'We have no trouble walking away': The New York Times says it's not beholden to Facebook and Google

The New York Times

• The New York Times plans to double digital revenue to $800 million by 2020, which means it must often rely on partners like Google and Facebook.
• But it does not hesitate to walk away when its partners aren't serving its interests, The Times' head of brand David Rubin said in an interview with Business Insider.
• "We have no trouble walking away, because we've got a much clearer sense of what drives our business," he said.
• Rubin also talked about The Times' relationship with its ad agency partners, saying that they "help us see ourselves in the way that a reader can."

The New York Times has embarked on a massive growth push, with plans to double digital revenue to $800 million by 2020.

"We're a subscriber-first business," David Rubin, the head of brand at The New York Times, told Business Insider. "We've committed to being that in 2013, and our success has been because of that decision."

This undertaking involves not only experimenting with areas outside of display advertising, but also navigating an often tricky relationship with platform partners like Google and Facebook.

The Times works with its partners when they help it take its journalism to more people, and brings them back and highlights its value enough for them to pay for it, said Rubin. But it is not beholden to their whims and fancies, and does not hesitate to walk away when they aren't serving its interests.

"We will work with any partner who helps us build that relationship deeply," said David. "And when they're doing things that are not in those interests, we have no trouble walking away, because we've got a much clearer sense of what drives our business."

Beyond the duopoly, Rubin also talked about The Times' relationship with its ad agency partners.

He said that its recent marketing successes could be attributed to the tension and healthy collaboration between its internal team and its agency.

"I think that tension and healthy collaboration between our internal team and our agency, is really the secret sauce," he said. "It's not so much a 'Hey, external agency, here's a brief. Call me when you're ready,' but really trying to collaborate together, and push back and forth on each other, which I think makes the work better."

While its in-house team handles revenue generation, performance marketing and a bulk of its creative, it turns to outside partners like ad agency Droga5 for its larger, more thematic campaign work.

"Nobody can understand our brand as well as we can, and nobody can move at the speed that the internal shop can," he said.

Outside shops, on the other hand, "help us see ourselves in the way that a reader can, that sometimes it's hard to do if you're working inside and you're thinking about it day to day," he said.

Watch the full video below.

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