Publisher growth tactics for election season | WEBINAR
Publisher growth tactics for election season | WEBINAR
Audience, Data & Platform Ownership in the Age of Rented Platforms
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
Hosted By
One table. One evening. Own the audience, the data and the platform.
On the eve of Mumbrella Publish, we’re bringing 14 of Australia’s publishing operators around one table in Sydney. This invitation-only dinner gathers the people who run publishing businesses day to day: CEOs, Managing Directors, General Managers, Chief Digital Officers, Heads of Audience, and Product & Engineering leaders from media companies across news, specialist, B2B, lifestyle and brand publishing. No panels, no pitches, no slides. Just one off-the-record evening on turning ownership into the growth engine of the next twelve months.
The evening centres on the theme “Owned & Operated: Audience, Data & Platform Ownership in the Age of Rented Platforms.” The strongest publishing businesses of 2026 share one trait: they own more of their growth. Direct audiences engage more and convert better, first-party data is commanding a premium from advertisers and AI partners alike, and publishers who control their stack ship product faster and keep more of the margin. Every layer of ownership, from audience to data to platform, is compounding in value.
Over dinner, attendees will trade ownership playbooks: the moves that turn rented reach into known, returning audiences; how leading publishers are packaging the data no platform can replicate into new revenue; and the economics that make owning your stack a growth decision rather than a cost line. Before the dinner, every guest answers one question: where does their business sit on the owned-versus-rented spectrum? The anonymised benchmark opens the night. You’ll leave with a candid read on where your peers are placing their ownership bets, plus an attendee-only summary of the evening’s insights.
Welcome drinks and informal introductions. Seated at 6:30 sharp.
Why this dinner, the rules of the room, and the owned-vs-rented results from the pre-dinner question.
Round the table over entrées: “What’s the one owned-channel bet you’re making in the next twelve months, and what did you kill to make room for it?”
A short joint frame from Kinsta and The Code Company on ownership across the platform and product layers. Conversational, no slides.
Converting rented reach into known, returning audience.
What you know that no platform knows, and what it’s worth.
The economics of owning vs renting your stack.
Each guest shares one takeaway. Anonymous feedback only.
Coffee or nightcap, unstructured 1:1 conversations through 9:30 PM.
