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The Digiday Podcast
How news publishers are adapting post-election, with Yahoo News’s Kat Downs Mulder
00:48:45
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- [00:10]
Tim Peterson
Hello.
- [00:10]
Kameka McCoy
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Digiday Podcast. I am your co host, Kameka McCoy, senior marketing reporter here at Digiday. And today I am joined by a very special guest, Kale Weissman, editor in chief of Modern Retail and host of the Modern Retail podcast. Our regular co host, Tim Peterson is en route to Nashville today for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit. So grateful to have Kale on the pod today. Kale, it's great to have you. How was your Thanksgiving?
- [00:36]
Kale Weissman
Great to be here, Kimiko. My Thanksgiving was really nice. I went to my parents place, we ate food, we had a good time and then I had a nice relaxing weekend back in New York City, which was great. How was yours?
- [00:47]
Kameka McCoy
Mine was good. We are still working our way through leftovers. I think I've maybe got one more day in me before I make myself sick.
- [00:53]
Kale Weissman
No, you have to strategically have the turkey sandwiches and all that. Though famously my family, I grew up vegetarian and so we had an all vegetarian feast which was very fun and we had to come up with new ways to make the leftovers interesting.
- [01:07]
Kameka McCoy
Oh my gosh. It's a tough go. But thankful for social media that has been introducing me to some new concepts so I can move beyond the basics. So obviously we are recording this on the heels of Black Friday Cyber Monday. So this is gonna be a very fun episode leading into B.C. excuse me, BFCM. God bless you if you don't know that acronym, which is the shorthand for Black Friday Cyber Monday, something you and Nick Abby Barko touch on last week in the Modern Retail rundown podcast episode. But before we get into the wheeling and the dealing, let's talk about this week's guest. Naturally, we are still thinking politics and election after the most recent election. So this week Tim sat down with Kat Downs Mulder, who is the senior vice president and general manager at Yahoo News. The two of them talked about the Trump bump 2.0 and what today's reader looked like versus how this all played back out in 2016. So railroad juicy. But before that, we're going to talk about our juicy scoops. I'm going to trademark that at some point, but Black Friday Cyber Monday, like I said here, Kale, did you buy anything? Any deals that you've had your eye on?
- [02:15]
Kale Weissman
I'm terrible at holiday shopping, so. And I usually do holiday shopping for like myself. So I bought what I bought some skincare things that are expensive that were like, like cleanser that's usually $40 and was now $30 and like a protein Powder that was that I wanted to test out but I'm terrible at giving gifts and I do it all last minute, so nothing that forward looking.
- [02:36]
Kameka McCoy
I am in the same boat. I bought a single pack of knives, a knife set, rather nice. And it's only because the ones that I have are so dull, so dull. They're becoming like a hazard in my kitchen at this point.
- [02:49]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, that's the same here actually. I need to buy some new knives cause we realized that like I was close to chopping my finger off when it wasn't going through like a cucumber or something.
- [02:56]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, 100%. It's insane that that's what takes me to buy a something for Cyber Monday. But I think what's interesting here is that we're not seeing the big box stores like Walmart and Target anymore. The rush of people going there. Right. I don't know if you remember the all out brawls that used to happen in Target and Walmart and some of those stores. I remember like seeing people fight on the news over flat screens TVs. Did you ever watch that stuff?
- [03:21]
Kale Weissman
I might be a little bit older than you, but this was like the cultural shift of like being in the late 90s, early 2000s of seeing those and my family talking like should we get up early and try to get things and us being like, no, it's not worth it, like I don't want to, I don't want to wait in line or like get punched in the face. And there are also a bunch of movies we could talk about, like Jingle all the Way I think is what it was, which had, I don't know, I won't go too deep in it, but there was a big cultural moment of specifically going to stores, waiting in line, trying to get, you know, a specific product for a lesser price and if it's off the shelves, it's not available again.
- [03:55]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. Oh my God. I said Target and Walmart, but I completely forgot about Best Buy where people would literally be camped out like after Thanksgiving. The turkey hasn't even settled in your stomach and you're outside waiting in the cold at Best Buy. Oh my goodness.
- [04:08]
Kale Weissman
Yeah. All just for, you know, back then a plasma TV or something like that.
- [04:12]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. And now all of that shopping is hap shopping. Now all of that shopping is happening online. Walmart has really managed to beef up its E commerce business and that's something that you again have touched on. So talk to me a little about how Walmart's E commerce business is shaping up. You know, several Reports have touched on it and how their expectations compare in Target. So talk to me about what you're seeing there.
