Conde Nast's Pam Drucker Mann Ready to Double Down on Livestream Events

in the publishing business. You don't need to tell our next guest that Pam drucker Man is chief revenue Officer of Conde Nast, where she oversees the global advertising business for blue chip brands like Vanity Fair Vogue in New Yorker. We talked about everything going on at the company, from how it plans to build on its live stream business after its success at the met Gala in September, to e commerce, paywalls, and a whole lot more to stick around.

Welcome back to Strictly Business, where we're talking with Pam drucker Man, chief revenue officer at Conde Nast, where she oversees the global advertising business. Thanks for joining me today, Pam, Thanks for having me. As the US economy continues to shake off the effects of COVID. We're seeing a big rebound and ad spend, So how much publishing is participating in that. That's something I want to get your perspective on.

There was a recent forecast from ad buying giant Magna estimating the newspaper and magazine business was flat in the first half of the year, versus obviously a very banged up.

So how has Conde Nast been doing, how is its one been shaping up compared to Yeah, I mean we're having a great year, um, which is not something we anticipated in and all of us were kind of sitting at home in our holes, uh and trying to think about I remember doing the forecasting for uh, you know, and I was like, I don't even know what's happening like next week. UM. Really hard to to guess what

next year is gonna look like. And it's interesting even at that time, you know, all the futurist conversations or the magnas or the e marketers that we're trying to make estimates, that's like no one had any clue what was really going on. UM. But I will say that we've been pleasantly surprised. We're experiencing double digit growth this year, which is not something we anticipated. UM. And what do you attribute that to. What's going on that's driving this

unexpected growth? Yeah, I mean, I think a couple of things. I don't think anyone realized that the economy would rebound as quickly as it did. So, like, consumers are spending, they're out of their houses, so let's just be honest, like that was a big indicator to marketers that was time to get back out there UM and start engaging with them in in in the ways that they had, but also in new ways, obviously with the growth of

e commerce UM. And then I would say from our perspective or from you know, from where we sit, you know, we had one of the biggest silver linings for us in twenty was just unbelievable audience attention UM in terms of our content. So we experienced a lot of audience growth and we've been able to capitalize on that with advertisers this year we've never had I mean, it's it's incredible the amount of inbound that we have UM in terms of you know, audience, in terms of growth, in

terms of engagement, in terms of purchase. I think all of that is lining up well for advertisers. And then I'd say the third reason, for whatever it's worth, is this really big industry shift around UM, privacy and you know, audience targeting and some of the challenges for marketers in a in a cookie list world. UM, and the role that we play as you know, a contextual partner. So i'd say those are the three you know, probably main factors right now. And I'm curious how big a driver

the digital add piece of this is. I mean, the central challenge of a business like yourself is that print core business or maybe was core business for so long. You've got to move past that. So how are you doing on that at I mean, that's our entire story. I mean, we've just had an unbelievable acceleration. Let's start with the focus in terms of innovation on our content on these new platforms. We now produce content on eight

platforms worldwide. Um, we've crossed that threshold now in which you know, uh, almost three corter revenue is digital versus print. When you have less print headwinds at your face, it makes it a lot easier to be successful. So um, yeah, I mean we're having an amazing I would say moment in time in terms of like this acceleration of digital content in terms of our influence in front of consumers.

And I know you and I've talked about some of the success we've had even in some of these new places like live format UM for us in which correct in which we're engaging with consumers a new way, new ways that just gives us so many new ways to engage with advertisers. It just gives us so much more range. So the more in vative we are around digital content digital content strategies, the more range we have to provide the advertisers. And it's been a tremendous year. So what

was this? How big a breakthrough was the live stream you did with Vogue at the Met Gala. I've seen the numbers, you know, astonishing number of live streams. Um, what was because but you've been at the Met Gala before? What was different this year? Why was it a breakthrough? Well?

