In a session recorded at the Cannes Lions, Hearst Magazines CRO Lisa Ryan and Jen Dorre join the show to discuss how the publisher is responding to the shifts in advertising to performance-focused channels, including retail media and platforms. 

Skip to topic:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:36 Realism in Publishing and Growth Strategies
• 04:45 Focus on Audience and Data Utilization
• 07:33 Innovative Ad Products and Consumer Engagement
• 13:03 Challenges and Opportunities in Attribution
• 14:26 The Role of Brand Storytelling
• 16:37 Hearst's Commerce Business
• 18:53 Understanding Consumer Behavior with AI
• 20:39 The Future of Programmatic Advertising
• 24:04 Premium Ad Strategies for Publishers

Welcome to the Rebooting Show.

I am Brian Morrissey.

One of the big themes of CAN this year was just how competitive the ad market has gotten.

Retailers see advertising as a giant opportunity to add high margin revenue.

The growth rates tracked by GroupM, it expects retail media to represent 15 percent of ad spending versus just over 1%.

A decade ago showed just how much the weight of the ad market has shifted clearly to performance.

And increasingly, there's a narrowing of the distance between advertising and commerce.

And this is where retail media really excels.

After all, if it was up to companies, they'd just have sales, not marketing.

And brands are a means to an ends for publishers that leaves the imperative to adapt their ad businesses.

And that means often using their first party data to drive sales with unique advertising that.

Often mimics, retail media.

At CAN, I spoke with Hearst CRO, Lisa Ryan, and Hearst SVP of Ad Products and Data, Jen Duray, about how Hearst, is trying to harness its data across context and commerce in order to craft its own version of retail media.

I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you do, please do me a favor and, leave the show a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Lisa, Jen, thank you for joining me.

Thank you for having me at the Hearst house.

at

Thank you for coming.

Yeah, it's a beautiful view and I could swear that I've been here at some point over the last 15 to 17 years.

I've come to

through the week.

And

I

I just don't know when.

but it's interesting, we're like halfway through the week and I feel like there is a sense of realism with the publishing publishers I talk to.

I mean, we all know the challenges and then there's no denying it.

You know, the search traffic figures just came out today to show, you know, generally, I think most people are down like 10 to 20 percent.

Some people are down 30 percent, and that really impacts it.

but I think also what I've heard a lot is that, you know, there's a real need for it to have growth agenda, to, to figure out how to grow instead of just being like, woe is me.

and that, that's what I get sense.

So I want to start with you, Lisa.

Like when you think about, Where the growth paths are.

I mean, we talked about this a little bit at the dinner on on Monday.

and I was like pushing, trying to push people.

They're like, what does this look like in five years?

And I don't think anyone really knows, but like, how do you think about that when things are changing so rapidly, in the landscape that are also that are frankly outside of your control?

Yeah.

I mean, it is an, it's a really interesting time because there is so much to your point, changing.

for us, I think, we're excited because I feel like.

back to

We're going back to our roots a little bit, focusing on a direct relationship with our readers, focusing on excellent content, focusing on digital experiences that are really, truly premium.

And that part is great because I don't know about you, but I do think the web, when we were in this era of chasing scale and, you know, getting bigger and bigger and bigger and more and more and more.

We lost something as an industry and that was kind of that, that inspiration and that kind of elegance of storytelling and you know it became really commoditized and so I think we have an opportunity going forward

to really kind of be better in the digital world,

probably more like back in the day and magazines and,

kind

You know, in our world where it was about kind

of telling the story, you know, beautifully

and elegantly.

And

I think we're going to be able to do

that.

And now we're trying to do that with

ads too.

So I think we have an obligation as an

industry to provide something for

people,

For our consumers who who love our brands to speak to them in lots of different formats in wherever they are engaging with content,

we should be there and we

should be there in a high

quality way.

And if we are, then the ecosystem

of search and

all these

kind

of other discovery areas that are being, Completely upended right now are

going to work themselves out and the best quality will rise to the top.

And I'll also say that for our part, we're focused more now than we were

would define social search, like on Instagram.

Instagram, on tick

tock, we're

producing on average in our partnership with tick tock

600 to 650

videos a month.

On Tiktok

through our 50 brands.

