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• Transcript

  James Kotecki (00:06): 

  This is CES Tech Talk. I'm James Kotecki with another conversation that I recorded live at CES 2025 in the C Space Studio. You can watch every interview from that series on the CES YouTube channel, but this one is a favorite, and we wanted to share it right here in your podcast feed. Enjoy. 

  (00:26): 

  Hey, welcome back. This is the C Space Studio here at CES 2025. I am James Kotecki, joined by the Chief Revenue Officer of Reddit, Mike Romoff. 

  (00:36): 

  Mike, welcome to the C Space Studio. Thanks for joining us. 

  Mike Romoff (00:38): 

  Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. 

  James Kotecki (00:40): 

  Okay. So Reddit, I think most people would be familiar with Reddit, but I'm always curious to ask people how they define the brand. So what does Reddit mean, especially going here into 2025? 

  Mike Romoff (00:49): 

  Yeah. So Reddit, at its core, is a community of communities. It's where people can come and have authentic conversations with other people who are interested in the things that they're passionate about. It's like a hundred thousand different communities, all vibrant with people coming and really just sharing their expertise, the things that they get really passionate about. 

  James Kotecki (01:13): 

  Do you still use the phrase, front page of the internet? Do you still adopt that? 

  Mike Romoff (01:16): 

  Reddit is, for sure, the front page of the internet. I think Reddit's been having a cultural moment. 

  (01:21): 

  I don't know if you've seen it, but I started at Reddit about a quarter ago, and pretty much everyone I meet and I tell them I work at Reddit, they say, "You know, I find myself on Reddit a lot these days. You know, I start out searching for something and I end up on Reddit. Or I go to Reddit because I'm interested in this topic." 

  (01:38): 

  And I think Reddit's been doing its thing for a long, long time, and the rest of the world has kind of moved closer to Reddit. 

  James Kotecki (01:45): 

  It's a rabbit hole in a good way, yeah. 

  Mike Romoff (01:46): 

  In a good way. 

  James Kotecki (01:47): 

  And actually when I was preparing this interview, my wife literally said, "Oh, James, you love Reddit." So yes, I am one of the users of Reddit, more than them as well. 

  Mike Romoff (01:55): 

  Well, I appreciate that. 

  James Kotecki (01:56): 

  Reddit is no stranger to CES, of course. 

  Mike Romoff (01:58): 

  Yeah. 

  James Kotecki (01:58): 

  But what especially brings you here to CES 2025? 

  Mike Romoff (02:01): 

  You know, this year we're talking about the power of conversations, and the way we talk about it is conversations really drive decisions. 

  (02:10): 

  On Reddit, so much of what we talk about or what our users talk about is inherently commercial. So almost half of the conversation that happens on Reddit is about what product should I buy? Or I tried this and I think it's awesome. And those authentic recommendations drive so much decision-making and purchase intent. 

  (02:29): 

  So look, I'm the Chief Revenue Officer, we have a huge ads business. When I think about how brands can get involved with Reddit, it's really about engaging at the point where people are making decisions, getting informed and deciding what they want to buy. 

  James Kotecki (02:45): 

  And then how does that authenticity then pair with the way that ads show up for folks on Reddit? I mean, I know that one of the ads that people can buy on Reddit is something that looks not too dissimilar from a regular post. Obviously, it's marked as a sponsored piece of content. 

  Mike Romoff (02:57): 

  Yeah. 

  James Kotecki (02:57): 

  But I'm curious then from the consumer perspective, how they treat that and how they kind of engage with those kind of pieces of content. 

  Mike Romoff (03:04): 

  For sure. I mean, look at the core of Reddit, it's about having engaging conversation. Whether that's consumer side or whether that's commercial, it should be appropriate and it should be additive to what's happening. 

