Tom Armstrong
The Di5ru.pt blog

How do you integrate online advertising into content that the consumer has already paid for? As Tom Armstrong, VP Global Advertising at The New York Times explains it appears to be working well for the NYT with Q4 2021 proving to be the largest-ever quarter for digital advertising for the media company.

At the upcoming World Media Congress from 7-9 June in Portugal, Tom will examine the NYT’s advertising strategy in greater depth. Here our colleagues at FIPP spoke to him ahead of the conference.

***Delegate tickets are available until 25 May after which a late registration surcharge will apply. Sign up here. Do note that the venue hotel is now also near full capacity, but there are other options available via bookings.com and airbnb.com. More here.***

In his conversation with FIPP, Tom argues that high-quality multi-platform ads underpinned by first-party data (attend our FPD Strategies Seminar in the afternoon of 7 June, ahead of Congress) are the way forward, as well as offering insight as to where else the Times’s future ad revenue might come from.

Asked about the shift away from cookies, and the kind of challenge it holds for The Times, Tom explained that over 100 million registered readers place trust in The Times’s data privacy policy, which is privacy-forward and transparent. “In 2020, we started work to remove all third-party data to target advertising to proactively get ahead of the ad industry’s shift away.

“As an industry leader, The Times had the foresight to build an innovative data portfolio servicing a breadth of clients seeking to accurately reach their target consumers, without third-party data. The Times’s expansive body of content is matched only by the wide-reaching magnitude and diversity of The Times audience. This unparalleled wealth of proprietary audience intelligence, along with the tenacity of our work in data science, has positioned The New York Times as trailblazers in 1st Party, poised to drive engagement with accuracy for brand messaging well ahead of a cookieless future.

The Times has developed an ad ecosystem built on first-party data that is powerful, privacy-forward and performant. We’ve been trailblazing in the data product space, exploring new ways to drive performance with durable solutions that will thrive in a world without cookies, amid evolving regulations. We use this first-party data to power innovative, privacy-forward ad targeting that delivers quantifiable results for our clients.”

Read the full interview with Tom on fipp.com.