Axios Event: Media and entertainment companies are mixing things up to stay competitive

CANNES, FRANCE – Company leaders emphasized that diversifying verticals while securing product offerings can lead to success during an Axios event at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Why it matters: To stay competitive in today's fragmented media landscape, content-focused companies are reinventing the wheel of products to meet the evolving needs of users and advertisers.

Axios' Sara Fischer and Kerry Flynn spoke with United Talent Agency (UTA) CEO David Kramer, Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone and Nextdoor CEO Nirav Tolia at the June 16 event, sponsored by Teads.

What they're saying: "I feel like it's still early for us in a lot of ways, we just got to work rebuilding every single product that we operate," Lanzone said.

Context: Yahoo reinvented itself under new ownership after it was sold by Verizon to Apollo Global Management in 2021. It has invested in growing its sports, finance, mail and news verticals.

• Every major product Yahoo operates has been relaunched in the last nine months, according to Lanzone. This has attracted new users while retaining existing ones at the 30-year-old company, he added.
• "Where we are strongest is where we are still the trusted guide to the internet for our users in these categories," he said. "The audience has evolved with us where we have continued to keep the faith."

The intrigue: Tolia is focused on revamping online community-building platform Nextdoor after returning to the company last year for his second tenure as CEO – he first ran the company for nine years, stepping down in 2018.

• The idea behind Nextdoor is to use technology to help people connect in the real world, he said.
• "Great companies, though, take great ideas and turn them into great products," he said. "We are going to try to make the product as good as the idea."
• Tolia said as AI changes advertising, Nextdoor sees an opportunity for large national brands to use it to create ads tailored to local markets.

Flashback: UTA acquired consultancy firm MediaLink in 2021, which Kramer said remains an important asset to UTA's business expansion.

• "The thesis behind our acquisition of MediaLink holds truer today than it did … when we acquired the business," he said.

• "Marrying them with our other brand advisory businesses … all the additional verticals we added to the company, and the desire of brands wanting to get closer and get more advice and more consulting and more connected to all these different verticals we're in business with, it's really important."
• Kramer feels confident about how UTA is positioned because of these efforts, despite it being a chaotic time in the entertainment industry.

Content from the sponsored segment:

In a View From the Top conversation, Teads CEO David Kostman said attention is one of the best key performance indicators for predicting outcomes for advertisers.

• "We're very focused around not just using it as another metric that people have, like viewability, but really looking at it, and delivering and guaranteeing to advertisers attention that will drive outcome," Kostman said.
• AI can be used to help improve the capability to predict what will draw audience attention, he said. "It's mostly really around understanding the user, understanding the placements, understanding the different objectives of advertisers, and how to combine all of that."