Media Partnerships with The Economist and BCG experts

Media partnerships can help brands enhance their visibility and create deeper connections with their target audience. This document explores the evolution, challenges, and future prospects of media partnerships through insights from industry experts, offering a detailed look into the strategies that make these collaborations successful.

Guests

Emma Winchurch-Beale, VP of Group Partnerships at The Economist Impact

Victoria Pawsey, Media Partnerships Director at BCG

Welcome to B2B Marketing Futures I'm Joaquin Dominguez head of marketing at Adzact and today we are exploring a topic that holds tremendous potential for brands looking to deepen their market impact, which is media partnerships. In a world dominated by digital advertising, finding

innovative approaches to reach your audience can differentiate your brand and unlock new levels of engagement and growth. To explore this further, we are joined by two distinguished guests, each bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience in powerful media partnerships

first up, we have Emma Wintersville. Hi, Emma.

Hi. Nice to be here. Thank you.

Emma is the VP of Group partnerships at The Economist Impact and president of the World Media group. Emma has an impressive background in utilizing a broad spectrum of media formats to foster growth and

innovation within B2B marketing. Her experience extends beyond advertising, incorporating thought leadership and research into comprehensive partnership strategies. Joining her is Victoria Pawsey. Hello, Victoria.

Hi there. Thanks for having me

victoria is the media partnerships director at the Boston Consulting Group. Victoria's approach to media partnership is a strategic and centralized focus on driving brand growth and value through meticulous selection and maximization of each partnership opportunity

Her experience at BCG, one of the world's leading firms in leveraging effective media partnerships, will offer invaluable insights into how businesses can better qualify and extract maximum value from from these collaborations. So together, we will explore

the potential of media partnerships, the strategic approach to selecting the right partners, how to evaluate the success and ROI. And as we look towards the future, that's our podcast name, by the way. We will also speculate on how media partnership might evolve with

automation, artificial intelligence and innovative content strategies. I would love to hear if you could share a bit about your journey in the world of media partnerships and

what excites you most about this space.

I've been in media for a very long time and originally a brand partnership would be a print advertorial. It would be about creating a story for a brand

in the style of the partner in the media publisher that you were representing. And I think as we've become more digital, that's evolved. We find that now there's a lot more reporting and data assigned to the projects that we work on. So ROI

is really, really accessible, more important than ever before. I think, you know, if the question is, why do brands work with publishers? Because there's many types of different media partnerships that brands can engage in. But why they would work

with a publisher is really because publishers know who their readers are. They understand what topics and themes resonate with our readers and how best to approach that brand storytelling, that content, piece, whether it be an article, whether it be film led

whether it be using audio or podcast, there's so many opportunities available for a brand to develop a partnership with a publisher in today's market.

I think the other thing I would, agree with everything. Emma's just said, I think the other thing is

obviously a lot of brands have become very sophisticated in the content that they produce. But I think the missing element and the reason that any brand should consider working with a partnership is just down to the pure and simple fact that they have. They have a reach, a wider reach than maybe you as a brand have on your own. So

when you're producing content in-house and you're pushing that out on your social channels, or all the different channels that you might have, you're really talking to that audience that are familiar with you already, and I think, you know, really successful and smart, partnerships have a dual pronged approach

of reinforcing how you're seen in the market by people you already know, but with a trusted partner, but also, most crucially, getting you getting your content, getting visibility in front of an audience that you don't currently have. And so I think a lot of, brands often miss that point of asking themselves, well

which audiences do we really feel like we're really strong with, and which audiences are we missing? And actually, you can really work effectively with media partners to access, your most hard to reach audiences. So, for me, that's often around the C-suite. But it might be that if you are

a different size organization, actually, or having a really tough time getting to the chief procurement officer, for example, and you're just not able to make traction with that. And so kind of identifying that and, and working out which publishers then the right one for you is it is a really key piece to making sure that we're driving on that data piece and getting ROI out of the the partnership

yeah. And I would say at The Economist, we really position ourselves as a think tank with the added bonus that you can actually amplify all that great work across the various media channels. So whether it be through print, through audio, through digital or increasingly we're seeing

