Is It Magic Tuesday Yet?

Welcome back to Atlantia. Episode twelve, The Dirty Dozen, The duty doesn't And we had someone who's squeaky clean who's joining us, Keith Grossman, the c r O of Bloomberg Media. So excited to have Keith. He is like literally everywhere we've known him for actually before he was at Bloomberg,

when he was at Wired. And we think that Bloomberg is really interesting because they're well positioned not just as a media company, right, but they have a portfolio of products and something that we're going to talk about I think pre Keith is they really own business audience in a different way and they have opportunity need to break out because they don't have the legacy relationships um to cable companies to carry your fees to those types of

things that a lot of business news and media has today. Yeah, I think one of the things that we should dive into a little bit that appears to be on everybody's mind these days is this idea of renting versus owning your audience. And I think the Facebook Google duopoly which basically owns the world, and this idea that publishers are feeling,

um squeeze, squeeze. Squeeze is a nice word, um basically saying like, look, we have no choice seemingly but to put our content on these platforms for discovery because this is where audiences are in the feed or in the nav bar, whatever the case may be. Um, within those Facebook, Google platforms and ecosystems. And so what does this leave us with and doesn't leave us with audience right that

we actually own? And we Yeah, you're gonna say, like we talked to Dave Plots on I don't remember what episode it was, but about Atlas Obscura, and he had a really smart, really clear comment about what happens for

publishers when they're just promoting on Facebook. Right, Like you syndicate your content, you put it out there because you can target right down to seemingly the person or very very close to and they see your article, they see your video, but you don't create a relationship with them. They've kind of thanked Facebook for putting something relevant in their feed, and they move on. And then it's like, was that Atlas Obscuria or was that Expedia or was

that Airbnb? I don't know, but didn't matter no, because I read the content and I moved on. And I think his point was you own it, you don't own audience.

And then what do you do? How do you actually create a relationship that can go further and actually can be monetized in meaningful ways to the publisher or a brand from a financial perspective and from building out product perspective, But also you're doing it based on what the audience want and likes, and you're super serving them, right, which brings an interesting intersection in the industry and the fact that you know you would then go to Bloomberg because

you know that people are engaging with that brand. Where I think what David Plattz was getting to was, if I'm a brand, why do I need to go to Atlas Obscura when I can just cut through and build similar content and use Facebook's platform and audience to reach that same demographics. Right, And so that puts media companies on their back foot to say, what else do we have in this house that we can offer to brands to engage them from a unique point of view? This

is classic marketing, right. You don't build a product because you need to build a product right to monetize. You build a product to serve a market need, right, and what's the market need? And then you go in And I think one of the most astonishing things in this industry is for men, any of the larger media companies, I don't even think they've begun to tap into or think about exactly, like, what do I have within the

confines of this company that nobody else can produce? So if you come to me Hulu, or you come to me ESPN, or you come to me, insert you know expert in this industry to the table and say, yeah, we can give you eyeballs an audience, but actually I want to offer you intelligence. I want to educate you on what people are doing in their homes sun up to sundown around streaming. I'd rather pay you for that. Hulu then some Nielsen data set that's six months old.

That um is this a thousand person sample and we don't know who those thousand people are. So diversify your portfolios. People come to us with something other to sell than a three by two fifty. And after this break, we're gonna wake up on a magic Tuesday with Keith Always on Grossman three two fifties, we'll be back with Keith Grossman from Bloomberg. So we're back with Keith Grossman, the c r O of Bloomberg. Welcome, Keith, thank you, thanks for having me a buddy of ours long time. And

if anyone doesn't know Keith, then something's wrong with you. You You need to be on Instagram. You need to be in If you're not, Yeah, exactly, but you should follow Keith exactly. What's your Insta handle? I try to make it very simple, Keith Grossman. I love it so Keith, you were actually before we get into all of the fun things happening at Bloomberg Media, tell everybody your favorite marketoonistist Fishburne. If you don't follow him on Instagram, he's amazing.

