The IPA Making Sense Podcast: Monica Majumdar

Monica Majumdar, Director of Client Strategy at Reach, joins the IPA Making Sense Podcast to explore the key lessons from a career spanning agencies and media owners; why attention, trust and local journalism matter more than ever and what the future holds for the relationship between audiences, publishers and advertisers in a rapidly changing media landscape.

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Simon Frazier 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the IPA Making Sense podcast, where we'll be making sense of the complicated things in advertising, media, and marketing today, and hopefully also just making them a bit more fun. I'm Simon Frazier.

Molly Bruce 0:24

And I'm Molly Bruce. And today we're delighted to be joined by Monica Majumdar. Monica is director of client strategy at Reach, the UK's largest commercial news publisher, where she works at the intersection of audience insight, journalism, and commercial effectiveness.

Simon Frazier 0:40

Before joining REACH, Monica held senior strategy roles on the agency side, most recently at Wavemaker, giving her a really rare perspective across both brands and publishers.

Molly Bruce 0:50

In this episode, we'll be discussing how strategy shifts between agency and media owners, why attention, trust, and local journalism matter more than ever, and what the future holds for the relationship between audiences, publishers, and advertisers in a rapidly changing media landscape. Monica, it's great to have you on with us. Welcome. Thank you for having me.

Simon Frazier 1:13

So from PhD to StarCom, Verizon, Wavemaker, and Now Reach, the question I've always wondered is how does the role of strategists differ from the agency to the media owner side?

Monica Majumdar 1:24

It's really interesting thinking about that difference because the core nuts and bolts of the job is the same. How do you make sure you interrogate data, get to an insight, to get to an interesting platform or media behavior or red thread? Biggest difference is speed. I don't think people understand how fast things are, media owner side. So if you think about a classic planning cycle, and even let's say partnership briefs, normally like due diligence give two weeks, but by the time it gets to activation teams and gets to media partners, they probably have two days to answer. Two, three days. And then it comes back, it gets assessed, and then gets sent back to the client teams or the planning teams. So actually, you just have to work at such speed when you're a strategist, media owner side. The other thing is data. You have different data to work with. So when you're agency side, you literally have all these data sets at your fingertips, industry data sets. So whether it's touch points, whether it's TGI, GWI, obviously at WPP, we were lucky to have BAV and momentum data. You don't have such a breadth of sources when you go media owner side, but you have a depth of data because you have your own data to work with. But you have to change your perspective a bit in terms of what you start investigating. I think those are the two big differences I've noticed.

Simon Frazier 2:42

Aaron Powell I guess having that real depth of media owner side data, it poses challenges really in being able to find what you can use to actually tell the story. And actually, like more data can sometimes make things a lot more difficult in a way, particularly from a strategy point of view.

Monica Majumdar 2:57

Yeah. This is why becoming close to the data scientists and the data teams are really important. You then start riffing with them. Like, oh, what if we discovered this? Well, I have this question. Could we find out about thinking about a question I was answering at Prize and Media, which was flexitarianism isn't actually a thing or is it just a fad? Or recently we've been looking at charity donations and actually how does that show up in terms of intent versus action with our reach data? Ask a question, you can get that answer quite quickly.

Molly Bruce 3:27

For those of us who are less familiar, what in terms of day-to-day responsibilities is the biggest contrast between from when you were agency side and now being a media owner?

Monica Majumdar 3:38

You're closer to the numbers. So with agency, especially when you're planning and then moving to strategy, you're aware of the numbers in terms of an agency and how they hit their targets, et cetera. Probably more focused on clients and the contracts and obligations you have. But you're not always necessarily aware of how you're tracking terms of a bigger number that often the groups are reporting to shareholders or to their bosses. Media owner side, you're very aware because everyone's tracking at a weekly level, at a quarterly level, you know whether or not you're going to hit your target. And so that distance or gap between the strategy work you do and actually what's going to deliver the number is much, much smaller when you're media owner side. It's good from a commercial acumen perspective.

