Innholdsfortegnelse for October 30, 2017 i Adweek

‘It was such a relevant, exciting proposition that it was worth the risk.’Rob Sharenow, president of programming, A+E Networks, on Live PD  During the past few years, several cable and streaming networks have jumped on the scripted series bandwagon in an attempt to reverse ratings declines, make themselves essential in a world of skinny bundles—and collect higher CPMs from advertisers. So it was shocking last April when A&E announced it was going against the grain and retreating from scripted series, focusing solely on unscripted content. Even more surprising: the move has paid off for A&E. The network has seen six consecutive months of growth in its core demo of adults 25-54—A&E’s longest growth streak since 2011—and is enjoying year-over-year gains in total viewers and the 25-54 and 18-49 demos at…

‘Digital transformation has shifted from the back room to the front room. And the front room is about user experience.’Anne Bologna, Chief Strategy Officer, iCrossing When Jacob Davis and Levi Strauss received the first patent for their blue jeans in 1873, their headquarters in San Francisco was nowhere near being the hub of innovation that the city is today. Over the past three years, however, Levi’s has ingested the ways of Silicon Valley into how it runs its business—leading the iconic fashion brand to hire not just designers of denim, but designers of digital products and other technologists to bring the brand beyond selling through retailers and into the burgeoning era of ecommerce. That mindset has led Levi’s on a path of digital transformation that doesn’t just change how it…

Build a strong relationship between the CIO and CMO. Last year, Gartner predicted that a company’s chief marketing officer will spend more on tech than the chief information officer by 2017. And that’s a good reason for the two to work hand in hand. According to Forrester analyst Nigel Fenwick, companies that maintain a good relationship between the CIO and CMO are better performing than those that don’t. He said sometimes a company will even hire a chief digital officer just to fix a broken relationship between the two. “If they’re both customer-focused and customer-obsessed and joined at the hip in terms of a partnership, they can do great things,” Fenwick said. Create an innovation steering committee. Creating a small, trusted group to properly vet ideas can help move better…

1982 Writes first book, Entertaining, published by Crown Publishing, parlaying her catering experience into a cookbook. 1990 First issue of Martha Stewart Living is published by Time Inc. Ventures. 1993 Stewart launches the Martha Stewart Living TV show that ran until 2004. 1999 MSLO goes public, reaching a $1.9 billion valuation in February 2005. 1997 Creates MSLO, an umbrella company to house the media and merchandising brands. 1995 Martha Stewart Weddings launches. 2007 Macy’s begins selling Martha Stewart products. 2011 The TV program Martha Bakes begins airing on PBS. 2013 Whole Living magazine shuts down. 2016 Martha’s 87th book—Vegetables—publishes. 2016 First episode of VH1’s Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Dinner Party launches. 2015 Sequential Brands purchases MSLO for $353 million.…

HOTTEST IN BRANDED CONTENT Gimlet Media In addition to producing hit podcasts like Crimetown, StartUp and Reply All, Gimlet Media has made a name for itself as a successful branded content shop. Companies looking to use Gimlet’s storytelling chops to reach new audiences can partner with the publisher’s in-house native studio, Gimlet Creative, to produce branded podcasts like Microsoft’s.future, eBay’s Open for Business and Tinder’s DTR, to name a few. —S.M. WEBSITE OF THE YEAR Teen Vogue Under the leadership of digital editorial director Phillip Picardi, Teen Vogue’s attention to politics and inclusion (see: Lauren Duca’s much-cited story about President Trump’s “gaslighting” from early this year), combined with its youthful point-of-view, has made it a go-to digital resource for Gen Z while proving to readers of all ages that teens…

Sharing thoughts and emotions online is easier than ever thanks to GIF search engines like Giphy, which currently provides 2.5 billion GIFs per day to users around the world. Jasmyn Lawson, who started working at Giphy as a general editor and is now the platform’s culture editor, wants to make sure everyone sees themselves reflected in Giphy’s content. Lawson focuses on creating and maintaining a sense of diversity and inclusion for the brand. “I started working on lots of special projects based on different identities and [heritage] months,” said Lawson. Some of her first projects centered on Black History Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, as well as social movements she felt needed more attention like feminism and LGBTQIA communities, which didn’t have a clear category on Giphy’s site.…

McDonald’s has launched a full global media planning and buying review after 14 years with Omnicom’s OMD. The chain, which consolidated all U.S. media and creative with Omnicom in 2016, plans to move away from the single-agency model in favor of a small roster of shops that will help better serve its customers in various regions around the world. All major holding groups including the incumbent will reportedly be pitching for the business. According to industry analysts, McD’s spends between $1.6 billion and $2 billion per year on measured media globally.…

Welcome to Adweek’s Digital Transformation Playbook, a guide to education, connection and amplification in partnership with Accenture Interactive. Let me explain: Three years ago, the excitement of covering the business of media and marketing seemed to plateau. Even as data science was beginning to recast the ad sales proposition and mobile was rerouting the customer journey, legacy ways of doing business remained firmly in place. Pages and banners were still being bought, a certain amount of waste was acceptable in pursuit of reach, the Super Bowl and the TV upfronts remained our holiest tent poles, CMOs were stepchildren in the C-suite and creativity was the closely held alchemy of a tiny few. But about 18 months ago, things started to stir. Brands, with not only their core businesses but their…