But he's a cartoonist who does cartoons that depict the ridiculousness of our industry, which is also the impetus of the show. I know. This is why I bring it up, and I think it's it's great. But my favorite all time cartoon is because I have a three year old daughter, Ellie, and it's a father and he is sitting next to his daughter at bedtime. She's in her bed and the caption is she's holding a book and it says, Daddy, we read me this piece of branded content. It's right,

And that's your litmus test. Yet to find an editor that finds it funny. But but no, But in all seriousness, I think that it represents a really important aspect of our industry, which is there is a point where when you digitize content and you put it online, nobody distinguishes between whether or not it is sponsored or if it's editorially driven. They only see it as sponsored if it is bad interesting. And I think that the two of you, from just knowing you both for years, would agree we do.

So tell us a little bit about what you've got going on at Bloomberg Media, and you've just come off the upfront and a lot of news that came out of that Twitter Twitter dreaming news. Sure, So I don't know if you how of me you are with what Twitter is doing in terms of where they're looking at

their business. But as they realized that one of the areas that they can grow on is in terms of moving away from text based messaging and moving more towards video streaming, we had the very fortunate ability to take the existing partnership that we've had with Twitter and you know, parlayed into ultimately what will be seven live breaking news social network that will go on there in November fifteenth.

Is what we're they we're aiming for, and it's, uh, we're going to be the exclusive news network of Twitter through and uh, you know, the response in the market place has been amazing. Was the coverage that you did of the twenty sixteen election a proxy for that. During the election cycle, one of the things that we realized was we have huge advantage by not having the authentication requirements that other cable providers have, so we could stream over the top two you know, Apple TV and Samsung

Smart hubs and the Roku devices. But then Twitter approached us and we were able to also partner with them and stream the presidential debates. The first one comes around, we have two point one million people watching us on Twitter. Second one comes around, we have two point four million. The third one comes around, we have three point two million people who are watching this. So really onto something

this is very interesting. Following that, we went to Twitter and we struck an agreement where we took three non endemic shows that we broadcast every day on Bloomberg's Linear TV, which is Bloomberg day Break America, our morning show Bloomberg Would You Miss which is from with Joey Senthal, who joined us about a year and a half ago, two years ago from a business insider, and Bloomberg Technology, and every day since October, we've been broadcasting these three shows.

You could just watch them live on Twitter, the same type of experience, and we have about a million people a day who tune in and watch this. How does that rival your linear audience? It's significantly. I mean, it's just it's a huge an I know, but I want you but but picture this right. So, Bloomberg's Linear TV has always been very niche, very specific, very focused on the financial core industry, which is why we chose three

shows that were non core. Right. Based on the success of those three shows that we had that's what led to the Twitter deal. But if you want to stat and this is where I was saying, how you know, grandular do you want to get? But this is something that I think you would really love. Um, if you want a stat that will will blow your mind. When the Komby testimony took place, we were the only camera in the courtroom that could live stream it over Twitter, right,

and that was a part of your Twitter exclusivity. Well yeah, I mean we just Twitter came to us and they said, do you want to live stream this as well? And at the last minute we just said yes. We thought it made sense. It was also a good proof concept.

We weren't so much about this and you know, a lot of what we're learning with the viewing experience over Twitter is very similar to when like I launched and worked on the launch with my team on the tablet edition a wired back in two thousands and where you think you know everything until consumer behavior starts speaking place and you start realizing a lot. But we do the Komy live stream and two point seven million people watched the Komy live stream over Twitter feed through the Boomberg

feed right. Um, to give you a comparison, nineteen point five million people in total watched the Komby testimony on cable television, so we had the point one three Nielsen rating on Twitter. But to give you an even bigger example, during the Komy testimony, not only did two point seven million people watch it, three point six million tweets took place during that ceremony that during the testimony ceremony was not a ceremony. Side of the aisle you're on that,

we're not talking about it. But but of the two point seven million, eight percent were under the age of thirty five. If you want to talk about cord cutting being a real stat you know, chord shaving being a real issue. This is the reality of streaming and video content. You know, the word TV is not going to go away, but it will evolve. You know, my daughter, your your daughter will look at the world and they'll say I want to watch TV. But they won't mean I want

