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How Condé Nast Experiments, Bundles, and Wins — Michael Ribero, Condé Nast
00:27:26
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- [00:00]
Michael Ribeiro
A lot of people want to launch a premium product and I'm like, no, I think that's the status quo. It's like, no, but prove to me there's going to be enough value and like there is another cohort here that isn't just like 1 or 2% that we're going to do a lot of work for. Maybe not a lot of return.
- [00:16]
David Barnard
Welcome to the Sub Club Podcast, a show dedicated to the best practices for building and growing app businesses. We sit down with the entrepreneurs, investors and builders behind the most successful apps in the world to learn from their success, successes and failures. Sub Club is brought to you by RevenueCat. Thousands of the world's best apps trust RevenueCat to power in app purchases, manage customers, and grow revenue across iOS, Android and the web. You can learn more@revenuecat.com let's get into the show. Hello, I'm your host, David Barnard. My guest today is Michael Ribeiro, senior VP of Global Consumer Revenue at Conde Nast, where he helps oversee storied brands like Vogue, the New Yorker, gq, and so many more. This episode was recorded live on stage at RevenueCat's AppGrowth annual conference. On the podcast, I talk with Michael about the blessing and curse of having a brand, why post purchase is a perfect upsell moment, and why partnerships are hard to pull off but can be well worth the effort.
- [01:32]
Michael Ribeiro
Thanks for having me.
- [01:34]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, I have really been looking forward to this chat. So you and I got a chance to chat a few times ahead of this and listen, you've been on a lot of podcasts. If you want some good listening, just search Michael Ribeiro, YouTube podcast and other things like that. He's shared a lot of insights over the years. And so we're going to pull some new things in, maybe some old things in, but it's going to be a really fun conversation.
- [01:55]
Michael Ribeiro
Exciting.
- [01:56]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Thanks so much for joining me today. So the first thing I wanted to kick off with is competition and brand. And you know, we're in this place in the industry where creating apps to compete is so much easier with AI and we're seeing just a proliferation of apps. I mean, we were talking, Jacob was talking earlier about the insane increase we've seen in the number of apps shipped. You know, you have Instagram creators sharing recipes, competing with Bon Appetit. You have bloggers and influencers and everything completing for mindspace with the New Yorker. And there's like so much competition. And then you were at the Washington Post where like, you know, media has had a decade of challenges with all the new competitors and how to monetize and everything like that. And so I thought it'd be really interesting to start here because I think a lot of the people in this room and listening afterward will be in a place where they're starting to get a little worried. Like, how do I compete? Like, you know, what does brand mean in this new age when you know, Cal AI spun up out of nowhere with 17 year olds and it's competing with my fitness pal and lose it and you know, some of these storied brands in the app space are now facing competition from like 17 year old kids. So I wanted to start there of like, how do you think about competition and brand and how to manage that?
- [03:18]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, I'd probably offer maybe three different things here. So brand, I think blessing and a curse. Blessing in the sense where you have this storied past. I think the challenge was a lot of brands, especially in, in media, you potentially get stuck in that past or you essentially become your parents app and like nobody wants to be their parents app. Like maybe your parents, I don't know, liquor or something else. But like when you're your parents app or you're your parents media outlet, I think that could be a very difficult place to be. So that I think that's the tension that we ultimately work through. But you know, I think you, you do have brand recognition, you have consideration because you've potentially been exposed to, you know, this brand since a very young kid. I think, you know, whether it's Washington Post or whether it's, you know, MTV and a lot of these different things, someone's exposure is not necessarily like when they're thinking about buying or ever going to be a buyer. It's 10, 15, 20 years before that. And you know, it's thinking, how do you ultimately nurture that tie over time. I know it's kind of backwards and maybe not appropriate for an app conversation, but I always refer to John Deere. If anybody has kids in the audience but they make essentially like a small little tractor and you know, that kid is never going to probably not going to be a buyer of a tractor for 40 or 50 years. But it's the early positive association that I think you can ultimately build on over time. The second is, you know, media I think is very, is interesting in the sense everyone is maybe a frenemy. Platforms and other brands. I think it's nice with media in a lot of times it's not a zero sum game. So you can be a watcher or a reader of one publication and usually that's actually a positive indication you're going to read other things. So in a sense, we