I mean I think, first of all, Um, people were excited that the Met was back, and so I think you definitely have this like fomo moment for consumers of like wow, Like you know, I think all of last year there was no live experiences are very few, if you will, Um, the MAT has been gaining traction for the for the past few years. UM, and you know,

we kinda we took a test. You know. One of the other great things about twenty was just to have more time to really focus on our directed consumer strategy and just to think about you know, our own you know, our own I P and how and when we want to UM, how we want to connect with our consumer

in these new places. And as it turns out, you know, for all the years that we've you know, been partnering with the MET, UM, we never owned any of the content UM in terms of the live format, and this was a year in which we were like, no, if this is the vogue met Gala, we want to own. We want to own the format, we want to own the relationship between the consumer and UM. You know, there was this was definitely a risk because you know, we're

not a broadcast company. UM. But in a way that was a great thing because we were able to take a totally new and fresh approach to just a live experience in and of itself. UM. And we you know created almost like UM, you know, the met itself is exclusive, but we wanted to give our our audience, UM. You know, a real a real lens on how we see the Vogue met Gala through through you know, our creator's perspective.

And it was tremendous for us. I mean we had, first of all, again I'll say this, like, we didn't expect to have this much growth, let alone this much attention. But like sixteen point five total live stream views, fifty four million total minutes watched. I mean that isn't that is an insane amount of success. I think what we're most proud of is that not only the people came to watch, but they stayed. Um. We had eleven global vogues and six US titles. UM. That actually that actually

distributed the live stream. UM. But you know what, I also think it's just interesting because I think and I talked about this at the New Front last year, I think everyone is trying to figure out, like, what is the future of live? You know, how should we be thinking about it differently? UM? I think the concept that people are just sitting in their living room and not moving, um for four and a half hours is just not

the right way to think about it. And so I think our strategy, UM, which has really been more of a social strategy around live is really what was so compelling, UM is almost when you make the broadcast comparison, as if you guys are thinking of yourselves almost more like

E than we would have thought as traditionally Conde Nast. Well, it's ironic that you say that because he was the original UM team that it was actually uh, you know, providing that that live for that live format for consumers and so not that we're thinking the the irnea is like, we're not really thinking like anyone else. We're just trying to look at this from our own perspective, like, you know, what experience do we want to provide to our consumer?

We have a totally different level of access just because it's the Vogue met Gala UM and so I think we were able to provide a totally different type of content experience number one. And then the format in which we did that on our own and operate in addition to our partner Twitter, I think just created a totally different experience. UM. And how does the monetization work here? Right? I forgive me, I'm not the biggest Anna Wintour fan.

I didn't see it, but are there commercial breaks? I just want to understand how you make money off all these eyeballs. So a couple of things. So one is more of uh authentic integration strategy, So the way that we you know, interact with our consumer in all the ways that we create content around them. That's number one. Two definitely more of a you know, traditional CPM model where you can were actually like you know, inserting mid role and pre role like you would expect in any

other bigger kind of digital video moment um. You know, for all intensive purposes, it's you know commercials, right, but um, you don't have to leave the you know, the commercial isn't taking over the experience and taking you away from the content is actually happening at the same time. Um. I also just think that like when we think about live experiences, people still think about it as like a TV experience, like literally the physical television. Um. And we

just think about it as a content experience. And like how you view that content in mobile versus how you may want to watch it, you know, once you get home on your big screen is you know, it's it's it's so much more fluid. Um. And And the other thing I'll just add is that it's when when we think about live it isn't like a one way content experience where we're just like showing you something and you're

receiving it. You know, when when you think about the way that we're you know, the mechanism in which we should we we shared our our content even with Twitter and on our own and operated or consumers telling us in real time, like what they're liking, what they're not, they're commenting, and so it's it's really a give and take. And I actually do think that's the that's the future of live experiences. It has to be more of a

multidimensional relationship with the audience that's watching. So are we going to see you guys do this to other big events in the year, because if you guys repeat that, yeah, I mean, here's the here's the interesting thing. There's one other kind of p s A stat. I mean, we had more viewers of the Met Gala red carpet than ABC had for the Oscars last year. Um. And so first of all, what that should be telling you is

