For much of the media and information industry, 2020 has replaced the 2008 recession as the new standard for hard times.

Eighteen months after SourceMedia tapped Gemma Postlethwaite as its new CEO, the financial information company today unveils a new name: Arizent.

Editor’s Note: On Sept. 26 at 11am ET, Connectiv’s Digital Media Council will host ALM’s Matt Weiner and Joann Kropp talking about how ALM put its first-party data to work and created Audience First. The meeting can be attended remotely. Click here to register or email mkinsman@conectivb2b.net. 

On Wednesday, June 19, Connectiv teams up with ANA Business Marketing to bring leading B2B advertisers, agencies and media and information companies together in New York City for What Goes 'Round: Re-imagining the Media Marketer Relationship in a Digitally Transformed World.

Informa has become an 800-pound gorilla in the business information space, thanks in large part to a two step-strategic plan. Part one was the Growth & Acceleration, in effect from 2014 to 2017, that saw the expansion of Informa through both organic growth and acquisition, including the $1.56 billion purchase of Penton in the U.S. and nearly $6 billion acquisition of UBM in June 2018. Overall reported revenue for 2018 jumped 34.9 percent to about $3 billion, with acquisitions and disposals contributing 35.4% growth (primarily due to the acquisition of UBM). 

Last week MediaRadar released a free report on B2B Advertising in 2018: In Print | Online | Elsewhere.

For all the talk of digital transformation, the real transition for many B2B publishers was becoming events companies with media rather than media companies with events. Events typically offered better margins (especially attractive to PE-owners looking to boost revenue then flip for a tidy profit) and didn’t require the headaches of building infrastructure and new skills that digital demanded.

“We invest almost all the money back into our business.” That’s a line that trade reporters often hear, typically with a great deal of skepticism. When it is true, it typically means a certain group or technology within the organization is receiving the lion’s share of that investment (as a cub reporter I remember hearing a CEO give our B2B division a motivational speech that boiled down to pointing to the then red hot yet soon-to-crash consumer apartment guides and saying, “Be more like them”).  

SECAUCUS, NJ (November 20, 2018) - Northstar Travel Group ("Northstar") announced the launch of Northstar Studio 90, a digital strategy team and content marketing team focused on delivering outstanding business performance for their clients' marketing investments.   As the market leader, Northstar delivers unrivaled reach and scale across the travel and meetings industries allowing Northstar Studio 90 to tap directly into the company's proprietary audience data and content expertise to fuel successful integrated marketing strategies on behalf of their clients. Matt Yorke, Chief Digital Officer is the driving force behind Northstar's ongoing strategic digital transformation. As well as reorganizing the existing teams and processes to deliver on this vision, Northstar recently recruited as the head of the marketing services initiative Jeremy Rueb, Vice President, Northstar Studio 90. Jeremy previously spent 11 years at IDG Communications where he built the company's first gl ...

In January 2017, SourceMedia tapped Matt Yorke as chief marketing officer. Yorke, who previously served as CEO of IDG Enterprise and IDG Solutions, and most recently as managing director of business development and marketing for global media and marketing agency OMD, was tasked with setting Source on the path to creating a modern advertising and marketing services operation. “Matt Yorke will play a vital role in enabling us to capitalize on our recent accomplishments and realize the full potential of our brands and audiences as a platform for marketing services,” said SourceMedia CEO Doug Manoni at the time.