May 10-13

After years of disruption and, this past year, COVID-19, the media industry finds itself at a complex, uncertain juncture. But it’s an opportunity to accelerate the digital transformation of companies, assess the forces impacting the business and benefit from the resilience of trusted legacy media and its fundamental role in open societies. How are leading media brands weathering the current crisis and what does the future look like for them? In this session we will talk about the future of the business in terms of advertising, revenue diversification, the needs-driven evolution of reader-revenue models and leadership.
2021 is proving as difficult and challenging as last year. In addition to the pandemic-led economic crisis, and its impact on the digital ecosystem, 2021 will bring far-reaching changes, including the end of third-party cookies. As media companies move from survival to recovery mode, what challenges are ahead as they seek to develop their digital audiences, reader revenue models and diversification strategies? What differences in impact arise between Latin American and Spanish markets? How are leading journalism brands withstanding the current crisis?
News media has undergone massive transformation recently, adapting business models and searching for new talent and new skills to drive change. A big challenge is leading teams effectively to achieve goals without losing sight of the growing needs of the audience, the company's mission and vision, its legacy, and its commercial objectives.
In a climate as turbulent 2020 and 2021, expect more repercussions for media and advertisers from the paradigm shift in data availability when the use of third party cookies ends. In this new world, where privacy comes first, players who have used third party data to monetize sites and generate opportunities for content, audience behavior and first source data will be evaluated by advertisers.
Facing the cookie apocalypse may seem daunting but studying the alternatives now and leveraging a proprietary ecosystem of registered users and contextual targeting can help news brands get even closer to their audiences. As ad technology evolves, contextual targeting brings solace to publishers and advertisers offering potential solutions that will both benefit publishers and allow advertisers to move away from one-size-fits-all block lists. Can contextual advertising comply with new regulations and still remain effective and at the forefront of digital advertising trends?
As the advertising industry approaches the cookie apocalypse, digital environments, (including CTV and mobile apps) will be an increasingly important part of advertising budgets, and publishers can play a larger role in shaping their future.
Given that the majority of digital advertising still relies on third-party cookies, it is time for publishers and advertisers to think how they can survive the demise of cookies. How will the end of third-party cookies affect stakeholders and the industry as a whole, including private platforms? How will the absence of third-party cookies affect the execution of digital advertising campaigns, what solutions currently exist to replace the use of third-party cookies, what industry solutions are currently being developed?, What are the opportunities available to publishers in terms of revaluing their Ad inventory?
This session will showcase case studies on digital subscriptions from local and regional media houses at different growth stages. Many publishers have had to rethink and adapt their paid content strategy. 2020 was a pivotal year for securing the future of media globally and saw many news publishers forced to shift to a model that is less dependent on advertising spend.
From understanding your audience to aligning your team, we will guide you through all the critical elements of a successful subscription model. During this session, El Universal (Mexico) will share how newsbrands can:
These two local media groups in the U.S. and Latin America experienced accelerated growth by creating new products and implementing innovative and creative strategies that increased their conversion rate and audience engagement.
In 2020, Tribune Publishing grew digital subscribers by 30.7%, ending Q4 with 436,000 digital subscribers. Also, digital content revenues increased 57% to $16.5 million for full year 2020. This impressive growth during a chaotic year is due to their innovative products, their engagement tools and conversion strategy.
In order to decongest the various sources of revenue, OPOVO decided to bet on its commitment to the audience and digital subscriptions by creating the first multi-streaming platform for journalism and culture in Latin America: "O POVO +". Since the launch of O POVO+, they have quadrupled their monthly subscription sales, reached their target of 35% digital subscriber base, maintained their retention levels and can confidently say that they have a digital product that differs significantly from the digital translation of a print product. All of this has only been possible thanks to an unprecedented alignment between content, marketing and product.
Ecommerce and podcast monetization are both effective options to boost revenue, and the fitness of each within the overall business strategy is very much influenced by the audience, the technology and the relevance of the content.
This final session features world-class industry leaders and best practices in affiliate programs and podcast monetization.
The recent lockdown has forced consumers to have a much more direct relationship with media and ecommerce, bringing back into focus the undeniable revenue generating potential of affiliate programs for news publishers. While advertising revenues plummeted in 2020, ecommerce revenues through affiliate programs grew exponentially, and for publishers who anticipated the shift, the rewards have been astronomical, and some have experienced an annual growth of up to 675%.
In this session we will meet Leilani Han, Director of Business Development and Partnerships at Wirecutter, an industry reference in affiliation marketing, to discuss how affiliate models present an opportunity for publishers and how Wirecutter has grown over the past year.
About Wirecutter:
In 2016, instead of building its affiliate business from scratch, The New York Times decided to buy Wirecutter for $30 million, a product review website with a business model based on affiliate commissions. At the time Wirecutter generated $150 million in ecommerce revenue. The deal was an investment in changing The New York Times’ culture.
As one of the industry leaders in podcasting, NPR began monetizing their podcasts well over a decade ago to further fuel NPR and it’s programming. Despite the tumultuous last year, NPR’s corporate sponsorship team generated more revenue through podcasts than through their radio programs. In this session we will learn how NPR managed to navigate a challenging year with an encouraging outcome for the future of podcasts.
© 2021 WAN-IFRA - World Association of News Publishers
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