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 Atlanta-based advertising agency as the company returned to the office after a two-year pandemic hiatus. There were clear challenges among this population of workers who knew what a “normal” office used to look like. But what about a generation that is entering the workforce post-pandemic and has nothing to compare it to? That’s what we uncover across eight episodes in season two of The Return.We see headlines repeatedly accusing this generation of being lazy, unmotivated, quiet quitters. But what's the real story behind this generation's attitude about work?In season two of The Return, we speak with Gen Zers across the country to lift the lid on what motivates and inspires this young generation of workers, and how they’re not as work-shy as they’re often depicted. We also speak with seasoned workplace experts who can put the changing expectations of these young professionals into context.We dive into 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.Season two of The Return is hosted by Cloey Callahan, a Gen Zer and 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 Wednesday, Oct. 18.

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 fediverse is best described as a group of social media networks that are independent but still able to communicate with one another. Theoretically, brands wouldn’t be under the thumb of today’s monolithic social media platforms, and could instead have more control over their communities. Back in July, Meta’s Threads announced a fediverse integration, potentially bridging the gap between advertisers and the fediverse.While advertisers are still scratching the surface of the next iteration of social media, Martin Pagh Ludvigsen, director of creative technology and AI at Goodby, Silverstein and Partners is ready to pitch the innovation to clients, hopeful for innovation in the space.“I’d love to conduct some experiments in the fediverse with some of the brands that we have in house,” he said. “But in order [for clients] to give us permission to do that, they need to find out what the benefits could be for them.”

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 McCoy, Digiday’s senior marketing reporter, will succeed Peterson and serve as the new co-host of the Digiday Podcast alongside media editor Kayleigh Barber.With this change comes an expansion of coverage within the podcast. McCoy brings her expertise around how leading marketers and brands approach everything from social media platforms and influencer marketing to holistic media buying and digital marketing strategy. Listeners can expect to hear interviews with top CMOs, marketing strategists, platform execs and many other industry professionals to cover macro trends in digital ad dollars as well as learn about the professionals themselves.During this week’s episode, Peterson and Barber chat with McCoy about her reporting coverage area and what topics she’s eager to explore on the podcast. Early subjects she will cover in her episodes include the fediverse, fourth quarter marketing trends, the role of diversity, equity and inclusion in the ad industry and much more.

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 Digiday Publishing Summit.“Another one we just saw was around the U.S. Open, actually, when Coco [Gauff] won and we had advertisers blocking [articles containing the word] ‘shot.’ But it’s a tennis shot, not a bullet shot,” said Blair Tapper svp for the U.S. at The Independent.Joining Tapper on stage was Josef Najm, director of programmatic and partnerships at Thomson Reuters, who shared a similar story. Climate change-related catastrophes have dominated recent news cycles, and advertisers have created new brand-safety segments to block their ads from running against news publishers’ climate change coverage.“It’s kind of the inverse of how advertisers are also talking about sustainability and their efforts with it. So there’s almost a little bit of hypocrisy that’s taking place there, where they’re trying to say, ‘Hey, we’re supporting something, but at the same time, we don’t want to be surrounded around the news that’s really affecting them,’” said Najm.This issue is likely to become a bigger problem over the next year ahead of the U.S. presidential election. To get ahead of it, Tapper and Najm are trying to have more conversations with advertisers and agencies about their brand-safety efforts, such as ensuring that their keyword blocklists are updated and that ad buyers are acknowledging the nuances between news cycles and brand safety concerns.“To sort of go back to just saying, ‘Block all this, block all that’ — it’s really sort of rudimentary when so much else has evolved so quickly, and there’s been so much more development, and it seems like this bit has stalled,” said Tapper.

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] for 2024 than we had seen at this time last year,” Hearst Magazines evp and global chief revenue officer Lisa Howard said on the latest Digiday Podcast episode.In another positive sign, the publisher is also seeing more interest in upper-funnel, brand awareness options for advertisers after a year-plus of brands prioritizing lower-funnel, performance-oriented tactics. “I am hearing from brands that they, in some cases, do feel like they over-rotated to that lower-funnel, more just juicing sales strategy because everybody was — we were all fearful of a recession,” said Howard.For its part, Hearst Magazines made a similar shift toward lower-funnel, performance-oriented sales. After Howard joined Hearst from The New York Times in October 2022, the publisher decided to cut back on “big, complex, long-lead content programs” in favor of a “maniacal focus ... on digital media that works and can work quickly for our advertisers,” she said. While Hearst has continued to sell those long-lead content campaigns, it has seen fewer requests from advertisers for those opportunities compared to standard ad buys with shorter lead and flight times.That’s not to say that Hearst Magazines is pulling the plug on the big content deals, such as a program sponsored by Cartier for Harper’s Bazaar that launched this month and plans for an upcoming franchise tied to Women’s Health and timed to next year’s Olympic Games. Those deals are “not our primary focus, but where the need calls for it, we’re building programs,” said Howard.

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 digital channels over the last few years,” said Laura Knebusch, vp of marketing at the parent company of brands including Angel Soft, Brawny and Dixie, said on the latest Digiday Podcast.As Georgia-Pacific’s traditional TV spending has decreased, its investment in digital channels — specifically video, social and audio — has increased. And the marketer’s approach to those channels mimics TV with a digital twist. Video, social and audio “are three areas that we’ve continued to be able to deliver a broader reach but do it even in a more targeted way against our consumer target,” she said.That being said, Knebusch noted that Georgia-Pacific is still spending more money on traditional TV than on streaming specifically. One inhibitor to its brands’ spending more money on streaming is the fact that there are “still a lot of challenges when you look at cost and quality and making sure you can get the right reach and frequency,” she said.

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 in auto and travel, 2024 presidential election campaigns are starting to kick off and as a result, political advertising revenue is flooding back into the digital media ad market. Wanting to take advantage of that revenue influx but also needing to maintain an unbiased position as a news organization, Danetz said his team has to carefully consider where and how campaign ads are placed.On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, Dantez discusses how the ad market is performing within his large news media organization and burgeoning technology, like generative AI, can play a role both in the newsroom and on the business side of Reuters.

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 over its uses.The SAG-AFTRA (actors’ union) and WGA (writers’ union) went on strike.Many publishers started prioritizing ARPU (average revenue per user) in their subscription businesses.Altogether, those letters spelled a busy summer for publishers and marketers alike. On the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, editors Kayleigh Barber and Tim Peterson recap the happenings from the summer and how those trends are likely going to impact the back half of 2023.

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 to accurately plan in an otherwise murky ad market, factoring contingency plans into their 2024 budgets will be a critical step, according to the agency’s president Natalie Nymark. Lately, her job has been centered around adding flexibility to clients’ long term campaign plans in order to keep those initiatives on track, even if the economy has other plans.“This is going to consume me for the next couple of months,” Nymark said on the most recent episode of the Digiday Podcast, adding that 2024 planning began as early as July this year.

Ariel Sims, svp and head of paid social at Digitas North America, discusses the current state of advertising on Threads and X, including the potential introduction of ads on Threads. They also explore the impact of Lindy Acarino on the rebrand of X and the challenges associated with it. The speakers touch on the effects of rebranding on paid media strategy and creative assets, as well as their experience during the Twitter acquisition. They also discuss the limitations and capabilities of social media platforms for marketing, focusing on TikTok. Additionally, they assess the Tick Tock ad platform and compare it to Meta, highlighting areas for improvement.