NY Times Advertising “Incredibly Well Built Plane” That New Chief Wants To Make More “Aerodynamic”

Earlier this year, Joy Robins took over one of the most important jobs in the business of media, as Global Chief Advertising Officer for the New York Times
NYT
Co., itself one of the industry’s singular successes in recent years as it expanded from traditional newspapering into an array of specialty newsletters, audio, video, podcasts, games and more.

For much of the decade before joining the Times, Robins was chief revenue officer of the Washington Post and before that, digital media outlet Quartz. Other career stops included NBC, BBC America, The Weather Channel, and OMD. Robins is a graduate of Rutgers University.

In this recent conversation about her first months with the Times, Robins talks about audience growth and targeting for the Times’ proliferating products, building new daily habits for audience members; improving newsletter ad performance; the state of the ad business; and her children’s ready embrace of Times’ hit word game Wordle.

As part of its most recent earnings, the Times reported in August that it added 180,000 digital subscribers in the quarter, with rising revenue per subscriber thanks to higher-than-anticipated digital ad revenues, up 6.5% to $73.8 million. Overall ad revenues of $117 million were up 0.3%, nearly flat but well above an expected 7.9% drop. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

David Bloom: You’ve been in the job since May. What have been your initial priorities?

Joy Robins: It has been an unbelievably energizing first four months here. I came in just before Cannes (Lions global ad conference), so I think that was a really exciting entry point into the ad market. Representing the New York Times and our brands and getting really incredible feedback from the marketplace.

DB: Cannes Lions is an interesting to start. What was the Times’ messaging there?

JR: The messaging to the marketplace is effectively a real byproduct of our subscription strategy: the New York Times means more to more people through all of the new sub brands, our portfolio of brands, from cooking, to shopping, to sports, and to games. I think that’s really helping the marketplace understand that we are leaders in both the news and kind of premium ad product space, but also, we are now expanding to so many different passion points of consumers. And what that means when it comes to the insights we can deliver is something that somewhat surprisingly has taken quite a while for the ad marketplace to really appreciate. It’s still an ongoing education, because there were never really ad products that were across these brands. (What’s) really helping the marketplace appreciate this incredible audience is loyalty at scale. That is the bundle subscriber.

DB: The subscription expansion was smart, but where does advertising fit in, particularly for the sub brands and specialty offerings?

JR: The subscription strategy is a really strong foundation for this. For our ads team, it is really helping us create targetable known audiences at a scale that is really in a class of its own in publishing. Everything we’ve done to make sure we have that loyalty at scale is really benefiting our ads business in a very big way, particularly with (more) privacy regulation, and as third party cookies disappear.

DB: Given all the sub-brands you’ve developed, and first-party data you have, what’s the unduplicated audience across everything?

JR: The duplication isn’t necessarily something that we talked through. But we are growing and expanding. Games has an enormous audience, The Athletic also comes with enormous audience. And increasingly, we’re seeing those readers traverse the Times portfolio in general. What’s exciting is we’re identifying new consumers who may not have come in to just the New York Times as a news brand. They’re finding their way in through these different and unique entry points. That helps us target these readers based on what they’re coming in to look for.

DB: The proliferating number of Times email newsletters is remarkable. Can you quantify the newsletter strategy?

JR: We know the inbox becomes a lot of people’s homepage in terms of how they curate. So we’re creating additional entry points for our readership into these different newsletters that dimensionalize our portfolio. We’re able to allow advertisers to reach these audiences. I start my morning every day with (Times newsletter) In The Morning, and then I listen to the Daily (podcast) and then I go to the homepage. So it helps dimensionalize how you’re able to reach readers based on their habits. And it has the benefit of creating habit on the product and consumer side.

DB: So you’re building the daily habit for your readers. What makes the habit, other than the fact that the reader needs to find out what’s going on?

JR: The why is definitely our product team’s goal and responsibility. But when it comes to the benefit to advertisers, that habit is creating additional touch points and frequency for an alignment with these key consumers based on their passion points. If you’re working to reach a cooking enthusiast, when they are opening the newsletter in the morning, it creates a timeliness to it.

DB: Cable TV long struggled with ad loads creeping ever higher, to the point that it became a problem for some consumers. How do you manage ad load issues?