a resurgence again for that live event, that moment when you can interact. I think post-Covid there's a huge appetite, and the recognition that you cannot really replace that, face to face opportunity meeting discussion live, in a room. And so we're, seeing a lot more

more of our brand partnerships, including some of the events, whether they be the events that we're already having, our impact editorial calendar or whether they're bespoke, more tailored to what a brand might want. So they may wish to have a private discussion to sense check something that they're, building or

it could be something much broader where they have a piece of research or some thought leadership they want to share with a huge number of people on a larger stage. So I do think that we are seeing, a resurgence in, live. I think people, kind of fatigued a little bit on the virtual living through Covid

and we're seeing definite, move back to let's meet up and, and get in a room together.

Emma, could you elaborate on how media partnerships, especially that relationship that you were describing between a brand and a publisher

in a collaborative effort with agencies have evolved in the B2B sector.

I think it's really important. I think my own personal preference or the most success is always generated by getting ahead of a brief to actually understanding

what a brand is, really the the challenges facing maybe the CSO or the CMO or even the CEO to understand what that brand strategy is looking like and actually listening to what a brand has to say and seeing how it might fit with some of the key

initiatives that we're working on. For example, we work very much in kind of three key pillars around our thought leadership, which is around health, sustainability and new globalization. And there are many different pillars that fall within that. And by understanding

where a brand's challenge may be, you will probably find some common ground. And then we can find some white space to develop thought leadership around that. So I think it's really kind of the most successful partnerships are understanding from a brand perspective what a brand, is looking

to work on and, and build out in strategy. But I think it's also important to link up with the agency. I think many, capabilities have been taken back in-house by, brands, but they still very much use the agency for a lot of the lifting amplification of that project

sometimes doing a test brief or briefing. So I think there is that triangle, you know, when I work on the best projects, it's really working with the brand, but also working hand in hand with the agency. So you've got this triangle of a relationship that is very well connected, and each

supporting one of the pillars and working together.

What kind of agencies are you talking about?

Digital agencies, thought leadership, agencies, across, increasingly working with PR companies, actually, they're doing more, work around thought leadership than

before or certainly getting I'm getting more approach from PR companies looking to develop, content or thought leadership for brands. But again, traditional working with traditional agencies, you know, the big agencies who brief on, a proposal, you know, who brief in maybe ten,

15 partners to see what that project might look like with that particular partner. So really twofold in that respect. And obviously you also get media only briefs, but they're more about, you know, activating and in the moment and they are less about building

some brand storytelling or something more thought leadership in a more thought leadership area.

Victoria, I'm very keen to hear the other side which is from a brand perspective, because you mentioned that having a adopting

a proactive rather than reactive partnership strategy is also really important. So how do you approach this and how this has influenced your initiatives?

Taking a proactive strategy to look at and that that could be for

you know, a long brand moment where you need, a bit more always on activity and you're, you're building kind of brand awareness or a perception change, or it could be, for what Emma described, you know, there's a there's a piece of research and we need to launch it, and we need to figure out what which is the right partner. It kind of doesn't matter. But I think just taking that time to understand what

are the different component parts of a media partnership that are going to be important to you. So is it across brand awareness or increasing your share of voice? Is it that thought leadership piece? Are we trying to build trust and saliency with our brand in a particular space? Are we trying to elevate some of our thought leaders, or is actually, lead generation and the commercial pipeline really important as an output of that partnership? Now, normally it's going to be a combination of those sort of three main areas, but really understanding, you know, how to prioritize those or put a percentage point against those three. It then allows you when you do that, whether you

do it with an agency or you do it in-house, when you do that research to kind of go out and proactively look in the market for partnerships that that might fit that criteria, you can not only kind of have a look and see. Yes. Do they have the audience that we're trying to get to, but also has that proposal really kind of nailed it in terms of looking at

you know, the ratio across those three areas. You know, if, most of the, the importance of the partnership is to change a perception on something, increase our share of voice, build brand awareness, then actually 50% of the output of that partnership should reflect that. And I think where I work in true partnership

with a lot of different publishers and, media providers out there, is in also not kind of getting that proposal back and thinking, that's it. It hasn't answered it. Okay. It goes in the bin. It's about kind of being really open with that partner and going back and forward. And it's very usual for me to do that process, you know,

