How BuzzFeed Inc.’s Edgar Hernandez is preparing for a recession while seeing signs of recovery

BuzzFeed Inc. chief revenue officer Edgar Hernandez and his team have been preparing for a potential recession since May.

“We did some recession planning and presented that to senior leadership back in June. And so we’ve been playing the game as if we are in a recession,” he said in the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast.

That recession planning boils down to two focuses with respect to BuzzFeed’s advertising business: “efficiency and innovation,” said Hernandez, who was CRO of Complex Networks before BuzzFeed acquired the media company last year as the latter company went public.

“Efficiency” effectively means making it easy for advertisers to spend money with BuzzFeed and to see returns on that investment. “Innovation” means pitching them ad opportunities -- such as a new video programming slate that BuzzFeed’s sales team started pitching advertisers on in recent weeks -- that will help brands to stand out and capture audiences’ attention at a time when consumer confidence has ebbed.

While BuzzFeed has seen the economic downturn’s impacts, as evinced by its most recent quarterly earnings report, the media company is also starting to see signs of an advertising recovery. The volume of pitch requests -- or RFPs -- for fourth-quarter ad opportunities that BuzzFeed is currently receiving is comparable to last year. That includes RFPs from advertiser categories such as consumer electronics and retail that have been soft throughout 2022.

“There is a good signal in market right now that there’s increased opportunity going into Q4 and that especially some challenged categories like consumer electronics are being more active than they’ve been the other three quarters,” Hernandez said.