fight for real estate on the home screen or the app. But in a way, you know, there's always that second position, third position. The platforms is also an interesting one just because it is this frenemy. You know, it's fighting for now time. Like, how much time do you want to spend on the Office? And, you know, historically for us, like, Facebook was a great referrer. You know, all of these social platforms are a great referrer. And now they're like, we don't want to refer you any traffic. It's a very difficult dynamic to deal with because, you know, at the same time, a lot of our readers and our, you know, our current readers, the people who want to ultimately subscribe, are on those platforms too, and spend a big chunk of time on this platform. So we really have to find ways to work together. Easy to say, I think really hard to do. Again, even Conde Nast is a really small drop in the bucket for, you know, someone like Meta. They say they care, but I know they don't really care. And so we have to fight really hard in order to, you know, how do we do programming, how do we do paid media, how do we do those various things? So I think, you know, between those two things, it is really important we continue to invest in it. You know, the one thing I think we were kind of getting into backstage too, is potentially finding ways where you can be different. Yeah, you know, the one for us, I think, has really been how do you bring people together in real life? I think community is really important to people, especially now. And, you know, in the context of AI and all that. Jeff as. But we have this platform I think we've used well and, you know, I've seen it across my career where you can bring people together in real life, help support that community, and then ultimately kind of feedback into, well, you know, how do you connect event to event? And it's really like being in the app, doing those sorts of things, spending time with us so you're ready for that next event. That's been a way we've able to see this as a positive cycle.
- [06:37]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, I think the differentiation is the key to a lot of this. And funny, you brought up the frenemy kind of thing. You probably don't even know this. Some of the audience will. I run a weather app on the side, and I actually know that my target market right now for my weather app is weather nerds who probably have two or three other weather apps in the space. And so kind of the way you're thinking about it as well, there are going to be certain categories where it's okay, like embrace the competition, like it's okay. But how do you fight for that Mind share? How do you be the first one they open instead of the second one they open, or the first one instead of the third one that they open? How do you get your widget on the home screen versus like somebody else's widget? And the key there is that the value prop, it's like the differentiation is like, how do you think about that? And like when you were at the Washington Post, I mean, how did you think about that in the world of just abundant free media? You were there as you were transitioning into having to charge more and more, paywalling more things like, how did you think about that transition and so much free competition and creating that value.
- [07:46]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, I think a little or maybe a lot lucky and a little bit good on the lucky front. I mean, there are externalities that I think when you find one of those, like take full advantage. You know, for us it was at the Post, it was the Trump bump and then Covid and it's like, there's nothing I could have done to, you know, to be a fraction of the success that we saw because of those two things. I think, you know, the good part is, you know, when you do get that influx, how do you make the most of it? And then, you know, what, how are you taking the right steps in order to set yourself up for success? You know, one thing we thought a lot about is how much access do we give someone. I think that was, you know, really important. I think it could have been easy to say lock it all, especially in those times and when people would have paid weighing some of these, like short term, long term benefits. Also like, you know, the brand, going back to the brand consideration that we wanted to do right by people, still be successful from a business perspective, but just have that balance of the amount we were harvesting now versus continuing to sustain and feed for potentially success down the road.
- [08:52]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah. How did you think about that separation, the free versus paid? Because I mean this is like if anybody in the audience and listening later, it is a really, really tough thing to get right. And I know Washington Post, y' all experimented with a few different things, right? And like, do you one story, do you get five stories, like, how hard do you pay wall? How many ads do you use? What were some of those internal conversations? Like how do we still be the story brand. And a lot of folks, they won't have that kind of story brand, but they have to make those similar decisions of like, we don't want to make the free experience crappy, but we want to incentivize people. So how did you think about that?
- [09:32]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah. No, good answer.
- [09:35]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
It's a process.