Simon Frazier 4:25

I remember I started my career at Reach back in, I think it was 2011. And one of the things that I loved about working there was, as you said, that just the sheer volume of great data they have. And I remember being introduced to the Insight team, and I felt like the kind of that data and the strategic capabilities, to me, it was like the Q division of James Bond. Suddenly you were like, wow, look at all this great stuff I've got at my disposal, that then I can have really smart sales discussions with agencies that are backed up with good data, and not only that, I can know that this is actually going to make a difference to the needle that they're trying to shift. Because REACH isn't just one type of company, it's so many different types of companies. How do you personally stay clear-eyed without getting lost in all that complexity of so many different offerings and strategically how they differ?

Monica Majumdar 5:17

I tend to simplify things. I think maybe that's what I've fostered as a strategist. But I trying to look at something, it's actually not that complex. It's simple, it's single-minded. A couple of things in the complex media landscape. One is I always go back to consumer experiences. How did they experience the media world, right? Especially when I talk to my husband and or even an older roommate of mine was like, oh my God, you have to see this TV ever. And actually, it turns out he watched it on YouTube, right? Like one of those classic confusions where we divide and silo everything when actually consumers are like, oh, it's video. In terms of reach, I am so impressed when I joined with having seen how many different strings to the bow there are, right? It's not just print, which is its heritage, it's not just digital, it's social engagement. So, like the fact that we have, I think, over a million WhatsApp subscribers for all our football fans. We have a parenting WhatsApp channel, we have events, we have newsletters, we have blogs, podcasts as well. So that's really exciting because then again, you think about the different ways that audiences engage with brands. Another thing that I always think about is going back to that consumer experience of media, is a theory that I was developing with Elliot Millard and Dominic Charles back at Wave Maker around encounters. We're like, oh, in this media world, we're siloing everything. But actually, you can watch something on social and it's six seconds, but it's actually very similar to a bus shelter, you know, digital out of home sheet, which is also a six-second loop, you know, or you might have a reminder for like a big TV advert you see, it's 10 seconds on TV, and that's very similar to a social six seconds or 10 by seven. And actually, if you think about the encounter you want to create, it doesn't feel so complex. Is it a long storytelling encounter you want? Is it a short emotional reminder, is it a short rational reminder, or actually a long explainer? That's kind of how I see the media world.

Simon Frazier 7:19

As you said there, the simplification is a is a true skill of great strategists. Taking things back to the consumer because sometimes in projects, when you're working on things, you can get so lost in the data and thinking, oh well, I've found really and you forget the humanity of it. Actually, would I make a decision based off of doing something like that? Or would I purchase this? Or why wouldn't I? And the strategic way of bringing that back is such a skill. And it's one that Sam Knowles, he came on the podcast, an expert in data storytelling, behavioral science side of things. It's that thing of that old saying, I would have written you a shorter letter, I just didn't have the time. That's such a great skill.

Molly Bruce 7:58

I think that's also interesting when you're saying to like simplify it back and also focus on the consumer experience, because I'm just thinking about how my friends would engage with advertising. And ultimately, they won't necessarily immediately be able to delineate what form of media space that is. Clearly, they shouldn't be expected to necessarily, but it's the way you're talking about it being what sort of story are we doing a long form, are we doing a short form? Is it just more of a short reminder or something? Seeing it in that way is probably much more aligned to the consumer experience rather than necessarily talking about things in siloed media formats that consumers wouldn't really understand, I suppose.

Monica Majumdar 8:39

And they all have their parts together. You kind of need a bit of everything depending on your objectives. But often we default to, because we look at channel, one of the same type of encounter just across different channels, but they're all quick, short, and short. I often see a lot of that. One actually need a combination of all that over time, almost like chapters.

Molly Bruce 8:58

We've recently had Mike Follett on the podcast who's talked a lot about attention. And I went to the Future of Media Manchester and the Future of Media London last year, where Newsworks released their research, which was done in partnership with Lumen. It was, I think, Heather Dancy and Peter Field. They launched their research, which was basically set showing that news brands get 40% more attention than other general advertising display. Are you incorporating attention work with in within reach? Yeah, for two reasons.