that audiences want something different, right um. And that all should should tell you that we we kind of hit the nail on the head for this particular moment in time around the Met. We have another Met coming up in six months, which by the way, doesn't usually happen. We usually have one MET a year, first Monday in May, don't forget UM. So this was a unique moment in

time that we had it in September. So we have another MET coming up, UM, and so you can you can be sure that you know, this is kind of like our new Super Bowl UM, and that starts now. So we had a ton of advertisers who were who partnered with us on this experience that are definitely UM kind of clamoring to be part of the next one. One would imagine why with that type of performance. Vanity Fair Red Carpet UM. You know, Vanity Fair Oscar Party is a big event that we've been hosting for the

you know for several years now. We also had announced on the new front stage back in in May, uh that we would be launching a live format for the red Carpet experience as well. And so UM a lot of learnings from the MET and we will be applying many of those learnings to the Red Carpet experience for the oscars. So it will be really interesting to see how that all play that. But I'm excited and it

sounds great. I mean we should point out sort of sort of, you know, with pan back for a second on the Conde Entertainment division and the video business that's been around for ten years. You're discussing one piece of it that I think is part of what has otherwise been known as a more short form strategy, all your brands putting out all sorts of interesting short form series. And then there's this whole other piece of it, which is licensing of movies and TV shows two players like Netflix.

Uh So I'm just curious from I mean, certainly from your advertising perspective, it's all about the short form game and this live stream stuff. How valuable is that relative to the licensing business. I'm just trying to get a sense of the scale of what you've got going in video. Yeah, I mean, I think the way that I would look at it is and you know, we have a new president of Conyas Entertainment, Agnes Chew, who came over from Disney.

She's awesome, um and I think that number one, you know, as as she's shared many times, is that our focus is to create a premium quality um to create premium quality content period and whether that is in film and television, or you know, through a partnership with Netflix, like we want to bring on the best of the best UM two engage with our audiences UM in ways that we think, uh,

only we can. And we've had a lot of success there in film and television, and I think that, you know, Agnes brings a totally new and fresh um line of thinking to that. And that's kind of like the Halo and the magic and so it's it almost immediately, you know, lends itself to how we think about digital video or as you said, short form UM because we have this you know, the mechanism in which we're approaching film and television.

And and I would compare, you know, I look at a company like who Lou right, and and they're kind of they're a company that kind of does all from a from from that perspective. You know, they're making movies now, they're making TV shows now, and you know, obviously it's a it's a different type of company because um of of the way that they think about format and the way that they produce their content. But it isn't in terms of just the the value prop in the content itself.

And so for us, you know, kind of started in the reverse, we have a pretty robust kind of like digital video business. Now we also have like you know, brands that kind of bring this content to the consumer UM and there's a different relationship that I think some of our brands have with our consumers in that space that is is pretty divine. But yeah, I mean I would just say that, like how do they kind of come together? As you know there there it's a different

business model. Obviously, one is more a direct to consumer model and the other is more of a of an advertising model. But it starts with making the best possible content and and building it for the consumer UM and ultimately if consumers really like it, and there's an opportunity

to provide an opportunity for advertisers. So you know, I think our digital video platform UM enables advertisers to participate, right and uh, you know film and television allows um, you know, consumers to enjoy and and ultimately I think it's it's a huge part of our future. I mean, this is when we think about the future of content,

you know, site, sound and motion. You know, imagine people love to talk about Conde Nasa magazine company, but ultimately this is how the majority of our consumers are engaging with our content today, but we should point out that on the licensing side that that part of what Agnes choose running it's ideas that could be generated from magazine

stories that turn into movies. I know, for instance, I think there's a movie coming to Netflix maybe later this year, Escaped from Spiderhead, which is based on an article that appeared in a Conde nas publication. So I guess you know. The thing is, though, when I look over the past ten years, I can't think of that many examples of Conde Nask material that has sort of broken out onto screens big and small as TV shows and films. Are you happy with the progress you got? There? Is Agnes,

you know, accelerating this. I'm just curious to get a sense of progress. Yeah, I mean she definitely brings different chops. I mean, Agnes is she's a Disney plus. Yeah, I mean, she's a baller. There's a reason why she's here, um am. I first of all, I'm super excited about our future and film and television. I think there's a huge opportunity there and I think we have the right person to make that happen. And I think, uh so that kind of you know speaks for itself. But we're we're we're building.

