7 Publishers on What's in Store for 2022

The pandemic, now rounding into its third year, continues to be the driving force behind many of the changes reshaping the media and marketing industry. In tandem with larger, unrelated shifts—such as the looming deprecation of third-party cookies and increased emphasis on digital subscriptions—the publishing universe stands poised for another year of radical transformation. Here's what's on the minds' of publishers' chief revenue officers. Optimism in advertising The publishing industry entered this year on a tear, which improbably managed to continue as the months passed. At Bloomberg Media, advertising revenues increased 50% from the year prior, while Sebastian Tomich, the global head of advertising at The New York Times, called 2021 the first time in years that publishers felt a real sense of optimism. “We spent probably the last six years talking primarily about defense against big tech and the duopoly,” Tomich said. “This really feels like a time for offense.” Talent attrition Perhaps the sole unanimous insight from the executives that spoke with Adweek: a flagging sense of morale and a competitive labor market has led to a widespread exodus and reshuffling of talent. The great resignation rocked industries across every sphere and media proved no exception. This brain drain forced publishers to shelve initiatives they had planned for the year and deflated the momentum they were building on the business side. Managers struggled to keep reporters motivated to chase stories, while sales teams floundered in the absence of their usual camaraderie. “There was a real war on talent this year,” BDG president and CRO Jason Wagenheim told Adweek. “We had to focus on initiatives like career advancement and company culture to ensure we remained one of the best places to work in digital media.” Crypto, NFTs, the metaverse and beyond This year marked the mainstream debut of cryptomedia, as discussions of web3 grew ubiquitous among tech communities. Publishers, eyeing a new source of revenue and means to monetize archival content, seized on the trend, at least in its most superficial forms: Quartz, The Economist and The New York Times all minted and sold articles as tokens. Next year, executives tell Adweek, will see far more detailed strategies for incorporating NFTs, cryptomedia and alternative realities into their content and business plans. “We think there are opportunities in 2022 to work with emerging industries––think financial services, crypto, new types of banks––and build out relationships that take our valuable audience members and convert them for customers,” said Gannett CRO Kevin Gentzel. Content becomes commerce Technological advances like on-site shopping, as well as inducements like deferred payment, have blurred the line between browsing and shopping for many publishers. As marketers push for bottom-of-the-funnel results, publishers have embraced solutions that let them convert readers at the point of inspiration. At Dotdash Meredith, which aims to convert its high-intent readers into consumers, partnerships with retail giants like Walmart illustrate the variety of methods for content-commerce collaborations, including affiliate, g-commerce and a closed-loop attribution system, said Alysia Borsa, chief business officer and president of Lifestyle at the newly christened Dotdash Meredith. For others, like BDG and the publisher formerly known as Group Nine (now a Vox Media property), the emphasis is more clearly on turning inspiration into transaction. “Our biggest trend was the convergence between content and commerce,” said Geoff Schiller, CRO of Group Nine Media. “With the growth of retail media, traditional publishers had to accelerate their commerce solutions by innovating and differentiating in a crowded marketplace.” The New York Times' CEO Meredith Levien on Balancing News and Lifestyle Products Economic uncertainty The pandemic continues to rattle the economy, in ways both overt and subtle. Its stranglehold on the supply chain has forced publishers into a constant state of flexibility, both in their commerce offerings and the products of their advertising partners. The omicron variant threatens to curtail the events business, which a number of publishers had hoped to see return in the coming months. For travel publishers, the economic outlook continues to be mercurial at best. Despite their best preparations, no publisher is immune to the vicissitudes of the market and any financial downturn will affect the media industry in kind. “We have our business on lock,” Wagenheim said. “But certain things are outside of our control and that has never been more pronounced.” Cookie concerns wane Premium publishers have spent the last several years building out robust first-party data systems, and many are less concerned than ever about the impending changes to the advertising ecosystem. The 2021 Publishing Hot List: Media Brands That Thrived via Innovation and Focus Some, such as Dotdash Meredith’s Borsa and The Times’ Tomich, believe the shift will benefit their business, as marketers realize the value of quality content. Others, like Scott Havens, the chief growth officer and global head of strategic partnerships at Bloomberg Media, are less sanguine about how the market will fare as a whole but confident about the need for the transition. “The deprecation of third-party cookies is going to be a mess in a more profound way than GDPR was, but the last decade was a hot mess filled with fraud," Havens said. "Everyone in the supply chain knows it but has let it go. Using real data could help clean it up.”

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7 Publishers on What's in Store for 2022

Advertising booms while morale falls as Covid enters its third year

Optimism in advertising

Mark Stenberg

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Mark Stenberg