Monica Majumdar 9:29

So one is the data highlights how important context is, right? It's kind of one of those core media 101s you learn very early on, right? The environment and context really matters, right? It's always about time, context, right person, right time, right place. So this is where it just makes sense and it helps to validate that notion when you have research that shows that news environments garner greater attention. So advertising in that environment will also benefit from that. On the flip side, attention is becoming a more popular currency within the industry. Every agency group is in a different place in terms of their relationship or their belief in attention. But it is definitely a metric we're starting to incorporate because it actually helps us rather than hinders the performance that we need to demonstrate with the campaigns that we have. So we are talking about attention. We're not ignoring every other metric because you have different schools of thought around that as well. So there are some who are absolute advocates, then it helps their case. There's some who might not be necessarily on board with it yet. We believe that it's actually a really strong metric and it definitely works from a publishing perspective.

Molly Bruce 10:36

I found that the Newsworks research was very interesting, talking about it being a high attention space and therefore more effective for advertising. It's definitely got me thinking whenever now like I'm picking up a newspaper compared to maybe like doing something different online about actually am I focusing to a different degree when I'm reading.

Monica Majumdar 10:55

I think the other element that news benefits from, even outdoor, let's say, is like gravitas or having something tangible. And actually that it's a shared experience in the sense that anyone who picks up that paper and flips to that page will see it in that context in that space. Yeah. Rather than your own experience of, let's say, social, which will be sandwiched in your own videos that you enjoy. So technically it's a shared experience because you see the views clock up, but there's something about that broadcast nature, that collective experience that you actually get with TV, with outdoor, and with obviously with news.

Simon Frazier 11:31

In terms of print news brands, the tangibility of seeing something in in a physical format that you can actually cut out and keep. With a move towards digital advertising, I think that there's elements of tangibility that are really good memory triggers or things that we rely on. Everybody needs like crutches to help them in a way. The thing I like about news brands, clipping something out, sticking it on the fridge. You might not need it now, but you might be thinking, I know come summer I'm going to need a new lawnmower. Oh, hang on a minute. And I think brands increasingly, as we've seen things like work that Jick Mail are doing around printed and direct mail. I think brands are kind of leaning in a little bit more. And you're seeing really great and really innovative executions, whether it's in print media or whether it's whether it's in kind of printed collateral that is coming through the uh post. Because it's it's a great place to stand out. It's a great place where you can do something innovative.

Monica Majumdar 12:21

And the innovation is kind of a across the board, right? Like I've always been a proponent of innovation isn't just this shiny new tech. Innovation is doing something sometimes with old media but in new ways. It's doing, it's applying a new technique, even if it's not a media first. So one thing we did actually for Chinese New Year's with Tusco is to take the front cover and make it uh or a gami. Oh horse. Actually, for year of the horse. Now, there's something nice about it can be a takeaway, it's a fun activity with friends or with family, you know, and there are lots of different things you can do with that for Easter for Mother's Day, et cetera. So that was an interesting innovation because it kind of feels like old tech because it's paper tech. It's actually really novel. And then who was I talking to about the fact that direct mail is on the rise? Because, right, after so many, I think you were saying I love a bit of direct mail. It's one of the things we're like, oh, direct mail. We're excited to get mail because in a world where things are becoming less and less tangible, right? Email receipts, et cetera. You're like, oh, I've got something addressed to me. Let me open it. It becomes much more of an experience than it used to. It's the same thing that's sitting down with a paper. My husband still gets a Sunday paper. And so he'll sit there, and I remember it reminds me of being a kid where I steal the comics from my mom when she was reading it. Now I'll just steal, like, I don't know, the style pages, the theater pages from the newspaper. And there's something really nice about that experience.

