Media industry
fromForbes
3 hours agoThe Great Sales Secret Of Truly Persuasive Content
The volume of content produced today does not equate to its persuasive power.
Two-thirds of the attempts at humour during these talks fell flat, drawing either polite chuckles or no laughter at all. Almost one-quarter of attempted jokes were judged as a "moderate success", eliciting audible laughter from around half the audience. Only 9% prompted most or all of the attendees to laugh enthusiastically.
I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this any more. Chalamet said in a recorded conversation for Variety, expressing his reluctance to participate in art forms he perceives as lacking contemporary audience engagement and cultural relevance.
Guardian writers have been making their pitches for best picture winner at the 98th Academy Awards in our Oscars hustings series. Has Chase Infiniti been snubbed? Should Train Dreams win for best cinematography? Who's the bigger monster, Frankenstein's or Marty Mauser?
Cavai has built the world's leading global conversational advertising cloud by working closely with brands, publishers and agencies to enable experiences which boost audience engagement. Its clients are experiencing massively increased ROI thanks to these non-interruptive ad formats which enable two-way dialogue between audiences and brands.
Sit down with Hannah Bowler and the Story Catchers and Network Rail team where they discuss their wins at The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA for their 'You vs Train' campaign. Hear about the success of the campaign, how changing behavior was its ultimate goal, and how they reached difficult target audiences.
I think that the most important feature of theater is the act itself. It's not actually what is said or what is done. It's not the plot or the storyline. It's the act of gathering human beings in space and time together to experience something.
My journey as a bootstrapped founder has been pretty unique, and I love to share my insights and lessons learned with others who may be traveling along a similar path. But there's another dimension, too. I want to be embedded in the communities that I think Jotform should reach. If you know me, and my product feels familiar, you're more likely to think of us the next time you need an online form builder.
In fact, I've made a conscious habit of seeking out successful individuals so I can learn from their experiences. But the man often nicknamed the "King of the Hollywood Blockbuster" continues to elude me. And yet, despite never meeting face to face, Spielberg taught me one of the most important lessons of my entire career. It's a lesson I've learned through engaging with his work.
Nearly every other month since 2015, Carla Rossi has hosted a movie screening at the Hollywood Theatre that's also a drag show. The event, called Queer Horror, helps explain why The Ring is a "lesbian-coded ode to unwanted queer kids" and contextualizes Hellraiser 's "outrageously horny injection of iconic '80s queer horror." If Rossi's intro alone doesn't forever change your relationship to the night's movie, the on-theme drag performances-burlesque, lip-syncing, acrobatics-certainly will.
Super Bowl parties are arguably the best gatherings of the year! It is the perfect opportunity to get together with friends, enjoy some fantastic food, and watch the biggest game of the season. The atmosphere is always electric, full of excitement, and naturally an opportunity to showcase your football knowledge and earn bragging rights with your friends. What's a party without flexing on your brotato chips?
Traditional thought leadership is losing impact. Long reports and gated content no longer capture attention in today's zero-click world. As a result, thought leadership is entering a new phase - experiential thought leadership. Engaging formats like interactive webinars, immersive events and podcasts make ideas felt and memorable rather than just consumed. Success depends on cross-team collaboration, testing and building experiences around real audience understanding.
On YouTube, The Rest is History podcast draws roughly around 500,000 viewers, who stick around for an average of about 48 minutes. That's close to the length of a traditional hour-long show and even longer than the podcast's strong audio average of around 40 minutes.. For the production team, seeing that level of engagement, especially on TV screens, was a turning point. People weren't just listening along to podcasts. They're settling in to watch now too.
The publisher worked with tech startup company Axiom (Axiom founder and CEO Jeff Yam is a Forbes board member) to build its own prediction platform - Forbes Predict - which will launch in beta in February. Unlike real-money prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket, Forbes' platform lets readers make forecasts and track results in exchange for tokens. It's designed for engagement, not wagers.
The first thing I found when I was rehearsing Hamlet was that I felt very at home. I just felt very at ease and happy to be there. But the first time I performed to be or not to be on stage, there was a sense of aren't bells supposed to ring here? Isn't there supposed to be a klaxon? I come to to be in a slightly different way each night so hopefully the audience haven't seen it done that way before.
And we want to know: What are you most curious about? We welcome your technical queries (we're still wrapping our heads around the physics of most of these sports ourselves!) but even more so, your questions about what it's like to be at the Games: from the spectator experience to the behind-the-scenes realities of getting around, feeding ourselves and meeting deadlines on the go.
The FT was one of the first to have a subscription business model, because we could see that advertising alone could be very volatile depending on the economy, and so we needed to look at subscription models, but also how we could have direct relationships with our customers. And so that was really where I started. And so when I was approached by Manchester United, the question wasn't do you know sport?
