Reach CEO touts Google AI deal as a template, steps up pressure on OpenAI over scraping 

Reach’s CEO Piers North is positioning the publisher’s Google AI content deal as a model for future LLM partnerships and says it has sent OpenAI a cease-and-desist letter as it steps up pressure on AI firms using its content without a deal.

The U.K.-based publisher, owner of newspaper titles the Daily Express and Daily Star and OK! Magazine, has agreed to deal with Google, which Digiday understands has a two-year time stamp. The deal gives Google paid access to expanded rights to use news content from Reach’s UK and Ireland portfolio for its news AI pilot. In return, Google can use that content in experimental AI features and ways of delivering news, while the companies explore whether those features help engage audiences.

Google has a multitude of different AI pilot programs, including a pay-per-value AI contribution pilot it’s running with smaller publishers. It says that more than 200 publications globally have now joined its news AI pilot program. It also has its Google News Showcase progam. 

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Ruggable’s new ad spend strategy shifts focus to ShopMy creators

The direct-to-consumer playbook was built on performance — spend big on Meta and cash in on the conversion. But as digital ad costs rise and performance dwindles, DTC darling Ruggable is tearing up that playbook. 

“We have been focused on shifting over the last 18 months is a classic: what got us here is not going to get us there,” Lauren Sherman-Kaoud, chief marketing and creative officer at Ruggable, told Digiday. 

Since last August, Ruggable has shifted about 10% of its overall spend from performance channels, like Meta, into brand channels, like influencers and connected television. The brand plans to grow that spend by another 15% to 20% next year, Sherman-Kaoud said. The CMO declined to offer a specific dollar figure for its marketing budget.

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