Simon Frazier 13:36

If we think about the things that influence the way in which we engage with brands or the things that shape the way in which we grow and develop in the kind of the world of media, it's those shared experiences in creating, as you said, that front cover that can be made into an origami horse. You've just bridged maybe the generational gap between a grandparent who buys that news brand and their grandkid who they can sit down and make this thing with. And then it it's that positive brand affiliation. I remember one of the ones that stood out was I'm showing my age here, but the when there was Euro 96, which was the well, I I know nothing about football first caveat. It was, you know, when it there was the European Cup going on, and there were so many kind of football-related things. They made it so you could make this football mask where you cut it out from the front of the paper and then you and like pasted it onto like a cereal box, and you could make this like Alan Shear or whoever it was football mask. And I remember that distinctly, and I remember the positive affiliation that I had with print media as a result of that in cutting things out and making scrapbooks and stuff like that. It's like yeah, great tangible stuff. Now, how do you think that news brands can address re-helping brands stand out? And as we've kind of just talked about there, building those meaningful connections with audiences.

Monica Majumdar 14:52

The one thing that news brands can offer, which is unique and distinctive and really helpful for brands, is a trusted environment. So in a world where brands are so worried about brand safety in different places and platforms, all news stories are vetted, especially if it goes through journalistic integrity of at least having two sources, right? And that's for all papers. So whatever you're leaning, whatever style of writing you prefer, it's still a place where if a brand shows up in those spaces and spaces, it's a it's a trust environment and that trust halos onto the brand. So that's one thing we talk about a lot, but also the relationships that the journalists have with their communities. So they are in the community day in, day out. They know what's going on, they know what's happening. And we talk a lot about communities tending to be an online thing, but there's actually a physical community that the journalists know about. And obviously, at Reach, where we have over 120 titles, or in so many different cities and towns, uh, when there is any big national story, we actually have feet on the ground. So then you're not just regurgitating a PR wire or newswire, you actually have people who've been there who understand the impact in the community, etc. So that is something that brands can benefit from. That collective experience because everyone's reading the same title in the same space and the same environment, as well as those trusted voices that depending on how it's used, whether it's just in the surrounding content or a brand can leverage it, I think that really helps brands.

Simon Frazier 16:22

I remember from my days at Reach the the page planners and they were kind of the unsung heroes, but of brand safety particularly, because there might be a story that may have a slight content clash with a piece of advertising or something like that that might not particularly work. Now when we we see the brand and we wouldn't necessarily see the other story, they would see both and they would go, Oh, actually there's a bit of a disconnect there. Maybe that wouldn't align completely, and that and it would be better if we moved that ad to another page or recommended to the client that they go on a different day. But that's a really nice thing about that safe space for brands as well. It's that meaningful relationship that the readers have with the news brand. It's something that they're electing to be part of.

Molly Bruce 17:03

You mentioned how important the community aspect of news brands can be and how much value that can play within a community. Is that something you see more for regional and local audiences?

Monica Majumdar 17:15

Yeah, we do. We actually did a big piece of research last year called Local Advantage, where we tried to unpick a bit the fact that we were seeing that local news brands were doing well. And that comes from the fact that as it's part of the community, it's embedded in the community, it's the journalists, those voices. It's the fact that reflecting community news, what's happening in Stockport might not be relevant to someone down in London, but it is very important. We have an affinity to the title that we featured. But what we also found really interesting, you know, in a world where we think younger audiences are just flocking online, even if they are, because they're not feeling that sense of attachment to the community through their digital spaces, they're actually experiencing that through local media a lot more. That's how they get news about what's going on, updates. So that actually is one reason why we're seeing a lot more audiences and younger ones with local media than we did before because of that sense of I include into what's happening in the community and I feel a sense of community.

