Top Journalists in AdTech Mini-Series: Tim Peterson
Tim Peterson writer at Digiday…
The only Mini-Series doing quick, two-minute highlights of some of the best digital writers in Marketing, Branding, and AdTech!
Overview
Tim Peterson is an LA-native and current Senior Media Reporter at Digiday. His stories range from discussing the Big Two AdTech Conglomerates to theorizing the future of Digital/Linear TV.
Background
Tim has both an interesting educational background and an interesting professional background. Before even attending school, he held a writing position at the Santa Monica Observer — a position that he held for a bit over a year.
After his time at the Santa Monica Observer, he attended New York University for undergrad. While at NYU, he specifically attended the Gallatin School of Individualized Study allowing him to uniquely craft and tailor his degree path. He held several positions while in college, one notably being an internship at Lagtons International Agency.
During his senior year at NYU, he joined the Meredith Corporation as an Associate Editor. His two years at the Meredith Corporation gave him exposure in the consumer interest and sports entertainment side of journalism.
After his time in that sector of journalism, Tim spent the next year as a Reporter for Direct Marketing News. Being a journalist at DMN is what initially got Tim into the digital marketing and advertising space. Some of his work covered exclusive interviews ranging from the CMO of Dell to the CMO of Clear Channel Digital.
Continuing his journey in the MarTech and AdTech space, Tim joined Adweek in 2012 as a Staff Writer. As an Adweek journalist, Tim got to witness several great events in the early, blossoming stages of AdTech:
*Excuse the usual Adweek paywall
- Twitter becoming a self-service advertising platform in 2013
- The early days of Instagram advertising (pre-influencer marketing)
- Facebook using third-party data for News Feed ads
Considering that Facebook is currently dealing with privacy regulations, as well as Instagram ads are experiencing decreasing CTRs (without influencers), it’s easy to see Tim’s early thought leadership growth in the space!
After spending a year at Adweek, Tim joined Ad Age mid-2013. At Ad Age, Tim got to cover the early days of some of popularized AdTech platforms of today — platforms like Snapchat, YouTube, Hulu, Spotify, and Pandora.
Between Adweek, Ad Age, and later Third Door Media/Marketing Land, Tim has a plethora of articles and fireside chats predicting future trends that ended up becoming reality! In 2015, Tim wrote about Facebook wanting retailers to use their Facebook Pages as their primary storefront.
That prediction recently proved true
As retailers have started to realize that consumers may never be going back outside like they used to, Shopify’s— eCommerce management platform — stock prices have soared as more businesses move online permanently. One of our AdTech consultants at SVC recently worked with Facebook on building and releasing their new Shopify integration that allows for COVID-affected businesses to move online permanently.
As consultants who worked with Facebook, we can vouch that Tim’s prediction for this was 100% spot-on!
Now
Tim is currently writing for Digiday and he’s rapidly approaching his third year as a Senior Media Reporter. Over the years Tim has built shown thought leadership in the space — making him an obvious choice for this Mini-Series!
Tim averages at least one new article per day. Some of his top recent articles include:
- Why WarnerMedia still has so many HBO-branded streaming services: a study of a branding and distribution headache
- Twitch moves deeper into TV-like programming (with interactivity)
- How the future of TV and streaming has been reshaped so far by 2020
- Shut out of Fire TV and Roku, Peacock is the latest example of the arrival power moves to streaming
- AT&T and Verizon Are Making Very Different Bets on What 5G Will Mean for Consumers and Content
- Reddit overhauls ad sales, with a new boss from Pinterest
Our Fan Favorite
Our non-paywalled fan-favorite is his recent article on ViacomCBS! Something that should be noted is that the Viacom and CBS merger was a necessary merger in hindsight. This merger allows ViacomCBS (and Pluto TV) to compete with Comcast (which has acquired several streaming platforms recently such as Now TV and XUMO).
Another point that we liked from his article is his statement on the AVOD/Digitial TV industry expecting to reduce average ad time. As we’ve seen this year with Peacock TV’s launch, the industry is definitely moving towards this direction!
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/petersontee
Reach out to him over email: tim@digiday.com
