Sharp Pen Media

Sharp Pen Media helps adtech and martech companies with marketing strategy, content, and PR. We have two kinds of clients. Some need help with strategy. These folks are generally struggling with commoditization or awareness. We help them figure out what the message is and how to distribute it to differentiate and build their audience. Others need help with tactics. These clients are tired of working with content/PR people who are too junior or don't get our industry. We help them create adtech-specific content and PR campaigns that they're not reluctant to show their CEO.

Founder and CEO

WIT Strategy

WIT is an adtech- and martech-focused PR agency. I help clients with marketing strategy, messaging, and writing, especially thought leadership bylines.

Content and PR

Street Fight

+ Spearhead Street Fight's editorial operations, shaping newsroom's coverage of digital marketing with an emphasis on location data
+ Architect and sell subscription product for enterprise contributors
+ Assign and edit news stories and columns, including guest contributions by C-suite executives of companies such as Foursquare
+ Write news coverage and commentary on digital marketing, business ethics, privacy, and AI
+ Compile daily newsletter

Managing Editor

Compile daily newsletter on the latest in hyperlocal tech, marketing, and journalism
Manage Street Fight's social media presence
Report on companies innovating in the hyperlocal tech, marketing, and journalism spaces
Write biweekly roundups of venture rounds raised by tech startups

News Editor

The Juice Learning

+ Write daily 1,500-word morning newsletter with focus on US politics
+ Write supplements to help teachers educate students on current events
+ Determine day's top stories in collaboration with editor-in-chief

Newsletter Writer

Brown Daily Herald Inc.

Spearhead management of editorial operations for daily newspaper, weekly magazine, and blog, overseeing more than 100 staff members 
Shape coverage ranging from long-form features to breaking news stories, editing articles and guiding writers on reporting
Run production of the paper four nights per week in the newsroom, approving all content before publication

Managing Editor and Vice President

Organized content for a daily news section in collaboration with two other editors
Edited stories for journalistic style, structure, grammar, and clarity
Mentored junior and senior writers

Wrote one story per week concerning issues or events on campus
Contributed to the production of the newspaper; wrote headlines, tweets, and Facebook posts
Created editorial content; fleshed out story ideas for myself and other writers
Investigated issues on campus; interviewed students, faculty members, and administrators

Senior Staff Writer

If you're here because you like my content, sign up for GTM tips from adtech leaders: https://shorturl.at/celmR

I hope you're reading this for one of three reasons.

1. You're an adtech or martech marketer who needs content and PR help from someone who actually understands our industry. You're tired of hiring writers and comms pros who need so much help understanding your business that you'd be better off doing the work yourself. You need time back and content you won't cringe when sending to your CMO or CEO. 

2. You're an adtech or martech business leader — CEO, CRO, CMO or VP of marketing — and your business is struggling with a lack of differentiation or awareness. Your customers love you, but not enough people are talking about you in an industry where discussion is dominated by a few big players. You need a marketing partner who won't just execute but also help with marketing strategy, meaning what the message is and how you'll distribute it to grow your business.

3. You're a fellow marketer, entrepreneur, or adtech professional who wants to share content or talk about any of those three things.

If any of the above describe you, reach out here on LinkedIn or email me at joe@sharppenmedia.com. I've helped dozens of ad/martech companies — from 10-person startups to the big public ones — with marketing strategy, content, and PR, and I'd love to chat.

If you want to know more about Sharp Pen Media, my marketing agency, take my clients' word for it: https://www.sharppenmedia.com/clients

Criteo has succeeded at something that almost always fails: reinventing itself.

How? By doing something that most companies are afraid to: going all in on a new identity.

Four years ago, Criteo's stock was at an all-time low of $7. They were known for one thing, retargeting, which was threatened by looming third-party cookie deprecation. They were written off. 

An r/adops post from three years ago asks, "Are Criteo managing to reinvent themselves?" Someone replied, “Two years ago, I would have put the chance of a Criteo turnaround lower than Trump admitting a flaw in his decisions / policy. Now I have to eat dirt — because they are turning around. And yes, because of retail media."

That focus persists. On the company's last earnings call, CEO Megan Clarken said, "Our vision is quickly coming to life as we continue to transform our company into a commerce media powerhouse." Criteo's DSP allows advertisers to buy media from 225 retailers. The company isn't pitching seven different initiatives and a hodgepodge of disconnected financial results. It's pitching one thing: commerce media — and itself as the company to solve that space's most oft-cited problem (fragmentation).

Obviously, stock price isn't everything. But most adtech stocks have tanked since 2021. Criteo's was $7 four years ago. Today it's $48, 10% off its all-time high. There are certainly many reasons for this. But from a marketing perspective, there's one: focus. 

It’s hard enough to get known for one thing; changing that one thing is even harder. 

You have to choose — and shout it in the public square over and over. Whatever its faults, Criteo has done that decisively, and it’s been rewarded.

Joe Zappa

Marketing is unfair. 

You can say brilliant things, but if you're the CEO of an early-stage, no-name startup, you'll have to grind for months or years for people to notice.

Meanwhile, CEOs of large, influential companies can post platitudes and generate massive attention. 