- [04:33]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, I mean Walmart, if you just look at the earnings, there's always this rivalry between Walmart and Target and also Walmart and Amazon and in the I guess taxonomy of who's on top, Amazon's always on top. And it's about which between Walmart and Target will win. Right now Walmart is truly proving to be the beast in its recent earnings. It just like killed it. And a lot of that was because it saw really big gains on its E commerce sales also. And we'll probably talk about this in a few minutes, it's been really growing its advertising business and it's also just been the right sort of angling to reach the consumer right now. So Target has always been, and we've talked about this on my show a lot like Target is sort of for the more affluent or like nicer things. You know, Target people call it where you know, it is everyday essentials but also it's not considered like the lowest of the low prices. Whereas Walmart does kind of have the lowest of the low prices but also has nicer things and has been trying to target more affluent, you know, people who have, you know, a six figure income. And so Walmart has really been able to do that, really excel at that. And this year it's been growing its E commerce business, it's been onboarding more E commerce sellers, it's been seeing really big E commerce gains just in the overall business. And we don't have the numbers of exactly how good Walmart did for Black Friday Cyber Monday, but I imagine that's going to be one of the really big players, especially since Walmart has been really focusing on having a lot of its deals be online. And just a stat that was pretty astounding I found. And this is not just for Walmart, this is for everyone. On Black Friday alone people spent 10 points billion online. So $10.8 billion online, 10% more than last year.
- [06:13]
Kameka McCoy
Holy cow.
- [06:13]
Kale Weissman
And then also, and I thought this was really interesting is that 69% of all black Friday purchases came from mobile devices. And so that's like, you know, more than two thirds made with mobile devices. It just shows that people are buying their things online. They're not going to stores, they're not doing the whole door buster thing anymore. They're just looking it up on their phone and they're buying. And I think that's a really big shift in a how retailers are thinking about their holiday strategies but also just how people are shopping and thinking about their holiday present planning.
- [06:43]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, if you're shopping on your mobile device, there's no chance of somebody punching you in the face over a flat screen tv. So a win win.
- [06:49]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, exactly.
- [06:51]
Kameka McCoy
I will say though that I can only imagine that this is really good news for advertisers who have been doubling down on Walmart's ad business. I wrote a while back about Walmart Connect, kind of stepping out of Amazon Shadow. Don't get me wrong, it's, you know, it's still a pretty big gap between Amazon's retail business and ad business versus Walmart's ad business, but they are gaining ground. A big part of Walmart's appeal is its size. So as that E commerce arm continues to grow and build out muscle, I imagine that it will continue taking in those ad dollars, you know, with more data, more capabilities, more eyeballs to offer up to advertisers.
- [07:26]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, and I think it's really important to note that, and this has always been the case, but we're really seeing it pay dividends this year is that Walmart is really doing a very Amazon like play when it comes to advertising. So it's building its Walmart Connect, its ad network like pretty much how Amazon works. And I think now we're seeing this pay dividends. We wrote a story, I want to say last week or something like that, that at its earnings about a third of Walmart's profit is specifically coming from it selling ads. And so it just shows that a, there's more inventory Walmart is connecting. Walmart has in store advertising of course like any traditional retail media network, but it also has its app, it also has its E commerce website and as it continues to invest in making more people use it for E commerce purchases and think of it as a place to purchase things similar to the way they do on Amazon. It's only going to grow and that's going to be very, very appetizing for advertisers specifically because of all of the other players out there. Like you've written about this a million times, every retailer, every platform is trying to launch its own retail media network. But Walmart is the one that's most poised for success because of the data it has. It's the biggest retailer in the world. It's going to be able to actually really help advertisers target and find the best way to reach the shoppers they want to. And so you know, it's oh, it's been growing a Little bit every year, but this is the year where we're really seeing Walmart's advertising business boom and help with, you know, Black Friday, Cyber Monday holidays, but also just grow its profits.
- [08:51]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, and the more and more tentacles it grows, the more and more successful it stands to be. Right. The Visio deal hasn't shaken out yet, but that's obviously on the table which would make that off platform. So things that are not on Walmart's app or in store really, really big gets for advertisers as they're looking to reach people that are off those off those networks. And the more that a retailer has that can offer that, the better chance they stand to gobble up some of those ad dollars, including national brand marketing dollars versus some of the lower funnel dollars that they were tapping into.
- [09:21]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, it's exactly right. The Vizio deal is exactly playing into that. And also it doesn't have an engine to do it quite yet. But I would not be shocked if in the next year or two we see either via acquisition or something else, Walmart really making a play that really competes with Amazon Prime Video. So a streaming service. I'm not, you know, I don't have any inside information, but I imagine like that is what Walmart wants, is a top of funnel way to reach customers so that it can sell ads even more the way that Amazon is selling ads via Prime Video.