  (03:15): 

  So Reddit has like a famous ad format called Ask Me Anything, AMA Ads, and it lets a brand really engage with their fans directly. And it's unique among, I think, all the platforms in fostering a sense of real community, not just among the people who use your brand, but with the brand itself. And I think there are ways to bring that authentic message and, frankly, have a two-way conversation from the advertisers themselves, but also with the folks who are potentially using their products. 

  James Kotecki (03:51): 

  The format is called Ask Me Anything. 

  Mike Romoff (03:53): 

  Yeah. 

  James Kotecki (03:53): 

  So does that then imply that if a brand wants to engage in this space, they have to be willing to take questions, maybe questions they're not comfortable with, and really be authentic? 

  Mike Romoff (04:00): 

  Look, for an AMA, I think to show up authentically, you win the respect of the community. 

  (04:07): 

  You know, there's a great example. There was a small business selling diaper bags, and they did an AMA with us, and one of the questions was, why are your diaper bags so expensive? And rather than try to shut it down, they went through all the proof points. So there's a lifetime guarantee, the materials are really great, and it actually starts to be a two-way dialogue about the value prop. And I think if done correctly, it's a really powerful way to build trust and authenticity with potential customers. 

  James Kotecki (04:35): 

  What are the brands that work with you expecting from Reddit when it comes to AI? And I'm not sure if they're thinking, "Oh, I want AI to do..." Maybe they're just thinking about the benefits, but what are the things they're expecting that AI is able to deliver? 

  Mike Romoff (04:46): 

  I mean, Reddit was built for AI. I think if you were trying to construct the perfect thing for AI, it would be a 20-year history of human conversation about almost every topic you can imagine with people's upvotes and downvotes that you can use to train models, that you can use to target ads against. And I think the market has recognized how powerful that asset is and Reddit, we've recognized how powerful it is. 

  (05:17): 

  So from a consumer perspective, coming into Reddit, we've launched something called Reddit Answers, and you can think about that as a point of entry into all the richness of all the communities and conversations across Reddit. It's a simple search box interface that everyone's seen, but the difference is, instead of having a AI sort of created answer, it actually helps steer you to real human conversations that answer your question. And so, that's one of the ways that from the consumer side, we're really opening things up. 

  (05:49): 

  On the advertising side, I mean, driving towards performance is the biggest place where AI shows up. We have so much signal about what people are interested in, what they're engaging in, the kinds of products that they like. To be able to bring that to bear for our advertisers, that's a huge use case for AI. 

  James Kotecki (06:07): 

  Where are we at the intersection of shopping and media and Reddit? What are the milestones you're looking for in 2025? 

  Mike Romoff (06:15): 

  Well, look, Reddit has launched a number of what I would consider industry standard ad products so that we really could have dynamic product ads, be able to really compete in the commerce space. 

  (06:27): 

  But the real secret sauce is the authenticity of the recommendations and the conversations. We fielded some research and 40% of the people we surveyed said that a recommendation for a brand or a product on Reddit was the most influential thing that caused them to buy a product. 

  James Kotecki (06:45): 

  Yeah. 

  Mike Romoff (06:45): 

  40%. So we know that we've got an engaged audience that is, literally, recommending either your product or your competitor's product, and so, if you're an advertiser, you want to be at that point where people are making that decision. 

  James Kotecki (07:00): 

  Given where we are with privacy and with cookies, what is Reddit's philosophy about advertising with respect to that and then how that fits into the future of the industry? 

  Mike Romoff (07:10): 

  Yeah, I think Reddit is contextual and interest-based and so, the targeting that we do is not based on individual information. We don't have PII. We're an anonymous platform. 

  (07:22): 

  So the changes that have come or the changes that have been contemplated around identity and all the regulation around PII, that's not really relevant for us. We know, on an anonymous basis, that you're part of a community around skin care or community around cars, and you engage in certain topics. For us, it's business as usual. So the industry I think is grappling a lot with how to deal with the changes in identity and what's happening with regulation. For Reddit, that's just business as usual. 

  James Kotecki (07:52): 

  And that anonymity is kind of a core part of it, right? Like the idea of an anonymity behind a username, I imagine that's a core part of it. 