JR: We’ve really deliberately built premium ad units with lower frequency, lower ad loads, to make sure that we are being responsible for our user experience. But we also see that result in better performance. These premium ad units also leverage our first-party targeting segments. So then it isn’t about the scale, it’s all about the impact that a lower ad load is able to deliver, and the better user experience that comes with that.

DB: So by doing less, you’re able to get more, right? Iis there any way to quantify that?

JR: The percentage is escaping me, but we see a distinct improvement in performance (compared to) the industry standard.

DB: What other initiatives are you pursuing in these early days? Listening tours with sales teams and audience focus groups? Trips to Coney Island with the kids?

JR: I’ve been busy getting (her children) to play Wordle. They’re actually quite good at it now, it’s nice for me to see them actually have a go-to word that they each uniquely start with.

But a lot of what I focused on in that first 100 days (in the job) is listening to our advertisers, listening to our internal teams, and really understanding both. Our advertising team is just a phenomenal bunch of individuals. I feel lucky to lead it every day. I would say even within the New York Times the way advertising has been received, and how excited I think people are, especially across our new portfolio brands, like there’s a lot of excitement to work with advertising. That is not necessarily something I anticipated, but has been a really nice surprise.

DB: Can you talk about any themes you were hearing from stakeholders about shifts they might want to see?

JR: What I saw very quickly was that we have created so much momentum around our bundle, and how fast. How do we create monetization opportunities around those? How can they partner with the ad business to make that happen? What we are being asked for from marketing?

DB: We see advertiser dollars moving from print and cable TV to platforms such as connected TV. So you’re saying advertisers are strongly backing the newer Times offerings?

JR: Absolutely. We have an incredible audio offering. We have these new sports games, shopping and cooking extensions. So it’s really a lot of excitement as we continue to grow and evolve. How can I help them be a conduit into the marketplace?

DB: Talk a bit about the growth opportunities overseas and where you think that strongest.

JR: We have a thriving ad business internationally already. That was incredible to walk into, and that team is continuing to grow and diversify. The international opportunity is similar to what we see in the US when it comes to diversifying the ways we work with advertisers, the type of ad market, the ad categories we work with.

DB: Any markets in particular?

JR: English language. The Times wants to be the essential subscription for every English-speaking, curious person around the world. That’s really where we’ve been focused.

DB: So how would you compare and contrast the Times with other notable media outlets where you’ve worked? What were The Times’ challenges compared to what you faced in the past?

JR: What I have found with the Times is this really impressive, elevated consumer, at scale. We’ve got these direct relationships, really significantly scaled, and also sort of targeted based on these passion points. The relationship that creates, and what that means for advertisers in terms of audience insights and targeting we’re able to deliver is really far advanced to what you’ve seen in a lot of publishing. It’s been so essential to building the Times strategy of having direct relationships with our readers and focusing on the subscriptions business. The essential subscription strategy has really led to a differentiated and premium ad business that is a reflection of that.

DB: Where do you head next?

JR: Building upon the success we saw in launching Wordle mobile ads. We were able to create this video ad unit at scale, with a really engaged audience. It’s delivered incredible results for DoorDash. On the back end, how do we create and expand our ad portfolio? How does the New York Times continue to mean more to more brands in the marketplace? And really become the premium and primary destination for advertisers who are looking to reach an elevated audience? How do we continue to scale that across this really incredible audience base? What I like to say to the team is, I’ve spent a lot of my career thinking about how to build the plane while I’m flying it, and actually what I’ve found that the New York Times is that it is an incredibly well built plane already. How do we make it more aerodynamic? That’s a really exciting place to build.

DB: So who do you consider your competition?

JR: We think competition is anything that competes for time. I like to think of us, though, as in a category of one, I think that we are in a really unique space across the internet, when it comes to being both a scaled play, being able to deliver targeted audiences, to also being an incredibly trusted brand and premium environment.

DB: What’s your outlook for the ad business for the next year?

JR: The theme that we see continuing to come up is a lack of visibility, just based on economic conditions. I see advertisers continuing to really want to align with cultural moments, and really think about their audiences and how they authentically can fit into these moments. If you take something like Thanksgiving, it means you have millions and millions of people coming to play games, to look for recipes, to look up sports. How do we build on these cultural moments that advertisers are moving toward, versus just thinking about campaigns? Performance and relevance are two really important themes that I think we’ll see carry through, and ultimately flexibility, because there is so much uncertainty.