We're in building mode, um, and I'm really proud of that. I think, you know, I think to your question about where some of our I P comes from, or when we think about like ideas for movies that may come from magazine articles. I think the way that we think about it now, and I've had this conversation with Anna several times is you know, we used to be a magazine company. So all of the stories that we wrote,

like the format was physical media, it was magazines. Now the format is is um Our content doesn't come from magazines anymore. Like we create content and we decide like what format we think that content is going to make the most sense. Right. So, in many cases, you know, there is a physical media approach to it, but in other cases, a lot of our content is sitting in

digital video that you wouldn't find in our magazines. If you think about the partnership we have with YouTube as an example, UM, you know, the content we create for Netflix is is not content you would find in any of the pages of our magazines. Right. So I think that the opportunity for us is that Listen, we have the most We are a creative company, and we're probably one of the most influential i P companies in the world.

The majority of the years that we've been in business, we focus that influence and that creative precitions in magazines. But in the last five years we've extended that influence and that creativity and that talent to all of these new platforms. We produced content on eighty platforms worldwide. Now the majority of our audiences are digital. We have one billion I think it is digital views per month UM globally.

You know, when you talk about the range of audience consumption digitally, but it's not like a competition, it's not like, well one as bad as one is good. It's just

it's different. You know, print is a is a totally different experience, and so UM, I guess my point is when we think about i P and where it belongs, whether that's in a movie or you know, in some in some sort of like you know, in through a video format experience UM, or even if it's it's something we're producing for social you know, in partnership with Instagram, or maybe it's something that's gonna live on our own

and operate. It starts with like what story do we want to tell and then where do we want to tell it? And then how do we want to monetize that? And and you know today we have the ability now to monetize that two ways, via the consumer and via the advertiser. We're talking to Pam drucker Man, Chief revenue Officer at Conde Nast, and we'll be right back in a moment. Welcome back, talking with Pam Drucker Man of

Conde Nast about all things at the company. Another area that Conde Nast Entertainment is in that I would assume, with your role in the advertising side of the business, will be of increasing importance is podcasts. You just did a hire of Chris Bannon from Stitchard to oversee that business. Uh, it's something where it's not like you're starting from scratch. You guys are already in this game. What is sort of the next level you're trying to get at with

this new hire. I mean, I think it says a lot, you know, I think Chris is highly reputable. Um, it's just like, I mean the amount of emails that I've received, like, oh, like you guys are really getting into audio. You guys hired Chris, it's like, Um, you know, I think he's uh, he's obviously a really talented guy. I mean, look, these

are early days is for Condom. I mean we've we've we've been in the digital video space and even in the TV film space for much longer, and we've been in the you know, audio space, and we've we've we've, we've dabbled, we've had some success, UM, but I think we we recognize that again going back to what I was saying earlier, that you know, we have I that consumers want and audio is a way that consumers are spending time with content, and this is an area where

we feel like we just have permission. But you know, it's a different format than bringing someone in with the expertise that I think can help UM take us to the next level there is UM is actually extremely encouraging and as a as a commercial revenue lead, I'm actually very excited about it. Okay, let's hit another part of the business, commerce where you guys are seeing more growth. I'm seeing, uh, the stores that are attached to every

dot com associated with your brands. How meaningful is that business? I've I've never you know, bought a product on a on a publisher website. Um, but maybe I'm not seeing something. Yeah, well, I mean listen, if our CMO, dear Drew Finley, was here, she would say that, Um, you know, it's a little bit more complex than that. She's having a lot of success this year. I think our e commerce businesses up. Um.

