Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Welcome to TRB Conversations, powered by EXCO. I am Brian Morrissey. This is a series of conversations I had with media leaders in Cannes. 0:17 Support for this episode and the others in the series comes from EXCO. 0:21 EXCO is the smarter video technology driven by real-time machine learning to maximize revenue across every screen; web, mobile, CTV, and digital out-of-home. Find out more at ex.co. Thank you to my friends at EXCO. 0:36 One of the bright spots in media is its convening power. Events are everywhere. I cannot talk with a publishing executive without the conversation turning to events. 0:47 Josh Stinchcomb, CRO of the Wall Street Journal, says events have moved from a side dish to being the entree. 0:55 He breaks down why events now anchor major branded content programs instead of capping them off, how scarcity and long lead times let him lock in advertiser commitments in an otherwise volatile market, and why he thinks the appetite for in-person gathering is only gonna grow as more of life moves onto screens and becomes intermediated by, yes, AI. 1:16 Here's my conversation with Josh. [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to TRB Conversations. I'm Brian Morrissey. We are here at, in Cannes at our little studio in Zuma. Joined by Josh Stinchcomb, CRO of the Wall Street Journal. 1:34 Josh, welcome. Brian, thank you for having me- Yeah... and for exposing me to this part of Cannes. I know, you've never been here. I found that very strange. Didn't know existed after- Yeah... 15 years. Yeah. 1:41 It's a lovely part of- Yeah. It's great. It's a lovely part of- Yeah... Cannes. So for the Journal at Cannes, you have your own, you, you have a house. You have a full hou- Yeah... It's like a real house. 1:49 We have the full Journal house, which is a, a, a thing that exists not only in Cannes, but Davos, and UNGA, and we're actually launching a... Well, I'll, I'll let you know when I can let you know. 2:00 There's gonna be a fourth Journal house. Oh, okay. Yeah. Somewhere in- Yeah. Now I owe that to you... somewhere- I just announced... somewhere in the world. 2:06 [laughs] But no, but you guys were early with the Journal house. Now everyone, like, has different houses or now ca- taking over cafes- Yeah... is, is a thing. And really, even along, a- among your peer set, right? 2:21 There's a lot of movement into the activations space. Yeah. It's, it's a growing part of our business. 2:28 It's definitely getting more crowded, but to date we haven't seen that sort of suppress traffic, audience at the stuff that we do. But we, we were early on to it. 2:38 The first Journal house we did was in Davos, and I think after one year of that, it worked so well on a number of levels that we sort of launched Journal house Cannes, and this is year eight, I think. 2:49 Year three in this location. But it's, it's sort of like the trifecta. We have meeting space. We can host sponsor dinners, lunches. 2:57 We have programming from news, from, from our sponsors, from partners, and so it's sort of like this kinda perfect flywheel ecosystem. 3:05 And most importantly, especially when the temperature is as hot as it is this year- [laughs]... I kind of never need to leave, except to go to the rebooting. Yes. That, only this could pull me out. 3:13 And to get you, get you down to [laughs] Yeah, exactly... to, to, to this part of Cannes. 3:17 [laughs] But talk to me about the overall sort of convene- where how convening plays a role in the, in the Journal's strategy because everyone is moving into events. As you know- Yeah... 3:28 events are near and dear to my heart. Yeah. I've done a lot in my career. [laughs] Uh, look, I, I think if you have convening power with a, you know, relevant audience, it's a huge asset. 3:40 And it's, and it's a core part of not, not just the Wall Street Journal strategy, increasingly all of Dow Jones's- Yeah... 3:45 strategy as we think about the verticals in which we operate, whether, you know, business news, the Journal, Barrons, et cetera, our energy vertical, our risk vertical. 3:54 We seek to have data, news, analysis, convening power, and that is, you know, a big part of, of our success certainly in, in the advertising business. 4:04 But just in Dow Jones, being able to pull together the practitioners, thought leaders, decision-makers in these communities, A, these are people we have products and services for, and B, they are groups of people that a lot of our advertisers and sponsors want to reach. 