Voice of the Premium Publisher: Spotlight On… Jo Holdaway

Voice of the Premium Publisher: Spotlight On… Jo Holdaway

Published: 01 Oct 2024

Few people in the publishing industry have as storied a career as Jo Holdaway. From her early days in print magazines through the digital transition to becoming Chief Data and Marketing Officer at The Independent, Holdaway has been on the frontlines of change - often leading the charge herself.

As she wraps up nearly 25 years at The Independent, Holdaway sat down with Richard Reeves to reflect on her journey and the industry's current challenges ahead of her new adventure at Informa.

When you won The Bill Murray Award for Outstanding Contribution to Digital Publishing at the AOP Awards, it was the first time I saw the entire room stand up and applaud. How did you feel in that moment?

Every time someone mentions it, I just beam because it was such a privilege. I can't tell you how that felt in the moment because it was a blur, but what really struck me was how collegiate and supportive the digital publishing industry is. We are beset by a whole host of obstacles and challenges, and yet we stick together. The warmth in that room was something I will never forget, and it was the absolute pinnacle of my career so far. It meant so much.

You mentioned that the industry sticks together. Has there always been this sense of camaraderie in your opinion?

My first job was in '91 as a graduate trainee at IPC Magazines and I settled at New Scientist in my rotation. I'm still in touch with some of the people I worked with then, which is a testament to the type of communities that existed within those organisations.

But as for that sense of camaraderie? It certainly wasn't always like that. The advent of digital publishing created a different culture compared to what we now call the legacy print publishers. Your ABC circulation numbers were everything because that's what you traded your ad revenues on. The print moguls would never share anything with their competitors, it was too cutthroat.

The collegiate culture really began with the advent of digital publishing because it was completely new to everybody. It just grew and grew and grew in complexity, so if you didn't have that sort of culture, it was very difficult to keep up. Then you layer on top of that the big social platforms and the challenges they're bringing - both then and now - and it just strengthens those relationships. It's an "us against the world" mentality.

That's because of the pace of technology as well, isn't it? If you don't share; if you're not collegiate, then you'll probably be left behind.

You can absolutely be left behind, which is why I've always really valued trade bodies. In our industry, with the pace of change and amount of noise out there, if you're not networking with your publishing peers then it's difficult to pick the right priorities to work on. I still find myself in those meetings with the AOP, saying, "I didn't realise that!", because you can't keep abreast of everything, and if you don't have that opportunity to go, "What is this? What's everyone's view on it?" then you're isolated.

I've seen how your contributions as Chief Data and Marketing Officer have made The Independent a force to be reckoned with. How have you seen the industry change in your tenure, and how important has data been in The Independent's journey?

The Independent moved to digital-only in 2016. Prior to that, we were running separate digital operations in preparation for the sunsetting of the print edition, we didn't go in cold. It was crucial that we established strong analytical capabilities because we were going to be solely reliant on site traffic - and the data intelligence around it - and ensuring that we were trading in the most optimal way.

Back then, with the excitement around programmatic and behavioural targeting, it was important to have a DMP and to understand your audience data. So, we had to pivot to data being at the hub of the business and I think that's why we've become so successful in terms of a data strategy. We're not siloed, we sit in the heart of the business, and our stakeholders are everyone: finance, HR, commercial, product, development, marketing and, of course, editorial.

All teams' decisions are data-informed because we built our structure from scratch. That still gives us a competitive advantage to this day because it's easy to get analytical data and insight recommendations from the team. It's limiting if you silo your data and you've got a couple of analysts here and there who aren't able to bounce ideas off like-minded people. At The Independent, they all sit together and learn from each other.

You've described The Independent as a "data-first" organisation, not just digital-first. How has that distinction affected the business?

It's about the democratisation of data, which means that data is available to anyone who asks for it. I don't say, "Well, you can have access, but you can't because it's not your job to know that." What we established with our data structure is one single source of truth, rather than having an oversupply of disparate data and all the complications that come with it. You can interpret data differently, but everyone interprets from the same hard numbers.

