The Digiday Podcast

The Digiday Podcast episodes:

• 04.23.2024

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

  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...

  
• 04.21.2024

  Digiday Media Presents: The Return Season Three

  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...

  
• 04.16.2024

  Why Nylon is bringing back print

  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...

  
• 04.09.2024

  How Linktree vp Lara Cohen is championing for creators to get a bigger piece of the pie

  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...

  
• 04.02.2024

  Inside Olipop's growth strategy with Chad Wilson, head of marketing

  Prebiotic soda brand Olipop is in growth mode, coming off $200 million in annual sales and its first national campaign with pop star Camila Cabello last year. A lot of the six-year-old brand’s initial popularity tracks back to TikTok. However, the...

  
• 03.26.2024

  How Janice Min is selling entertainment advertisers on The Ankler

  Earlier this year, Janice Min, CEO of The Ankler, said that she’s expecting to hit $10 million in annual revenue in 2025. During a podcast recording with Digiday, Min revised that statement to say, “We have a shot of getting...

  
• 03.19.2024

  ‘It's not just about the results': How Vox Media’s CRO Geoff Schiller is strategizing for ad sales in 2024

  Coming off of SXSW where Vox Media hosted the conference’s three-day-long podcast stage, the company’s recently appointed CRO Geoff Schiller is going all-in on these types of in-person selling opportunities to generate ad deals for the publisher’s portfolio of digital and...

  
• 03.12.2024

  'There's no e-commerce point-of-sale': Farmer's Fridge's marketing director Liz Mella hones in on non-traditional tactics

  For the last few months, marketers and advertisers have finally had to reckon with the fallout of Google’s crumbling third-party cookie amid an increasingly fragmented media landscape. Meaning, targeting and measurement are getting harder to do. However, it’s something Liz...

  
• 03.05.2024

  How Zola CMO Victoria Vaynberg has introduced a new brand to expand its audience

  Zola isn’t just a website for weddings anymore. Late last year, the e-commerce company went from a one-stop destination for all things wedding to include a new baby registry service, Zola Baby. Typically, a new service comes with renewed customer...

  
• 02.27.2024

  My Code’s CEO says a floor, not a ceiling, has been set by advertisers for multicultural marketing

  While the recent advertising slowdown has also impacted the amount of money allocated to marketing to media companies created for non-white audiences, Parker Morse, CEO and founder of My Code said that it hasn’t stopped marketers from realizing the value...

  
• 02.20.2024

  How Group Black’s Kerel Cooper is trying to solve programmatic’s bias problem at the industry level

  Following an on-stage conversation at the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit in December, Kerel Cooper, president of advertising at Group Black, joined Digiday once again on the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast to dive further into his continued efforts to...

  
• 02.13.2024

  Magic Spoon co-founder Gabi Lewis talks cereal brand's expanded retail footprint and marketing strategy

  Magic Spoon, the cereal company that launched entirely online back in 2019, has since expanded its footprint to more than 16,000 national retailers to meet shoppers where they are, whether that’s online or in-store. Historically, the cereal company built its millennial...

  
• 02.06.2024

  PepsiCo Beverages on testing and learning its strategy in a fragmented media landscape

  Last year, PepsiCo Beverages was taking a test-and-learn approach to a fragmented video landscape. This year, with more ad-supported streaming platforms, most recently including Amazon Prime, the continued creator economy boom and more, there are more places than ever to...

  
• 01.30.2024

  How British GQ's Adam Baidawi reimagined the legacy men's luxury publication for a modern, global audience

  Adam Baidawi stepped into the role of British GQ’s head of editorial content in November 2021 at a time when the legacy men’s fashion and lifestyle title was facing a crucial pivot point in its identity. Not only was Condé Nast...

  
• 01.23.2024

  How social-centric Gallery Media is taking on events, TikTok Shop and ever-changing algorithms

  Digital media companies have to be willing to change with the times if they want to make 2024 a growth year. For Gallery Media Group, publisher of PureWow and ONE37pm as well as over 70 social media-first brands like @Recipes and...

  
• 01.16.2024

  Xerox CMO Deena LaMarque Piquion: Embracing AI, targeting the next generation and keeping a legacy brand relevant in 2024

  Between Google’s third-party cookie phase out (finally) and the generative AI boom, there are many changes facing the marketing and advertising industry this year. It’s a lot for any marketer to keep up with, let alone the chief marketing officer at...

  
• 01.09.2024

  Bloomberg Media’s Christine Cook on strengthening advertiser relationships in 2024

  Bloomberg Media made some changes to its sales operations last year in an effort to stay on top of the tumultuous ad market, including hiring Christine Cook as its new global chief revenue officer. Under Cook’s leadership, the events business hired...

  
• 01.02.2024

  Duolingo's head of global social strategy, Katherine Chan, talks about making unhinged content work and learning from mistakes

  Social media is in its so-called unhinged era, where social media managers are breaking the digital fourth wall and speaking the language of the internet from branded accounts. At the helm of the unhinged social media movement is a big...