maybe 4 or 5 times until we get to something, you know, where both sides kind of feel like it's really hitting the bill. And I think a lot of that just comes down to communication. Whether that's from, you know, the brand to the agency and the agency to the publisher or direct, it doesn't matter. But I think it's just everybody being super clear on kind of what we're actually really looking for as part of that partnership. And I think if you take the time to do that, then if, that partnership doesn't exist already out there through, something that's kind of already been sold to the market from that publisher with a lot of the right publishers, and this is, you know, going back to your question about

what excites me, often it really excites me to build something from scratch. Because I think then you can really start to kind of be really, really innovative. And, and it's with your most trusted partners that that you're often able to do that.

I would just follow up from that as on the other side of the fence. We love it. If a brand gives us, you know, feedback so that we can

because it's it's rare that you get the perfect brand partnership from the first brief. You know, there's a communication and and these partnerships are partnerships with a capital P. They are about working together to find the best output for the challenge

that a brand is having and facing. So I think, you know, when we send a proposal in and we don't hear anything back from an agency, it's very frustrating because how can we learn, how can we build, how can we know that we didn't you know, we couldn't make that tweak that might have actually made the perfect project. So, you know

that's why I think that triangle of a relationship, to ensure that you have that constant feedback opportunity. And even once a program is signed, then the work really starts because, you know, from a kick off call, totally right. it then develops into a project which might actually scope out a little bit differently from the the first meeting. But

it's about working together to navigate to, better understand and deliver on what those key objectives are. And I think one of the themes that we're finding is, seems to be that brands want much more meaningful, thoughtful work, and that comes from really getting

to know each other much better. And the programs that really resonate are those that have like a two and three year iteration, because you can build on all the good work you've started in year one. So, you know, we very much look to build programs that can be built on multiple years because

there's always, you know, even if you're doing a piece of research, you might start it off in a smaller number of markets. But there's always scope then to build on new markets and develop that out. So they're the best programs because, you know, they've got longevity and gives a brand the opportunity to really build that thought leadership

and make it something that is going to be much, much more meaningful to them. Definitely. I try and be as transparent as possible with, all of the different publishers that I work with. Right from when I'm in the sort of the discovery phase of working out who we should work

with. I try and be open to say, you know, I am speaking to a couple of other publishers, and, you know, get all of their really making a kind of a data driven decision. So, you know, making sure that they have got the audience that we're looking for, but then also that there's creativity in it and trust as part of that partnership

we just ran, a really useful exercise. And I've started to roll it out across all of our partnerships, where we did a sort of a very interactive feedback session, using a piece of martech, actually, where we all were able to kind of log in and, both sides, the publisher and, the brand kind of talk about what went well, what we wanted to stop doing and what we want to do for the future. And it was great because we got so many more ideas, and I think we really strengthened the trust between the two, ultimately two brands, you know, trying to

work together and to build for the future. And so I think that that really helps us to build partnerships where both sides are creating their best work. And I would totally agree that what you sign the contract, that's when the hard work begins for both sides, because I think a lot of the time brands think it's quite a transactional, contract and

that's it. You hand everything over to the publisher, but actually the best ones are the most innovative ones are where you're working together, learning from each other, challenging each other. And that's where we see when we talk about results. That's where we see the best results. From those partnerships where we have that relationship, I believe it's fascinating that you can work

for three years on a research with a publisher.

I think that the level of depth that you can get from, the research and from the partnership, how much you can learn from each other. I think it's fascinating. I didn't know I didn't expect actually that it could take that long, a partnership.

We've got some projects that have been running for ten years so you can evolve them. And, and that shows that, you know, there's a huge white space there to deliver on. When you look at something like sustainability and you try and find the white space, you become

quite niche. But there are definite areas that we identify that brands can really own and create new thinking about a topic or proof point something with data, and really show, you know, how efforts in a particular area can really

shift, output and eventual, you know, especially there's a lot of work around, you know, net zero and how do we get there and the things that people can do or climate resilience or areas that we do a lot of work around health and really sort of dig digging deep into a topic

I think data is, is really important in being able to proof point, test something, showcase and lead in that in those areas.