So, that's been really interesting for us because we see that as a new door for younger consumers who maybe never even read a magazine.

Yeah.

Yeah, so Jen, what do you think, because one of the things that I think about with, because I think there's a broad shift to being audience focused at a lot of publishers, right?

And so

when a lot of people think about audience focus, they think about subscriptions, and I think we went down this road where

it was all about subscriptions, and the, the, the reality is In a lot of categories, subscriptions are not going to work.

They're going to be extremely niche and particularly in lifestyle.

It's there's just a ton of content out there.

They've always been at businesses subscriptions.

Yes, but they've been at businesses.

But at the same time, I think it's very clear that having a really good handle on your audience data is going to be critical to having an advertising business.

Now, I mean, Last night at the, the, the dinner that you were at, at, at Zoom, it was a little

a

um, but it

I was

afraid that

my wine

glass would fall

off.

There were a lot of wine glasses.

You know, you know you're in Cannes when, when wine glasses are breaking.

It's the sound of

one of

one of the, the people sitting, nearby me was, you know, she had said, I don't see how you have an advertising business even without a subscription business because of the data.

I mean, I don't think that's necessarily the case, but I understand

the point.

talk to me a little bit about how, you know, particularly with Hearst, you're thinking about, using the data that you end up having.

I

publishers

I mean, for publishers and with the cookie

list, we had to all like lean into first party data.

So one of the things for us is going deeper and really understanding what the reader is there for, what they're looking to do, why their interest is there, what's their lifestyle.

And

so I think I mean, I do think cookie list was a forcing function for everybody to get really.

their WebP

on their 1P data,

and

yes, subscriptions are great, and you have more data on

that person, but you can also do a lot with AI and anonymized data, and you can find patterns,

in behavior, interests, shopping, and so we're really excited to lean in on knowing our reader, we're going to go deeper in engagement with those signals, we're going to be able to see more patterns.

Yeah,

it's like we're here.

I think one of the things with, with can is, is I've charted over the years is the unofficial can historian.

I've christened myself, is,

years is like, you know, you earned it.

plaques, For sure.

at the Carleton, maybe.

Me and Michael Kassan will have, plaques.

his will be more prominent.

Mine will be by the

don't know, it's

but, Look, there's the, the tech companies have the, have the big, there's a, there's, there's a metaphor here of sorts.

You know, the, there's the ad tech companies have the yachts, the, the, the giant tech platforms have the beaches.

I love the house.

Right?

It's, thank you.

It is, it's a beautiful view, Right

Right on the quesette.

bed.

but, but look,

Intimate lunges.

Yeah,

you've seen, I, I joke that performance, performance marketing is almost eaten this industry.

And pendulums always swing and I, I.

there.

going

I'm not going out on a limb too much that it's pretty clearly swung really far in the direction of performance and performance as defined, weirdly enough by our platform friends out there as getting as close as you can to the sale.

And a lot of times, what happens before that is obscured.

Now, there's there's a banner hanging out here as I was like looking for the place that says own the funnel.

Yeah, Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you caught that because I think that's unique to her.

So big focus

and kind of one of of the areas that we're launching new products around is in the front is in owning the funnel.

It's ad products around what stage you are in the purchase journey.

So you may

we've always been good at, at Hearst, kind of the branding and the awareness stage and providing inspiration for

people.

We've, we've had products, ad products for that.

We've not been so great in the past.

at Really kind of

mining and understanding when a consumer's in that consideration stage.

So I'll give you an example.

One of our brands, Runner's World.

you're

If you're, you're a runner, right?

I just learned that a little while ago.

If you're going to run a marathon in six months and you're thinking,

what shoes

are going to be the, you know, the right shoes for me?

There's a lot of, you know, kind of technological advancement in shoes right now.

What are shoes that I want?

You know, to train and to be ready for, for that marathon, you

would go to

runners World.

see the list of the best shoes,

you know, for long distance running.

And, now at that moment, because you're in that stage where you're actually thinking about what

to buy, you'll see a

new product that we launched here at can, called a native commerce ad.

And that is.

In this, it's an ad, but it's inserted into the list of best products clearly demarcated as an ad, but in the native format of the editorial, and it will not only have a

recommendation from

a marketer that may not be on the list from a shoe, but it'll have relevant products.