  
• 12.26.2023

  ‘More volatile now’: Digiday editors share top takeaways from 2023

  This year was another one for the advertising and media history books, but not for the ways that marketers and media execs hoped for at the start of 2023. Brands’ advertising budgets never quite found their footing and the competition for...

  
• 12.22.2023

  Digiday’s History of Ad Tech: Episode 4 with Ana Milicevic

  The final episode of Digiday’s History of ad tech discusses how the digital media industry has moved faster than those charged to keep it in check, with Ana Milicevic of Sparrow Advisers sharing her insights. In this episode, she discusses how...

  
• 12.19.2023

  Justin Smith explains how Semafor achieved profitable months in its first full year

  Semafor is about to close the book on its first full calendar year, having launched in October 2022 as a media and events company. And despite launching during a tumultuous time for any media organization, Semafor’s co-founder and CEO Justin...

  
• 12.18.2023

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

  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...

  
• 12.12.2023

  Airbnb’s global head of marketing Hiroki Asai talks returning to big, bold campaigns and owning the brand narrative

  In the wake of measurement woes and data privacy initiatives muddying digital targeting capabilities, a number of companies have pivoted to become less reliant on targeting customers via third-party cookies to generate quick sales via performance marketing. Instead, they've become...

  
• 12.11.2023

  Digiday’s History of Ad Tech: Episode 2 with Ari Paparo

  There are few better placed to critique and narrate the history of the digital media landscape, never mind the sub-sector of ad tech, than Ari Paparo. The serial entrepreneur and ‘first influencer of ad tech’ – sorry @AdtechGod – now helps to demystify...

  
• 12.05.2023

  Spill co-founder Alphonzo Terrell on attracting advertisers to marginalized social communities

  Big advertisers are seemingly ready to abandon X (formerly Twitter) for good this time thanks to owner Elon Musk’s latest antics and an uptick in anti-semitic posts on the platform. In X’s absence, advertisers may once again find themselves looking for...

  
• 12.04.2023

  Digiday’s History of Ad Tech: Episode 1 with Brian O’Kelley

  One of the Godfathers of ad tech on creating an industry, competing with Big Tech, and exactly why he didn’t join AT&T, plus much more Few would argue Brian O’Kelley’s right to claim the title of being one of the Godfathers...

  
• 11.28.2023

  Google’s 2024 cookie deprecation deadline is still on, says vp of global advertising Dan Taylor

  Between the Department of Justice’s antitrust suit against Google and the impending self-imposed deadline for removing third-party cookies from its Chrome browser, there is a lot on the technology megacorp’s plate. But Dan Taylor, the company’s vp of global advertising, is...

  
• 11.21.2023

  From AI voice cloning to personalized playlists, how SiriusXM Media’s Lizzie Widhelm is automating audio ad sales

  The podcasting advertising industry looks a lot different today than it did even two years ago thanks to programmatic audio ads. While the bread and butter host-read ad format still packs a punch when it comes to driving listener engagement and...

  
• 11.14.2023

  Thrive Market's CMO Amina Pasha credits marketing on TikTok for membership surge

  At this point, TikTok has gone from an experimental digital channel to a must-have in most marketing strategies. Ad spend on TikTok is expected to grow in the coming year — as much as 25% over this year — as...

  
• 11.07.2023

  Why Chobani's new CMO Thomas Ranese is taking a tech-driven approach to CPG marketing

  Augmented and virtual reality are well on their way to becoming a mainstream marketing tactic as technology democratizes the space, making it a QR code away for brands and consumers alike. At this point, the industry has gone well beyond...

  
• 10.31.2023

  Joy Robins on how she's steering The New York Times' ad business into the wave of change

  The New York Times tapped Joy Robins as its global chief advertising officer this past spring and six months later, Robins is leading her team through a number of industry-wide changes. Previously chief revenue officer of the Washington Post, Robins is...

  
• 10.24.2023

  Why Bleacher Report’s Bennett Spector is going all-in on live video

  Sports media was built on live coverage of games, but younger generations are increasingly less interested in watching sporting events as they happen. That doesn’t mean that the live video format isn’t still appealing to this demographic, though. At least that’s...

  
• 10.17.2023

  IPG's Channing Martin on stalled DE&I efforts and why conversations must continue

  The industry’s stalled DE&I progress has been a point of critique. Despite the promises, media companies are still mostly hiring white people as of this year. In 2022, 90% of agency leaders identified as white, up from 73% in 2021,...

  
• 10.15.2023

  Introducing The Return Season Two

  Digiday Media and WorkLife is proud to present season two of The Return, a podcast about what it’s like for Gen Z to enter the workforce for the first time in a post-pandemic world. In season one, The Return followed an...

  
• 10.10.2023

  Martin Pagh Ludvigsen, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' director of creative technology, on the 'philosophy' of the fediverse

  Today’s social media landscape is an increasingly fragmented one, where legacy platforms are faltering, giving way to challengers. Within that landscape, social media advertisers and professionals are tasked with experimenting and potentially building audiences as they go. Enter the fediverse. The...