Definitely. Well, that leads us, I think, to the second topic that we want to discuss, which is data. And because data plays a crucial role

evaluating the effectiveness of marketing in general. But of course in partnerships, this is also a really, really important. So Emma, can you tell us more about how you navigate the challenges of data collection and set KPIs that truly measure success?

I think

as a brand, we very much believe that we combine the power of evidence based insights and analysis with creative innovation, to our audience. And I think data comes in many different forms. I think one thing you'll find in the content creation side is that brands want to use data to

showcase pieces and to help them do that, we have our thought leadership programs, which are really data driven. So that's on the output side. And on the measurement side, I think the critical part of any program is to set the KPIs at the beginning, because the KPIs will set out how

we go about creating that project. If you suddenly pivot the KPIs in the middle of a project, it makes it more difficult to, measure and, present back on the original KPIs. So I think it's really important for us to listen to what brands are being measured on, because obviously the

brand has many key Stakeholders, and each one of those key stakeholders will have a slightly different, need from that research or that piece of, work. And so it's really important at the beginning to establish what those KPIs are. And then there are various ways of measuring those through to, you know, standard

media plans which look at clicks and, impressions through to more elaborate processes which can measure pre and post brand activity, can look at, you know, certainly when we're doing more work around policy and insights and research

you know, how much is going to be picked up organically and that sort of coverage. So there's a lot of data available. But it's how it's how we approach that at the beginning. That is really a critical part in the measurement of the whole campaign across the program.

What's your view on this

Victoria? How do you set up KPIs and and you measure success of your campaigns?

I think it comes back to that, planning piece, basically research kind of equals confidence in in my view. So if you take the time to do the research to set your KPIs, understand

exactly what data you need back, to be able to satisfy some of those different stakeholders or to align with some of the measurements that you might have internally. So quite often when I'm in the research phase, I'll actually ask, for an example of the data that we would get back from that partnership. You know, whether it's an anonymous

piece of data from a case study, just to kind of check, because every publisher is slightly different in what they can give you. A lot of the time that comes comes down to the complexities of how the, the content is served. So, are they using first party data? Are they using Google targeting? And then what kind

of what what's the format of the data that they're giving back to you? So for example, with podcasts, which are quite trendy at the moment, most publishers will tell you that the data that they can give you back from a podcast is fairly limited. So if you're being tasked with really needing to show that this

podcast sponsorship is getting to a certain audience or a c-suite audience, then a podcast sponsorship might not be the way to go. If that's what your objective is. So I think it's kind of, it's being really clear to kind of find the formats within partnerships that fit the KPIs that you're looking for. Again, it kind of goes back to that, that strategy

piece. So if you're looking to drive the commercial pipeline, you might make a different selection. Because to prove that, and to follow that trail is going to be a lot easier with an in-person event versus a piece of served content to a big audience. So it's just being, clear about what that KPI is from the beginning

And then in terms of the performance measurement, I work really closely with our data and analytics team, and our performance management team, and they have started to integrate partnerships into the other channels, where we get data from across the business. So we work with external partners, but we also produce a lot of content ourselves. We run a lot

of our own campaigns. So actually it's really helpful, when we start to standardize that data so that I can really see, has this partnership really started to perform versus maybe some proprietary activity that we're doing because we're investing in it a little bit more than we would do for a proprietary content. You would hope that it would perform more, and most of the time it does. But having

that comparative view just really helps me to see the wood for the trees, which is difficult when you've got lots of different types of data coming from lots of different types of places. So I think it's kind of, you know, getting your framework works right. And again, communicating that with the publisher. So we often send a template, for the publisher to use. When they're filtering the data, just again, to make that easier for us to do internally so that we can really prove to our stakeholders that the partnership is working, or if we're in flight and we feel like it's not working, we can have an open and honest conversation with that partner to say, right, let's how can we reconfigure this? How can we optimize when we're in flight

Yeah and I would say that optimization is really important because that's again about having that brand communication. And we're all wanting everything to deliver as, as we had projected. So that that access and ability to have that conversation, if pivots are needed is really essential

and I think picking up on Victoria's point about, you know, podcasts don't always have and present the best insights and data for a brand. But what is it about that audio piece that a brand wants? And perhaps it's better to have a more interactive article that includes audio clips because it what is the objective? So that's

that's where it's really important at the kickoff call to have that understanding about what is it about that particular product suite that is compelling a brand to go down that route? Or is it that the that the data and research that you're going to get back is more important and therefore may be some tweaks in terms of

how we actually amplify and tell that story? And the assets that we use should be better served because they will deliver better reporting, which ultimately is needed by a brand. So I think it's being again, it comes down to listening to what a brand needs and objectives and

fitting the right solution to that, to that requirement.

