The Digiday Podcast

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 Tim Peterson are feeling it too.At the year’s midway mark, the pair compare notes on the state of the media and advertising industries. The discussion ranges from the decline in ad spending to the rise of generative AI, with the duo delving into how the ad sales cycle has changed and to what extent those changes are temporary or permanent.

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 was clear direct-sold advertising wasn’t performing and his team reconfigured to focus exclusively on the open marketplace. Two years later, Salon achieved profitability.Today, Wohl — who also serves as the CRO of TVTropes and Snopes — is using traffic shaping to maintain which ad inventory is being sold across each brand. n the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Wohl talks about why he’s willing to take a short-term gross revenue hit (of “a few percentage points”) to purify how his brands are sold in the programmatic open marketplace and ultimately improve the CPMs that his team can charge.

The final episode of the Digiday podcast at Cannes centered around a topic which everyone on the planet — but especially the digital marketing ecosystem — should be thinking and doing something on: sustainability and carbon emissions reduction.Recording once again from Spotify's podcast studio along the beach of the Croisette, Anne Coghlan, co-founder and COO of Scope3, explained not only all three "scopes" of emissions that companies must assess (and most have a handle on scopes 1 and 2), but outlined some steps that can be taken to reduce their scope 3 emissions. And those publishers that do not make serious attempts to mitigate their impact on the environment could see the business they hope to attract get reduced over time.The fact is, digital advertising is still reckoning with the fact that it's not only wasteful from an inventory point of view, but its massive need for energy to run itself is larger than many realized. And that will only get worse when — no longer if — generative AI gets adopted as quickly as Cannes conversations imply."There is this need to be skeptical and ask the right questions here, and be thoughtful about making sure that sustainability is brought into businesses decisions," Coghlan told Digiday, "and it's not a separate column at the side that has a checkbox at the end."And that wraps up the Digiday at Cannes podcasts. If you missed any of the first four, they include conversations with S4 Capital's Sir Martin Sorrell/HP's Tara Agen, Zambezi's Jean Freeman and Grace Teng, PMG's George Popstefanov, and programmatic analyst Tom Triscari.Till next year.

On a blustery day at Cannes Lions (which prevented us from recording outside), I walked along Yacht Row, well known for the plethora of ad-tech and mar-tech firms that rent the floating party boats moored in Jetée Albert Edouard just astride the Palais des Festivals. I was accompanied by Tom Triscari, an independent analyst who covers the programmatic and ad-tech scene -- and was once worked in the industry.Together we chose several companies for Triscari to assess in terms of potential and challenges, including IAS, DoubleVerify, Magnite, OpenX, Criteo, Cognitiv and Experian -- but the conversation naturally brought up some of the biggies that didn't rent yachts but still make their presence felt in the ad-tech market (such as The Trade Desk)."If you're on Yacht Row, you're there to close out some deals, because revenue is tight, there's consolidation, and you know, I think there's some concern out there around that top line growth," Triscari explained. "And therefore what what are you left with? You're left with maybe some cost cutting if you're going to make your number. So they're all out there trying to make deals for the investment they put into the yachts, which is not cheap."Tune in tomorrow for Digiday's final podcast from Cannes Lions. And if you missed them, please give a listen to Digiday's conversations with Sir Martin Sorrell and HP's Tara Agen, Zambezi's Jean Freeman and Grace Teng, and PMG's George Popstefanov. 

In our third episode of the Digiday podcast here in the south of France, I chatted with George Popstefanov, founder and CEO of independent agency PMG, which is best known for beating out several holding-company agencies for Nike's North American media business.Popstefanov is proud that his agency started in 2010 with several engineers as part of its core — and tech and engineering remain a vital part of what PMG does for its clients. But he's also very interested and active in finding ways to put generative artificial intelligence to use simplifying functions and helping to iterate the thousands of versions of content and advertising that personalized communication promises.Recorded in Spotify's studio on the beach at Cannes Lions, here's my conversation with Popstefanov.

The gaming industry has experienced its fair share of ups and downs over the last few years, much like the rest of the media space. But it seems that the chips have fallen in a way in which gaming creators, specifically those who stream their content on live platforms like Twitch, YouTube and Kick, are in a position of power.At least, that’s how Damon Lau, head of gaming and esports at United Talent Agency, is measuring the recent trajectory of the industry. With video streaming platforms like Twitch constantly changing the revenue share models for creators on the platform, competing platforms like YouTube, Kick and even TikTok are stepping up to try and win over creators’ exclusive streaming rights.On the latest episode of the Digiday podcast, Lau discusses how his clients are thinking about their partnerships with streaming platforms, as well as how advertisers are starting to go to creators themselves for native advertising deals, rather than going through the platforms with their ad dollars.

