Daily Briefing: The NYT’s new brand ad campaign
Good morning! And welcome to Business Side.
In today’s briefing we cover:
The NYT’s new brand ad campaign
Sustainability coverage driving revenue
More publisher AI case studies
Plus other developments across the industry
Let’s get to it.
The NYT’s New Brand Ad Campaign
In the campaign – which will run across TV, digital, print, audio, social, and out-of-home – a narrator highlights how NYT coverage can lead you to different curiosities. One ad spot begins, “If you understand sneakers, you start to understand squeaking, which leads to hardwood, and the art of Kareem’s famous sky hook… so you get how flying works… which takes you to carbon…” (and on and on like that). It reminds me of bouncing between Wikipedia articles, following your curiosity to link after link.
The campaign aligns with the “essential subscription strategy” that the Times announced last March: “We’ll use all our products and entry points to introduce people to the whole of what we do. Some readers may come for news, but they’ll stay for The Athletic or Wordle. Others may come for Cooking, but stay for news. The strength of our offerings — and how they’re connected — means that we can be essential in a different way to each person.” And the campaign aligns with how the Times described their audience in that strategy memo – as “curious readers and lifelong learners.”
In a large organization, it’s not easy to write a strategy memo in one year and pull off an aligned brand campaign in the next. This strategic clarity, and the execution behind it, is a big reason why the Times is such a juggernaut.
Sustainability coverage driving revenue. Content about climate and sustainability is driving ad growth at Time, The Financial Times, BBC, The Economist, and the Washington Post, according to a new report in Digiday. At Time, sustainability coverage accounts for roughly 20% of advertising revenue – of this, roughly half comes from events, and half comes from digital & print ads. At The Economist, sustainability represents a third of “Economist Impact” deals – which includes data, research, branded content, and consulting.
More publisher AI case studies. A report ($) from INMA includes some examples of how publishers are using AI. In one example, Norwegian publisher Aftenposten trained AI on its podcaster’s voice in order to “read” text articles aloud. In another example, Singapore Press Holdings trained an AI newscaster to speak Singlish, a local English dialect.
Sharing royalties on AI-generated songs. The artist Grimes tweeted, “I'll split 50% royalties on any successful AI generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist i collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings.” This comes after an AI-generated Drake song went viral, and Universal Music Group has been sending take-down notices for AI-generated songs.
Publishers:
Insider’s Union staged a walkout after leadership announced layoffs.
Time elevated Sam Jacobs from Deputy Editor to Editor in Chief.
Time’s ad revenue grew 20% YOY in Q1.
Schibsted’s centralized product team has built 20+ mobile apps for 13 brands.
More on BuzzFeed News:
An excerpt from Ben Smith's new book details how Disney nearly bought BuzzFeed in 2013.
Digiday examined BuzzFeed News’ reliance on social media traffic.
Nieman Lab published a history of BuzzFeed News in two parts.
Platforms:
Twitter reinstated blue checkmarks for some users who aren’t paying for a subscription.
Snap is receiving lots of negative app store reviews about its AI chatbot.
A poll found that 46% of respondents favor a ban of Tik Tok; 35% oppose it; and 19% didn’t know or didn’t answer.
TV:
Tucker Carlson and Fox News have “agreed to part ways.”
Don Lemon is leaving CNN – he had been under scrutiny after making inappropriate remarks about women in February.
NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell is stepping down after an investigation into inappropriate conduct with a female journalist at the company.
Disney began a round of layoffs, expecting to cut 4,000 jobs this week.
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