The other thing I would say, is that we do a lot of post partnership evaluations, and we use a lot of data to tell that story. But I would also say that there's nothing like a testimonial, for stakeholders

to really bring that data to life. And so trying to tell that story from. Yes, from the numbers. If you've got really impressive numbers, awesome. Lots of video views, lots of clickthroughs, whatever you're looking for. But there's real power actually in. If we've put one of our, you know, perhaps one of our thought leaders is doing

a video interview, with a client or a potential client. And through that opportunity, they develop a relationship, they get on, and that leads to a better commercial pipeline conversation. Have it. Or maybe they've ended up chatting to a journalist, and that's led to some earned media actually getting that

quote from that individual and hearing that enthusiasm, in terms of that stakeholder management and proving ROI, I find to be enormously successful. Similarly, this is, again, kind of speaking to the power of in-person events. There's nothing like, when you've engaged in an event strategy, making sure that you've connected with those people who've been on the ground, those senior execs that you've put in those rooms and get their feedback, right when they're there and their enthusiasm to say, yes, I was in a room with all of these C-suite execs and it was amazing. Thank you so much. And, you know, we've had five conversations that have come from it or whatever it is. I think that on top of the data

also helps us communicate the real power of partnerships, and working with, with third party providers, especially for a brand, like us, where we do a lot of really great work internally. And often I get the question of, you know, why do we need to work with a third party provider? And so sometimes, yeah, just getting that

getting those anecdotes really helps me with that.

I think it's clear understanding the impact of these partnerships is crucial. And as we look forward, let's talk about the future of B2B

media partnerships in terms of content and partnership models. What innovations are you excited about or expect to see in the near future?

I think, I'm expecting to see AI, used a lot more as part of

media partnerships. I think there'll be a bit of a double edged sword there. I think in the age of AI, publishers might be forced to, perhaps notify readers where they where AI has been used in the

creation of that content. But I think on the flip side, actually, people will start to have more value. So opinion pieces perhaps might start to have more value. Does that person to person connection, knowing that what you've read, what you're understanding, the source material of what you've been reading? I think it's funny, we actually

we've just been recording an ad for something that we're, that we're doing for, for a podcast sponsorship. The feedback was we thought that the voice sounded too robotic, when we got the recording back. But actually, the publisher then assured us that it had been recorded by a human. So I thought, that's interesting. I'm already interrogating, some of the content I'm

reading to try and understand, who has been produced by, but I think integrating AI within partnerships really smartly is something that I'm working on. How can I do that in an innovative way? How can I use AI to create content that is perhaps hyper personalized to that individual? I think

we're going to start to see a lot more of that.

Are you talking about messaging, like emails that personalized emails or the person. I think it could be both. I think it could be, you know, perhaps utilizing

the data set that that publishers got. And what happens if you, if you implement an AI in there to make it a bit more interactive in some way? That's something that I've been kind of toying with over the last six months. And then, yeah, similarly, you know, if we're going to start running, perhaps lead nurture campaigns, automated campaigns, the generative AI is

going to be really sophisticated as part of that. And, you know, should be able to kind of help us, particularly for those, uh, job titles who are maybe in a purchasing frame of mind. So your classic example is your IT decision maker. You know, if they're being served different parts of content, um, different types of content as they come along, that marketing

funnel, you know, how can that content become hyper personalized based on some of the things that they're engaging with? And how can we use Gen AI as part of that process? So I think we'll start to see a lot more of that. In the partnerships that we see out there in the market. And yeah, I'm already starting to see publishers start to start to play with it, like AI is affecting all of our lives in lots of different ways. It's going to be interesting to see who gets that right.