- [09:36]
Michael Ribeiro
No, definitely a process. I mean, I'd maybe say three different ways to approach it. You know, one, I think always doing sort of a competitive audit, you know, who's giving away what. I think, you know, like we were talking about before, I think people who are in the category are going to be in the category. The person who reads the Post is also probably reading the Times, is also reading the Journal and, you know, deciding, you know, do you want to be different than your competitors? And if so, like, do you have a very deliberate reason why? And maybe it's certain sections or certain features, but I think, I think that's one. You know, the second is you've got to try stuff. And I think that's the easy part. I think the hard part is internally convincing people to have this kind of test and learn approach when you have revenue. If you're talking to a product team and they really want to advocate for one part of this should absolutely be free because we want the most people using it. And I think there's that internal debate. And ultimately, if you can align KPIs, I think those conversations become a lot easier. But often I would love a show of heritage of whose company's KPIs are completely aligned so you can all make perfect decisions. It's zero. I know it's zero. So those two. And then lastly, I think just willing to be wrong and maybe willing to walk back, I think about us, we put up a registration wall. We have a property called Pitchfork. It's for music fanatics. It's focused on music reviews. We up a reg wall, registration wall for certain folks. The next day there was a big announcement on the editorial side. And the backlash that we got of you're going to put up this reg wall to now make us register when it was completely free before, and now you're doing all these changes. I mean, it was. It was hard. And so we just took it all down and we said, you know what, we're going to pause and we're going to reset once we, you know, figure out the editorial, you know, product part of it, right? And then we'll, you know, we'll try to re monetize it at that point. And I think I would say we're going back through this process again of like, is now the time? Is now not the time? And I think we earn goodwill by being willing to say, hey, we're going to walk back on what we ultimately did.
- [11:18]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, that's a tough one. You said it's the easy part of figuring it out, but that's a hard part. I mean, especially like a big pitchfork. A brand with very loyal readers and very loyal community. Washington Post, again, storied brand. I mean, this is what I think a lot of us struggle with. My weather app is a hard paywall and I want to move it back to ad supported freemium tier. But then what do you put behind the paywall? What do you do? And I think there's always a hesitation of. And so I love that you shared a mistake. You should make mistakes. Like, if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying hard to like get that balance right. And it's a great example of like, you should try and if you make a mistake, you can recover and you can walk it back and then take the next step. So yeah, if you're operating a freemium app, if you've got a paywall, hard paywall, Apple try figure it out. Like, and you need to.
- [12:13]
Michael Ribeiro
Absolutely. And I would say, you know, with all the testing, a lot of times, you know, the person who I'd say is maybe, you know, closest to the vision, to the mission, I would say is usually right. I think we go back like, so we recently launched Vogue with an app. It was essentially, we relaunched the app, you know, before and we were paywalling stuff, which we hadn't paywalled before. I think we had all of these discussions, what's the right way to do it? Can we overlay AI to make these decisions with us? And ultimately it was like, you know, I think it helps that it's Anna Winter and she's going to have a very strong opinion to but you know, like, her gut was right. It was like, here's the most important stuff and this is the stuff we should make people pay for. So I think when you have a partner like that, you know, whoever might be in your organization, it's really helpful because usually that's right, that's.
- [12:54]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
And a win tour. Being your partner and figuring out your paywall, that's pretty cool. Well, the next thing I wanted to talk about was, you know, as a story brand but as a print publication, that's like trying to enter the modern age. I've been impressed with all the different kinds of monetization, experimentation that y' all have been doing to figure out this new age. And so, you know, I have a whole list of things that you've been playing with. Bundling, unbundling, rebundling, post purchase, upsell. So let's walk through those one by one and talk about. And this is something I think, again, this is, you know, Tinder and Duolingo and Conde Nast and some of these bigger brands have started to figure these things out that the rest of us will be figuring out over the next few years. And so I want to hear from you, like, how are you increasing LTV with those purchase upgrades? How are you bundling? Let's start with those.
