3. @clarencerosario @InsiderInc
• Global monthly audience of more than 400 million people
• 5 billion video views a month
• 144 million monthly uniques
• Social followers now surpass 100 million
44% growth in a very
tough media environment
20. @clarencerosario @InsiderInc
Over the next 5 years, our daily media and tech
consumption will grow by only 18 minutes
Daily time spent by us adults, hours:minutes
Video, 5:06 Video, 5:07
Audio, 2:08 Audio, 2:08
Gaming, 1:21 Gaming, 1:26
Social Media, 1:15 Social Media, 1:23
Other, 2:38 Other, 2:42
2017E 2021E
12:28
12:46
CAGR
0.6%
0.4%
2.6%
1.6%
Flat
0.2%
Source: Activate
Show of hands: How many of you are terrified that what happened to LittleThings last week will happen to you?
I’d like to bust a few media myths today with you that may help allay some of your fears.
[JORE Intro, title, company]
And in those 10 years, we’ve grown. You probably now know us by our global business brand, Business Insider, with editions in 15 countries
You may be familiar with our lifestyle brand, INSIDER, which was launched in 2015 as a social-only brand that quickly amassed over 12MM social followers within 9 months. You may not even know that INSIDER and Business Insider are a part of the same company.
Together, we’re Insider, Inc.
How did we do this? Maybe we were lucky?
One thing I can tell you is that we busted some of the conventional media myths that have persisted over the years. I’m going to bust three with you.
Prime example: “The Pivot To Video”. Also, remember chatbots?
Chasing lucrative pre-roll dollars with high CPMs, folks decided to reduce staff that got brands there in the first place – valuable, reasonably-priced, productive writers – to invest in expensive, low-volume video content. Ignoring their strengths.
(note that none of these stories are videos!)
And we’ve covered the consequences.
Mashable sells low
BuzzFeed layoffs
Mic.com layoffs
Speaking of video! Don’t get me wrong, we’re great at video! It’s not just about distribution. It’s about storytelling for the right audience and right context. Looking for lean-back video? Looking for a momentary distraction with sound off? Looking for a show-style experience? These are variations WITHIN video, but video isn’t all there is.
People love the stories they love based on where they are and what they are doing, and this changes during the day and we serve them (apps for the commute, charts for markets data, short video for mobile/social, longer video for after work, text for politics stories, images for travel and lifestyle, etc.).
But what about the rest of the spectrum. Looking for news? Looking for a series of pictures that tell a great story? Looking for data?
Pictures are great storytelling! Want them in a gallery? Want them on Instagram? Want them in a chart? Depends on where you are, what you’re doing, what your mood is, and what you’re looking to learn. OH, and let’s not forget text! Politics stories are best in text. So are many finance stories.
I’m sure you’ve heard this term, referring to FB and GOOG dominating the market in the past few years and soaking up 100+% of ad revenue (no growth for pubs). At one point, their ad growth was over 100%, which meant that publishers were shrinking. Here’s a tweet from a friend of mine who runs Digital Content Next (DCN), an industry membership group for digital publishers. He sounded the alarm early on, and has been a vocal advocate of checking the power of FB and GOOG.
(or, as NYU’s Scott Galloway has argued, the duopoly really consists of what he calls The Four, and they need to be regulated and broken up)
BUT! The Duopoly has been under a lot of pressure of late!
The 2016 election
Brand Safety
FB and being a “media company”
Google, FB and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
The Cable companies are monopolies. And remember: Microsoft was once a monopoly that was broken up, and gave rise to Google!
And, as we’ve seen, the Duopoly doesn’t exactly act as one. Facebook’s recent algorithm changes in the wake of the 2016 election benefitted Google. And a lot of publishers.
How We Avoid The Duopoly Problem: We work with them! We move fast! (and everyone else)
Traffic from FB slides due to algo changes, Google picks us up
FB works with us on high value programs like Suggested Video (dead), Live (dead), midrolls (dead), Watch (???) -- cost to play is low because of #1
We tell stories that audiences want, and that includes MSN, Instagram, and direct subscribers
SCALE is important!
We built scale to do things that the editors don’t need to worry about anything but storytelling. For example, we built Apple News first way back in 2015. Then found that we could apply our approach to new implementations like FBIA and AMP. Some of these worked, some didn’t. But none of it was wasted effort and we can apply it to new opportunities as we go.
Content infestation and migration behind the scenes between sites and partners.
Editors still have the power to auto-tweet, send as email or push alert from our CMS. The text is taken care of.
Work closely with their tech and product teams to optimize the delivery of our content for them so that their editorial staff can make easy choices about the content their users want the most (which is often ours!).
We tried FB Live when they were testing it, and it did well, but wasn’t an expensive test for us.
When we saw FB’s algorithm change impact native social video views, we pivoted to re-cast content as episodes and shows. Which works for our fans, and monetize pretty well as a result.
Jamie Chua is a Singaporean socialite with a 700-square-foot closet with fingerprint access and over 300 pairs of shoes! This first episode has done over 50MM views in 10 days.
In reality, due to multi-tasking, there are 31 hours in a day. And 12 of those hours are spent consuming media. Which is crazy when you think about having to fit work and sleep and family and cooking into the remaining 19 hours.
While growth of media consumption will only allow an incremental 18 minutes of growth over the next 5 years, there’s still a lot of room to compete for those 12 hours of media consumption.
Think about how you consume media during the day: it’s completely based on the time of day, where you are, and what you’re looking for. And you’re probably doing many things at once.
OK, so I lied. I’ve got one final myth to leave you with.
Can you make money on ads? Subscriptions? Hardware? Ecommerce? Events?
YES.
We are in a media Golden Age. Yes, we have to work hard for audience, we have to earn their trust, we have to build products.
NYT $1BMM
WaPo 1MM subs
Atlantic 100+ new hires
This is a golden age of media consumption!
Fiver years ago, did I think I would be able to yell across the room while I’m getting my kids ready in the morning and get the weather, the news, and my calendar? Imagine the opportunities that will come along next five for media companies.
We just have to be ready to take advantage of it. Keep busting those myths.