Now listen again. The beginning of the podcast, we were talking about consumer behavior changing and shifting and consumer spending more time online and buying online. And you know, affiliate has certainly been a big part of our strategy and that didn't just start like five minutes ago. You know, we have a really different you know, when I think about the role of Connie asked brands, and I think about Vogue, I think but g Q, I think about Wired, I think about a D You know, consumers come to

us for curation. They they expect that we're going to help them kind of be a signal in the noise, right, and and we're kind of the partner that creates wantedness in demand. When I think about this as an omni media partner, I feel like that's the one area that

is kind of hard to compete with. You know, how many other brands can motivate you to want to, you know, get on a plane and go stay in that hotel, or motivate you to want to go to that restaurant, or motivate you to you know by that um, you know, that beauty product. With that much authority, and so I think we have more permission to be honest with you to succeed in e commerce and probably any other competitor from an IP perspective, or I would say we have.

We have a tremendous amount of UM. We have a lot of brand trust with the consumer already. I think the difference though is like, look, I think that the e commerce business of the past was you know, you create or if you're you know, if you're a publisher, you create content and you add an affiliate link, right, I think the future of e commerce is quite different. I think some of the stuff that Deirdre is doing is really really interesting and really really innovative. And that's

thinking about content any commerce. At the same time, that's when you think about you know, we're kind of in the driver's seat, So how do you think about content in a way that like what what is what is a piece of content that should be viable versus a piece of content that shouldn't be When do consumers just want to lean back and enjoy and when do they actually want to buy right? And so just getting more sophisticated around that. This is a huge part of our strategy.

Our CEO, Roger Lynch, has been very focused on our direct to consumer UM business, but not just that, really focused on like building, continuing to dimensionalize and build out the relationship between our brands and our consumers and e commerce is a place where I feel like we just have a lot of opportunity and we're seeing that this year with the with the progress that I already mentioned.

Another kind of of commerce on site, of course, is the subscription business itself, where like a lot of publishing businesses, condeingas seems to have sort of a pendulum over the past year or so with putting things behind the paywall pulling them back. Um, where do things stand now? Is just does Roger have some sort of general philosophy at this point of what works in terms of paywall? Well, I don't. I don't think we've put things on the

paywall and pulled them back. I think all of our paywall strategies so we have three brands behind a paywall right now, so the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired UM and all of them have had a different you know, approach and test mechanism around the meter, right like you you have to kind of get to know your consumer and what they're willing to pay for and what they aren't. We've had a lot of success again this year, UM. I think we've you know, had double digit growth this year.

I think we're up sixteen percent every year in total subscriptions UM. Again and not to not everything is you know, again, we only have three brands right now, so we're still learning and we're still gathering data, and you know, I think ultimately, UM, there are certain brands that consumers are gonna be willing to pay for and for whatever it's worth. I mean, we always had consumers have always paid for our content. You know, they bought our magazine is on

the newstand, or they paid for a subscription. So like paying for content as content isn't a new like concept for consumers. I think it's really more about, UM, how if you think about the digital space, the consumer expectation and we all know we've talked about everyone loves to talk about the saturation of subscriptions and you know what are consumers how many more like you know a spot

subscriptions are consumers willing to pay for? And there's definitely a bubble that's you know, either going to burst eventually or is already bursting somewhat. But we're we've had a lot of success with The New Yorker, and we're seeing you know, really encouraging results with with Vanity, Fair and