Now ... what if you're the CEO of an influential company and you actually DO have counter-consensus, educational, and/or provocative takes on the industry?

You can drive the conversation, shape how your customers and those who influence them see the market, and elicit DMs from reporters (instead of needing to beg those same reporters for coverage).

If you're one of the 20 biggest adtech companies and your CEO or another member of the C-suite fits this profile, leverage the advantage.

Someone from the marketing team who knows the industry well should be interviewing that exec weekly and helping them write a couple of posts.

Huge marketing gains await — and you don't need to wait for any third-party gatekeepers to answer your emails.

A few weeks ago I started working with a couple new CEOs. 

In addition to a ton of direct attention, their social posts have prompted DMs from AdWeek, Ad Age, and WSJ reporters. 

Go direct. Social isn’t just about social. It helps with PR, too. And the impact is immediate.

Lots of talk about Perplexity's $50 CPMs. From the marketing POV, I like the story they're telling. 

Perplexity's pitch deck as reported by AdWeek's Trishla Ostwal immediately answers the 3 big storytelling questions.

1. What do you do? "We're an answer engine."

2. How are you different? The era of "ten blue links" is over (f you, Google et al). With Perplexity, you get synthesized and "conversational" answers, not a bunch of links to other sources.

3. Why does this matter? Why is it urgent? "We prioritize accuracy and the user experience." It's more efficient and trustworthy. That whole "trust on the internet is broken and search is dominated by BS ads" thing? We're fixing it. Again, f you, Google, Amazon, OpenAI, etc.

This may seem simple, but it's not. Most companies do not meet this bar. They cannot simply tell you who they are, how they're different, and why it matters.

Perplexity is making the case that a new era of search — and search advertising — is upon us. And, in so doing, they're positioning themselves as the standard bearer of that era.

Search advertising is a $300B market. Not a bad one to be redefining.

PR IS DEAD. Or ... is it? 

Earned media still has value, but there are others way to reach your audience, and you have to be taking advantage of them.

In today's episode of Open Market, Eric Franchi and I share our takes on modern marketing, including how PR is changing. More on:

+ How PR helped build Undertone
+ How to build relationships with reporters
+ Why PR now means more than just earned media
+ What you can do to build your company across PR and content

Check it out on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

There's a common problem with SSP marketing strategy: SSPs are running the market leader playbook, but they're not the market leader.

Consider Magnite (the actual leading independent SSP): "Helping you win across every screen, everywhere."

The message is boring, but it's reasonably effective because Magnite is arguably actually the best place to go for open web (and in particular CTV) inventory. On Magnite's last earnings call, they mention partnerships with Netflix, Disney, Roku, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Paramount, Fox, Samsung, LG and Vizio. Magnite's business advantage aligns with its message.

But if you're not actually the best place to go for CTV inventory, you can't just say you'll help advertisers 'win everywhere' and expect to compete. You have to challenge the leader by differentiating yourself. 

Which is what makes these messages problematic:

"one exchange. every channel"

"helping the independent web grow and thrive"

"the most innovative SSP"

These messages are either vague, or they mimic the market leader playbook of "we're everywhere, and we are the future of the open web."

"The most innovative SSP" is actually on the right track. But "innovative" is too vague — literally no one other than your employees is going to talk about you and say, "Oh, yes, company x. They're the innovative SSP." 

The key if you're not the market leader is to *pick a specific way you are innovating* and use it as a wedge to put space between you and the market leader. You only get to be known for one thing. So, pick an advantage, and make the market leader's customers wonder why they're not getting that one thing from Magnite — and whether they should be getting it from you instead.

In short, if you're not the market leader, talk to your customers and product people. Identify a common differentiator: one thing you can actually win on that existing customers recognize as an advantage. And go all in on it. 

Otherwise, you're always be an also-ran: the seventh largest SSP. And there's no glory in that position.

Last night a couple of friends and I were discussing how establishment vs anti-establishment sometimes matters more than political ideology (Dem, R, etc).

I think CEOs and CMOs should consider a similar dynamic when making marketing hires: bias for action (or lack thereof) matters more than a lot of other more obvious categorical attributes.

Product marketing vs content vs comms: you can learn a lot of that on the job.

But it's much harder to teach a bias for action, and that's critical, especially in smaller organizations with relatively small marketing teams.

Because the quality of your marketing output matters a ton, but quantity matters, too.

You need someone who's going to learn and work fast. If I were hiring marketers, bias for action is the top attribute I'd look for.

The main GTM challenge for SSPs is differentiation / commoditization: proving they add unique value and aren't just dumb pipes. 

Bc if they are, it's hard to argue they should be added — or shouldn't be replaced with a cheaper option. 

That's why Magnite is saying this:

"Our tools are deeply embedded within our clients' workflow, whether it be creative review, adding logic, or audience tools, and from the client's perspective, the combined implementation of our ad serving capabilities and SSP looks more like a typical enterprise software solution. We believe this stickiness creates a meaningful mode and barrier to entry for others..."

Tl;dr: "We aren't a fungible commodity like our competitors."

Do you buy this argument? What, if anything, actually makes an SSP sticky?

What is the business case for decarbonizing advertising?

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