The Digiday Podcast

Martha Stewart was an influencer before social media influencers existed. Elizabeth Graves, the editor in chief of Martha Stewart Living, says modernizing brand is work in progress but doesn’t need too much effort. In our latest podcast, Graves reveals how she retains the audience who has stuck with the brand over the years while onboarding the younger demographic, taking a brand beyond personality and more.

Business Insider launched BI Prime in January 2018, and chief content officer Nicholas Carlson said it has a business as well as editorial incentive. Carlson also talked about their recent editorial reorganization between the BI and Insider brands, and measuring reporters’ performances.

Publishers are coming up with a variety of ways to support content and encourage direct reader revenue. But it all starts with building a brand that people want to pay for. Brit Morin, founder of Brit+Co and a former Google employee, has been working on that for about seven years now. But every brand’s sustainability and elasticity has to go beyond a founder’s career span. Morin discusses revenue, differentiating content and more on this episode.

Hunter Walk, a partner at early stage venture firm Homebrew, says reactions around brand safety are overblown. He talks advertising, investing and the problem of platforms in this show.

Hodinkee has built a media brand around those passionate about watches. It started as a Tumblr page by Ben Clymer, who was working on Wall Street at the time. Clymer turned Hodinkee into a leading source of content related to watches and the business model has evolved from entirely depending on ad dollars to making 65 percent of its revenue from e-commerce.

When Jessica Lessin founded The Information in 2013 with subscriptions as its only revenue stream, people called the idea absurd. But fast-forward five years, and the model appears to be working. Over 90 percent of The Information’s revenue is now from subscriptions. It just had its most successful Q2 yet, expanded its team to 23 reporters and has pushed its coverage beyond tech.

The mission for many legacy publishers is to reinvent and engage a younger demographic, including the Conde Nast title Architectural Digest, according to its editor-in-chief Amy Astley. She discusses reinventing the brand for a younger set, building a digital presence, and dealing with shrinking editorial teams.

Wellness is an exploding industry, with some estimates putting it at $3.7 trillion in annual spending. On this week's episode of the Digiday Podcast, Mindbodygreen cofounders Jason and Colleen Wachob want to put what they call an accidental media brand in the middle of the growing cultural shift to putting a premium on health, mindfulness and sustainable living.  

Richard Gingras, vp of news at Google, discusses working with publishers, local news, advertising, and more on this episode.

Buzzfeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti talks about profitability versus growth, his company's relationship with Facebook, and more.