Wired and certainly UM. You know, I think, uh, I will tell you as the advertising lead, it is a great conversation to have with our advertisers, right because when you have a brand that consumers are willing to pay for and by the way, willing to pay a premium for UM, I think that that is the type of audience that you should be you know, really focused on from an advertising But I'm a little surprised by that because I would have made the presumption that advertisers would

push back on any sort of barrier or gating that keeps you from maximizing the number of eyeballs. But you're saying advertisers will like a smaller group that's willing to pay their more engaged. Yeah, I mean it's I don't think the goal I mean, listen, it depends on the advertiser. But like the goal isn't as many people as I possibly can. The goal is, you know, what can I get out of the people that I'm reaching? Return on investment ROAs people have to talk about that um, return

on add spend. I think, I think, I think marketers are getting a lot more sophisticated. They're spending a lot more looking at things like e commerce right, looking at data like engagement, how much time or consumers spending with the content. UM. They're looking at environment as obviously a really big metric for them in terms of performance. And yeah, I mean they're looking at you know, the you know,

are all consumers created equal? Probably not in terms of the amount of time I they're willing to spend with the piece of content or whether they're willing to pay for that piece of content. So gating of content is not the challenge for the marketer. It's the it's the challenge for the publisher because we have to figure out what the best balance is between you know, how much content we're gating UM so that you know, the subscriber is getting something extra special versus you know, what pieces

of content. We're not gating UM, so that the advertiser has an opportunity to be a part of it. So I think, you know, we're getting that balance. UM, but it's not gonna be the same for all brands. By the way, there's not like a set formula yet for

whatever it's worth, got it? You know, I'd be remiss and not asking about the culture at Conde Nast, which looked fairly rocky in controversies a teen Vogue and Bone Appetite gave the suggestion that the company had some real work to do to ensure that a diverse workplace where employees felt equally valued, regardless of ethnicity, or gender or anything. Do you feel the company has progressed and you're seeing

signs you're in that culture? Yeah? I mean look, I mean we've we've learned a lot over the past year, and you know, we're still in the process of applying those learnings. You know, we we hired a global Chief Diversity Officer. UM. We have put a framework in place that was an obvious um that we didn't have prior to UM. I think that as an executive team, we're hyper focused on, you know, the culture and the community that we are building and that we're harnessing. Um. You know.

But yeah, I mean, look, we we obviously had a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of work to do. I would be remiss to say that, you know, we haven't made progress. But you know, this

isn't something that is going to change overnight. Um. And I don't think anyone can can say that it's it's like an every day all day you know, it's not sometimes uh strategy, it has to be part of your end to end and and you know it's um, it's been I will say, you know, from from my perspective, I think as a company, when you think about the future as a as a culture curator, just you know,

in terms of like what we do for the consumer. Um, it just put a real emphasis on the relationship we want to have with our employees at the same time. So no, we're not like actualized. And by the way, like I don't I don't, you know, I think we have a lot of work to do period um in the US, you know, and uh, clearly there's that was a long time coming. Um. But we're very focused on it and we're very committed to it. And you know

more to come. Let's not forget of course, conte As is very much a global company, and so I was curious if you could give me sort of the overseas picture, how much it contributes to the overall revenue of the business. And it just seems like I'm reading and hearing a lot more about cooperation, global cooperation between what otherwise maybe years ago, we're completely separate operations that happened to have the same brand. So yeah, I mean, look, we were

two separate companies. I mean, you know, Roger Lynch is our first global CEO, and some people don't know that. Um, we were an international company and we were a US company, and so this is the first global team on the executive level. You know, this is the first time we're operating as a global company. So that's number one, UM number two. You know, all of our countries contribute UM in different ways, UM too the overall you know, to

our overall global revenue. But like I think what's been really interesting is, you know, someone who spent more time in our US market before I was the global revenue leaders, just seeing where um, where you know, there was obvious is obviously in all the ways that we were so different culturally UM. But what was really interesting was to see what our brands meant to our consumers in those locals,

local markets, UM. And how similar of a relationship Vogue US had UM with its customer and consumer as you know, you know Vogue France has with its customer and consumer.

And also just looking at a brand like g Q and just seeing the impact UM and the differences that that brand has in in the you know, in many of the international markets where it's it's versus you know, g Q in the US, And so I think there's definitely more of a global community feeling now there's an appreciation for like obviously our differences and not you know,

not being global doesn't necessarily mean being the same. It just means having more visibility and transparency into like what we are as a global company and what we mean to our various consumers in our local markets, and even how we think about now building the business. It's like, you know, what I think about our our strategy as a global content company, you know, what does the future of our content look like? You know what I mean?