Molly Bruce 18:15

Yeah, that's definitely that's definitely reflective of my experience. Because I mean, I grew up in quite a rural area of the country in like Shropshire on the Welsh border. And I can't, I mean, I don't even think when I was living there I would actually read the local news that much. But since living in London, I like go back to see what's going on in Shropshire and I feel much more tied to that as a sense of community than I do living in London. And I think especially, I mean, I might not be as representative of my age group because I try I sort of try not to use social media that much and stuff, but I definitely feel like there is a lack of a sense of community for my age group. But whenever I go home back to Shropshire, there is so much more of a sense of community, and it's definitely reflected in like, yeah, the local news. I also think that, and this might be anecdotal and not backed up by evidence, but it always feels like the stories are often more positive in local news, which I remember the BBC did some sort of study on news avoidance and in younger people, and often younger people are just inundated with negative global, national even stories. And it's just like, I don't want to turn on the news just to see another gloomy story. But if you go to your local newspaper, you see that the guy from The Butcher has just won an award for the quality of the shrupture sausages, or Cheshire Cheese has just started a new flavour. It's all nice local positive stories. They give you a sense of nostalgia to the area and like connection to that community, but also make you want to re-engage with the news again in a way that I think a lot of younger people maybe are tempted to disengage with news sometimes.

Monica Majumdar 19:50

I mean, I skew the numbers of the town newsletter outside San Francisco. So I'm from a town called Alamo. And so I'm just released letter. Even my mom hasn't signed up to the newsletter or the neighborhood watch newsletter. I'm always sending her things like, oh, you should go to this event and go to that event. And suddenly you feel that connection, or if there's a good story you read about it, even the bad stories. I'm the only one that's interested in what happened on that street. Okay, that's interesting. So, as you said, you feel that visceral connection, even if you are physically apart, because it's where you grew up. It's a part of your identity. Yeah, you want to understand what's happening.

Molly Bruce 20:25

I'll speak to my mum on the phone and I'll be like, Mum, see there's a bridge. I saw it's light is down. And I should like, I had no idea that that's that there's like, I don't know, that there'd been a landslide on the canal or something. And I and it's kind of yeah, surprising that me being in London, I probably know just as much about what's going on just from wanting to have that sort of connection back to where I'm from. Yeah.

Simon Frazier 20:45

And I guess that sense of place, it's it's not necessarily geographically confined, is it? Because I I I remember there was like huge numbers of like a certain regional news brand website within the REACH portfolio when I was there that was like really, really popular in certain areas of Spain. And and actually there was a huge amount of the readers that were reading from like Spain or or within Europe or wherever it might be. I think actually having that connection to local news as well, it makes better quality news that goes in the national news brand. Because at the end of the day, unless it's Westminster, most things happen on a local level. Like the new hospital, the road closures, the things or or whatever whatever stories, that they're kind of drawn up to the national level and they become national news, but they're drawn from local experiences.

Monica Majumdar 21:32

When you talk to Sarah Lester, who's our editor of the Manchester Evening News, she'll talk a lot about that. So one is we all say like the MEN still experiences those numbers from outside of that geographical catchment because of Man City and Manu, right? So you get readers from all over the world because they want to tune into that news, and obviously because it's the home paper of those teams, people will tune in. But you'll also talk about that. They're connected to the community, so those stories. Happened there are obviously even more important to that. As they get raised to a national level, they were already there having talked about it, understanding the implications. So, like the Manchester synagogue attack, we again could talk about it right away, but they understood not just it happened, but why is it significant? How are people feeling before and after what's happened immediately to all different communities around that? So that's when you see the power of local and local journalism shine.

Simon Frazier 22:26

And thinking thinking of Ryan Reynolds in Wrexham, you know, like the power of local. I was in the US recently, and people are like, oh my God, have you ever been to Wrexham? I don't really follow footballs, but you know, hearing like those local places being talked about, it's that sense of sense of pride, I guess. And kind of going back to the agency and media owner world, because actually what we've talked about a lot so far is building meaningful collections, and I guess the best business relationships are based on building those meaningful connections of what we can achieve together. Having worked strategically from both sides, how do you think that the industry can foster the best collaboration between agencies and media owners to get the best outcomes? Because when you see a particular activation or whatever it may be with an agency working really closely with a media partner, sometimes you're like, wow, these huge things happen that you would never really dream in a million years.