- [09:51]
Kameka McCoy
Absolutely. Now I will say I could turn this entire podcast into the Walmart Connect hour because I love talking about that so much. But also on you guys podcasts, you touched on how things are shaping up with TEMU and Sheen, which are also really, really big competitors in the E commerce space.
- [10:07]
Kale Weissman
Right.
- [10:07]
Kameka McCoy
And they pose an additional threat to US retailers this year. So I can imagine who or which generation is fueling that growth. But talk about how you guys reported that out on your end.
- [10:18]
Kale Weissman
Yes, this was a huge year for Shein and temu. You know you are right that it probably has something to do with younger shoppers like Gen Z. But also it's just been a major competitor to everyone, including Amazon. And it's very rare that you see Amazon admit that it has competition. But I want to say a week or two before Black Friday hit, Amazon launched a Temu competitor that looked exactly like Temu called Hall.
- [10:44]
Kameka McCoy
Oh yes.
- [10:44]
Kale Weissman
All this to say is that clearly the major retailers are seeing big Big are scared of these new entrants. And so we have some stats that we posted about a week ago which just shows how big TikTok and Temu are proving this is according to earnest analytics. But TikTok shop sales in the first two weeks of November were they more than tripled compared to last year. It should be noted that TikTok shop launched a little over a year ago, so to see growth is expected, but tripling its sales is pretty big. Temu, which has been around for a couple of years now saw sales rise 18% and shein saw sales grow 16%. All of these for the first two weeks of November according to Earnest Analytics. They're seeing sales rise, which means people are shopping on them. And then Amazon, its sales were kind of flat the first two weeks of November. Target's sales fell by 4%. And pretty much overall you're seeing major retailers, especially traditional retailers, they did not perform as well those first two weeks of November while these other platforms saw big gains. And I think that points to that. These competitors are real. They should not be ignored. And I imagine we're going to begin to see some new stats come out about this weekend to see how big they performed because they were all having huge sales. Trying to get Black Friday Cyber Monday money in.
- [12:05]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, let's actually lean into TikTok shop. That was another thing that I wanted to touch on with you, which is another angle of the e commerce Black Friday Cyber Monday blitz. Here is TikTok shop, right? Apparently the QVC style streaming is big business, much more than I expected it to be, having grown up with QVC. But TikTok reported that it drove over $100 million in US sales on TikTok shop. Business reporter, Business Insider, excuse me, reported that story out saying that one creator managed to earn $2 million in a single stream, selling over 100,000 products and grossing more than 3 million across all sales during Black Friday. Kayl, have you used TikTok shop at all? I'm still nervous.
- [12:43]
Kale Weissman
I have not. I'm not. I don't think I'm the target person for. I don't want to watch something that's more than like 30 seconds long. I have bought something from Temu just because I was interested. But TikTok shop I've yet to take the plunge on and I probably should just as a journalistic enterprise, you know.
- [12:59]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah, I'm in. I'm in the same boat, you know, for research purposes I definitely should. But I think it's so interesting to think about, like maybe there's been this back and forth about whether or not the US will adopt the same live stream social shopping tendency. Say that three times fast. Social shopping tendencies that have been picked up overseas. And it's to be determined if we've marked a new era right by TikTok shop kind of gaining popularity. But I think I'm curious to get your thoughts here on is this something that has marked a new era in the US or western approach to live shopping and social shopping, or is this just kind of like a holiday one off, you think?
- [13:37]
Kale Weissman
I mean, I don't have a perfect answer. I will say that every year, every person has said, will next year be the year that livestream shopping takes off in the US and usually that answer is no. And this is the only year where we've actually seen some real traction, I guess you could say. But a lot of this, and this is the big caveat, is that this traction is really subsidized. And so we've, we did reporting a few weeks ago, maybe a month or so ago, just about how TikTok was talking to influencers and talking to brands and saying you need to be posting lives and you need to be selling your things. And it wanted people to be like, it literally told major brands, we want you to do a two hour long live and that that's where you're going to get, you know, we're going to give you traffic if that's the case. And I think that that's really interesting where TikTok does have, however many, you know, a huge amount of users, a lot of people in the US and so if a brand is following what it says it should do, like doing a two hour long live, then it's going to get those eyeballs. Does that mean that consumption patterns are changing and now more people are okay with it and will begin pressing the buy button on TikTok shop. I'm not sure, like the moment TikTok stops subsidizing this growth and stops investing in live shopping, that's when we'll really know whether or not it has made the mainstream in the United States. But I think simply because TikTok is investing so much in it and brands and influencers are following suit, shows that this is the biggest moment livestream shopping has ever had in the United States. And so I think we'll be seeing more of it and it'll be interesting to watch whether or not it'll have an organic follow on where brands actually do this. They do see sales, whether or not it's being pushed by the platform itself.