- [13:50]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, no, absolutely. I wish I could take credit for a lot of this and it was a novel idea or not. The one thing I would say is I always go back. I think it was Picasso who said the quote, but good artists copy, great artists steal. I mean, to me, that is, I think I've based a lot of my career on that. I mean, on the bundling. I think part of it is what assets do you have and then how do you ultimately put them together? You know, you look at something like the New York Times, the newspaper was deconstructed over years and years and years with the Internet, with, you know, various things, and they're essentially putting it all back together, making it really easy to buy. I think it, you know, helps that, you know, they were getting outside pressure to say, like, make a bet on this. So I think that that was a catalyst for a lot of our conversations internally at Conde Nas. We benefit from. We have this very wide portfolio from GQ to Vogue. You know, I go back to this double edged sword is a lot of times these things seem to fit together, but sometimes they don't. You know, the question is, is someone who is interested in Architectural Digest also going to be the person who is reading Wired? I think yes, at points, but, you know, probably a lot of the time, no, those are some of the considerations we went into what I will say and I, you know, now seeing this work over multiple instances when you get to that point of purchase, giving people more for less money is always an equation that's going to work. So like coming from tv, at one point in my life, most people watch, and this was probably five or six years ago, most people watch something like six to eight channels. We would try all sorts of messaging, all sorts of packaging to say, hey, you know, just get six to eight channels. Every single test that we ran it. Lost. When you said get over 100 channels, I mean, it was just. It was unbelievable to see. But I think, you know, reinforce this, the idea of, like, when you have that moment of truth, really making sure you put your best foot forward, even if it is like, it doesn't make sense or it doesn't agree with any of the research and really the importance of testing. So that's kind of where we came from. I think the one good thing, too, which we're seeing now just on the bundling, is all of a sudden you have different ways in to a consumer usually, say, with a single subscription, or if you don't pull it apart, it's, hey, it's one monolith. There's a benefit here. And we're just going to keep hammering that one benefit. Context may not make sense. There's something might be external, at least for us. And I'm sure a lot of people who are doing the bundling is. Here's another reason why we can show you the value of the subscription. There's a new event coming on. There's a new tent pole that we could talk about. So that's been really interesting for us on the bundling front.
- [16:14]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, you know, a lot of folks, they're thinking, well, I don't have gq, Vogue and things to bundle, but when you're at the Washington Post, you're bundled with Headspace. Tell me about that deal. Because this is another thing where I think we're going to see the subscription industry going is these kind of bundles, like, you know, okay, you know, you're a huge outdoor fan with all trails, and they have some weather features in there, but can they bundle all trails with the Weather Channel to create this, like, synergistic bundle between the two? And I'm just throwing ideas out there, but, like, those kind of things. And you did that at the Washington Post. What did that look like? Bundling with Headspace?
- [16:49]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, I would go, you know, two different, like, so bundle internally. I do think there's a path bundling internally. You have more assets than I think you think you have. We recently relaunched the Wired subscription. And, you know, one thing that we were doing, but maybe not necessarily charging for was AMAs with editors. And now all of a sudden, we said, hey, this is now part of the subscription. We're only going to make it subscription only. And so I think there are things that either you're doing that you can now put into a subscription and call it a bundle or, you know, probably low lift, but Maybe high impact to kind of continue to build that, that existing offering you had on the partnership front. I'll just warn, like, buyer beware. Partnerships are really hard, really hard. And you know, we did multiple at, at the Washington Post, which I think is super exciting. You know, I think the theme we really tried to coalesce around one of two things. One is like the occasion, like coffee and newspaper go together really well. And so like we, we hammered that a whole in a, in a bunch of different ways. You can have access in, you know, certain cafes or, you know, get a Washington Post branded coffee bean with your subscription. So that made sense. And then, you know, the other was really, what person are you going after? That's kind of more in line, what you were talking about. The context also helped in the sense, like a lot of the research we got was people were just overwhelmed by the news. And so the insight for us was, yes, we do some counter programming, shoulder programming that is either happy news or food or whatever it might be. But realistically, the Post is going to be known for very serious topics Washington, very serious stuff. So how do we bring in this moment of maybe peace and calm? That was the thinking there. You know, I would say trying to hammer out a deal. And really, I think going in eyes wide open is like, are you going to be the big fish or the little fish? And not to say like, either position is bad or maybe big spoon or little spoon, but being okay with that going in. I think, you know, when you have two companies that are kind of of equal size or at least in the same ballpark, all of a sudden it's like, I want it on my stack and I want control of the building relationship and all those things. You know, we've run into issues, I've run into issues before, so, you know, really being deliberate about that. But if you can make it work, I think very cool, very cool for the press and then, you know, definitely business results behind it too.