Monica Majumdar 23:18

So I think we always have a phrase media owner side around, we would love to get the brief before the brief, get us involved further upstream. Which I also, having been on the other side, is frustrating to say, I don't even know what I'm doing before I've answered the brief. So it's really hard to have conversations outside the building. But I think what it really stems from is actually having a constant dialogue and being able to just basically spitball about like, could we do this, could we do that, on a more regular basis, not necessarily tied to a brief. It's that stimulus you need that when it's kind of sitting there in the back of your mind for when the opportune moment comes, then you know who is the best partner for that. So that's where becoming familiar with what media owners have in their portfolio is important. And I've seen this post-COVID world, and I feel so old in the industry saying this, but we can see that FaceTime with media owners is down in general because everyone's busy trying to get so much across. But it's actually part of your job. You are the intermediary for clients to understand what's out there, what opportunities are out there. But it's through those conversations, understanding there are really random elements of the portfolio that could actually help bring a brief or a campaign to life, that suddenly you get that magic. So it is, yes, the brief before the brief or further upstream, because you're actually part of that stimulus when it comes to brainstorming. So I was talking to a few strategists the other day about uh the fact that Reach has one of the largest archives in the UK, right? We have papers from sometime in the 1700s. And so we can find brand articles from a hundred years ago when brands launched, or you know, it's great when you think about centenaries, or talking to someone else about, you know, a publication that actually could be talked about the first edition that ran. And that's something that isn't necessarily talked about. We talk about our creds, but actually there is a goldmine there that by having a conversation, suddenly it sparks ideas.

Molly Bruce 25:21

I was listening back to the panel that you did with Ellie at the Planning and Strategy Summit. And one of the key takeaways for me was that like these soft skills cannot be overstated, especially now with AI maybe changing the landscape, soft skills are just so vital. And I suppose in what you were saying about post-COVID, it's our responsibility to keep those relationships, keep that dialogue going, because that is how you are going to really foster those great results. In terms of that panel that you did with Ellie, and you were talking about how to be a good leader for junior or to support junior talent, what were your main sort of takeaways or learnings, or how do how do you think that you can support a more junior talent?

Monica Majumdar 26:04

So I was actually at a marketing academy conference yesterday where we talked about this. Okay. An interesting stat is this is the first time in the workplace where we have five generations in the office together. Wow. In such different perspectives, because each generation has been shaped by different events, different environments, different technology. So everyone has their own different expectations about what they need from leadership or how to be managed or how they want to progress. My big takeaway talking to Ellie as well as from that yesterday is actually stop making leadership about you or managing about you. It's about getting the prep best out of the person. So understanding what they need, how they best work, and how we can work with that. Which means sometimes setting aside your expectations of like, but I was expected to be in the office at 9 a.m. after a big night out, didn't matter what. It's pretty actually prosaic, right? Having a nine to five work day when we know everyone manages their energy differently. I'm a night owl. I actually work better in the afternoon into the evening. And so that's why people say, oh my God, you did work in the evening. That's actually because that's when I got clarity. I felt like I could get my ideas out. So I think it's understanding that and understanding what the person needs, understanding what their expectations are, but also a good manager will manage their expectations, especially when it comes to progression and what the next steps are, and not just promising and explaining that it's not just the technical craft, but also your ability to manage stakeholders that then helps you to progress and grow. Ultimately, it's about listening to their needs, what they need to be able to get best out of them.

