Buying ads with under-represented publishers – at scale – lets marketers vote their values Printed from WARC
8 min read Samantha Skey
WARC Exclusive, Spotlight US, March 2021
SUMMARY Discusses how 2020 has o ered opportunity for brands to support smaller and more diverse publishers. In the age of reach, e ciency and hyper-targeting, small publishers cannot compete on their own since they do not have the reach to accommodate micro-segmentation, and advertising dollars keep gravitating to the major players – Google, Facebook and Amazon.
This situation has especially hurt media owners from minority groups, such as the Black, LGBTQ+ and Hispanic communities, who have committed audiences but lack scale.
The wake-up call concerning systemic racism that happened after the death of George Floyd has resulted in the creation of multiple marketplaces that allow brands to reach these audiences and invest in these publishers at scale.
This article is part of the March 2021 Spotlight US series, “Media strategies for a shifting US landscape.” Read more
Why it matters
Brands have the desire and the need to market on sites published by diverse audiences; the emergence of marketplaces built around these sites – which are often not owned by the big media owners – allows them to do this at scale.
Takeaways
The proliferation of marketplaces made up of under-represented, minority publishers, creates a way for brands to vote their values, without sacri cing a percentage point of data science, or reducing e ciency in reaching a target consumer.
Many of the publishers in these marketplaces are small, and in the age of reach, e ciency and hyper-targeting, they cannot compete for premium advertiser dollars on their own, lacking the scale, marketing and sta to be attractive to brands.
A number of these marketplaces have sprung up over the last year or so, with brands such as Moen, Michelin and U by Kotex signing up as sponsors; there are multiple options to reach these audiences.
While, from a technological perspective these kinds of networks could have been built in the past, advertisers and publishers have been on audience targeting, not site-owner targeting; as the industry recognition of systemic racism has grown, that is beginning to change.
Back when linear TV was the most meaningful advertising medium in the market, I always felt that brands who sponsored the Olympics were doing something good for the world: bringing cultures together while supporting productive competition and collaboration, This was also when ratings were the core metric for audience reach, and targeting was – approximately – anyone who sat on a couch, for any period-of-time, during the event being sponsored.
But the media business long ago moved away from that idea. In the interest of serving our short attention spans, here’s a summary of the past thirty years of digital media development in a few lines. Digital media has driven a revolution in advertising. Technology innovation has focused on 1) social platforms, on which there is no assumption of publisher quality controls, and 2) audience targeting. We have a litany of microdata available in real time to ensure that we know exactly who is loading an ad. Social platforms are designed to serve the consumer, and the advertiser, with ever more personalized experiences, and no data is left unoptimized.
But, I have often discussed with colleagues in the media industry, whether advertising can do good in the world. Like the the ad dollars that help fund Olympic athletes or Pulitzer Prize winning journalism, can advertisers themselves assume some of the responsibility to bridge cultural divides, create a safer environment or challenge stereotypes? The allocation of ad dollars to social platforms, who eschew editorial accountability, inevitably contribute to the defunding of professional journalism.
The movement to hold advertisers accountable for perpetuating negative stereotypes took hold in the aughts, but those issues were largely addressed only on the surface. The response gave rise to many lovely images of women in positions of authority, of bi-racial and same-sex couples eating cereal or shopping at Target. We saw beautiful creative work embracing the environment. Consumers have responded positively to diverse and inclusive representation in advertising creative, but the support for publishers that embodied those images has been largely lacking. Here's one reason why. Many of these publishers are small, and in the age of reach, e ciency and hyper- targeting, they cannot compete for premium advertiser dollars on their own. Open Marketplace ad dollars typically deliver the lowest ad rates to the publisher as they are valuing the audience alone, not the editorial environment or the site owner. Private Marketplace (PMP) and direct advertising buys yield higher rates for publishers as they begin to reference the quality of the content produced. However, PMP and direct ad buyers purchase micro-segments that require signi cant reach. Small sites (fewer than three million page views/month) are unable to deliver most segments on their own, and will thus be relegated to OMP. Further, small publishers may not have the budget to market themselves amid a cacophony of ad platforms. Small sites also lack the sta ng to optimize demand sources and ad product, so their OMP rates are not likely to be competitive.
Automated buying does not allow an advertiser to consider site ownership or editorial context, voice and quality, in a scalable fashion, so it’s no surprise that the tri-opoly of Google, Facebook and Amazon is expected to have won nearly two thirds of all ad spending in 2020, according to eMarketer, and this kind of consolidation of course hurts small publishers, many of whom work full-time or hold second jobs. Especially amid the pandemic, many have taken on the majority of family care, while not compromising on content quality or volume of publishing; they are looking for additional opportunities to earn.
The summer of 2020 opens a window
In the summer of 2020, after the death of George Floyd and months of harmful disinformation and general lack of accountability by many social platforms, advertisers seemed to begin to reckon with their power. The US had begun to confront centuries of systemic racism, amid an unprecedented pandemic which underscored long-standing disparities of economic security and opportunity within our society. At the very same moment, it became clear to many that important content creators that re ected these truths weren’t being funded – and that the social platforms, despite their scale and power, were not the safest places to be.
