By Rich Routman, President, Minute Media
Have you seen that trend on TikTok where kids ask their parents what they were like in the 90’s? Photos flash of parents and celebs from when they were teens or young adults 30 years ago. It seems nostalgia is everywhere these days – even in digital media and advertising. With this in mind, let’s revisit some of those old school trends that drove revenue and growth back in the early days and how they seem to be re-emerging to once again give publishers and advertisers control of their audience and bottom line.
Email Marketing
Did you ever think that email marketing would be a hot topic in 2026? But it’s back and more important than ever because businesses need to learn more about their customers. Back then, email was largely considered spam and irrelevant. But now, email marketing, either at-scale or to niche audience segments, are the predominant source of publisher first-party data and a direct comms line to customers.
But the way we think of email marketing needs to change to keep up with inbox prioritization and how AI is shaping what emails get read and which become trash. Users are also increasingly relying on AI summaries of emails rather than clicking through. On the flip side, AI provides more opportunities for personalization in emails, leading to better outcomes.
IRL Events
We’ve been living online and scrolling for so long that the industry started to again crave in-person events. Face to face experiences help create tangibility from touchless digital media businesses, elevating the brand and forming meaningful and emotional connections. With so much of digital media being perishable news or timely content, in person events provide something that audiences can build memories around — and we’ve seen this specifically with our Sports Illustrated, SI Swimsuit and Players Night Out events. Digital media needs to step outside of the small, medium or larger screen a little more and get back to creating platforms that can be touched and lived.
Back to Social First
With brands and publishers investing in creator and influencer-led campaigns, social-first publishing is back in a big way. In its previous iteration, the focus was on audience growth and referral traffic. Today, social sits as the cornerstone of engagement with content, personality and brands. Brands are looking to connect with the cultural zeitgeist discovered in social and then use those insights for campaigns that extend into traditional and even, offline marketing.
For publishers, this means elevating the personalities of their star creators and having them connect with consumers where they are – on TikTok, Reels or Stories. Even the WSJ has followed this track and recently launched Talent Lab that gives its journalists the tools and skills to connect with their readers outside of the page – in video, podcasts, social video and more.
With all that said, I am not expecting the iPad to return to glory, for the daily newspaper to face a resurgence or for cable TV to thrive for another 10 years, but history, in content and media, has a tendency to repeat itself. While most of the industry has pivoted to the next “it” factor, those that continue to be practical and grounded in mechanics that enable real human interaction, first party data collection and utilization of the best personalities in the industry, will continue to thrive. That doesn’t mean that we’re not in the AI Age of publishing, but it does mean that we’ll need to lean on both AI and our learnings from the past, to enable the most optimal versions of ourselves going forward.
