In an uncertain macroeconomic and political climate, the need for business audiences to have reliable financial news is more important than ever, as Duncan Chater, Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomberg Media, discusses in this edition of the Sell-Side View. And Bloomberg is seeing increased engagement with its video products as a result, while evolving its events business, contextual solutions and programmatic strategy.
What is the greatest challenge facing publishers today?
I think the biggest challenge is technology. Technology is changing all of our businesses at a rapid rate, and will continue to do so. We’re very fortunate at Bloomberg, because we’re a technology company, so I think we’re well positioned to make our business media a real success.
At the same time, we’re in a moment of real uncertainty across markets, economy, geography, and all of our audiences are looking for trusted information to help them make the best decisions and build calculated strategies to navigate this. So that is really a big opportunity for us, and we’re seeing that with some of the data that’s coming in, the audiences are leaning in, and they’re more engaged, and they’re coming in greater numbers, and that presents a real opportunity. So the challenge is navigating the constantly evolving landscape that’s being driven through technology, but there are a lot of opportunities on the other side of that.
How important is video revenue to your business?
Very important. We’re investing and have been investing a lot of money in video. Video really allows us to reach audiences at scale, and engage with them in a meaningful way. And video is a really important part of a lot of our plans, because of what it delivers in terms of results on campaigns.
But it’s also a really important platform and medium to connect with audiences and deliver information in a timely fashion. When we look at some of our audiences, CEOs skew heavily and engage heavily with video across our network. So it’s clearly a really important component for us across a multitude of different metrics, hence the decision to keep investing. And that investment is paying off; our overall video viewership has grown over 62 percent year on year, so we’re seeing really significant returns and volumes in terms of video.
If you could change one thing about the buy-side, what would it be?
We would like more transparency across the industry to allow the buy- and sell-side to see and understand what’s really being added to the value chain. That message has been echoed for a while, and there’s some good work going on, but I think the need for transparency for everyone is still very much there.
What types of content and video formats are working best for you today?
Our streaming portfolio, which includes Bloomberg TV and Bloomberg Originals, has been performing incredibly well. And again, we’ve had some really exciting launches in that area. So we’ve got 16 series on Originals (seven returning, nine new) and they’ve been working really well across a number of different metrics in terms of driving revenue and bringing audiences to the platform.
We’ve also just launched a new product, contextual video, which we’re really excited about, and we’re getting a really good reaction from the market on that. That’s allowing us to do some really cool things with the technology that we’ve built across all of our video and all platforms.
Outside of advertising, what other revenue streams are you having success with?
We love to trial new approaches all the time, and our focus is about meeting our audiences where they are, delivering the information that they want on the platform that they choose in the best way. So real-time web updates, newsletters, explainers, and new data products, they’re always really interesting.
And then on the other side, our events business continues to grow at quite a considerable rate. And we’ve had some great results from Davos, where we’ve built a working model that’s been very successful and continues to expand, alongside Cannes which is coming up, and one of our key events is New Economy Forum in Singapore later on this year. And then we have a multitude of smaller events beyond that. They’re our hero ones, but we’re seeing some really strong returns in those areas.
I think events and video work really nicely together. The convening power of events and having that live moment and interaction that people really want, and then the scaled performance of video and what it can deliver in short spaces of time, really connecting with people and helping to execute particular KPIs and goals off the back of it.
What does your programmatic strategy look like, and how are you selling your inventory?
We moved away from open exchange on our site about three years ago, and that was all about trying to drive the best experience for our users on-site. For programmatic, we want to create a very effective and simple solution so that clients can buy into our audiences and our platform, and access the best returns with the least fuss.
We’re always continuing to try to evolve our offering by bringing new solutions, or tapping into working with new partners. But we want to be an easy partner to work with, and we want to be able to demonstrate strong returns, which we do across all of our different offerings. So that will continue to be our guiding principle, particularly with programmatic.
If you take something like contextual video that I mentioned we’ve just launched, we want to be able to surface that to our clients, but make it easy to access and buy programmatically, easy to understand the performance, and then to come back and renew or build an always-on campaign around specific moments. So we’re continuing to listen to our clients and to understand how we can evolve that, and make sure our service is efficient, effective and performs.
Which person in the industry inspires you most today?
I’m going to have to leave out Bloomberg because there are too many! I was fortunate enough to work for three bosses at Hearst who continue to inspire me. Michael Clinton has gone on to launch his own business (ROAR Forward) and is challenging the industry’s view towards ageism within media. Duncan Edwards has gone into public service as Chief Executive of BritishAmerican Business. And Anna Jones now sits on the board of Brighton and Hove Albion FC.
I think what I’m inspired by is the continued will to push and do new things, and that happens at Bloomberg, which is why I haven’t referenced anyone, because we’ve got so many people, and it’s really the ethos of the company.
What does the future hold for publishers?
Going back to how we started, there are a lot of challenges right now and a lot of uncertainty, and I think there is a real need for consumers, certainly in the business space, to turn to credible sources of information that they can trust on to make solid decisions. And I think by continuing to adapt our businesses with technology as that evolves, I think there’s a really strong future for businesses to provide that service in the media industry.
It’s going to be different. Everyone’s business has evolved from what it was 10 to 20 years ago, but we’re certainly very excited about what’s coming, and how we’re growing and developing the business. I think there’s a lot of excitement in the industry, and there are certainly going to be challenges alongside that, but plenty of opportunities.
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