  Mike Romoff (07:59): 

  I think one of the things that's a bit counterintuitive is that under the... Being anonymous, you're much more open to talk about topics that you wouldn't be open to talk about under your real name. 

  (08:12): 

  So our CEO, Steve Huffman, his classic line is, "Everybody has a rash." And so, when you go on Reddit and you have a condition, you want to talk to other people who have that condition, it's much easier to do when it's not your face and name underneath that. And there are a lot of really robust communities around cancer and cancer survivors, people with different ailments, and then obviously lots of fun stuff where people get to talk about sports and everything else. 

  James Kotecki (08:41): 

  Yeah. We know that Reddit is a hugely vast and diverse place. We know that tech audiences are diverse. We can see that here at CES. How do you recommend that brands find and reach the right niche communities, the niche subreddits that they need to be in? 

  Mike Romoff (08:58): 

  So almost every topic is resident on Reddit. And so, what feels niche when you go and look and see the community that's vibrant there, we may actually have a huge community of users that are talking about that very niche topic. 

  (09:13): 

  So like if you're a CRM person and you think that's a niche tech audience, well, you can go to the Salesforce admin subreddit, you can go to the r/CRM subreddit. You can go into all these different categories and topics where there's a community of people who are actively expert in that topic, evaluating different products in that niche. 

  (09:35): 

  And so, from an advertiser perspective, that's the core of where you want to be. And then we can reach those people across the Reddit platform when they're whole humans, when they're pursuing their other interests. 

  James Kotecki (09:46): 

  So maybe something for brands to keep in mind is as niche as you think you need to be, you can even maybe get narrower than that and actually have a lot of success because there are those communities out there. 

  Mike Romoff (09:54): 

  Look, I think you can find it. And then I think the work from there is to understand how else you can reach that same community broadly across the platform. 

  James Kotecki (10:03): 

  So we talked about Reddit being an anonymous place, and not to give up any secrets, Mike, but do you have any favorite subreddits of your own or just places that you want to recommend to people, your favorite niche topic? 

  Mike Romoff (10:11): 

  I have one if you haven't. I'm a musician, so r/synthesizers, which is a place for gearheads to like get crazy about different electronic music recording. 

  James Kotecki (10:22): 

  lovers of all kinds, yeah. 

  Mike Romoff (10:23): 

  I mean, that's amazing. But if you haven't checked it out, Photoshop Requests is one of my favorite. 

  James Kotecki (10:29): 

  Ah, that's a fun one. Yeah. 

  Mike Romoff (10:30): 

  And some of them are poignant. It's basically where people can ask the community to Photoshop different photos. Some of them are super poignant. You know, it's a photo of a grandma who passed away and they wanted to remove something out of it or put another person in it. 

  (10:44): 

  And some of them are just super fun. It's just a guy pranking someone by making it look like his car got flooded, but I love that one. 

  James Kotecki (10:51): 

  A lot of good emotional moments there, or as they say on Reddit, "Someone's cutting onions in here." 

  (10:55): 

  And Mike, I really appreciate you sharing this conversation with us. Thank you so much. Mike Romoff of Reddit. Thank you so much. 

  Mike Romoff (11:00): 

  Yes, thanks for having me. 

  James Kotecki (11:01): 

  And we really appreciate you watching us here in the C Space Studio at CES 2025. More conversations are on the way. I am James Kotecki. Stay with us. 

  (11:10): 

  Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation from CES 2025. That is our show for now, but there's always more tech to talk about. So if you're on YouTube, please subscribe and leave a comment. If you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart Media, or wherever you get your podcasts, hit that follow button and let's give the algorithms what they want. 

  (11:29): 

  You can get even more CES at ces.tech. That's C-E-S dot T-E-C-H. Our show produced by Nicole Vidovich and Paige Morris. Our C Space Studio episodes are produced and edited by Cramer. I'm James Kotecki talking tech on CES Tech Talk.