- [15:18]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. And I almost Wonder too if TikTok shop becomes the exemption to the rule. Right, because you've had a slew of other platforms that have tried something similar in the past. Lemonade lemon 8, yes, was another social shopping app that kind of, you know, came and went to join the graveyard of social apps of Christmas Pass, if you will. Meta has tried this with several products before. So, you know, it's to be determined if TikTok shop stands to be the canary in the coal mine or if this is kind of setting a new precedent here.
- [15:48]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, exactly. And we'll be keeping an eye on it. I'm sure you will too. But I think we're going to get a lot of inflated numbers this holiday season and the real data will come next year where if TikTok is able to post growth from live shopping sales, if other platforms follow suit. If we see legacy brands saying, oh, I should do this, because one thing we have heard in our reporting from legacy brands is they don't want to go and do a two hour long live video and they feel like they don't have to because they're a legacy brand. But if they start doing it, that's how you know it's at the mainstream.
- [16:18]
Kameka McCoy
Exactly, exactly, exactly. So to be determined, the last thing that I want to hit on for our Juicy Scoops segment of this conversation is kind of the overall sentiment on Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You've had a lot of back and forth conversation that's happening online where people are saying that the discounts are not as steep. And part of that I would imagine is just because you've got an extended presence for what Black Friday actually is. I started seeing ads way before Thanksgiving. Right. Kind of. What's that looking like on you guys end?
- [16:45]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, I mean a lot of this is, and I'm sure retailers love that we're saying this, this is Amazon's fault. So Amazon had its second prime day at the beginning of October. That became too many other brands and many other retailers an unofficial kickoff of holiday shopping. Pretty much, brands and retailers have felt forced to begin discounting their products for a longer period of time. And what comes with that is that, you know, you can't have as steep because they're more prolonged. There's another really interesting sort of wrinkle to this, which is that the reason why the discounts are prolonged so much this year is because Black Friday or the holiday shopping season is shorter this year than ever before. So Thanksgiving, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is like five days shorter than it was last year. And that gives retailers and brands fewer days to actually sell their stuff. And so they went way earlier and they had prolonged sales. But they had, you know, not really as steep of discounts or around the same type of discounts they did last year. And also, and you sort of hit on this at the beginning. But, you know, a lot of the really steep discounts that you see on Black Friday historically have been door busters. It's wait in line at Best Buy and you will get this $1,200 TV for $700. And doorbusters don't really exist the way that they did or they don't have the same cultural gravitas that they once did. And so instead you're seeing more muted or longer discounts that are that less in length or less in volume, I should say.
- [18:17]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. I think something that's interesting to your door boasters note is I've only seen a handful of brands that are offering those steep, steep discounts. Oura Ring is one of them. Right. And a handful of others. But they're battling two fronts here. In addition to having to extend how long they're doing their deals. Right. You've also got a really, really economically conscious group of people right now where budget constraints and things like that, economic inflation concerns are still hovering above a lot of people's heads, which impacts their spending. And then on the other point, you've got a new administration coming up and there's been conversations about tariffs and how that is going to impact things. So again, talk to me a little about what that is looking like on your side and your reporting.
- [19:02]
Kale Weissman
I mean, we're seeing there's just so many different things and some of them seem a little conflicting, which, you know, everybody is talking about. And the election was predicated on the issue of higher prices and people feeling like their wallets are being pinched.
- [19:15]
Kameka McCoy
Yep.
- [19:16]
Kale Weissman
The data coming in from this week and the last few weeks is that people do feel like they're having difficulty economically, but they're still buying more things than they did last year. So you feel one thing, you do another. But there is something really interesting that's happening now which sort of has to do with the holidays and also sort of has to do with the election or the or not the election, but the incoming administration, which there's this fear of tariffs that President Trump has talked about. We now have a sense of what they might be. Brands are already kind of freaking out. Retailers have already said they're going to change their supply chain so that they're not necessarily importing a lot from China. But you're seeing retailers already now say, get your products now before the tariff prices set in and it's kind of a marketing ploy. And I mean, we'll see. Maybe prices will go up. But it's this really interesting, you should buy now because it's the holidays, but you should also buy now because this is the lowest the price is going to be before the new administration comes in. So you're seeing some retailers and brands really play into that economic anxiety in a very specific way. Because. Because that'll probably sell more goods.
- [20:18]
Kameka McCoy
I mean, I would say if as a consumer you hate to see it, as a marketer you love to see it.
