In mid-November, Jason Koebler, co-founder of tech publication 404 Media, wrote on LinkedIn that the news site was looking for advertisers. That wouldn’t be all that notable—except for the fact that a few days earlier, Koebler authored a piece about the shutdown of the feminist website Jezebel, calling brands and the brand safety industry out for being “overwhelmingly conservative about advertising against news content, in a way that has been devastating to ad-supported news sites.”

404 Media, a worker-owned publication founded and operated by a team of reporters and editors that left Vice’s tech-focused pub Motherboard in August, has faced its own brand safety hurdles, since it covers everything from sex tech to surveillance tech, Koebler told Marketing Brew. That doesn’t mean it isn’t open to finding the right partners; the site’s investigative journalism doesn’t have to be incompatible with advertisers.

“I think we’re pretty unapologetic about what we cover. We’re not frivolously trying to terrify brands,” he said. “We are writing about these things in a responsible way, and audiences are responding to that.”

New new media: 404 Media adds to a growing crop of worker-owned publications, like the New York City-centric Hell Gate and the (mostly) sports site Defector, which made headlines when its staff broke away from Deadspin in 2019 after new ownership told them to “stick to sports.” Many of those worker-owned publications, though, have largely opted to monetize their publications without advertising.

But 404 Media is seeking out advertiser support. The site recently struck up a partnership with ad sales company BuySellAds, which helped 404 Media plug into the programmatic ad ecosystem in mid-October.

It’s inked some direct deals through its partnership with BuySellAds, too, including with the PR agency Codeword and data protection service DeleteMe, Koebler said. (As part of the arrangement, BuySellAds gets a cut of the revenue.) A banner ad on the site for Codeword is customized, reading “the only marketing agency where everyone reads 404 Media.”

Continue reading here.—RB

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Magna and advertising consortium OpenAP are partnering on an initiative to standardize television ad-buying across both digital and linear.

Under the partnership, announced Tuesday, the IPG Mediabrands agency will use OpenAP’s identifier, OpenID, to buy audiences across publishers and across networks via Acxiom, a data broker IPG owns. Through the arrangement, OpenAP will share insights about those audiences and what they’re watching with advertisers, Brittany Slattery, OpenAP’s chief marketing officer, told us, providing a “unifying view” of the media ecosystem.

This specific partnership isn’t exclusive but will give Magna a “first mover advantage,” according to a press release.

Why that’s important: Identity solutions are a tricky business—there are at least a hundred of them, each claiming to help advertisers reach their intended audiences in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem. And perhaps no ecosystem is more fragmented than television, an industry that’s balancing declining linear audiences with growing digital and CTV inventory.

OpenAP, which was created and is owned by major TV players including NBCUniversal, Fox, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Discovery, helps advertisers buy and target audiences across its networks and streaming services, as brands move away from broad demographics, like women age 18 to 49, to more specific measures, like household income, buying history, or “moms with kids under three,” Slattery told Marketing Brew.

“We encourage our partners on the buy side to look at it from an audience-first strategy, not so much a channel-specific strategy or a platform-specific strategy,” she said.

+1: Magna isn’t the first agency to use OpenAP’s identifier. Last year, GroupM said it would begin using OpenID to buy programmatic TV inventory.—RB

With on-trend products at approachable price points, mass cosmetics had a massive year, serving as a particularly glowing highlight within the booming beauty category.

Among those seeing a banner beauty year is L’Oréal, which reported in September that its consumer products division notched its best nine months on record. This success has come in part from buzz around its innovation, Nathalie Gerschtein, president of L’Oréal’s consumer products division, North America, who oversees a portfolio of brands which includes NYX, L’Oréal Paris, Maybelline New York, and Garnier, told Retail Brew.

That’s true of its holiday strategy, too, as the season is a time to “bring excitement” to its brands, Gerschtein said. The portfolio of brands had a strong performance during the “Turkey Five”—the big shopping days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, she shared. Sales were up 64% compared to the period last year, with its first foray into TikTok Shop contributing to those numbers.

• The consumer division’s standout holiday collection this year is NYX’s Fa La La L.A. Land collection, with products like a lip gloss wreath and a Pull-to-Sleigh surprise makeup box with packaging featuring a Santa hat-clad flamingo.

Gerschtein said L’Oréal’s end-of-year strategy blends introducing limited-edition holiday products, previewing its spring collections—which hit retailers in January and February—and, of course, showcasing the year’s can’t-miss products. As L’Oréal wraps up a strong year, Gerschtein looks back on the year’s major wins (including a few viral moments) and looks ahead to 2024.

Continue reading on Retail Brew.—EC

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Search result: Google unveiled its top search trends for 2023.

Report: The 4A’s released a report about the wave of “privacy-forward regulations” and their impact on CTV media buying.

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