  
• 10.03.2023

  The Digiday Podcast welcomes Kimeko McCoy as its new co-host

  The autumn season is ushering in some change to the Digiday Podcast. As of this week, Digiday’s senior media editor Tim Peterson will step down from his role as co-host of the podcast after nearly three years at the helm. Kimeko...

  
• 09.26.2023

  The Independent’s Blair Tapper & Thomson Reuters’ Josef Najm are trying to break down advertisers’ news blocks

  Advertisers’ aversion to the news seems to be a neverending issue for news publishers. Tales of advertisers’ overly broad keyword blocks continue to pop up, as they did during a live recording of the Digiday Podcast at the September 2023...

  
• 09.19.2023

  Hearst Magazines’ Lisa Howard says advertiser requests for 2024 are on the upswing

  Plenty can change in a year, particularly in the publishing industry. A year after the media business slipped into a downturn, the upswing seems to have started, at least for Hearst Magazines. “We’re actually seeing more [requests for proposals from advertisers]...

  
• 09.12.2023

  Georgia-Pacific’s Laura Knebusch breaks down CPG giant’s spending shift away from traditional TV

  A few years ago, at least two-thirds of Georgia-Pacific’s ad dollars went to traditional TV. Now the channel accounts for less than 50% of the CPG giant’s spending. “That has been a pretty big shift out of linear TV into more...

  
• 09.05.2023

  Reuters' CRO discusses the role of political advertising and AI within the news organization

  Several publisher CROs are optimistic that ad revenue is coming back in a positive way in the back half of 2023 and Reuters CRO Eric Danetz is no exception. Beyond rebounds in ad categories like finance, as well as growing strength...

  
• 08.29.2023

  Digiday editors discuss the top trends from summer 2023

  It was the summer of acronyms based on the major trends that Digiday reported on over the past four months: MFAs (made-for-advertising sites) became a pain point in programmatic advertising circles. Publishers and marketers started experimenting with generative AI technology and debating...

  
• 08.22.2023

  Ad agency Pereira O’Dell budgets for contingencies in clients' 2024 campaign strategies

  Rather than relying on the continual quarter-by-quarter or even month-by-month sales cycle trends to guide their 2024 campaign strategies, the clients of ad agency Pereira O’Dell are already thinking ahead to 2024, almost six months ahead of time. But in order...

  
• 08.15.2023

  Digitas North America’s Ariel Sims assesses the Threads and X era of the social ad market

  For all the attention being paid to X (née Twitter) these days, Ariel Sims is keeping a closer eye on Meta’s Threads at the moment. Between the two text-based social platforms, the latter is the one that the svp and...

  
• 08.08.2023

  Privacy expert Raashee Gupta Erry educated the FTC on advertising

  In 2020, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission put out a call for advertising experts to advise the regulatory body on advertising and privacy. Raashee Gupta Erry, then a director at GroupM’s Essence, answered that call. Gupta Erry initially took an interest...

  
• 08.01.2023

  How BDG is threading together communities on its social media platforms

  A lot has changed in the social media ecosystem over the last couple of weeks: Meta launched its Twitter competitor, Threads, Twitter was rebranded to X and TikTok announced its new e-commerce endeavor designed to compete with Shein and Temu....

  
• 07.25.2023

  How Wirecutter’s social strategy led to increased Prime Day affiliate revenue

  This year’s Amazon Prime Day was a boon for many commerce publishers’ affiliate revenue streams. Take Wirecutter, for instance, which saw order revenue and overall earnings for Prime Day sales increase by “high double-digits” year over year, according to Leilani Han,...

  
• 07.18.2023

  Ray Chao explains how Vox Media is building up a podcast subscription business

  Two years after Vox Media entered the podcast subscription business through the Cafe Studios acquisition, the publisher has “tens of thousands of active paying podcast subscribers,” said Vox Media svp and gm of audio and digital video Ray Chao on...

  
• 07.11.2023

  Emerson Collective’s Raffi Krikorian explains why he’s technically optimistic about AI’s societal implications

  Raffi Krikorian would have a better than average read on the artificial intelligence landscape, including as it pertains to potential regulation. Not only is the Emerson Collective CTO also the CEO of conversational AI company SpeakEasy AI, but the former Twitter...

  
• 07.04.2023

  What’s going on with the media and advertising industries at 2023’s midway point

  If you’re feeling a little punch-drunk by all the economic downturn talk through the first six months of 2023 (and really, through the last six-plus months of 2022), you’re not alone. Digiday editors and Digiday Podcast co-hosts Kayleigh Barber and...

  
• 06.27.2023

  How Salon, TVTropes and Snopes improved programmatic CPMs with traffic shaping

  As the CRO of Salon.com, Justin Wohl is a self-proclaimed programmatic purist, meaning that when it comes to ad sales, the news publisher is almost entirely monetized through the open programmatic marketplace. After joining Salon in 2017, Wohl said that it...