are becoming "commoditized" he observes.

But for business publishers who retain a close relationship with a particular industry sector, there are a plethora of other monetization opportunities.

Also in the session, he shares his views on media trade publishing, which he suggests need to be more tech focused vs. personality driven. And he reflects on the trend of out of work journalists who have embraced micro publishing on Substack. He doesn't see it as sustainable for most.

We caught up with Brian in Miami where he is evaluating his next moves. His platform at the moment is his weekly newsletter call The Rebooting. If you are keen to see what's next in business publishing sign up.

While the media industry's enthusiasm for addressable TV is building, it will remain a relatively small part of the TV advertising pie, says Dave Morgan, CEO and Founder of Simulmedia in this podcast.

This episode of the BeetCast is hosted by Ashley Swartz, CEO and founder of Furious Corp and a longtime Beet.TV contributor.

Linear TV provides the reach and value that advertisers want. Furthermore steaming is not for everyone as a third of the country doesn't have fixed broadband, Morgan notes.

While overall viewership for linear TV will continue to decline, CPM's will rise and the overall marketing spend on TV will remain relatively stable, he predicts.

Consumers can't be truly "identified" via various data sets. Their feelings and moods can vary as much as the the profile of another person. The key to identity in marketing is to reach a consumer who "belongs," who opts in by providing first party data, says Rishad Tobaccowala, longtime senior advertising executive at the Publicis Groupe, now an independent advisor, author and industry prognosticator.

He says this sort of permission marketing is essential for success . And there are lessons for publishers and writers like himself who have found greater traction in the process subscription. For his weekly substack newsletter, he notes that the sign-up process has yielded far great impact for his newsletter versus publishing on social networks where attention is largely built around various algorithms.

In this episode of the Beet.TV podcast, the "BeetCast, he talks about his book Restoring the Soul of Business and how it has proven prescient for the era the COVID 19 pandemic including the longterm implications of work from home. He predicts that a full 50 percent of white collar jobs will be done at home. But he warns that work from home has several key limitations.

He shares his advice for the future of advertising which needs to be staffed by a new wave of creative talent, he urges.

In a new data-led marketing world, driven by technology, marketers are being left behind. The obsolescence of marketing has begun, declares Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer and President, Healthcare Business, Mastercard, in this excerpt from an upcoming podcast on Beet.TV

It is imperative that marketers understand AI, Augmented Reality and other emerging technologies to remain relevant. Already the role of CMO has eliminated from major companies, he notes.

Much of Rajamannar's thesis around the crisis in marketing and a way forward is laid out in his forthcoming book: Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers. It comes out in February, published by Harper Collins

He wasn't happy with the circumstances of his departure from WPP in 2018, the giant advertising holding company he founded.

With S4 Capital, he is proving a point: he can create an agile, digital-only marketing enterprise, says Sir Martin Sorrell in this interview. S4 now has a market capitalization of about $2.5 billion.