John Montgomery Talks with WSJ Video About the Importance of ‘Re-Monetizing’ News

As the global pandemic gripped the world, marketers rushed to use keyword blocking, concerned about having their brands appear adjacent to the grim news of COVID. But, since most news at the beginning of the pandemic was about the virus, this only compounded the problem for a news sector already significantly weakened by years of demonetization.

John Montgomery, GroupM’s global EVP of brand safety, joined Luis Di Como of Unilever in a discussion hosted by Suzanne Vranica, the Wall Street Journal’s advertising editor, to figure out how we got to this point with keyword blocking and the negative impact on news publishers – particularly local news. They also discuss, through proper, targeted use of avoidance technology, how to address the concerns of publishers of appearing next to hard news and some of the programs GroupM is utilizing to re-monetize news.

Watch the full video below or by visiting WSJ|Video.