And and and and by the way, our number one job is to meet the consumer where they are and I actually think we're unique in the fact that we are now, as I said earlier, doing that across eight platforms, and I think, you know, thirty one markets. And that's significant to be able to say that that we're not just you know, influencing a consumer in the US, are influencing a consumer in China, that we're actually in all of these places. And so I think that actually gives

us a UM. I think that allows us to really get behind initiatives like sustainability from a global perspective or D and I from a global perspective. UM. And that's a big part of I think our I don't know responsibility, UM. But now we have all these creatives that are connecting in ways that they just never had the ability to do before. UM. So it's been really I don't know, it's been really exciting. UH. It's definitively a big opportunity

for our company. UM. It allows us to provide a lot more range to our global advertisers because you know, the the ability to run a global campaign with Connie Nast and six markets across multiple touchpoints UM. And that's just great to be able to provide that level of of range, you know, at a time when I don't know how many other companies can can do that in

quite the same way. Well, speaking of other companies, we're having this conversation just a week or so after Barry Diller announced that he was going to acquire Narratives Magazine Group for two point seven billion. Curious to get your sense of, well, what does it mean to have another publisher out there with pretty massive scale out there to compete with I'm sure you're going to be fighting with them for ad dollars. You know, what does it say

about the publishing marketplace in general? Well, I mean, look, I was having drinks for the friend last night and we were just talking about this. You know this this this like moment in time, um, which we were just talking about this creator's economy, right like unbelieva there's listen.

I mean, you know, you know, like there's been so much focus over in the last five years on the platforms, right um, and and there still is to a certain extent, but like I think they're just more and from a platform perspective, there's just more appreciation in terms of what's powering those platforms, whether that's user generated content or but

the commonality is content and creativity UM. And I think there's you know, if you think about you know, publishing companies, UM, there's a lot of scarcity in terms of like what that creator's economy looks like, and and that provides that that just gives the value back to the creative or the power in so many ways back to the the the creatives itself, you know, and because those that's really who's engaging with the consumer and growing audiences at the end of the day. So look, I think this is

a really interesting moment UM. I think there's a renaissance happening when it comes to content creation UM and how that now connects to UM digital capabilities. When you think about what's going on with this this merger, if you will, of this acquisition, if you will, Meredith Merediths brands UM, and the relationship that Meredith's brands have with its consumer now combined with the scale and digital capabilities of dot Dash. I mean, that's that's that. I mean you said the

word before. I mean that's a that's you know, gonna

make them quite competitive. UM. But I like that. I like that, you know, content companies are innovating, and that's our job is to to find new and innovative ways to engage with the consumer and giving and give, you know, and the fact that that those those worlds are coming together is great for the marketer, by the way, because there was a moment in time where they had to pick between the platform and the publisher or you know, working with you know, just like wanting to have all

these data capabilities, but like not really have any substance to connect to those data capabilities. So I think this is really great for the consumer, by the way, and really great for the advertiser. Um. And I think it's it's gonna make us all better. Um. And we're you know, we're also I think in a really unique position to

have all three. I mean, this is you know, we just talked about this before, like our focus on e commerce and our focus on how we're dimensionalizing the relationship we have with our brands with our consumer through digital subscriptions, and how we're then productizing all of that back to the advertiser. I think just puts us in a unique

space that I think makes us highly competitive. And it'll be really interesting to see how people define, you know, what does the sandbox look like, you know in three years, right who are the big players um in terms of the advertising market, and uh you know, I think this is a really interesting, you know acquisition for all of those reasons. Well, I am sure will not be the last in the space. Uh So we'll have to see

how continues to unfold. But Pam, I thank you for taking the time out today to walk me through all things Conde Nast and good luck for the rest of the year. Thank you so much, really appreciate you having me on. This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping of scintillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you

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