Molly Bruce 27:42

I saw this really interesting research from Pablo in collaboration with Tapestry and Starling. The research is called The Rift to the Rupture Between Young People and Their Futures. And it's looking at this lack of optimism in younger people who around the age group that's entering the workforce now. And it was so interesting because they were talking about stereotypes around this age group, one of which I think lazy was a potential stereotype, which is probably quite a strong one, that this age group weren't as willing to put in the time for the work. Maybe that also ties into the whole like prioritizing life over work in the work-life balance or something. But what they found was that actually this age group are really like ambitious and they're really hopeful, but there's just a lack of optimism around the sort of lot that they've been given in terms of being in your late teens, early twenties in society, not feeling like it's giving you a huge amount of opportunities. I thought it just had such implications for how leaders could interact with younger people, just like giving them that support and helping to make them optimistic about their future and make them feel like there is like a future for them in the organization or in just the industry as a whole. Mentorship and support, I think, is so important.

Monica Majumdar 28:58

And I think certain things are true despite the generations, which is good work ethic will always be recognized. Now, that might manifest differently. It might not be a nine to seven in the office, but do they get their work done? Do they care so much they'll do a little bit extra? Are they curious enough to say, I'll put my hand up to do that? That isn't generationally defined. It's just what your attitude is. I remember when I was at WaveMaker and even now, that young talent is really eager and wants to do things. You want to do more with them. Right. And it's just, to your point, reframing the expectations. And all of us, I mean, you read what the previous generation wrote about the generation after them, it's the same. And you're kind of like, oh, 1990s, they said the same, 2000s are the same. So there's an element of expectation management. I still remember the number of interviews I had where you're gonna have to pay your dues. Either you're gonna be making coffees and booking meeting rooms for three years, or I actually was in journalism first. And you know, you're gonna have to pay your dues before you get to write that big story or you know, produce that segment. And I think that is an element that maybe what I'm seeing with generation coming in isn't as willing to necessarily wait. Like, why do I have to unnecessarily do a lot of the drudgery without the payback? That's actually probably a fair question. I learn a lot. Like, oh, you're very good at respecting those boundaries. I need to be better about that.

Simon Frazier 30:21

Yeah.

Monica Majumdar 30:22

Do I need to go to this event after work? Because it really is my personal time. So you learn a lot from different people.

Simon Frazier 30:28

Yeah. And and and as you said, all of those different intergenerational things, they the the ability to in a way kind of hedge your bets. The thing I've found throughout my career that's always helped is not necessarily knowing a huge amount, but knowing that the people that do know that's giving away a trade secret, but you know, like for example, as we've talked about today, if I had a question about media owner strategy, I would never attempt in a million years to answer it. I'd go, I'd probably just send you an email and say, Monica, can you help me here? And that's the thing, it's that knowing that as long as those skills exist within the organization, how you leverage the different skill sets is so important. And one of the things from working with Molly on the podcast here, Molly's got a huge amount of broad podcast knowledge and also a huge amount of understanding of what it's like to be a Gen Z earlier in the in the career, and things that I I grew up in kind of a different industry. There's a lot that I'm blind to, a lot of things that I just don't know or understand, and that's where it's always been it's been fascinating for me. I've just learned so I feel like I'm reinvigorated and constantly learning. And I guess that goes intergenerationally, like within great cultures. So looking forward over the next sort of few years, and do you know what I've really loved about this episode so far is we haven't really talked about AI. And the fundamental actually that's a great thing, I think, because that's what's the most inspiring, is that often when we think about things like, oh, well, what will AI do to the actually, if we I guess put it to one side as a kind of a tool that it does enable certain types of improvements and in capabilities, certain types of improvements in efficiencies, etc. Actually, the fundamentals won't change of the industry because sure you could churn out slop advertising, heavily targeted, no real kind of meaningful connection or innovation, but it's not going to shift the needle for any brands. It's not going to push capabilities of everyone's just doing the same old things that AI systems attend them to. And hearing you talk about those innovative things that you're doing within the different segments of the REACH portfolio is what's really exciting. And also from a brand perspective, what's going to make a brand go, oh, that's what I want to do. I want to do and make that meaningful connection. Um now, looking forward though, what do you think will most fundamentally change the relationship between publishers, audiences, and advertisers over the next few years? What do you think is a kind of changes that will happen?

