“This is a massive story – it’s touching every single company and industry we cover across three brands,” says Morrissey in a remote interview via BeetCam. Digiday Media owns media and marketing publication Digiday, fashion and beauty publication Glossy and retail industry publication Modern Retail. “The actual editorial direction isn’t difficult – we put ourselves at the center of these industries. We connect people with the information they need to do their jobs better, and in a world of massive uncertainty that roles becomes even more important.”

There’s no shortage of business angles for reporters to explore right now; what’s important for an organization to do is keep up morale as companies continue working remote and some workers are dealing with an external crisis for the first time. “This situation is unique in a lot of ways, but we’ve been through the post 9/11, dot com bust and the financial crisis, and some others haven’t. It’s new, and it’s shocking.”

As companies work to make their ways through the crisis, advertising strategies are up in the air. Some have paused advertising spend all together as they figure out their messaging, Morrissey says, and some categories will be more resilient than others. More important than campaign angles, slogans or “how we’re dealing with coronavirus” emails is the actions companies take.

“One of the more interesting aspects is companies need to figure out what they can do to help during this time,” Morrissey says. “That will stick. Not all the tactical stuff about whether they put on ads.” Companies like LVMH turning over supply chains to hand sanitizer production leave an impression, similar to when Hyundai defer car payments after the 2008 financial crisis.

“That’s the kind of stuff that not only will it contribute to solving this problem but it’s actions and it’s not words,” Morrissey says. “A lot of advertising gets caught up in what the right words are when really what’s needed are the right actions. That’s what I’m looking for.”

Other industry semantics need to be updated as well, IAB President & CEO Randall Rothenberg says in this interview with Beet.TV. The Annual Leadership Meeting takes place Feb. 11-13 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa, Palm Desert, CA.

“The time has come to get rid of this notion of sell-side and buy-side. It is deficient and it actually harms everybody because it makes it seem as if brands and their partner organizations are in kind of commander service relationships,” says Rothenberg.

IAB research shows that in the Direct Brand Economy, buyers and sellers come together in “vital integrated supply chain relationships that the brands cannot live without and nor obviously can publishers and others live without.” Thus buy-side, sell-side linguistics constitutes “awful language and ought to be banished for all time.”

The same research casts new light on the notion of “brand safety” in digital advertising environments, according to Rothenberg. Among other things, the research proves it has nothing to do with that “soft thing” called brand reputation but everything to do with unfettered access to first-party data.

Data fuels every function of the brand enterprise, from new-product development to figuring out what to charge individual customers. It’s all done increasingly in real time with decisions made on feedback loops.

“Companies need continuous access to first-party data, which means that it requires the complete trust of its consumer base. No trust equals no data equals no company,” Rothenberg says.

Therefore, brand safety isn’t optional. “It is essential to the future of a brand.”

The IAB has been a major proponent of the need for greater transparency on digital advertising platforms. Rothenberg says 2017 was probably the best year ever in terms of the progress that has been achieved. He points to comments by Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at Procter & Gamble, in an interview with Digiday in which Pritchard says the drive for a more transparent digital ecosystem is “80 percent complete.”

This video is part of a series covering the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting. The series is sponsored by AppNexus. Please visit this page for more coverage.

Turner Ignite Sports is the latest iteration of Turner Ignite, which was created to offer content and data solutions. It’s described as an in-house, full-service sports marketing agency focusing on intellectual property, live events and experiential marketing, creative services and data solutions, as ADWEEK and Digiday report.

In an interview with Beet.TV, Kavilanz says Turner Ignite is well into virtual reality video creation along with finding niche audiences for marketers across Turner’s massive social, digital and linear presences.

One example is Turner Ignite’s work to promote Sully, the Warner Bros drama film about the “Miracle on the Hudson.” Calling VR “a fascinating place where we love to experiment,” Kavilanz explains how a VR camera affixed to the underside of a helicopter simulated the flight path of the crippled airliner, generating video that was augmented by CNN footage.

Having created a compelling piece of content, the next challenge was locating and targeting VR enthusiasts, according to Kavilanz.

“Given the fact that we are able to access all of Turner’s social handles, we’re able to find people who like VR,” Kavilanz says. “We have found that there are certain people who will watch anything that’s VR-centric on YouTube or Facebook. Because of our unique structure, we’re creating an audience of people who love VR in addition to people who are fans of a respective show.”

Turner initially believed its Turner Ignite clients would consist mostly or solely of its linear TV advertisers. But with so many marketers of all sizes having jumped onto the content marketing bandwagon, they need help finding audiences for it, according to Kavilanz.

Most of Turner Ignite’s work involves traditional one- or two-minute videos. “The way we typically structure these deals there is a content component and a media component,” Kavilanz says.

Using its data and insights to make sure the content reaches right audience, Turner Ignite guarantees video views or impressions. “About 70% of our deals are on a cost per view basis and the balance on a CPM basis,” says Kavilanz. “We’re also offering the opportunity for guarantees of a minimum of 30 seconds of view time, which is very unique and something advertisers are increasingly asking more and more to participate in.”

One code in particular that Turner Ignite would like to crack is video sharing, according to Kavilanz. “What we’re going after is not just deriving a quality view, we’re trying to unlock the share,” he says. “That’s something that we’re spending a considerable amount of time figuring out how we can do both.”

Digiday is soon to expand in to other topics and regions, Morrissey tells Beet.TV in this video interview.

“We’re looking to launch new brands in other verticals, take our model and tweak it and apply it to similar models to media and marketing but different industries,” he says.

For anyone hoping that may suggest mission creep on Digiday’s part, Morrissey says staying true to a USP is key – for his site, and all other publishers. He calls it “the power of building a differentiated brand”.

“At Digiday, we believe in having a focused brand,” says Morrissey, speaking at his own Digiday Publishing Summit in Colorado. “There is going to be a reckoning for publishers that haven’t focused solely on audience development.”

Digiday ha grown to number 54 people, including expanding its London team from two to three and a growing roster of events in Europe.

Next up, Morrissey aims to be big in Japan. Having struck a JV with local publisher Infobahn in September, a first Asian conference is coming up in Kyoto in June.

This interview took place at the Digiday Publishing Summit in Vail, Colorado, in March.

For an overview on the topics and format, we spoke with Paul Kontonis, CMO of Digiday.

“Native is growing up,” says industry news site Digiday‘s editor-in-chief Brian Morrissey. “Custom things don’t scale. Advertising is a scale business. We’re seeing native figuring out a way to marry the advertising systems that are able to distribute things efficiently with the more custom placements that are native.”

Morrissey’s Digiday has become a popular read amongst marketers and publishers. Now it is expanding in Europe with the hiring of a UK editor, recently holding its first European conference in Barcelona and planning another in Nice.

“The future of media is having a focus,” Morrissey says. “It can be on video, a local level or an industry level – that kind of media is incredible valuable. There are opportunities for new kinds of media companies to spring up.”

We spoke with him at the Mindshare party at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.