4:19 And so we can, you know, bring them along for the journey. So it, it, it works for us in, in, in multiple ways. Are you finding that, like, leads conversations more these days, or is it... 4:29 'Cause, like, I, I just, it feels more... 4:31 More people I talk to, it is, it moves from, like, a side dish to, uh, maybe not the main dish, but it, it, it becomes- I, I, I think it's, it's largely of the main dish in, in many ways. 4:42 Number one, because one has to plan so far out for an event, and that's true for us. That's also true for sponsors. So if they're gonna activate at one of our events- Yeah. There's a scarcity... 4:52 there's a lot of lead time. Yeah, yeah. And there's scarcity, and so that, I can use that to lock in commitments, you know, in, in a world where, you know, advertising can be sort of very volatile. 5:03 This locks in commitments up front because the lead time is there and, and the scarcity's there. 5:09 And also, as I think we're doing right now, the event itself becomes a content creation moment, not just, you know- Right... 5:17 a moment on stage, but because you've got executives and thought leaders from said partner, you can create video content, podcast content, and, and so we use the content output of that to create, like, branded content campaigns. 5:31 So rather than, like, "Oh, we'll run a media campaign, and we'll cap it off with an event," it's like the event is the, is the kickoff in many ways for a lot of our biggest programs. Yeah. 5:41 And so from a client perspective, like, what is... Like, what, why is there so much demand for in-person right now? I mean, is it, like, a kinda reaction to, you know, AI and just being on screens too much? 5:56 I, I think, yeah. 5:56 I mean, sort of getting into the human psychology part of it, I do think, you know, as more and more time is spent- You know, staring at screens, you want kind of the opposite thing from that to kind of balance your sort of life experience. 6:10 And so I think that's why there's continued, if not growing appetite for people to go to events of various kinds. I think from, from a sort of business perspective for us, primarily we operate in B2B categories. 6:24 B2B categories that are often, you know, not looking for mass reach. There's a- Yeah... 6:29 very specific set of people that they want to get access to and influence, and if you can pull together 100 or 200 of the right ones, that's hugely valuable. I mean, it's, it's lead gen for them. 6:41 So- Yeah, it's a true B2B business. Yeah, it's a true B2B business. 6:44 So I think it's particularly relevant for the Journal, but I think it continues to work for us and others because people seem to still really want to go out and be around other humans. Yeah. You know? 6:55 A- and maybe more than they used to. I know that, like, look, there, there's always too much of everything. Yeah. There are, there are too many websites. There's too many apps. Yeah. There's too many podcasts. 7:05 There's, there's too many YouTube videos. Too many activations on the beach here. [laughs] Too many activations on the beach. But there are so many, there's so many people going hard into events. Yeah. 7:14 And I feel like there's a lot of people who I notice who's, like, of, not, not the Journal- Yeah... 7:20 the, and not Dow Jones, but the, a lot of people are going into events as their, like, you know, advertising business is, is getting worse. 7:26 I, I think that's right, and I think for some it may help and potentially even, you know, turn, turn around a negative trend. 7:33 But i- if you don't have a group of people who really value what they get from you a- and with whom you have already established trust and engagement, I think it's gonna be hard to sustain that. 7:48 I think it works for certain players, not, not for everyone. 7:51 It'll be interesting to see, you know, a- after this sort of influx of, of activations from publishers and platforms of, of various sizes, how many of them have staying power doing it. 8:02 Yeah, because I end up wondering, like, also, you know, events, the measurement can be, can be squishier, right? Like, when I- Well, in a wa- in a way, but, you know, for our partners, it's, 8:15 like, a big part of what we do with them and for them is sit down, talk about who's coming, who do they wanna meet, facilitate bilateral. So, like, they're down to the person. Yeah. 8:26 How ma- you know, h- how many new leads did I get? Did I further my- Right... conversation with company X? So i- in some way it's- Well, that's what you have to do... it's very accountable. Yeah. But that's what I mean. 8:33 That's what you have to do, is, like, make sure that the ROI- It, it won't work long term unless that's what you're delivering. Yes. If you're filling the room with- Yeah... 8:40 anybody for optics or whatever, like, the ROI on that's not gonna sort of- Yeah... you know, hold up. And how do you end up, like, thinking about stitching it together with all of the other, you know, products? 