So

a Theragun or a water bottle

or

other, other products that are

kind of when you're

in that mid stage of the funnel.

Right?

And we also have products lower down the funnel when you're actually at the point

of purchase.

And so I think

we're thinking a lot more deliberately and that's actually a trend I've heard.

I can, even retailers, they're thinking further up

the

funnel too.

So perhaps we

kind of

hit the max on the performance marketing

and sale, sale, sale, And now everybody's thinking about, okay, like what's

behind that and what's

happening like further up the funnel.

So it's branding.

It's really

consideration

in this

moment.

Yeah, it's interesting

Yeah, it's interesting you say that, because before, I thought we would end up with,

would, so

I

So I did, I did a search on perplexity for, for a marathon program, a half marathon program.

and I said, I'm gonna run, I run, Three times a week.

I run more

a week,

miles

I just, this is for testing

purposes.

And I said, I do three miles each run and give me a marathon program.

Now, in my marathoning days, I would go to runner's world for that, right?

Or I would, you know, put it in searching and I've done, I've had Achilles injuries.

And so I'm like, what, what are, maybe I'll switch running shoes.

Right.

And I go to perplexity and it's, I gotta say, it's pretty

pretty good.

Competition

is good.

getting better.

what's

better,

But what's the differentiator, I guess, from a consumer perspective and then from an advertiser perspective?

Yeah, I mean, I think we think a lot about this because

our brand, some of our brands have been around 130 years and the idea

is in this moment that we're in where there's so much innovation and

so much

change.

What isn't changing?

And that's trusted brands.

Whether it's Oprah, or Elle Magazine, or Harper's Bazaar, or Good Housekeeping.

These are brands that people are going to recognize.

It's our job and our challenge to be able to make sure that we're showing up in really relevant places for those people who trust our brands

and believe in them.

And so, and to get them discovered.

And that's, It's kind of the

fun part right now because it's so dynamic, but yeah, runners

world, is actually growing.

It's, it's an interesting opportunity for us, I would say, around membership, because

if you think

about the utility, you're

looking for kind of

really, service oriented um, information.

And I think for lifestyle publishers and

us is the world's largest lifestyle publisher,

We're thinking a lot about that

utility around, you know, what brands, is it

recipes?

Is it?

you know planning a marathon is it and would people pay for that?

We'll see we're experimenting a lot We brought on general managers at the brand level here

at hearst to really dig into brand by brand What is the opportunity for people to

experience our

brands at a deeper level,

such that they'll wanna pay

for

that they'll want to pay for it.

Notice like a lot of people are thinking more about how do we build products for specific segments of the audience because they all an audience is not a monolith.

Right?

so you were on the demand side more

than,

just the fancy term for the ad buying side, right?

Really?

the obsession with with and it's a regular obsession, right?

With basically attribution, right?

And I think a lot of times when we talk about, you know, The third party cookie.

I think people who are not in it day to day don't really totally understand that targeting is like not as big of a deal as the measurement piece.

and I think throughout basically the Internet, I think, It's been really difficult to attribute what leads up to a sale, and I'm reminded of this completely in Cannes because there is, this is the place of all kinds of disconnects, and you have a lot of people on beaches who are out there saying that it really just matters.

Right before the sale, I'm like, how are you attributing your spending of like millions of dollars here directly to your sales?

I would love to see the spreadsheet, but like an essential challenge.

You're gonna own the funnel.

It's like getting, the kind of attribution and credit and we're seeing a lot of money going to retail media and we're seeing a lot of money going into walled gardens that can promise

the nirvana of closed

of attribution.

Yeah.

Close,

Well, I think the, the days of the last

click

attribution.

go

Advertisers

know

they need to go upper

funnel.

They know

they need to.

have a full funnel media plan.

They need

to build a relationship with the

consumer.

So

we're really excited about looking into

providing media products that they can

build that

relationship.

So whether they start with brand storytelling,

then they have consideration, and then lower funnel.

So, I think with the third party cookie, I am in a complete agreement.

It's not targeting.

Targeting is one aspect, but the measurement is a big change in ROAS.

And last click.

but, so, we're looking at metrics across not only interaction, and attention, we're looking at brand lift.