- [20:23]
Kale Weissman
Yeah, yeah. And I mean it'll be interesting to track prices to see whether or not this actually was the case. Will these major retailers who are talking about pre tariff prices actually raise their prices significantly? Maybe they will, maybe they won't, we don't know. But a lot of it I imagine is just marketing bluster.
- [20:41]
Kameka McCoy
Yeah. Yeah. If nothing else, this conversation has solidified the idea that this has been a Black Friday slash cyber Monday for the books. And that is a perfect transition on the topic of politics. So with no further ado, here is Tim's interview with Kat Downs Mulder over at Yahoo News to talk about The Trump bump 2.0. Thank you so much for joining us. Kael. It's been a pleasure.
- [21:02]
Kale Weissman
Thank you.
- [21:10]
Kat Downs Mulder
Kat. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining us.
- [21:12]
Tim Peterson
Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- [21:15]
Kat Downs Mulder
I'm excited to have you here because so we've been talking a lot on the podcast and then at Digiday we've been covering a lot of the post election implications for all the kinds of companies and industries that we cover, but especially when it comes to news publishers because with Donald Trump being reelected or elected for a second term, there was the huge Trump bump the first time around. And so that's raised all kinds of questions of like, what does this mean for news outlets? What does this mean in terms of like, is there going to be another Trump bump? Is how are journalists going to deal with a volatile news cycle again of 2am posts that just lead the day for journalists and has them scrambling out of bed again at 2am and I'm really happy to have you on to talk about all of this because right now you're at Yahoo News, which is one of the biggest news properties on the Internet. Last time around for the 2016 election, as well as the 2020 election, you were at the Washington Post. So you also had a really great view at that time, where I should probably also date this conversation because things Change so much given since the election. So we're having this conversation about two weeks after the election. Kat, in this two weeks, to what extent have you all at Yahoo News seen any sort of Trump bump?
- [22:38]
Tim Peterson
Well, we have seen an increase in interest both before and during the election and sustained afterward. We're lucky to have a really big user base already and pretty loyal. So most of what happens, although we do see some user growth, is a lot more depth in consumption. So people getting really interested in certain topics and going pretty deep. But we are seeing some growth. People just interested in what's going on in the news. And in my view, it's like an increase in the news cycle is good for journalism. It's good for us as we do independent reporting. So just trying to really keep focused on producing great work and for us, also aggregating great work to help people get the facts that they need to understand what's going on as the cycle intensifies. And there's just a lot happening in the world, in politics and beyond.
- [23:28]
Kat Downs Mulder
Good with that growth. Are you seeing any specific pockets? I'm curious. I know myself. I find myself reading the news a lot more often than I was before. And so I don't know if there are specific audience segments that you've seen really bubble up since the election.
- [23:46]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I think it's hard to predict what's gonna happen in the future and whether increases will sustain and in what ways they are gonna sustain. I think there's. There's readers who are leaning in. They want to know everything that's going on. And then there's readers who are leaning out. They're at that news avoidance, whether it's been going on for them or whether it's new for them. And so our goal is to a highly personalized product. So it's kind of really trying to figure out what their goal is in any kind of given moment and help them satisfy that goal. So for some users, that's a lot more. They're more into politics. They're just paying attention to every detail of what's going on. And then for some readers, that's sort of the tell me what I need to know, tell me the top headlines, and let me move on to the other stuff that I want to read about, like my parenting content or my entertainment content. And they're really digging more into that stuff as they're, you know, a little bit tired of. Of the intensity of the news cycle. And I think there's probably more of that than there was in the 2016 cycle. And so, you know, our goal at Yahoo. Is to just try to figure out what level the person is at and customize the experience to that. Meet them where they are and kind of give them an experience that fits whatever level of interest they have got.
- [24:59]
Kat Downs Mulder
And at this point, to what extent are you able to pick out those signals? Because I also imagine there could be a bunch of noise that makes it hard to identify kind of those two camps or whether someone falls into one of those two camps.
- [25:13]
Tim Peterson
We have a need to know, want to know structure in our products, which is we curate the top news and we use both algorithms and people to curate that top level of news. So that's like, what's going on in the world. And then we have personalized feeds that help you discover content from the vast array of content in our network that's relevant to you. So that personalization engine understands, like, if you're interested in politics and you want to read more politics on certain topics or from certain publications, et cetera, we'll give you more of that. If you're kind of leaning back from that and you're like, I want to read about television or movies, I want to read about Gladiator, then we're going to give you that content. We're going to help you satisfy that need. We always have that need to know so you can catch up and you can be aware. But that next level of go deep and serve me more and help me learn more about the things that I want to know about, I think we are really good at that. We made an acquisition of technology from the app Artifact earlier this year, and we relaunched our news app with that tech, and we've been rolling it out across our products and are working on scaling it into the core ecosystem of Yahoo.com, but that technology is really good at kind of understanding, okay, what's working for you based on what you like to read, what you have read, what time of day it is, what your location is, all that kind of thing. And so again, that kind of need to know, want to know helps us understand. Are you that lean in person or are you that lean out person and kind of calibrate the amount of content for the individual person?
