In Defense of Ad Sales People

The Digiday Publishing Summit in West Palm Beach, Fla., brought together top publishers to discuss the challenges and opportunities they face in digital media. Below are some notable quotes from the first day.

“Sales people actually ad value. When programmatic buying takes over, the advertisers end up doing a one-sided transaction. There’s no value added from the publisher’s side.”
— Tom Shields, chief strategy officer, Yieldex

“The notion that Do Not Track will destroy advertising online is stupid.
— Jim Spanfeller, CEO, Spanfeller Media Group

“We’re in the business of trying to figure out how best to connect audiences to the brands we’re working with. Content is the most powerful vehicle to do that. It takes a tremendous amount of work; it has to be authentic, transparent, no pulling wool over people eyes in terms of whats editorial and what’s not, and it has to be really cool.”
— Marty Moe, publisher, The Verge

“Publishers are sitting on the outside looking in. Their content is going out but social is monetizing, not you. We think there’s big opportunity for publishers to do a better job and monetize.”
— Tim Schigel, CEO, ShareThis

“For a brand publisher, the biggest mistake is focus on scale over quality. At the end of the day, it’s a long fight and the brand is all you have.”
— Jason Kint, gm of sports, CBS Interactive

“Publishers using data is like sex in high school: everyone’s talking about it, very few are doing it and those that are aren’t doing it well.”
— Brian Morrissey, editor in chief, Digiday

https://digiday.com/?p=24614

More in Media

Digiday+ Research Lifestyle Subscription Index 2024: Time, Vogue and The Atlantic choose between divesting or investing in subscriptions

The 2024 Subscription Index examines and measures publishers’ subscription strategies across several different digital touch points. This third installment of the research series looks at some of the top lifestyle-focused publications in the U.S.

How news publishers are adapting post-election, with Yahoo News’s Kat Downs Mulder

The veteran news executive joined the Digiday Podcast to discuss how this year’s U.S. presidential election is affecting news publishers.

Assessing the fallout of Google’s ad tech antitrust trial

Parsing the probable, possible, and plain absurd, including what a divested entity may look like.