And those things combined with the format that you put your ad in plus the targeting, we're going to help advertisers understand how it's performing.

conversations that we've

So we're looking at a number of different metrics,

and the appetite is there.

I mean, in the conversations that we've had with brand marketers, they know that they need to start looking at metrics, in different slices, in different ways.

And like you said, the investment in Hearst House, for example, we ROAS immediately for what's going to happen on Monday, but it's a longer term ROAS.

Yeah.

and that's like, marketing

has always been done.

I think that there is going to be a return to, to sort of sensibility because, you cannot measure everything in a spreadsheet, perfectly.

And what's crazy is even a lot of these people in the tech industry talk about him.

Jeff Bezos talks about all the time that ultimately they're so data driven and they do a lot by gut and Amazon spending a ton of money here.

And I'm like, How are you attributing any of this

stuff?

Wow.

be pretty

we do the ROI on us doing this in person versus video?

Yeah, I mean, it's, but at some point you sort of know, I don't know, you have to, like, trust experience as a form of data, I think, to some degree.

so, but

Lisa, talk to me about, I think that there is this blurring of the line between commerce and advertising in some ways, because advertising used to just, like, sort of hand it over.

Right?

And, and it would create demand, and then it would hand it over, and then the commerce would take place.

We're seeing these, these lines blur quite a bit.

I mean, and now, you think about like Hearst, I mean, you guys drive a lot of GMV.

I mean, it's not just CPM anymore.

It's gross merchandise value

And this is something that I learned joining.

I joined, 20

months ago from another publisher and that didn't have kind of a meaningful or

scaled, commerce business.

Hearst has an enormous

commerce business, so it's

a big part.

It's our number two revenue stream behind advertising.

very meaningful.

We drive almost 2 billion, just under 2 billion of GMV a year, for our partners.

And

so we know that our product recommendations, when our editors are making them,

that they actually

inspire people to

kind of click on that

link and purchase.

So that is, and has been, a big and important area for us.

As far as the lines blurring.

our feeling is we have to have our editors making these recommendations.

We'll insert a native commerce

ad

into that moment so that a marketer can be relevant in

front of them.

But we're

not going

to

have the advertiser.

If the editor doesn't believe

that that recommendation is the one

that should

be made, that

is

the story

they're trying to tell editorially, they're not going to make it.

They control that decision.

And so I think

Yeah, but I just mean in like the, in the advertising itself, like advertising.

advertising,

say it used to be separate from commerce, but, you know, it seems like with art, like you're, you're trying to combine, you know, the advertising and commerce elements because in a lot of publishers, you know, when commerce started, I would joke for a lot of, for a lot of people, you know, commerce was really just affiliate links, right?

And it was, it was almost separate from advertising.

I think this is something that we're seeing in publishing is, you know, subscriptions used to be, you know, viewed as almost.

Oppositional to advertising in some ways, right?

When you have a subscription program, it's like, Wait a second, that's gonna mean less audience, and that's gonna

to be

it's gonna be harder.

So we're not gonna sell as much ads.

That's what I do.

And that's a threat.

I don't like this.

I

What it actually means is a more engaged customer,

right?

If you have somebody who is willing to

pay for something, they're more engaged and that's more valuable for an advertiser.

So I think there's kind of more synergy on that side.

that

On the commerce side, of advertising, yeah, I do

think they're coming

together.

And I think

that when we think of

Aura, we think

of,

these are the

signals that we're bringing in.

I mean, we have 300 million people around the world experiencing our content.

And so how can we understand what

they care about?

We look

at

their interests.

We look at their behaviors.

We look at their shopping

patterns,

right?

We actually can, with Aura, map.

The affiliate who's clicking on an

And that's

It's

that's an important

signal.

It's not the only signal, but it is an

important signal, because

to your point about owning the funnel and really

understanding

their journey,

the consumer journey.

We

need to be able

to see,

you know, where they are at what stage they're in.

And so that's really

valuable for us,

And we think we're the only ones doing it.

And I'll also

say, or is a I enabled, which is allowing us to

basically

predict new

audiences.

And if I'll tell you, I see meet with marketers.

All the time.

And the biggest theme that they share with me about

how we can help solve their problems

is help me find new audiences.