- [26:47]
Kat Downs Mulder
Got it. To what extent do any of those insights get disseminated back to the newsroom, to journalists? We're always trying to figure out what stories should we be covering. What stories are audiences interested in, what stories are we missing? Sometimes that data can be a bit overwhelming or you get a little too beholden to it. I imagine in this case, it could at least be helpful in some form for journalists at Yahoo News to be finding out about that. Is that information made available to them?
- [27:17]
Tim Peterson
It is, yeah. I mean, like a lot of newsrooms, we're pretty. We try to share all the data that can be really relevant to journalists and curators as we try to figure out how to best serve our readers. So, like, for example, we know this is a pretty high level one, but you know, when people come into our app, they tell us what they're interested in and they tell us what they want to read about. Like, among the top topics there is politics, but there's also health and entertainment and television. We know we have the numbers of people who've expressed interest into those topics to us. We also have much more granular data. What are the specific stories and topics they're reading about? What are the specific groups of topics and things that people are reading about? But I think giving journalists and curators the information that they need, again, I agree with you that there can definitely be an information overload, but trying to distill the information so that it's useful and it feels like something that can help you make better decisions about what to cover, what to curate, if there's any gaps in people's knowledge, how to help fill those. Those kinds of just situational awareness that can help us be more effective.
- [28:22]
Kat Downs Mulder
Yeah. It's interesting because I remember doing an interview with Rashida Jones two or three weeks ahead of the election for our Future of TV briefing. And what we were talking about was it seemed like so many news organizations at the time were kind of assuming, okay, it's going to be a minute until the election results come in. Election day coverage is going to be Election week coverage, if not election week's coverage. Because after how 2020 went, this thing could drag on and then it didn't. And the question immediately was, one of the questions was, do news outlets have to pivot their strategies? Grand plans for having coverage in the days after Election Week that were different, obviously, because we got the results that night of you all at Yahoo News. Did you have to make, I imagine you had to make adjustments. What were the adjustments you had to make?
- [29:17]
Tim Peterson
I mean, every news organization is always on its toes all the time, because I think we've all learned the lesson many times over that you just never know what's going to happen in the world and how things are going to play out. So you're always on your toes, you know. So, yeah, definitely we were working on the fly kind of Adjusting our understanding of how long it would take the results to come in and what would be the story the next day and what would be the story in the days that followed. You have people planning to stay in the office for several days after the fact, and then maybe it's not necessary for them to do so. People are just always ready to calibrate based on the news. But I think that if you're always prepared and always paying attention, and I think that, again, like in most newsrooms, people are really thinking about what are all the possible things that could happen, what are the different scenarios that could happen and do we do at Yahoo News and we did at the Washington Post a significant amount of scenario planning, which is, if it's called tonight, this is what we'll do. If it's called tomorrow, this is what we'll do. If it happens in three days is what we'll do. Having some really rigor in that scenario planning process helps you be prepared so that you can pivot to whatever happens.
- [30:31]
Kat Downs Mulder
Okay, were there, like, because I know leading up to the election and even around the time of the election, news organizations would have journalists from different teams kind of coming in and joining the politics team or working more closely alongside the politics team. But that was more journalists parachuting in to help out for a temporary period of time for you all. Imagine that happened. Did they, okay, Wednesday morning, back to your regular beats, or are they still part of the coverage plans?
- [31:04]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I mean, we have stuck with it more than usual. We definitely did that. A little bit of like a swarm on what's going on in politics around the election. Just because you need more capacity, because there's more news and more interest. I think we anticipated election result time would last a little longer than it did, but we were able to really, again, slowly move people back to their original jobs. But there's still more news than there might normally be in a regular political cycle because of all of the nominations and stuff that are being made. I think that we were also really ready for an influx of stories from the publishers we aggregate from, because many of them were putting additional resources into covering the elections or dealing with a higher volume of stories. And that means we need more curators on staff. So in addition to original writing, we're really trying to do a great job sifting through and looking through all of that original stuff from other publishers to try to make sure that we can get that in front of people also. So there's some additional capacity required there.
- [32:15]
Kat Downs Mulder
Got it. Okay. And then where things are Today compared to in 2020 and 2016, are you finding there are different types of stories or approaches to coverage? Whether that's the depth of a story or the way that a story is formatted, or even whether it's text or video or more of a photo or visual story. Have you picked up on any differences this year?