to watch winning or TV. They don't have that relationship with now their cable provider. They have the relationship with a screen and the viewing experience. That's right. I mean, we've said a couple of things. I was talking to someone about this yesterday. Actually I was like why can Bloomberg do this? Why can They're actually ripe right for this type of relationship with Twitter because you don't have

the same relationships with cable. You don't have the fees and the contracts and the right you're not held to that old model, which is genius. It is totally open if lets you guys play in areas that no one probably can play in as quickly. So I mean we our goal is is to ultimately be as aggressive as possible, to be as innovative as possible, but not just to do innovation for innovations sake. I mean, you could just

constantly say I'm doing new never done before. But at the end of the day, for Bloomberg, the goal is is not to just do that and be the first. The goal has to be that there has to be utility to the user. Right, So if you look at it like that wasn't the same thing with when I was at Wired, And that's not a knock on Wired. But the expectation of the consumer audiences is if it's new, Wired has to be there, right. If the expectation of Bloomberg is if it's new and you're there, it better

add value to my life. And so the case of Twitter, it's very it makes a lot of sense. In the case of you know, Amazon Alexa, US giving you know, the updated news feed you know is very important. US being on the Echo show the day at launch is very important. US being on you know, even the eye watch like for certain things, and on Samsung smart Watch upon launch very important. US playing with VR like we

do it right. But the reality is is, you know, it's such a small niche area in the grand scheme of the consumers who adopt it and actually play with it, that there's no huge payoff to be in that area now, not yet, not yet, but we have talked about that. But I would say it's about the year that VR actually scales, and at that point I would point out that maybe a R is more interesting than VR. So let's talk to us about studio, Like, talk to us about what do you do? What is Bloomberg? You know,

do you have an ad innovation lab? Are you doing anything like not that you need it, right, but like, do you have something where you're actually looking at how are we going to change the experience, you know, whether it's incrementally or not for these new types of screening devices.

And experiences and as it add content because we've talked quite a bit back and forth the election and I in meetings with you you know about is content really the first thing that Bloomberg should be monetizing, where like we've always been interested in the intelligence angle and say we've like shook you right, like you can't get this ship anywhere? Like this is amazing? Is this like an like R rated podcast? Wells you concurse right now? Um?

So to answer your question, I would say, um, a few things, So can I step back for one second on it? Which is um? I think that it's very easy for people to speak in definitives, right, so people will say things like people hate advertising, and I think that's bullshit. You just sent me the book End of Advertising by Andrew Essex, but the whole premise of the End of Advertising by Andrew Essex, which I thought was a very fun We're going to have him on the show, hopefully,

Andrew you're coming on the show. He knows I bought three hundred copies of the book. I think I'm his number one purchaser probably. I've been seeing Keith Grossman pop ups on other people's channels now have notes from kind of treating Everybody's hilarious on LinkedIn, and then I was like, where's my book? I got kind of like jealous. I got a note from your person that I was sending it to the wrong address. I didn't, Yeah, anyway, I did. I got jealous when I saw this guy's note, and

I was like, where's my note? The next day I got my time make sure. I just want to know who's writing those notes? Is that you know? No way my hand, um no, but here you know, like I think people want to say that that that advertising dad, or this is awful, it's bad advertising. Nobody wants bad advertising.

Nobody wants it to be intrusive or offensive. And like the whole point of his book is when all you're doing is creating to create, and you're not actually thinking about what the experience is, then all of a sudden, you're missing the bigger point. And when you're trying to force feed like or force fit something into the wrong canvas or the wrong experience or the wrong expectation, it's

a big miss. But if you look at one of the most amazing elements of advertising, and the two examples that he gives in the book and now you might not even need addressings on this shop. You're his wrap. I am pretty much you know his pr on this.

But if you if you look at the premise and he gives two really good examples which were, um, you know City Bike, which did a tremendous amount for you know, the City brand in terms of um lifting it up from where it was from two thousand and none today Right, Um, it adds a tremendous amount of utility. Uh, there's no doubt in my mind that that it is paid off on it's r O Y regardless of what the metric is worth, and that it's worth every penny of what

that investment was. And then take something on the flip side of it, like the Lego movie, which I think costs something like forty million dollars and it paid off four hundred million dollars in box office sales. I'm curious to know our brands coming to still looking for what I'll call the stereotypical business decision maker and asking for very monotonous things that can deliver B two B marketing strategy.