Speaking for everyone on the site, we remain incredibly grateful to be in this spot - like, just existing - to cover our favorite hockey team in a high-level way. We put our hearts and souls into this. We dedicate every ounce of energy we have (I sincerely work 12-16 hours a day, almost every day) so that what we do, which, I think, is exceptional and honest work, is expected... normal... nothing out of the ordinary.
It's absolutely vital to be able to communicate effectively and efficiently to large groups of people. I've been lucky enough to get to refine and test my skills in communicating at scale for a few decades now, and the power of talking to communities is the one area where I'd most like to pass on what I've learned, because it's this set of skills that can have the biggest effect on deciding whether good ideas and good work can have their greatest impact.
Don't get me wrong; the people who launched those 53 channels are surely talented creators who deliver clever or entertaining content-I subscribed for some reason, after all. But at this point, I couldn't tell you what most of them are truly about because there's nothing there to draw me back. I don't know who the creators are, and I don't return to their channels, because they're not building worlds I want to be part of. They're just...posting.
Over the last few years, publishers have watched their major distribution partners, first social and now search, become volatile and unreliable. Constant shifts have weakened the relationship between publishers and the platforms that once delivered their audiences. The AI era is pushing this to a breaking point. As generative interfaces replace traditional search, it has become clear that publishers cannot depend on discovery happening elsewhere. The only durable asset left is the audience's recognition of and loyalty to each publisher's brand.
Not so much for the carnal stuff, but for the way every word he utters is taken to be as beautiful as he is. Intoxicated by their admiration, his admirers leap headfirst into the still waters of his pronouncements apparently certain of hidden depths thereunder. So it has been with the reaction to how he comforted his director when she confessed, in so many words, that she couldn't always grasp what Shakespeare was on about.
It may seem like publishers are " pivoting to video " all over again, with news outlets like Time, CNN, The New York Times adding more vertical video to their sites and apps in the last few months. But it's different this time around. The big push into video production 10 years ago was centered on distribution to social media platforms, following Facebook's shift to prioritizing video content.
Your blog content represents hours of research, writing, and editing. Why let it reach only the portion of your audience who happens to find it through search or social media? Email subscribers are YOUR audience. You control when they see your message, unlike social platforms where algorithms decide what gets shown. When you repurpose blog content for email, you're giving your best work a second life where it can drive more traffic, engagement, and conversions.
If there's anything that I realized a long time ago, it's that Instagram really isn't Photography. It's content delivery, and photographers that really respect the artform and their own work shouldn't think of it as the end-all-be-all. But what I see so often is that when photographers realize that something is doing well for them, they do more of it simply just to get more likes, comments, etc.
Where does your show/content fall on the grid? Most podcasts are in the bottom left-square with low value and awareness. Chat-casts, minimal-prep interviews, and "just talk for 40 minutes" shows reside in this 'highest pain and lowest reward' corner. AI will saturate the quadrant further. To land in the coveted upper right, you need content with high value and awareness. Content in the upper-right stands out, earns trust, and keeps audiences coming back.
While Bobby Flay has become a common household name, some still look back fondly on the days of old. In a nostalgic post on one Reddit thread, fans wax poetic about the glory days of Food Network, long before Flay became the poster boy for the TV channel, back when Emeril Lagasse was still the face of the network. New Orleans-based chef Emeril Lagasse's culinary legacy began with his impressive rise to fame as a household name in the late '90s with the network's first live cooking show, " Emeril Live."
Live video has quickly become one of the most powerful ways for businesses to connect with audiences, build trust and showcase the people behind the brand. Yet for many business owners, it's also one of the trickiest formats to get right. The camera captures everything-not only confidence, clarity and culture, but also hesitation, over-preparation and mixed messaging. The difference between a live video that inspires and one that falls flat often comes down to avoidable missteps,
Being a rebel, to me, essentially means parking the industry playbook. It means not necessarily following the herd. So, when people go that way, perhaps you go the other way or in that direction. It's not about chasing clicks; it's not about chasing short-term wins. I think, at the end of the day, it is about giving your audience credit and not dumbing down,
Swift's twelfth album, The Life of a Showgirl, released 10 days ago, is unquestionably a commercial success. It broke streaming records on Spotify with more than 5 million pre-saves, as just one example. But that doesn't mean that everyone loves it. The reaction from music critics has been lukewarm and the reaction from fans is decidedly mixed, with some saying they adore the album and others saying they can't stand it.
The news business is in the throes of a technological and behavioral revolution and for Nathalie Malinarich, the executive editor for digital development and AI at BBC News, the future is a fascinating blend of high-tech innovation and old-school trust.