- [32:45]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I think it's everywhere but short form. Vertical video is a popular way to consume information, you know, straight from a person, straight from a reporter. So we've had several reporters doing that kind of work and that's been, you know, we build new features around that and our site app this year. So I think that's important. I think just an accessible and fact based tone is what really works for us. I mean we try to just make. Really what we're looking to do is add in addition to all this aggregated content, our originals team is really focused on adding context and really helping synthesize what's going on and direct people to deep reads from some of our publisher network. We have a format called Express Explainer which is a really quick read through some of the main issues that's worked really well. Just a very quick way to catch up and then give people a diving off point into some deeper reads from various publishers, formats like that. Again, it's very complex information ecosystem out there right now. People are like very overwhelmed. Regular people are just very overwhelmed by the amount of media and they want it to be a little bit more simple and straightforward and they just want to go to a credible source and say like, okay, how can I quickly catch up? How can I not spend all day doing this? But how can I get caught up pretty quickly on things that I care about? And so as we do that, you know, contextualizing layer, when we think about the kind of stories that are going to resonate, really trying to help kind of break it down for people has worked really well for us and has then also not just served those more casual readers, but also those kind of deeper readers who do want to dive off into every deep read that we're recommending on a given topic because they want that 360 perspective. They want to read a bunch of different sources, they want to go way deep on the context. And so I like that format and it's worked well because it kind of is able to serve again, both of those needs more casual and a deeper news consumer need.
- [34:45]
Kat Downs Mulder
Right. You use the words credible source, which I feel like if we were talking even four years ago, it would have been very clear what that meant. It felt like one of the legacies of this election cycle from a news media perspective is credible source has maybe been the definition of which has been the loosest it's ever been with so many people pointing to the role of podcasts and the role of influencers in this election. Also thinking about it from the perspective of while traffic has been up for news outlets leading into the election day and on election day and the days after, it also wasn't up to the extent that it was in 2020. And I imagine there can be a whole variety of reasons for that, but. But I imagine one of those reasons is people are even more on platforms at this point and are expecting the kind of the news to find them on TikTok or on YouTube or obviously Facebook, but even on Spotify at this point. And so many news publishers are having to kind of recalibrate between, okay, how do we get audiences to our properties, but also how do we get our content to audiences on these other platforms? How has Yahoo News been recalibrating on those that front?
- [36:07]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I mean, we're definitely thinking about how we get our content in front of people, no matter where they are. So we have a big social presence on multiple platforms, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or Reddit or X or any of the platforms where people are talking and investigating all the new platforms as potential opportunities. And I think it's really important to be there and be part of that conversation. Even if people aren't discovering news from traditional publishers on social media, they're getting that news from influencers or creators or non traditional news sources. There often is a moment in their news journey, which we know from research that we've done, where they are going to seek more traditional sources for news. And so one of the ways we can meet them in that need is by being there for them when they start seeking that deeper, you know, deeper reporting. Reporting from original sources, right? Reporting that's based on studies and facts that you can go a layer deeper to the original source. That kind of reporting that we have a lot of in our network. So, you know, not only trying to go where they are and meet them where they are in that social context, but also be able to be a resource when people come to that moment where they really want that content, they want to go deeper, they want to understand. And again, people have different variety of needs, right? They may have just like a passing. I want to look at an Instagram need. They may have a need where they're saying, I really need to Understand this. Right. So I can make a decision in my life and we want to kind of meet them in both of those needs. But I do think that that need of deeper information is complementary to that top level, kind of skimming social experience that a lot of people are having.
- [37:43]
Kat Downs Mulder
Got it. When it comes to those platforms, whether it's Reddit, X, Google on down the list, it's a whole laundry list of platforms at this point. Have any been more of a priority this year? You seen reason to prioritize them more. I know for a lot of publishers, Reddit really popped over the summer and they kind of attribute that to the Google search deal that Reddit did. But Reddit driving a lot of traffic, obviously. The Guardian very loudly announced it's not posting to X anymore. Have you all changed your platform mix?
- [38:18]
Tim Peterson
It's interesting that you mentioned Reddit because Reddit has been a focus platform for us going back to much earlier this year. I think it's a platform where people who are really interested in news are obviously gives you the space to talk and link back. It has a lot of advantages as a platform and we've seen great pickup there from putting a social leader on that and really thinking about the programming that we're going to do there. We did AMA with some reporters around the election with that. That was really interesting. So I think Reddit is a great platform for visibility, you know, for the brand. You know, Instagram is still a place where we do a lot of work.
- [38:59]
Kat Downs Mulder
How much of that is on threads at this point?