Help me unlock new audiences.

This tool is designed exactly for that, which is about

if you are, and I'll let Jen speak to it because she's really, she and Mike Nuzzo, our head of data and insights are really the architects behind the aura product.

But if, if you are a pet food shopper.

and you, also happen to be a trail runner because we know we're watching all these signals and we're blending

them that there's a high correlation between those two things, then why not

kind of also extend

your targeting to trail runners,

right?

Because those people are, you know, predict in a predicted way,

We

know that they are also pet food shoppers.

Marketers haven't really tapped into that because targeting hasn't been sophisticated enough, but what used to take years to do.

With AI now takes months to do, and so we've been able to really scale that

and

are excited about that.

opportunity.

But

But it's also I mean, programmatic was a lot of just, retargeting.

Let's be real.

And that's not creating new audiences.

That's, you know, I mean, I always go back to when I first started writing about this industry, my family would always ask me why they got pop up ads.

And then it moved on to why?

Why do I keep getting followed around by the

she's, yeah.

that I looked at one time?

Or that I already bought.

I really think that the retargeting led to a lot of the like GDPR and things because it just Really creep people out.

And again, it's something that's not like in a spreadsheet.

It's just like it's got.

It's no, people don't like that because they're like stuff's going on behind the scenes that I don't understand it.

I don't like this.

but yeah, talk to me a little bit about, what Lisa was talking about how, how you look at, being able to, to, you know, take the data and be able to, Bring signals to the market that are that are different, you know, in some ways, because there's a lot of people out on that cross that who have a ton of data, ton of data.

Like, how do how does a publisher win at that game?

What is the unique signals that a publisher can bring that an Amazon and Google and medic cannot?

So

our lifestyle audiences, We definitely have interests.

We can see their behaviors through content consumption.

And that's not different than a lot of publishers, but specifically our audiences are consuming about lifestyle and from food to fitness to fashion.

So that's one of our core tenants on the first party behavioral data.

Well,

Well, that's, the, and that's

the behavioral.

And then we move to

And then

then it's knowing deeper what that, content page is about.

If it's about running, is it about training for your first marathon?

Or is it about, I'm actually interested in the Olympics, and I'm not a runner at all, but I really want to watch the track and field stars.

There's a difference there, but they most,

they both might

be categorized as running.

Um,

and

and

one is really the crux of, finding that incremental audience and so maybe this is called look alike audiences before I'm with you that before Retargeting quote worked, but that's all related to

People, a lot of times people were gonna, we're gonna convert anyway,

that's right

it was like the Obama line where he's like, you didn't you didn't build this, like, Yeah.

the,

didn't

perform as well as what we're building today in the first party space.

That's

really our whole thing is let's make this product at the axis of both privacy and performance.

And if we can do that, then you don't have to follow people around and serve them ads that, you know, are no longer relevant

because they already bought

that

pair of shoes or

that bag or

whatever.

You know enough about them, you know more, but you're not

actually, you know,

being creepy

Yeah, but so this is just gonna be on Hearst properties.

You're not gonna be able to go and on a DSP and use this data to

to speak to that?

Well, right now, it's going to be for our premium targeting on our direct.

our direct.

And

through programmatic direct,

not open auction

no

point.

Any reason?

think publishers, I

I think publishers, I think publishers are still trying to figure out what makes them differentiated.

We have a, all up, we have a premium ad strategy.

So it includes, our formats, our targeting, and our direct business.

So, this is really a premium direct, product.

so we'll see.

You know, we're in the early days.

And, we're understanding what works for us.

and for advertisers.

I'm predicting less dependence on Open

programmatic going forward.

So we are really leaning in on

moving marketers up toward that, that kind of more premium programmatic experience.

We want them

to engage with us in automated ways.

We just want there to be, kind of, them to be the highest

quality, most controlled ways to buy.

To automate the process, but not I mean, I think open programmatic has has proven to not be that great of a deal for most publishers.

Right.

It doesn't work.

That's

That's a good way, but it doesn't work.

Cool.

Awesome.

Cool.

Well, thank you so much.

Really appreciate you inviting

It

to have you.

Thank you.

Enjoy your

rest of

Yeah, Thanks,

Thanks,