The last five years haven’t changed media monetization. Subscription and advertising channels have been active for decades, but they are forcing media owners to revolutionize the way their organizations are set up to successfully face the current challenges. It’s not a philosophical nuance. Simply put, the alternative is death by…

The accusation that Apple is using privacy as a Trojan horse against “the rest of the world” with the goal of building an advertising empire is so petty. In fact, I can’t help but consider that charge as hyper-partisan politics driven by not-so-hidden agendas. The digital advertising ecosystem can be…

One of the most overlooked caveats around the shift to first-party assets is that no successful monetization strategy can be built in isolation. Synchronization, harmonization and consistency within the company and across its strategy, culture and behaviors will be paramount. In a first-party world, where media owners’ assets have become…

The debate following Netflix’s recently released Q1 results illustrates the need for a less binary perspective on advertising vs. subscription models. While it was Netflix that most recently captured the headlines, there’s been a notable rise in streaming service cancellation across the board. According to the FT and Kantar, in…

The future is zero- and first-party data. Audiences must regain a central role in the digital advertising ecosystem. But the industry is facing one of its biggest challenges to date, and it’s not on the technical and regulatory fronts. There is a clash between the need to regain credibility by…

Over the years, publishers have accused advertisers of rewarding media agencies and buyers through business models that prioritize the wrong metrics, favoring quantity over quality and overlooking the uniqueness of the media owner’s environment and content. But this is only one side of the story. In fact, media owners have…

Media owners today risk losing control of one of their most precious assets. The parasitic nature of certain ad tech is back, as some players try to pull control of resources and assets away from media brands. This time, they’re threatening the very essence of intellectual property: content. Content is…

Ad tech stocks are soaring even as regulators clamp down on ad tech, especially in Europe. How can we understand this irrational behavior? Let’s backtrack. IAB Europe recently announced that Belgium’s data protection authority (APD) will likely find it in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for its…

Progress is not a straight line or a smooth path, as many in history have reminded us. It seems to be the case for data and privacy regulations, too, as the spotlight was recently on the UK and its call for data reform it published in September, “Data: A New…