- [19:03]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So what are you working on with post purchase upsells? I know that you made a lot of headway with this.
- [19:08]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, I think this is if there's one thing I always try to do, like one, do this thing, I call it post purchase upsell. But once you sell your subscription, either sell something else, have someone else sell the real estate to someone else so they can sell something or ask someone to, you know, do some sort of action, that point of purchase is probably the most engaged your customer is ever going to be. You know, we've taken advantage of that in typically upselling another title or you know, upselling a premium type of product. So you know, for example, if you subscribe to Architectural Digest, most of the times we don't know in what realm are you, are you just a consumer who's aspirational or is this your business? So we will offer kind of the business membership after purchase and you know, we get pretty decent conversion rates in that 5ish percent. And all of a sudden, you know, I have zero incremental customer acquisition costs and you know, now I'm driving something like 100 to $200 in lifetime value from just one pop up.
- [20:07]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, like give people an opportunity to spend more.
- [20:09]
Michael Ribeiro
Just. Yes. And you know, you think about and you know, any sort of purchase but like you know, car or McDonald's or whatever it might be when the credit cards out, like you're ready to go, you know, and so how do I just maybe put one more thing in front of you? And again, I don't need great conversion. I just need little. And I'm making a little bit more money.
- [20:25]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Yeah, I was talking to, I don't know if he's in the room, but Toby from Bright Mind. This is a guy to talk to if you're here in the audience or at the conference. I was talking to him earlier. He runs Bright Mind. It's a mental health app, like kind of a meditation app. And I've known him for gosh like five years. We had an office hours call together and we were just talking like 15 minutes ago about how his app has done all right. It's such a crowded space, it's so hard. And so he recently introduced online intensives, one on one coaching, monthly four hour meditation events, week long meditation retreats and by taking the thousands of subscribers, but then the tens of thousands of engaged email list and everything else like that. He increased revenue 50% by just thinking out of the box, like okay, you're a subscription app, but what else can you sell? Like coffee beans in the Washington Post. So I know a lot of this sounds like oh, he said at Conda Nast and he was at Washington Post, like you can't do this. Toby's doing it. He's thinking outside that box and increasing LTV and increasing revenue by trying new stuff and engaging that audience. So props to you and go find him. But that's exactly the kind of stuff we're talking about. And it doesn't have to be at a global scale, it can be in a smaller scale.
- [21:42]
Michael Ribeiro
Absolutely, absolutely. I love it. That's really great stuff. I Think lessons for everyone to learn. But I do think knowing, especially if you just started an app, I think those are probably going to be your most loyal buyers. And knowing that the demand curve is not flat, it is probably very steep, especially for those first buyers.
- [22:00]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
But the willingness to pay curve, we're not taking advantage of that.
- [22:04]
Michael Ribeiro
Absolutely. And I think we've tried to do that on a lot of occasions. But maybe doing bespoke stuff that doesn't scale but you think is going to be worth it. I'm highly supportive of. Yeah.
- [22:15]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So what do you mean by unbundling? I'm still a little confused about that essentially.
- [22:20]
Michael Ribeiro
You know, I think a lot of like the pushback that we've got is, you know, from a media perspective is this concept of subscription fatigue. And I think paired with the fact that, you know, news and kind of I'm overwhelmed with content. And so the thinking was can you essentially create a micro product or a mini product, maybe the Diet Coke to the Coke. And so when I was at the post, we did something called Starter Pack and as opposed to getting an unlimited subscription, it was essentially read four stories every single month and then you can decide you're going to. If you consume more, you're going to hit then another pay wall or kind of like an upgrade wall and then go forward from that. So that's the thinking.