Or are you finding that new brands or presumably you know, repeat brands are coming in now starting to diversify that ask and expecting you to help them kind of paint this picture of what the next gen business consumer looks like.

It's not neither or, but here's like a really interesting stat And you know, obviously as a private company, we don't go into, you know, a lot of our financials, but I'll give you just sort of a glimpse um when you look at the partnerships of ours that partner with us on one or two platforms, we have a

normalized attrition rate, let's say sevent. When you find a partner who looks at how can we engage across your platform and talk to your consumers across three platforms, that attrition rate actually goes down from you know, and four platforms it goes down even more. Five platforms it becomes

non existent. We almost find that we are, you know, having conversations with these partners that are completely um more about the idea and how to bring the idea to life than just as it's going to run and where it's going to go. So we are most successful partnerships are at that higher end of the spectrum where people say idea first, and how can you bring it to life?

Or what's the strategy or at the programmatic end of the spectrum, which is growing, you know, triple digit percentages off of glow comps, but it will be a significant eight figure revenue stream this year um up from essentially zero back in the end of And so the area that we're really losing out on or we're seeing disappear are these here's an RFP, just respond and you know,

give us placement where we could just run some ads. Yeah, I feel like that's well, I think that's become pretty in vogue, not to URFP now right, Like generally it's even if it's on rf it's sort of even the like I have, like a few hundred thousand dollars, can you just run this on XEX, Like it's just not

happening as much. Yeah, And I just think that it's it's an interesting time where, you know, what you just talked about our polar opposite sides of the spectrum, and so this idea of like what exists in the middle represents a really interesting paradigm shift for this industry. It's like you've got one end of the continuum that is pushing innovation and ideation and really strong strategic it seems like for you going deep vertically and really getting the

best experience. Were spreading yourself than horizontally is the way the best use your platform. And then you've got the other guys that are after this really lucrative audience of business decision makers, investors, and what happened. I mean, the one thing to remember with programmatic is it's it's gonna want to go in there. My definition of programmatic is this belief that anything that can be digitized will ultimately be digitized, and if it is digitized, will be bought

and sold by computer. Okay, that's it, agreed. We agree. We made every mistake possible when we first started our programmatic approach back in and I fought myself for that. You know, I came on board and thought it was and I will gladly you know, I learned more through my mistakes than than any other area, you know, in the past few years, in the programmatic area, where in year one, uh, you know, we made the wrong partnerships and we we had the wrong perception of programmatic. We

the wrong perception is to go to market strategy. And I need to give Google credit and they don't get a lot of credit, a lot where people are complimenting them to the level that they deserve, Like their Google Adds team and the people that we work with over there have been absolutely phenomenal and sort of helping us course correct and look at how we should be building our stack properly and how we should be thinking about,

you know, go to market. And one of the things that we did with them, and it was an eye opening test, was on a random day, we opened up our inventory and we sold it at one dollar on the open exchange. And then a week later, on the exact same day, you know, and with like no major sort of variances, we opened up the exact same inventory and we sold it a hundred dollar CPM, and the exact same advertisers bought it at a hundred dollars. They

bought it at one dollar. And it was just an eye opening moment for us where it showed that like a lot of time, people think that that you have to just give away the inventory at one dollar, and if you have premium inventory, um, you know, there's a lot that you should be thinking about more than just how do I move it. In our last episode, we just talked about the idea that like if that's the inventory we have to use right now. And that's as

far as programmatic has advanced. Why aren't we taking measures and steps to at least be innovative within that creative space exactly so that we can change that outcome so that you can wake up that Tuesday. We can all wake up on that glorious Tuesday, and there's no I love this Tuesday, think and this last forever, there's a giving Tuesday. We should make our own average. So we have a little game that we play. We're gonna we're going to We're gonna play it with you. We're gonna

