A conversation with the NYT’s global chief advertising officer

Media jobs can be hard to find (and keep). But not for Joy Robins.

Robins joined the New York Times as global chief advertising officer in May after serving as CRO at the Washington Post for four years. Prior to that, she was CRO at Quartz and has also held leadership roles at NBC News and the BBC.

She joined the publication at a time when it’s leaning further into advertising to monetize its different offerings, which range from games to The Athletic, the sports outlet it bought last year for $550 million.

With a few months at the Times under her belt, a new ad format released last month, and strong Q2 results, Robins tells us she’s just getting started in her new role.

What’s the Wordle?

It’s been a tough year for advertising in media, including for the Times, which saw its ad revenue fall in Q1.

After Q1, Robins said the Times focused on the positives, like the company’s direct-display advertising. And that decision may have paid off: In Q2, the Times saw its digital ad revenue grow 6.5% to $74 million.

It also added 180,000 digital subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total count to nearly 10 million. The Times has spent many years building its subscription business; in addition to its journalism, people can subscribe to NYT Cooking, Games, and Wirecutter, the product-review platform it acquired in 2016, either individually or as part of a bundle. This month, it debuted a campaign on the New York City subway that promotes its various offerings.

While Robins said it might be easy to think that the Times’ focus on advertising is a “nice-to-have,” or is “second class” to subscriptions, that hasn’t been the case in her time there. “Every conversation I have with leaders across the company is focused on how we grow our ambitions in advertising,” she told us.

What excites her, she said, is “how strong [the Times’] house of brands has become,” she said. “Now we have the opportunity to really bring that to the [ad] market at scale, which is really exciting,” she said.

Last month, the Times released a new video ad format in the mobile web version of Wordle for nonsubscribers, with DoorDash as its first sponsor. Citing the more than 2 billion times the game was played last year, Robins said this is an example of finding new, premium ad opportunities across the Times portfolio. DoorDash’s VP of Consumer Marketing Gina Igwe told Modern Retail that Wordle’s weekly active users and engagement rates were what sold the company on the new offering.

“We’re very happy with the initial results so far,” Robins said. Prior to releasing the new format, she said the Times conducted qualitative testing to test player “experience and satisfaction,” and minimize disruption.

According to Robins, the Times plans to continue optimizing its Wordle ads while also working to build out the teams, resources, and ad formats to fit its other brands like The Athletic, which started offering advertising in September, as well as Cooking and Wirecutter.

“The Wordle campaign with DoorDash was a thrilling new ‘first,’ but we are just getting started,” she said.

What’s next?

In addition to bolstering its advertising business, Robins told us she’s excited about forthcoming collaborations which “involve new applications of tech.”

Last week, the Times updated its terms and conditions to prevent its editorial content from being used to train AI algorithms. With the AI craze also taking over advertising, Robins told us she “[sees] an opportunity to deliver authentic, deeply human creative stories in a time when others might be outsourcing their ideas.”

At the end of the day, she said, “Brands are always going to want to tell their stories.” She cited the Times’ 2018 partnership with Google, in which they digitized the Times’ archives and photojournalism with Google Cloud, as an example, adding that it’s about “really connecting that reader-need with what a brand has to offer.”

As for what the Times has to offer? “I want New York Times Advertising to be the essential partner for every brand looking to engage with an elevated consumer,” she said. “We’ve got the foundation of the audience already there. Now, it’s really creating the products that are ultimately meant to meet them.”