The lens premium

There are two big questions every media business is dealing with: How do I get closer to the audience? How do I find leverage in my business with AI? These are related. On May 19 at 1pmET, I’m hosting a TRB  Expert Session with Beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk to discuss what AI is actually revealing about audience behavior, where it creates blind spots, and how media companies can use it to build deeper relationships without losing the editorial instincts that make them worth reading in the first place. 

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In today’s newsletter, a report from Possible, why having a lens is more important than ever, and what The Ankler’s defection from Substack says about how publishers use platforms.

Possible has wrapped up in Miami Beach. The sprawling event has established itself on the crowded events calendar as the midpoint between CES and Cannes, serving something of a hybrid purpose. Some takeaways:

Industry events are all ad tech and mar-tech events. I struggled to get all the partner logos in my photo above. (You can find TRB’s logo as a media partner in the lower right corner.) Ostensibly, this is a marketing event. Going around the lobbies and outdoor areas of the Fontainebleau and Eden Roc, you’d come to the conclusion it’s a tech provider showcase. AI has been a catalyst for a new wave of investment in marketing and advertising technology, and those companies need to connect with customers (and each other). 

Events are a barbell business. The massive events continue to be as strong as ever, but it’s a limited number that can establish themselves as must-attends. Possible is muscling its way into this group. On the other end are the smaller, more focused gatherings. This is where TRB sits. I find the best rooms are not thousands of people but 10-40 of the right people. The difficult spot is in the middle, as always.

TV advertising is going the way of digital media. The decentralization of TV viewing has kicked off a process where a fuddy-duddy TV advertising system is being overhauled to mimic how digital advertising has evolved. That means lots of data and various pipes to match supply and demand. TV held out for a while based on its scarcity advantage, but TV is now part of a larger screens ecosystem that includes streaming, CTV, digital out of home, retail media, you name it. 

We debuted a new tentpole event product at Possible: The TRB Lounge. This was a bit of an accident. We rented out Nobu to shoot our video podcast series in collaboration with EX.CO and offered the space to others for meetings and informal networking. It worked. We’ll look to pop up the TRB Lounge at other events going forward as a perk for TRB Pro members. We will roll out our video podcast series next week, featuring interviews with executives from Roku, Spotify, Fuse, Hearst, The Financial Times, EX.CO and BDG.

Everyone is looking for leverage. This is harder than ever for publishers. Preferred shelf placement in search results has mostly disappeared. Deep advertiser relationships have been frayed as intermediaries filled that role – and brands like Unilever have gone influencer crazy. In a world of clipping, derivative products have proven more scalable and lucrative than the original. 

One of the most powerful remaining forms of leverage is the lens. I think of this as a way of seeing the world, or a part of the world, that is both unique and legible to a brand, whether institutional or personal. 

Building a media brand is a lot like running a political campaign. You need to have some simple frameworks that people associate to you – and that appeal to them. Great media brands have always had this. The Economist has a distinct way of looking at the world, as does Vanity Fair. On the individual level, Ben Thompson uses his “aggregation theory” framework as a lens.

That lens can then be applied to the mass of information that swirls. It becomes a filter through which your audience can make sense of changes that are affecting their businesses and life. This is why news influencers are so popular with not just young people: 57% get news from influencers or creators, including 81% of teens. 

I find too many publishers focus too much on the media artifact they create. This is understandable. It is tangible and ostensibly the product that you’re making. But it’s really a manifestation of the brand that is rooted in a lens, which is the value generator. This is particularly true as publishing shifts from creating discrete objects to having an array of products, services and experiences that apply the brand’s lens. 

The Financial Times has a fascinating piece on Como 1907, a small soccer club that happens to be located in one of the most desirable places in the world. Lake Como is a symbol of sophisticated wealth. The club is small – its stadium holds just Tk people – but its owners are building a multi-faceted business off the brand’s lens of sophisticated wealth. There are games, of course, but the brand also has a yachtwear line and high end experiences.

More publishers would do well to think and act like Como 1907. Develop a lens, make it legible to you, then express it through a flywheel of products and services that apply the lens.

The Ankler’s defection from Substack was a long time coming. Building a fully fledged brand on a creator platform that’s morphing into a social network is an awkward fit. On a practical level, Substack’s lack of granular control over audience data and simple marketing are a challenge before you get to the hefty fees on subscription revenue.

Instead, The Ankler is going back to the future with a fairly standard publishing stack built off WordPress. The PR made a big deal about the use of Passport, a payments tool developed by Ben Thompson for Stratechery, but there’s lot of payment platforms. The bigger strategic shift is moving from operating within the Substack ecosystem to a roll-your-own setup that has long been the standard for publishers. 

This transition marks a defining moment in what has been underway: a move beyond newsletters into a fully integrated media company, now all brought together in a single, easy-to-navigate home,” The Ankler’s CEO and editor-in-chief Janice Min and founder Richard Rushfeld wrote. “To us, if the first wave of newsletters in media was about supporting independent creators, the next wave is about building durable businesses.”

Janice and I discussed this on The Rebooting Show a year ago. Staying on Substack mostly came around to it meaning The Ankler didn’t have to think about tech or spend money on it. The downsides: Substacks all look alike, which will always rankle a magazine editor like Janice, and its lack of support for advertising. The other I’d add is an inability to do basic email marketing. 

The new site is an upgrade from the duct-taped together Substack that The Ankler had. It always struck me it was trying to get around limitations of the platform. As the business matured from being a collection of newsletters into something more like a regular media brand, this approach reached its limit.

This is a necessary move for a company that is in competition with established Hollywood trades in a tough market. Substack has made clear it will further centralize – its recent statements about the unreliability of email was a signal – and lead to a tradeoff calculation. 

The Ankler risks taking a hit to its subscription conversion since Substack has the simple advantage of lots of credit cards on file. But this kind of business will inevitably have subscriptions as a smaller part of its revenue because the money in B2B is always in matching up buyers and sellers. That requires different tools – and a deep understanding of audience data and the ability to get people to take actions beyond subscriptions.

The Ankler will still use Substack, mostly as exposure to its ecosystem and toolset. Other publishers will continue to dabble with having a foot in the Substack ecosystem. Yet these platforms are designed for individual creators rather than full fledged media companies. 

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To discuss sponsorships, contact Dustin Marucci at [email protected]