Whether corporations are signaling their virtues through internal or external activity, there is now a window in which brands have a greater opportunity to vote their values. They can consider who they are funding when they spend their ad budgets – the actual person who creates the audience – without sacri cing a percentage point of data science, or reducing e ciency in reaching a target consumer.
In 2021, we are fortunate to have the opportunity to go further than inclusive creative and content sponsorship. In the case of SHE Media, we launched an initiative called Meaningful Marketplaces to invite advertisers to invest their ad dollars with self-identi ed Black, LatinX and LGBTQA+ publishers. The SHE Media Network reaches over 76m consumers per month (Comscore, Jan. 2021), creating the collective scale that enables 1,400+ independent publishers to participate in the reach and e ciency programs that deliver advertiser outcomes. We had not, in the past, collected information regarding a site owner’s race, gender or sexual orientation. We created a system to allow partners within our network to self-identify by race, ethnicity and sexual orientation and to opt-in to participate within relevant marketplaces and brand initiatives.
While many of these publishers are too small to qualify for premium ad commitments on their own, as a group, they reach magnitudes. With our Meaningful Marketplaces, advertisers can fund the under-served communities who are producing high quality content for deeply engaged audiences. On average, audiences within the Meaningful Marketplace report that they trust the voice of the site leaders more than they trust traditional media or advertising (SHE Media study on The Business of In uence (https://www.shemedia.com/she-medias-business-of-in uence-survey-reveals-that-96-percent-of-bloggers-and-social-in uencers-are- building-their-busines-on-instagram), 2018). We can help the person who builds the bridges and inspires the community to scale her publishing business through premium advertising, increasing pro ts to these under- served communities.
Advertisers can easily access the pro les of the publishers with whom they are purchasing within a Meaningful Marketplace. We can see and hear their stories, and understand what gave rise to their sites. SHE Media earns a small percentage of the advertising that is generated to fund the Meaningful Marketplaces to cover operations, technology and ad optimization services to target ads to the audiences brands select and to do so responsibly.
In launching this network, SHE Media is far from alone. There has been a proliferation of new marketplaces with similar aims since last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. During July, GroupM launched its Multicultural Marketplace with 300 Black and Hispanic publishers; Havas launched a social equity PMP (private marketplace), constructed of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and LGTBQ+-owned media businesses with Moen and Michelin as early sponsors, and Mindshare launched the second of what it calls Inclusion PMPs, the newest one focused on Black journalists, content creators and artists, and with U by Kotex as a launch partner. (The rst, focused on LGBTQ journalists, launched in February 2020.)
While this type of buying practice could have been accommodated in the past from a technological perspective, advertisers and publishers have been focused on audience targeting, not site-owner targeting. I believe that this mode of advertiser buying is an outgrowth of increased recognition of systemic racism. But recently, I think that the advertising ecosystem has begun to recognize its accountability in supporting content and publishers who support their values.
In 2021 and beyond, corporations are realizing that the billions of dollars spent to advertise their products can be channeled to fund the content and community that they most value. They can do more than acknowledge and ‘reach’ under-represented audiences, also empowering them by investing their dollars into the businesses and digital communities owned by underrepresented groups.
Further reading WARC Opinion: Unilever signals the rising importance of conscious media buying (http://www.warc.com//newsandopinion/opinion/unilever-signals-the-rising-importance-of-conscious-media-buying/4031)
WARC Best Practice: What we know about brand safety (http://www.warc.com//content/article/bestprac/what-we- know-about-brand-safety/112546)
MMA Smarties: U by Kotex: Black Community PMP (http://www.warc.com//content/article/mma-smarties/u-by- kotex-black-community-pmp/134928)
WARC Exclusive: Will Corporate America ever change to re ect the New America? (http://www.warc.com//content/article/warc-exclusive/will-corporate-america-ever-change-to-re ect-the-new-america/134442)
About the author
Samantha Skey Samantha Skey is Chief Executive O cer of SHE Media (formerly SheKnows Media), a media Chief Executive O cer, SHE Media company providing lifestyle content a community for entrepreneurs and content creators. In addition to the company’s agship site, SheKnows.com, SHE Media operates STYLECASTER and HelloFlo, as well as BlogHer, the longest-running conference series for women content creators and entrepreneurs in the US. SHE Media was acquired by Penske Media Corporation in March 2018.
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TOPICS MULTICULTURAL MARKETING (US) (http://www.warc.com//search/Multicultural/Multicultural%20marketing%20(US)) MEDIA & PUBLISHING (GENERAL) (http://www.warc.com//search/Media_publishing/Media%20&%20publishing%20(general)) UNITED STATES (http://www.warc.com//search/North-America/United%20States) PROGRAMMATIC BUYING (http://www.warc.com//search/Programmatic-buying/Programmatic%20buying) REAL-TIME BIDDING, AUCTIONS (http://www.warc.com//search/Programmatic-buying/Real-time%20bidding,%20auctions)
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