It's interesting because, at the World Media group, we held our brand advisory a few weeks ago, and we had a conversation around AI, and it's one of those examples of technology where people

are testing it a little bit, but they're not brave enough to use it in their marketing yet. You know, if you use it for translation, then they're still double checking to make sure that the translation is actually as you had hoped it would be. And also one of the one of the takeaways was like when all of your team are using

AI all of the time, then that tends to be when a business adopts it fully. It tends to be led by the individual. And then gradually, as the individual uses it more and more and more and becomes everyday life, then a brand or a company starts to invest more in that technology. I think at the moment, at economist's impact

we're not using AI in creating our content or in, sort of the output that we're doing, but it's it's still very early stages in AI technologies. It's sort of like moving very, very fast. So where we'll be this time next year, who knows because we don't know how fast it's moving. One of the interesting points that's

come out of AI is AI is only as good as the questions you ask it. So we need to be really mindful about what is it we want to get out. What do we where do we want AI to help us, and what are the questions that we're best asked. And if you can, you know, it can take you down a tangent, but if you ask it the right kind of questions, you can get a really interesting output. So

I think it is the capability is very exciting and very innovative, and we'll see where it goes to. And I think, you know, we actually had a business innovation summit at The Economist or Economist Impact at the end of March. And the whole topic was AI. So every kind of topic, discussion, output

round Table, was looking at AI and that obviously there's a lot of technology companies that have set out and they they are starting as an AI company. So there's a lot to come I think. So where it will go and what it will be, I think we can't even imagine yet. But I think, it's something

that we all need to practice, and keep up to speed with because it's definitely going to move more and more and more into into the business, focus world. I would love it if it did all the reporting, if it could, if you could get

AI to do all the stuff you don't like doing, that would be fantastic. All the kind of data and analysis and, well, I'm starting to use it for, for data and analysis.

So, much more on the kind of the proactive side. So whereas for example, looking at delegate lists, for events when I'm trying to work

out which event we might or event series we might want to invest in, it used to be a very laborious process. You know, I'd ask the publisher for an anonymized, GDPR compliant, delegate list, and then I might have, you know, a target list, internally, where there's, you know, perhaps 100 companies that I know

that we're really interested in connecting with. And I'm trying to make a decision over one, one leading event versus another. And how do I make that decision? I want to make a data based decision, because I want to be sure that our audience is going to be in the room. And I used to do that process manually because there was no other way to do it. And now I use AI, and I can get what used to take me perhaps

2 or 3 days to do the analysis on. I can do it in a matter of, hours. And so that also makes, when I sort of maybe have people in the business kind of asking me, should we, should we be considering this event, that event. I can actually do that homework, much more quickly than I used to be able

to do it, because I can really analyze that data. So It's very helpful for me, particularly in that event analysis piece. And you can actually, you can ask it so many different questions as well. So I would, you know, probably take several days to figure out are the companies actually there. I can actually dig much deeper into it and I can start to ask around

you know, what's the composition of job titles, seniority and industry sectors. And it can just figure this stuff out so quickly. So that that has really sped up, some of what I'm doing, and taking that very laborious process, away from me, which is great. And I'm playing

with it. I'm figuring I'm sure there'll be other places that I can use it, but that's that's been my best success story so far.

I think that is the key, isn't it, to experiment, individually with it. And so whilst we don't have a kind of corporate message on it as yet, I think individuals are experimenting and seeing

what they can do. If you're If you're looking at a sort of target list around a specific topic, then I can really help you shape, who the best sort of players in that space would be. So I think there's lots of ways of using it with and I'm sure that it will evolve. And you

know, this time next year, you know, we'll be saying, well, this is how AI and partnerships is working. But I think it's going to move very quickly this year. A couple of years ago, it was all meta, you know, what's happening in the metaverse. And that sort of came and went this trend has been around for a while, but I do love it. It's the sort of the gamification of media partnerships. Sometimes it's publishers producing their own content. But I do think that I will start to play a bit of a part in there. So, I

saw one recently that was a game around, you know, imagine that you were the Chancellor and it was around the time of the budget, and you went through a series of questions and made different decisions. It was basically showing you that, it's a really tough job to try and to try and balance our balance, our books. And