play with you. This is a Keith that I rarely see. It's like very well, you're always composed, but it's like this very kind of like placid you. When we're in meetings, You're like, he's not he's not selling right now. This is a conversation. Wink wink um. Alright, so kill by d I Y. This is a very special game, Keith Grossman, Are you willing to take the plunge? The plunge? Ok So, what what would you kill? What would you kill in this industry? What would you buy? And what would you

do it yourself? Okay? Can you give me an example. Yeah, so some people say I would kill Netflix, I would buy Amazon, and I would d I y do Twitter yourself? Yeah, and would that means start a fresh and yeah, you can do it better. You can do it better. Okay, So, um, if I could kill anything, it would be uh, traditional spots, TV spots like TV spots seconds and fifties and traditional real estate. Yes, inventory, I hate you know what I hate? I hate. No, I would never you know, it was

just like one thing I hate. And we've we've talked about this. Laura had a great rant one day about um the pre roll add and like Joe Marks, Fox just came out saying that they're going to do six six second ads. I think, um with YouTube like shorter formats, but I have this huge issue every time I year thirty seconds, it's just but it's not the length of time either. I had a standard ad format. It's like to your point, going back to daddy, will you read

me branded content? It's like, give me something that's good and I'll watch it for thirty three seconds, for eleven seconds for and I just so I just want I want that look at the guy go at the two second dad that like does everything in two seconds and then it pauses and then like everything continues on against

the pause screen except for one variable like dog. And he was like, you watch it forever and if you you know, like a great ample of like one of my favorite ads that that I watched close So sorry, I'm like sitting back in the room, but no, but um, you know, my one of my favorite recent ads that I've that I've seen is um the Nike Race to break two hours great marathons. I mean, first off, talked about an amazing ad I watched, I rooted, tweeted, I you know what was that an ad? Because in my

opinion that like it delivered on the brand. It was entertainment. It was, but it was still in an AD format and it was still in like what two minutes. Like when it launched, it was like a ninety second spot or something. All the supporting content for it, they had much longer form stuff. If I wanted to get it, I watched and I continued to engage with it. I mean, I don't know if like I think that that's just

just great content. If people are only watching three seconds of video on Facebook, could we start selling second increments? Like if I wanted to interesting if you wanted to do an eleven second add if you wanted to do a fourteen second ad I wanted to do. A big issue with time is not that that it's a bad metric. I actually think it's not a bad metric. The problem is is that there's no standardization to understand if time

is good or not good. Right, So if you take time, by the way, is the best equalizer of any sort of the whole industry, Like it's the only commodity that

every single person has the exact same amount of. It's the only commodity that you can't hoard, right, so like you have to actually give it away every day, and it's the only commodity that's being completely challenged, and and but then here's the issue, right, without a standardization of time, if I said to you, um, the average time on my site reading an article was five minutes, you would

say that's a really good engagement. But what if I then told you that the only article that I was referencing off was like a picture of a gerbil like like fifty words like, then then you actually have someone who's a really slow reader. Um, Whereas you know, like you have to actually start to understand like how time should be measured and standardized against content that inspires you or informs you or entertains you, which is all going

to be completely different. Once they solve that standardization of time, then it becomes a really impressive and valuable commodity. But until then, like there's no really great way in which you could say that all time can be equal or like three seconds on one side is guys, I have a whole new perspective on that. Can I say something when he said, Keith, when you said they haven't solved it yet, guess who the they is? I know as an industry. So I have a thought. I have my

heart racing. Okay, that's what happens because my only but so I had a meeting recently with Vice, and I actually think that Viceland is doing this better than anybody, and they present they have And I am not a rabid consumer of the platform. Um. I sometimes scan what's happening on Viceland. If I catch something interesting, I'll tune in. I'm also not a I am a cord cutter. I'm not somebody who sets in front of my TV. I'm lucky I get five seconds ago the bathroom these days.

