This week we're diving into February events.

What's 🔥 Right Now

February Events

• Semafor: “Mapping the Future of Digital Privacy” sponsored by Meta

• Axios: “Modeling Innovation: Government’s Role in Leading Responsible AI Growth” sponsored by IBM

• Bloomberg: “The Future Investor” sponsored by Invesco QQQ

• Politico: “2024 Governors Summit” sponsored by Cisco

• Punchbowl News: “Pop-Up Conversation with Sens. Warner and Young” sponsored by Johns Hopkins University and Bloomberg Center

• Fortune: “CFO Collaborative Houston” sponsored by workday

Events on the Horizon

• Semafor: “The State of Happiness in 2024” sponsored by Gallup and Verizon, “World Economy Summit” sponsored by BCG

• WSJ: “CFO Network Summit” sponsored by Deloitte and Oracle

• Bloomberg: “Power Players Jeddah” with no sponsor yet, “Sustainable Business Summit” sponsored by Citi

• Politico: “2024 Health Care Summit” sponsored by Hackensack Meridian Health 

• The Atlantic: “Health Summit” sponsored by GE HealthCare and Humana

• Punchbowl News: “Investing in Your Community: Conversation with Gov. Brian Kemp” sponsored by American Investment Council

• Puck: “The Powers That Be: Bill Cohan and David Solomon” sponsored by Mayer Brown

The thought: 2024 is already showing heavy investment towards the publisher events business. Semafor, Axios, Bloomberg, and others have stated that they plan on investing more into events as ad revenue continues to ebb and flow. With stronger brand partnership opportunities, publishers also have the ability to build on IRL touch points for readers, especially with third-party cookies making it trickier to pin-point audience demographics.

Event News

Noteworthy: Axios had a X livestream of their BFD: Miami event on 2/13. Can’t speak to if they do this for every event, but it’s a great way to draw in X followers who were unaware of the event ++ greater eyes on both sponsors.   

Ads across the web this week

• Tech: Microsoft (NYTimes), Oracle (WSJ), Deloitte (Quartz), Samsung (Bloomberg), XRA (Axios), Watershed (The Atlantic), Mimecast (The Atlantic), Apple (WSJ)

• Automotive/Transport: Emirates (NYTimes)

• Business/Finance: Pacific Life (WSJ), CLA (WSJ), Bank of America (Forbes), CIBC (Axios), Silicon Valley Bank (Axios), LPL Financial (WSJ)

• Healthcare: Takeda (NYTimes), National Jewish Health (NYTimes)

• Non-Profit: American Cancer Society (Axios), Center Forward (Puck)

• Travel: Virtuoso (NYTimes)

• E-Commerce/Retail: Remy Martin (WSJ), Tod’s (NYTimes)

• Entertainment: Paramount+ (NYTimes, WaPo)

Notable Campaigns 

Paramount+ ran a HPTO across NYTimes and WaPo on 2/12, promoting The Daily Show.

Bank of America ran a HPTO across Forbes on 2/12, promoting Merrill’s expert advisors.

Samsung ran a HPTO across Bloomberg on 2/12, promoting the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Mars ran a HPTO across Axios on 2/13, driving to a branded content piece that focuses on sustainability.

Apple is running a HPTO across WSJ today, 2/15, promoting their Premium plan, made for family sharing.

Newsletter Tracker

Here's a link to the full newsletter list

Across the newsletter tracker, this week has a STR of 56%, 2% down from last week 💵

New Branded Content

• Fortune: SAP, Slack 

• Axios: Mars, TD Bank

• NYTimes: Vacheron Constantin

• WSJ: DP World, AWS, Stanford Medicine, Elastic, BCG, UBS

• WaPo: PhRMA, Alibaba, National Geographic

Here's a link to the full branded content list

Industry News + Product Launches

• Slate has had its most profitable year growing 28% YoY with 50% of their ad revenue coming from podcasts.

• NYTimes surpassed $1 billion in revenue.

• 404 Media, which launched 6 months ago, is already profitable.

• Most publishers grew their ad offerings through branded content last year—as mentioned in our 12/21 issue.

• The Cut’s growth & expansion plans.

Thanks for reading 👩‍💻 If you liked this and haven't yet, subscribe and/or share!