Joanna O’Connell is one of the most recognizable names in ad tech, a fame she built over the course of three decades as an industry analyst, and marketer, among other roles. O’Connell is now evp of innovation at R3.
In this episode of Digiday’s Oral History of Ad Tech, she speaks with Seb Joseph about her role in helping to build one of the media industry’s first agency trading desks at Publicis Groupe during her role at Razorfish in the mid-to-late 2000s.
In this discussion, she covers

The desire to illuminate the black box of programmatic advertising

Holding companies’ desire to use ad tech as a means of carving out new revenue in austere times

 How the ‘agency-friendly’ model of ad tech prevailed


In the coming weeks, Digiday’s History of Ad Tech, produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson, lifts the lid on some of the key undercurrents in ad tech over the last 20 years with Seb Joseph, senior news editor, and Ronan Shields, senior reporter, advertising technology, in conversation with some of the key players during that time.

Digiday’s History of Ad Tech: Episode 3 with Joanna O'Connell

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In the era of so-called subscription fatigue, subscription clothing rental service Nuuly has managed to not only increase its number of subscribers, but also turn a profit while its competitors are scrambling for profitability.
Nuuly, which is owned by Urban Outfitters, hit its first growth spurt in Q3 of last year. Nuuly's net sales came in about $65.5 million last October, up from $35.2 million in that same quarter the year prior, marking a nearly 86% increase, according to the company's earnings report. The clothing rental company also amassed nearly 200,000 subscribers as of last December, according to a spokesperson.
On this episode of the Digiday Podcast, we caught up with Kim Gallagher, executive director of marketing at Nuuly to talk about the company's growth plans through 2024 and beyond.
“This is not the sexy answer, but we feel like we are in this unique spot of we’ve had a lot of growth, we’ve just achieved our first profitable quarter and we still feel like we have a lot of work to do to make our service as good as it can possibly be,” Gallagher said on a recent episode of the Digiday Podcast. “It’s been a couple of years of chasing growth, and we’re like, ‘Yeah, you know what? Let’s just focus on the core for a minute.”

How Nuuly plans to retain customer subscriptions, data after its first growth spurt

A presidential election year has the potential to be a boon for news and politics publishers when it comes to drawing in and monetizing audiences. But even though 2024 is a lot like 2020 on paper, platform performance issues and an unreliable ad market may make this election cycle less lucrative than hoped.
For Newsweek’s global chief commercial and growth officer Kevin Gentzel, this means testing out new audience growth strategies and revenue streams to get back to growth this year.
“We did end the year with some growth, which was great, [but we] didn't achieve what we set out to accomplish in [2023]. But I feel like we strategically started to sow seeds throughout the year that we knew were going to strategically benefit the business, our readers, brand partners, and start to develop other core commercial aspects of the company that we're beginning to see in 2024 and beyond,” said Gentzel.
On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Gentzel discusses how his team is generating referral traffic from alternative platforms, why political advertising dollars are hard to compete for and how Newsweek is looking to monetize readers with new subscription offerings.

How Newsweek is plotting for audience and revenue growth this election year

Digiday Media's WorkLife is proud to present season three of The Return, a podcast about the modern workforce, with this season focused on middle management.
Last season, we heard what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world. We highlighted themes like why values are so important to Gen Zers, whether or not they are loyal to their employers, how they use TikTok for career advice, what it means to be a young professional who is a boss to older workers, and so much more.
This time, we’re hearing from the population of workers that some argue is the backbone of a successfully-run organization: middle management. They are the ones who are navigating those RTO mandates, welcoming a new generation of workers that have a different approach than those who came before them, the rise of artificial intelligence – the list goes on.
In season three of The Return, we speak to middle managers themselves to hear beyond their everyday stresses of the job, but what they need to guarantee everyone they manage has what they need to be the best at what they do. C-suite, listen up because they need your help too.
We dive into how middle management stress is a decades-long issue (there are New York Times headlines dating back to 1971), how the wrong people are being chosen to be managers which is leading to the rise of “accidental managers,” what it’s like to have hard conversations and having to be a therapist at times, where people are finding support as a middle manager, and how AI is impacting the job of a middle manager.
With a Q+A format, you will hear in-depth conversations with folks including Colette Stallbaumer, Microsoft’s general manager of Microsoft 365 and Future of Work Marketing, Rob Pierre, former CEO of advertising services platform Jellyfish, and Emily Field, partner at McKinsey & Company who co-authored “Power to the Middle: Why Managers Hold the Keys to the Future of Work,” to name a few.
Season three of The Return is hosted by Cloey Callahan, senior reporter at Digiday Media’s WorkLife, and produced by Digiday Media’s audio producer Sara Patterson.
Subscribe to the WorkLife podcast now on Apple Podcasts – or wherever you get your podcasts – to hear the first episode on Tuesday, April 23.

Digiday Media Presents: The Return Season Three

The 25-year-old fashion, entertainment and culture publication Nylon went digital-only in 2017, but owner BDG is officially reviving the print magazine this year – albeit biannually.
Debuting with a limited 50,000-issue run, the magazine will be distributed on newsstands, in the lobbies of high end boutiques, hotels and airport lounges and at Nylon House events, vs. being available via subscriptions, according to Emma Rosenblum, chief content officer at BDG. But that number and distribution model could change based on the reception from readers and advertisers alike, she added.
And so far, the advertiser reception has been better than expected, with the premier issue featuring several ad pages. Rosenblum said that she was willing to put out the first relaunched issue of Nylon without any advertisers signing on, just to get a proof of concept in order. But with the sales team already up to snuff on selling a print product thanks to six-times-per year W magazine, securing ad revenue was possible before the first issue went to print.
On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Rosenblum discusses the highs and lows of making a print product and why Nylon was the first brand within her remit to have a physical iteration.

Why Nylon is bringing back print

The creator economy is bursting at the seams as brands tap into social media stars, both big and small, hoping to recreate word of mouth-style marketing online.
In fact, agency clients and brands invested more in influencer marketing in 2023 than they did in 2022, according to Digiday+ research. In Q1 of 2022, 69% of agency professionals said their clients spent at least a very small portion of their marketing budgets on influencers. By Q1 of 2023, that figure jumped to 76%. Goldman Sachs predicts that the creator economy could approach half of a trillion dollars by 2027.
As more money flows into the creator economy, creators are looking for two things: their fair share of that money and more sovereignty over their online presences. And Linktree, a link-in-bio tool, is positioning itself to be an intermediary, facilitating the growth, per Lara Cohen, vp of partners and business development at Linktree.
“There's a shift happening right now and I think the financial shift has really yet to catch up directionally [with] where the market is right now, in some ways,” Cohen said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast. “The real shift that we haven't seen yet that we're really advocating for on the front lines of Linktree is that these creators should be paid more.”
On this episode, we caught up with Cohen to talk about the growing creator economy, monetization at Linktree and what maturation looks like in this space.

Digiday’s History of Ad Tech: Episode 3 with Joanna O'Connell

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