This means we don't have that church and state relationship between commercial and editorial, everybody who works at The Independent has a commercial mindset because they can see how their work affects the wider business. The editorial team keeps their authenticity, credibility, and influence in what they write, but they know that we have to make a profit. We don't have the luxury of millions of pounds stored away that we can rely on for the craft of writing impactful journalism. We can do that at the same time as making a profit, and data helps enormously in making that relationship transparent.

What do you see as the common qualities among publishers that have most successfully adapted to change?

Publishers that have retained control of their audiences are more resilient. It's especially apparent today that we can't be reliant on external forces - in particular, the big social media platforms, Google, even the ICO. I can't remember a big change in the market where I've gone, "That's really good for digital publishing!" Every single one has been a challenge to navigate.

And we're trying to navigate those challenges with a long-term strategic viewpoint, when the reality is you must hit the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly targets to make sure the revenue is coming in. So it's hard to muscle in and go, "That's great, but remember the year of mobile is coming, cookieless is coming, AI is coming. How can we shape the business so that we can take advantage of those market changes?"

It can be a battle for long-term priorities to be heard when we have so many short-term pressures. You have to be agile and flexible, while being cognisant of what technological advances are happening in the market. For us, the right partnerships are key to mastering this balance and, with so many vendors to choose from, sometimes it's worth being late to the party to see who rises to the top. But you can't ride the coattails of innovators for too long if you want to be innovative yourself.

What about the industry's latest shifts, such as Google's decision not to deprecate third-party cookies? How should publishers prepare for the future?

Google's decision will make no difference in the long term because publishers have already set their stalls out and are exploring cookieless solutions. We must look at our whole audience and how we're monetising them effectively.

More fundamentally, we need to see changes in bid logic to support signals that are not dependent on a particular ID or third-party cookie. We haven't been successful yet, but it's a bit like the diversity and inclusion drive: there will come a time when it must happen. We just need to be persistent and conscious of time because third-party cookies are not going to last forever.

Publishers need to get the right DMP in place, start thinking about who their audience is and how they can best monetise them at the maximum yield, then optimise. If DSPs aren't going to start changing, there are alternative technologies that allow us to address the unaddressable. There are great examples of this in the data collaboration space, where the push for interoperability means data sharing isn't limited to each party using the same vendor. That's a game changer.

How do you feel about GARM's decision to shut down in the face of Elon Musk's legal threats?

GARM was never about dictating where advertisers should spend, but rather providing a brand suitability framework to make the process simpler. It's not up to the platform owner to say, "Hang on, I want more advertising revenue share from you guys please, because it's dropped by 50%." Well, there's likely a reason it dropped, and it had nothing to do with what GARM said to their members. Advertisers are never knowingly going to put their money into a platform where they can't guarantee their advertising will be seen next to content that is correct, trusted, researched, valuable or credible.

How has the representation of women in publishing changed in your experience, especially at the senior levels?

I was inordinately lucky when I joined New Scientist as I was surrounded by women in senior roles. And when I moved to The Independent, most of the display sellers and management were women. It was only moving into digital, in what would be a CRO role now, that I started to notice that often I was the only woman at the table. I got used to that being how adtech was back then.

That has all changed irreversibly with flexible working making parenthood less of a mountain to climb when you have a career. I see parents today taking equal responsibility for childcare. People will come in late or leave earlier but they will always do their work, and parents are dividing their labour rather than it being split along gendered lines. The huge strides in how parents are treated and the rights they have in the workplace have really helped women.

Today in ad tech there are some stellar women coming up the ranks and leading companies brilliantly, and that is a joy to see. We're seeing more C-suite women in publishing, too, and I love that it's becoming the norm. I had a strong start in my career and that helped me find my voice and make sure that it was always heard.

Do you still see challenges for women and underrepresented groups in the industry?

High-performing teams rely on diversity in all areas. Generational diversity is really important to me because media is a very young industry. This is exacerbated by the number of older women who are leaving the workforce. Jackie Duckworth is leading the charge on this with Visible Inc to support midlife and older women enter or re-enter the media industry. We need to reverse the trend of women (and men) exiting media because they're not being supported when they've got acres of experience to offer. But this, too, I hope is changing.

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