Monica Majumdar 32:56

Here I will mention AI. But again, I always go back to consumer. And so I've been talking to a lot of the experts we have within reach because one question that keeps on coming up when I talk to friends in the industry, agency side, and then obviously our experts, is right. And not only the fact that we all need to be familiar with it to be good at our jobs and understand it, but actually how LLMs are acting, or language learning models, for those who might not know, how they are acting as an intermediary in terms of our content, what we're consuming. But also the fact that a lot of consumers and audiences are outsourcing their decision making to LLMs because they're processing information really quickly. So what does that mean for brands, right? It's partly because not all brands feature if you're doing a search. So for instance, I was looking up the new Oloplex brand, right? Because I've heard a lot about it. But if you ask for like what brands would you recommend, it might not appear because it doesn't have the information that the algorithm is prioritizing. That becomes really interesting for brands because that is a discovery tool that's becoming a decision-making tool, and whether or not we like it is part of the world, especially when you hear of zero click strategies and stuff like that. So I think that's going to be one big shift in the next few years, and brands really need to be ready for it. This is where, though, it becomes exciting. How does a brand become even more differentiated? So I always go back to the question of ultimately what is the utility that your product serves? What need or demand? What's that utility you provide? But then how do you make sure you aren't just feeding into category tropes? Like the number of FMCG brands I've worked on chocolate, where it's all silky and smooth and delicious, right? Yogurt brands where everything is, again, tasty and protein-filled and lovely texture. Well, if all the brands are saying that, no brand's going to stand out.

Simon Frazier 34:48

Yeah.

Monica Majumdar 34:49

So what is your USP? Truly, what is different? And actually, a lot of the LLMs, sadly, don't prioritize the more ephemeral elements of branding. But that's not your only touch point. Obviously, then you have broadcast and print and social and all of that to feed into it. But you have to really be clear about why is your product really good and why should someone buy you so that it features in another touch point that is becoming a part of consumers' day-to-day lives. I mean, uptake is still slow, it's still 15%, I think, in the UK. But it's gonna grow.

Simon Frazier 35:21

And I guess, as we were talked about at the beginning of the podcast, that more knowledge you have, that quote, the more you know, the more you know you don't know in a way. And sometimes I think the challenge is that the more we have at our disposal, it can become easy to uh forget the fundamentals of all of all of those things that you've mentioned, you know, what we're here to do, the core understandings. And I guess seeding over to an AI system decision making from an advertising uh perspective, I I guess it's key to keep all of those great skills that make the great planners and strategists and all of those knowledge bases at the heart of it and to use it, I guess, to augment or to improve your capabilities rather than that seeding of information over. So, Monica, last question that we'll just ask, what are you most excited about in the years ahead? Because you've you've had such a fantastic career and you've worked on so many different areas and brands. What's the thing that excites you most?

Monica Majumdar 36:17

I've always been interested in how consumer behavior changes with new technology, but it changes in ways we never expected. So 3G launched, everyone's excited, but they didn't know what it would do. It was only a few years later that suddenly we're like, oh, it connects systems. Suddenly you have Uber and you have social and you have payment systems that could have never happened prior to that. So I think we're on the cusp of something now where there's a lot of technology that's changing and growing really rapidly, both within the industry but also for consumers. And we're assuming we know how it's gonna work. So we are outsourcing decisions to AI and LLMs. Actually, what becomes a reality in three years' time might be completely different. We won't know. But that's always exciting. Because again, I do believe that core human behavior is fundamentally static, as in those core behaviors are always going to be there. They just manifest in different ways or relationships, etc. But seeing and observing what's going to happen in the next few years, I think, is always fascinating.

Simon Frazier 37:19

Wonderful. Well, that's a really inspiring note to end on, Monica. And thank you so, so much for coming in and joining us on the podcast today. I've had a blast. I feel really inspired, and it's it's wonderful to talk to you.

Molly Bruce 37:30

Yeah, it's been great. Thank you so much. Really interesting. Thank you for having me. It's been a lovely discussion.