Day two of the Digiday podcast at Cannes Lions, and our guests were Jean Freeman, CEO and principal of L.A.-based Zambezi agency, accompanied by Grace Teng, who runs Scale by Zambezi, the agency's media unit.In an era where rebundling is back on the table, creative shop Zambezi was a bit ahead of the curve by launching Scale by Zambezi back in 2018, and both Freeman and Teng shared their thoughts on how media innovation has made the creative stronger and more engaging, while creative inspired media to try new activations using data and analytics.On the hot topic of AI, Teng shared her experiences playing with Chat GPT for a health drink client. "We've actually just been playing around with it and had recommendations for clients recently, which have been pretty positively received," said Teng.Being a women-owned company hasn't come easily, but Freeman said that while she's in France, she's looking to expand on Own It, the group she co-founded to help raise awareness about the still-small number of women-run agencies.Make sure to tune in tomorrow for the next Digiday podcast at Cannes.

Welcome to The Digiday’s Podcast at Cannes.The first guests are Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and chairman of S4 Capital, parent of Media.Monks digital agency network, and Tara Agen, head of marketing operations and martech for HP, which is a Media.Monks client. In a wide-ranging conversation that touched on encouraging diverse hiring, economic prospects for the second half of the year and favorite Cannes restaurants, the topic that dominated was AI and its impact on the marketing ecosystem. In fact, Sorrell and Agen traded questions and insights with each other.Sorrell laid out five things he sees AI impacting, while Agen noted that AI already had been a part of HP’s processes for years. 

Spotify will head to this year’s Cannes Lions festival with a new product to peddle to advertisers: Spotify Ad Analytics. The measurement tool aims to provide advertisers with reporting on how their ads are performing on Spotify as well as the impact they are having on advertisers’ businesses outside the platform through the corresponding introduction of the platform’s own tracking pixel.“It’s taking the incredible understanding that we have from [Spotify-acquired podcast measurement service] Podsights and extending it beyond just pods, bringing it to music, bringing it to all regions and enabling it for free. And giving that service to advertisers to let them have better understanding, better depth of insights against how their campaigns are performing not only on Spotify but anywhere their audio is running with the opportunity to introduce the Spotify pixel to help them in one dashboard track all of their audio and all of their analytics against audio in one place,” Spotify vp and global head of advertising business and platform Lee Brown said on the latest Digiday Podcast episode.The new measurement tool is part of Spotify’s plan to get its advertising business to eventually represent 20% of its overall revenue. Since the fourth quarter of 2021, its advertising business’s share has hovered between 10% and 14%. Growing its advertising business will also be an important component to growing its podcast business, which has seen growth but contributes a smaller percentage of ad revenue compared to ads airing against music content. Spotify’s podcasting organization underwent a round of layoffs earlier this month that included the cancelation of six original shows.During the annual advertising confab, Spotify will also show off the AI DJ that it unveiled earlier this year and that is designed to provide personalized recommendations for the platform’s users. “The way I like to describe it is it’s like the voice of our algorithm,” said Brown.Spotify has yet to apply generative AI technology to its advertising business, but Spotify head of podcast innovation and monetization Bill Simmons recently teased that the company is developing an AI-generated ad product.Asked about Spotify’s AI-based ad plans, Brown said, “We’re still in the early stages of developing out the long-term strategy. I think we’re testing across several different vectors within that space, whether it’s automating translation, automating scriptwriting, automating the creative process.”

The TV and movie industry is once again on the verge of a production pause, at least for scripted projects.The Writers Guild of America’s ongoing strike has put the brakes on the pre-production process, and while the Directors Guild of America reached an agreement with film and TV studios on June 4 to avert a strike, the Screen Actors Guild could still strike and bring about a work stoppage come July 1.To break down the issues at hand and the strike’s (and potentially strikes’) implications for the industry, Project X Entertainment co-CEO Paul Neinstein joined the Digiday Podcast. [Editor’s note: This interview was recorded on May 31, before the DGA announced its agreement.]While not a member of the organizations on either side of the negotiating table, he laid out what issues are on that table, which can be distilled to writers being in a position where they are working more for less or limited money, as in the case of streaming services curbing the residual payments that writers can receive for the distribution of shows and movies.“One of the big categories is the residuals issue. This affects both film and TV writers and really is related to streamers more than the more traditional sort of avenues for release of films and TV series,” Neinstein said.Meanwhile, the strike and potential work stoppage is already affecting the broader film and TV industry. For example, Project X Entertainment — a production company whose credits include Netflix’s “The Night Agent” and the recent revival of the “Scream” film franchise — has already had to make adjustments.“We’re a small, independent film-and-TV company. We live and die on making stuff. And fortunately we had something [in production before the writers’ strike started], but we have three other projects that were lined up to start between August and September that are now uncertain,” Neinstein said.