- [22:57]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
And that was like two bucks a month, right? Yeah, it's like way undercut your main. But how did that turn out from an LTV perspective?
- [23:05]
Michael Ribeiro
Jury's still out. Well, so I think there's two things. The one thing I have appreciated about publishing, extremely difficult to be in, but you get a lot of visitors and you get a lot of data. And I think like we ultimately decided that this couldn't be a product that we were going to advertise to everyone. It was really in the cases where we saw low propensity, we would determine propensity really based on referral source or, you know, something like that. But if we could determine you were going to be really low propensity, this would be an offering and it would kind of be, but. But really hidden, kind of behind the scenes, but just trying to, I would say lower the hurdle to get you into our payment ecosystem and then we could go from there.
- [23:43]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
No, that's so smart. And I mean there's so many ways to do that in an app. I mean, I was talking to Will from Rustumi recently and we were talking about like they have some really clever things they're thinking about with being able to engage those people who. And you know, it's pretty common in the industry now of like, you know, people are closing out the paywall. You like, hey, they're there.
- [24:03]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah.
- [24:04]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
So give them an offer, like bring them in.
- [24:05]
Michael Ribeiro
Absolutely.
- [24:06]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
But there's even, you know, even more smart, even smarter, more sophisticated ways to do that with data to figure out if they're low propensity, like give them that, but don't give that to everybody. That's great. The last thing I wanted to talk about was tiering and how you think about tiering. And again, I think there's just so much headroom as a super tripping app industry. We're still not fully exploring the tinders and duolingos are getting there, but exploring the entire demand curve of the people who just love your brand who are just willing to spend way more, more than than your current offerings are. So how, how have you thought about breaking up those tiers and being able to offer those like really hardcore fans who are willing to spend a lot more. Let them spend. How do you think about.
- [24:49]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah, I think really interesting question. I don't think anyone's done it super well. I would say my thinking on this has changed before was like, let's just launch new products, you know, and new tiers, you know, to that to capitalize on this very dynamic. Some people are willing to pay more than others. The adoption rates I've seen have been low single percentage. And it's like, well, is it even worth it? So, you know, I think I'm more now I talk to the, you know, our editors a lot and a lot of people want to launch a premium product. And I'm like, no, I think that's the status quo. It's like, no, but prove to me there's going to be enough value. And like there is another cohort here that isn't just like 1 or 2% that we're going to do a lot of work for. Maybe not a lot of return when we can be doing other things like IRL or merch or whatever it might be to sort of capitalize on that same dynamic. So I think if you have enough, great. It does feel the examples out there, whether it's ad free or family. Okay. I'm still not completely sold on if that makes sense in the media world, but we're thinking about it. The one thing I would call out is we've gone more of the away from the app, but into kind of the membership community world and you know, Vogue, I think presents a really good case study in trying to monetize different parts of the demand curve or the willingness to pay curve. We have extremely high priced products, very elite select people, everything irl, everything white glove to all the way down to like, you know, freemium in an app. You know, making sure that your, your brand, your company, your product, whatever it is, has like a large enough umbrella and if not like really being the default in. No, don't do it. Focus on driving as much subscription as value into your subscription. Get the retention rates right, get the, you know, the right pricing that you think makes the most sense before. You kind of want to distract yourself.
- [26:33]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Because it is distracting for a lot of companies. There is still so much low hanging fruit. Don't jump to the premium tier before you've captured a lot of the low hanging fruit. But you can think more strategically of like, here's what we're wanting to build over the next five years and here's how we're going to build toward offering that much value that we can charge more. So it's a fascinating place to play in. Yeah.
- [26:55]
Michael Ribeiro
Yeah. All right.
- [26:56]
Podcast Host/Interviewer
Well, it's been so much fun chatting with you. I wish we could talk for another hour, but appreciate it. Thank you so much.
- [27:01]
Michael Ribeiro
Thank you.
- [27:09]
David Barnard
Thanks so much for listening. If you have a minute, please leave a review in your favorite podcast player. You can also stop by chat.subclub.com to join our private community.