I've seen a few of those over the years from different publishers. And they, they are fantastic. They go, you know, they get a bit of viral traction. But I suddenly wondered, oh, what would happen if you put a bot into this, where it's, a little bit even more interactive because you can ask you can ask questions. I think the thing that I have,

one of the things that I have understood about AI is, is similarly to what you were saying, Emma, about. It's only as good as the questions that you ask it from a brand's perspective. And in terms of that sort of security piece, you also have to really control the data set that it's working with. So if you let it have too much freedom on that data set and it could scour the entire

internet, that then becomes a little bit of a security threat, to kind of, you know, being able to sort of really have an assurance that the content is where you as a brand would want your brand to turn up, and that it would comply with your brand values. So that's another learning that we've been having

as we've been exploring some of this stuff is controlled data sets, for the AI to also to play in are I think is important as the questions you ask it. So, you know, lots of boundaries and lots of things that we're learning but I think you're right. I think in a year's time we're probably going to have, you know, lots of case studies of partnerships that have, used it really well

how do you see the future Victoria we're trying to take a really integrated approach, I guess across what we would call our paid channels. So, media partnerships is one of them. Paid social is another

and then paid advertising is kind of a third channel. And so we're trying to integrate our strategy around those three channels a lot more. Obviously then integrating it into the wider, the wider marketing strategy. But being really clear about when do we use paid social versus what do we use paid

advertising for, versus what do we use paid partnerships for? And I think, you know, when it comes to paid partnerships, that quality of content, that journalistic expertise, is it you know, it's a it's a clear winner. We'll use a paid partnership to lift our brand with that trusted

partner, in a space where we know that audience exists. And so I think there are different there are different things that you can get from those different channels. I would say for B2B marketing, from a social point of view, we largely use LinkedIn, versus any, any other channel. Obviously it is a little bit more expensive. But going back to the data piece, we get a

lot more data, from that. And as a result, within paid partnerships, I tend to lean on those partners that have got good LinkedIn traction, and are able to utilize LinkedIn, to amplify what we're doing as part of the partnership. Just because it goes in line, you know, with what we do internally. So I think

you know, when we start to think about some of those other channels, I think it's, it kind of goes back to the fundamentals of is that channel does that channel hold the audience that you're trying to get to? If you're trying to get to, a C-suite audience and you're putting out C-suite content, then

TikTok might not be the place for that content. But if you're trying to recruit and you're going for kind of young tech innovative talent, then yes, working with an influencer on TikTok could be the right strategy for you. So I think, you know, it's just really comes back to that whole question of use the channel that's right for the audience and

right for the objective. And, And just make sure that you can that you can see that channel or that publisher can demonstrate that and it'll be the right choice. But then thinking about it, how does it integrate, how does it integrate with that wider picture?

I'd say when we do brand partnerships, we also include social amplification on all of those. So we

pick the right channel for the project that we're working on. Whether it be we work more B2B, but there are sometimes B2C as well. So we pick that channel depending on, we obviously use our own handle within that channel where we have a presence. So.

Well, great.

I think it's clear the future

holds, great potential for media partnerships. So as we wrap up, I would love to hear your final thoughts or key takeaways for our audience. Any advice that you could share to them, please?

I would say that, brand

partnerships should be thoughtful, should be meaningful. They should be two way. So they are partnerships for a reason. And that it's about working together for the best, results and the something that has some longevity so that the initial investment can

go further. I would I would totally agree. I think trust within the partnership is is absolutely paramount. If from a brand's point of view, really rigorously, understanding why you're looking to engage with that partner, doing your research

taking your time, making sure you've got a long lead time so that you don't put the partner or yourselves under lots of pressure. Some of the worst partnerships I see are the ones where they need to activate things next month. And that just puts pressure on every party. And it often results in a bad outcome

So I think giving yourself lots of time, really just, taking it, seeing it as a long terme partnership, taking that time to get to know that partner to evaluate, to review, and thinking about it as part of a long terme, holistic strategy, rather than just

a one channel piece.

Brilliant.

Well, thank you so much. It's been a great conversation. I've learned so much about partnerships and good practices, to do it right. So thank you. Thank you so much again. I hope our audience find

this useful and looking forward to see you soon in another episode. So thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.