But I think what's interesting about what Viceland UM says in their presentations, which I actually think is something they need to bring to the forefront and exploit. They use this term that they are or they believe that they are the stickiest network when it comes to use of what they call interstitials, which is what the industry would call commercial time. And they don't get of a ship if it's programming in five minutes or it's programming in

five seconds. They seek to make whatever that time is. They need to fill in content as educational, aspirational, informational, whatever it is. But it's fucking entertaining and it is not meant to hawk a brand. It's meant to provide some sort of value exchange within whatever that length of time is, and they seek to fill it with the most important content for whatever that point. And so I think, like, you know, you said, what is Joe Mark Casey's coming

out with six second ads on Fox? And you've got Turner pushing two minute pods and less of them. But in reality, are we just perpetuating bad behavior and trying to use time as a way to you know, solve I agree that I don't the content has the content has to be I actually don't think times the issue. I think it's it's the content. It is the content,

But the time thing is like part of the equation. Right, And as someone said this to me, um her name is um Addie and I can't remember her last name right now, but from decoded, and she said something the other day and she was like, listen, at the end of the day, we have a huge time issue, right. You have more and more content flooding and less and less time to look at it. So you have a time and space issue that's occurring. And so I do

think that that's important. But you're talking about quality. Yeah, whatever camp of quality. If you put something compelling, I don't care if it's twenty minutes or twenty seconds. If it's great content, I'm going to watch it. That's totally right. I agree with you. But anyway, this is your game. Yeah, this is your game. Sorry, so you get you were

killing I was sorry. I'm sorry, sorry you're killing killing. Standardization? Um, if I get so by is defined as as it is today, go out acquire like this needs to be a part of what I'm doing. Whatever whatever it might say. You want to buy Nathan sot dog. I mean, like stand not one not one dog. I would I I would, I would buy Amazon, Like I think that the infestion ho You've got a lot of money, listen. I think

I think that what they're doing is so interesting. I think that they're laying a ecosystem on top of you know, platforms that that can engage with the consumer, and that at the end of the day, like the Alexa, you know, it's just another touch point, the Echo show just another touch point, their homepage, their mobile experience, just another touch point, and they can provide services at a level that I think is just so endlessly fascinating. Um my, my, do it better would be by It would be like a

third party measurement in Facebook or Google. Yes, I love it well and then never disappoints. Well, thank you so much for having me on this. And if people want to get in touch with you, where can we find you? K Grossman ten at Bloomberg dot net to really ten of you know, I listened Bloomberg goes by like a weird numbers and but I'll tell you this is that you know, like, as you know, my best athleticism is emailing. And I were number time when I played soccer, so

I knew I liked you. Dot net not dot com anyway, thank you for coming out, coming on. We wish you much success. We were excited to see the launch of Bloomberg seven. What is the name of the show or the network? And network is to be named? Let's not make it Bloomberg verified. Well, I think that ship is sailed. Just kidding any more? Do you get to end on such a meeting? We can come because I like you, I don't know, I want you to. I want I want the world to see the Alexa I know exactly

love it. Thanks for coming. We're always rasing you. It's totally fun. You know. I'm very sensitive. I'm gonna go home and cry. Keith gross and c r O Bloomberg everyone, Thank you, thank you. So that's it, Dirty dozen, squeaky clean. Keith Grossman, thank you for listening to Atlantia. Keith, thanks for being on. We have a few more thanks. Cameron Drew's our producer, what of Cameron Drews. Matt Turk our other executive brewer who, By the way, Matt, where the

hell are you? I don't know? I just emailed me. When are you coming to New York. I want that Sun Valley. Yeah, riding sources. We'll be waiting for you here in Brooklyn with Andy Bowers. Andy Bowers, who we love, Jacob Weisberg, who's just always a gem we see around the office. Thank you for all of your support, all of our friends in Atlantia, especially on Twitter blowing it up. We are having so much fun engaging with you, answering

your questions. Keep them coming. We're gonna actually open up lines. So keep engaging with us, keep talking to us about things, because we will open up lines and have a really good conversation with all of the people who are engaging with us on Atlantia UM across the different platforms. So we'll be back with an all new Atlandia in two weeks with one of our favorite Girl Boss executives, Linda Cmo of g E have a go on everybody. When people think that this is the scariest time in the industry,

I couldn't disagree more. I think this is the most fascinating. Agree you're willing to, you know, disregard necessarily sort of like the way things were, and you start almost dreaming as to what is possible. It's unbewievably excited. Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own.