8:51 Well, you'll see e- e- you know, even here in Cannes, obviously most of our focus is on the CMO community, and the CMO community is largely, for us, about advertising, et cetera. 9:03 But we just had a panel at Journal House with the GM of Factiva, which is a product that licenses from other publishers, so sort of a different kind of a relationship. 9:13 And in Davos you'll see panels that we'll do with people from our risk team or our energy team. 9:19 And, and, and even outside of Journal House, our CEO council meetings in DC or California, it will now be more of a combination of, you know, programming from the newsroom, but also from our geopolitical risk business. 9:33 Yeah. 9:33 So we find ways to bring that expertise into these events that are increasingly like a container for interesting information for a community of people that could come from a broader set of Dow Jones assets than historically- Yeah... 9:49 was the case. I've always found your council business, like, fascinating. Yeah. Well, that's a, that's another thing. That's a paid membership, and one of the main benefits is the convening- Right... 10:00 the peer-to-peer interaction. So, you know. But it's like a membership model. I- it's a membership model that also has sponsorship- Right... that also works. That's the, that's why I found it fascinating, Josh. 10:08 [laughs] These are people who we, we do business with directly, so i- you know, you could argue there's sort of, like, three bites at the apple. Yeah. Yeah. 10:15 'Cause I always feel like a lot of, a lot of media, like, it's, it's a, it's what you know, but it's also, like, a who you know. Yeah. 10:21 And it's like getting the right people in a room, particularly if you're in, like, with business decision makers- Yeah... is, is a great business. It's, it's, it's, not everyone can do it, you know? 10:30 I, I don't wanna say it's easy, but if you have that power, there's a lot of benefit to, to, to be sort of reaped from it. Exactly. Yeah. So final thing is, I'm asking this to everyone. 10:40 I did not prepare you at all whatsoever. That's fine. [laughs] How many times have you been to Cannes? It's been nine with Dow Jones and probably five or six with Conde. Okay. So it's up there. You're, like, up there. 10:50 You're up there with me. No. Not quite yet, Josh. Yeah. I'll get there. What is, like, what's- But you gotta stop coming for me to catch up. [laughs] I do, I do, I do. [laughs] May- one of these years. Yeah. 10:58 What, what's, like, a quintessential Cannes memory? Like, specific. Oh, gosh. Uh- Something that stands out in your mind, like, "Hmm, yeah, that's an only in Cannes sort of thing." Oh, that's a great question. 11:09 I mean, I've certainly never sweat this much. [laughs] You know, every year that's true. This year's particularly bad, and so that's not something I would normally, like, tolerate, but here I, I'm forced to. Yeah. 11:21 Oh, well, you know, I, I won't, I won't, I won't say where, but you know, I, I have the luxury, at least now that I'm at Dow Jones, of being able to be at Journal House for most of my time, which makes sort of- Yeah... 11:31 my operation, operating easier. But you know, on the rare occasions I've taken, like, one of those, you know, "Oh, we'll take a car out to this person's villa," it's always, like, you know, twice as long as- Oh, yeah... 11:43 they say it's gonna be, and I've, I've walked into some pretty weird situations. Yeah. Sure. [laughs] Okay. We'll just l- we'll just leave it there. Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Yeah. 11:50 I think although the twice as longs, I think, I think you came to a dinner I did up in the hills, and it was- That one was great... abso- It was not weird at all. 11:55 [laughs] It was, well, it was absolutely twice as long as it was. Yeah, no. I, I told everyone it was 15 minutes. Yeah. That's, that, that's, that's the right thing to do. Yeah. You're a good marketer, so it's good. 12:03 I mean, it's Cannes. Yeah. If you can't f- Yeah... if you can't, like, fudge it here- Yeah... you can't fudge it ever. Where, where can you? Yes. Awesome. Josh, thank you so much. All right. Thanks for having me. 12:10 This was fun. Thanks. [upbeat music]