- [39:02]
Tim Peterson
You know, we're doing a little threads. It's not a major focus yet. We're going to kind of watch and see how it continues to evolve, you know, as people are shifting around platforms at the moment, it's going to be interesting to see how that shift shakes out and how, what, what kind of sticks. So I think, I mean, our kind of philosophy is kind of go everywhere and see like, see what happens, see where the engagement starts to pop, see where people seem to get really a lot of value from the content, you know, see how we need to evolve our voice in those various different places. So yeah, we're there, we're experimenting and kind of going to see if it ends up being a valuable source of audience for us. Yes, but that's tbd.
- [39:43]
Kat Downs Mulder
What are you looking for from threads? Because, I mean, Adam Masseri has talked about, I think they've added more than 15 million new users in November alone. I think it was over the summer they said they had 275 million so big pocket of users there, but it hasn't quite hit that mark for you all. So what is it that you need to see from Threads for it to become more of that priority?
- [40:07]
Tim Peterson
I think it's about where are the platforms where we can get a significant amount of engagement. And I mean, I think part of it has to do with the audience in each of these platforms and the audience expectations in the platform. Right. And the audience and Threads maybe is a little bit different because a lot of folks came from Instagram and brought their followers, their follows with them. Maybe a different vibe in a different context where the audience is expecting something different. So if you can create an audience around the content that does have an interest in that specific content, then it can work. But there's a little bit from here to there to get there on Threads. So that takes a little bit more crafting, I think, than just jumping in there. Right. With everything set up from the default and expecting it to work. It's a very different platform because of the network mechanics than what you're going to see in some of these other places.
- [40:58]
Kat Downs Mulder
Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. Kat, we've talked a lot about this. Trump bump, Trump bump 2.0. Everything that news publishers like Yahoo News have seen this year, looking forward through the end of this year into even just Q1, because, God, who wants to look any farther than that? But I'm curious how you are thinking about sustaining whatever traffic increases has come and is yet to come. Because obviously with 2020 in particular, as much as there was a news traffic increase, a lot of outlets then saw that. You would have seen this firsthand at the Washington Post because a lot was made about how the Washington Post, the news traffic subsided. There was a need for more lifestyle content, all of that stuff. What needs to happen differently this time around for news outlets like Yahoo News to sustain the traffic increase?
- [41:53]
Tim Peterson
Yeah, I mean, I think we were able to. We have, as I said, kind of a pretty strong and consistent user base already. So, I mean, we were able to kind of sustain a lot of the audience that we've had over the past years. But I think there's a few things that can kind of make sure that as audiences discover you, they stick with you. And these are things that we're thinking about. One is when people come to Yahoo products, we want them to find content that's really interesting, useful and relevant to them, that helps them catch up and figure out what's going on. And we have the advantage of a wide variety of sources and that we can Kind of customize and tailor again to you what you need to know, what you want to know. So hopefully every time you come, you're finding something that's like really compelling and that is a powerful proposition for bringing you back. The second thing is really focusing on what are the products that help me keep up without me having to do a lot of work. So we invested a lot in our app this year. We relaunched our app this summer, as I mentioned. So getting people connected with the app, right, once they get that app, they download it, then they have the convenience of news alerts that can bring them back. That just simplifies their lives in the sense that they don't have to go hunting for it the next time. It's the same thing with newsletters. We have a really awesome daily newsletter that we reinvented this year as well called the Yodle. That's a great reach out technique. So like, if people come into an article page, you're searching something, they end up on on Yahoo. How can we connect them with the Yodle so that they sign up for it and then they start getting it in their inbox and then they have the convenience of that content in their inbox every day and they're more likely to form a habit. I think really leaning into how do you begin a habit and begin a relationship is important for all publishers and has been this whole time because sort of figuring out how to create that cycle so that it doesn't just have to cross your mind, oh, I need to go to this website. It becomes part of your routine in a way that feels very natural to. I feel like that's something that everybody kind of needs to make sure that they're able to do in a way that feels really, you know, that feels good to them, that feels authentic to however they're running their business and the relationships they have with their customers. But it's certainly something that we think about and I think everyone has to be thinking about.
- [44:07]
Kat Downs Mulder
Got it. I'm sure. I know at Digiday we're very much thinking about that. So, Kat, I know you have plenty of other things to be thinking about beyond this podcast. So thanks so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed speaking with you.
- [44:20]
Tim Peterson
Thanks for having me. It was great talking with you.
- [44:29]
Kat Downs Mulder
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Digiday podcast. If you enjoyed it, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening. Get more from Digiday with our daily newsletter sent out each weekday morning Visit. Digiday.com newsletters to sign up.