The mobile device is the center of the universe, and it’s increasingly pushing media and marketing to change the way we talk about consumer journeys. Evidence of this is happening in major marketplaces such as China. Case in point, when you go to China, and talk about online to offline, it’s quickly clear that hardly anybody there equates online with desktop anymore. In China, online means smartphones. Period. That’s the one device. The future of mobile, content, location, marketing, commerce and advertising is no longer online to offline. We’re living in a mobile-to-offline (M20) world. Companies that don’t agree or don’t see it coming with clear eyes—organizations that hold on to the old belief that mobile is just one screen among multiple screens and not the only screen with any…

It’s been another transformative year for the media universe, as legacy publishers continue to reinvent themselves as multiplatform brands, a reinvigorated newspaper industry one-ups the competition with political scoops and old-fashioned media like audio storytelling suddenly seem new again. Adweek’s annual Publishing Hot List is also going through its own transformation, combining both print and digital outlets for the first time in its 38-year history. This year’s honorees capture the media zeitgeist, from Washington Post publisher and CEO Frederick Ryan, who’s helped shape the legendary newspaper into a digital behemoth with the help of Jeff Bezos, and Allure editor in chief Michelle Lee, who is shaking things up at Condé Nast by redefining the role of the glossy women’s magazine. Read on for 2017’s most noteworthy publications, podcasts and much…

‘It’s really become a higher mission for us to truly redefine beauty.’ For generations, products promising to “turn back the clock” have been the bread and butter of the beauty industry. According to a study from Orbis Research, the global anti-aging market was worth $250 billion in 2016, while searching for the term “anti-aging” on Sephora’s website turns up 1,700 results, from the usual serums and creams to anti-aging shampoos, herbal supplements and silk pillowcases. The fight against age is also a persistent topic in women’s media—especially glossy magazines like Condé Nast beauty bible Allure. Until now, that is. Two months ago, the magazine’s editor Michelle Lee made a proclamation that, for a brand like Allure, was positively groundbreaking: the magazine would no longer use the term “anti-aging.” That message…

HOTTEST SPORTS/ AUTOMOTIVE MAGAZINE ESPN The Magazine With more than 100 million readers across print, desktop and mobile, ESPN The Magazine claims the largest cross-platform audience of any magazine brand by a mile—runner-up People lags by more than 22 million—and boasts 2.1 million paid print subscribers, up nearly 5 percent YOY. Unique sports coverage sheds light on politics, society and culture and continues to drive the conversation across all of ESPN. It’s also banking on a big 2018 as it celebrates its 20th anniversary as well as the 10th edition of its always-popular annual Body Issue. —A.K. HOTTEST DESIGN/PHOTOGRAPHY Bon Appétit With its minimalist covers and youthful art direction, Bon Appétit has managed to capture the “Instagram aesthetic” in print. The dramatically redesigned August issue touting the launch of two…

On a recent fall morning, Martha Stewart’s New York offices look quintessentially like, well, Martha Stewart. Ensconced in Manhattan’s historic Starrett-Lehigh Building, a former freight terminal with soaring ceilings and eight miles of towering glass windows, the sun-drenched headquarters of the doyenne of domestic arts are as attractive and meticulous as one would expect. Rows of magazines fan out neatly on a coffee table, cookbooks stand like sentries in a nearby cabinet and staffers shuttle professional cooking equipment into the on-site test kitchen. It’s not just a clean, well-lighted space; it’s an incomparably busy one. This is, after all, headquarters to Stewart’s sprawling media empire. Everything that will bear the Martha Stewart name gets a careful vetting first, and it gets it here. For more than 30 years, Stewart’s name…

‘We always want to be the challenger, never the incumbent.’ The new motto of The Washington Post may be “Democracy dies in darkness,” but publisher and CEO Frederick Ryan uses another maxim for the Jeff Bezos-owned company: “We always want to be the challenger, never the incumbent.” Ryan believes that rallying cry will keep the 140-year-old publication striving into the next century and beyond. Bezos recruited the exec to the broadsheet in 2014 as it was ramping up its digital transformation into a consumer-first publication. “Owning the Post for him is not just a hobby,” Ryan says of Bezos. “He has deep views about the importance of the First Amendment and the important role of the press in a free society.” Since joining the Post, Ryan has packed the newsroom…

In a year in which so many publications have proven how powerful magazine covers can still be, choosing just one was a difficult task. But The New Yorker’s March 6 issue, “Eustace Vladimirovich Tilley,” which reimagines the magazine’s mascot Eustace Tilley as Vladimir Putin and replaces its iconic masthead with Cyrillic type, manages to stand out for its use of subtle humor (and a touch of dread) to comment on Russia’s influence in U.S. politics. The issue was The New Yorker’s biggest newsstand hit since 2012, selling out in a third of all Barnes & Noble stores that week.…

THE FRUIT Introduced in 1947, the fruit on the bottom softened the tartness of plain yogurt and made Dannon popular in the American mainstream. THE NAME Though the company started in Spain as Danone (named after the founder’s son Daniel), the U.S. offshoot called itself Dannon because it was eaiser to say. THE YOGURT Originally made in Spain with cultures isolated at Paris’ Pasteur Institute, Dannon yogurt is today made in four dairy plants around the United States. Yogurt is a $8.5 billion category in the U.S., according to Mintel data, but it wasn’t always. In the mid-1970s, many Americans—reared on red meat and convenience foods—still considered the fermented milk product to be a little fringy. They saw no reason to eat yogurt. Then they met Bagrat Tabaghua. Tabaghua, a…