Dec 9, 2019 · 1h 0m · capital-allocators
Kip McDaniel – How to Get an Allocator's Attention (Capital Allocators, EP.115)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of Capital Allocators, host Ted Seides speaks with Institutional Investor Editor-in-Chief Kip McDaniel about the art of financial storytelling, investigative journalism, digital media transformation, and strategies for cutting through information clutter to capture allocator attention.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Ted holds 17.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Ted as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 1.8 Ted pushing back 0.3
speaking balance: gold is Ted, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 22:56 Rejecting the value of generic white papers
Kip directly rejects Ted's assumption that disclosure is easy for asset managers, arguing forcefully that producing generic white papers on interest rates is useless busywork.
Hardest push from Ted ▶ 11:34 Challenging print circulation claimsTed challenges Kip's quoted print statistics, pointing out the inherent lack of verifiable reader data in legacy print publishing.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 22:56 Educating on what allocators actually want to readKip schools Ted and institutional marketers on the reality of thought leadership, emphasizing that allocators ignore common knowledge and only engage when managers have something genuinely novel to say.
Ted holds their own ▶ 11:34 Insisting on data-driven accountabilityTed displays his sharp analytical instincts by questioning how publishers historically claimed readership numbers prior to modern digital telemetry.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Ted as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Ted pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Institutional Investor's Shift from Print to Digital | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted prompts Kip to explain the strategic decision behind shutting down Institutional Investor's 50-year-old print magazine. Kip provides extensive behind-the-scenes detail on the economics, rigid page constraints, and post-transition digital readership growth. | |
| Audience Analytics and the Triumph of Long-Form Journalism | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Ted presses Kip on the historical fuzziness of print circulation data compared to modern web metrics. Kip candidly concedes the opacity of print readership estimates while revealing that digital analytics prove long-form investigative pieces generate the most engagement. | |
| Asset Management Marketing Challenges and Reader Data Gaps | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted asks how asset management CMOs communicate with clients. Kip explains the persistent reader data gap in asset management marketing, noting that managers still struggle to know if specific allocators actually engage with their research. | |
| The Four Essential Characteristics of a Great Story | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | Ted invites Kip to reveal the tools of compelling journalism. Kip outlines Graydon Carter's four pillars of great storytelling and sharply criticizes industry puff pieces and the rise of combative PR tactics. | |
| Applying Narrative Structure to Institutional Thought Leadership | 4 | 6 | 4 | 1 | When Ted suggests disclosure is straightforward for asset managers, Kip immediately refutes the premise, arguing that most manager thought leadership is repetitive white-paper fluff rather than genuine disclosure. | |
| Investigative Rigor and Managing Journalistic Conflict | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | Ted asks how conflict is sourced without manufacturing controversy. Kip explains the rigorous reporting and legal vetting process required for investigative deep dives using their UC Regents coverage as a case study. | |
| Crisis Public Relations Tactics and the McKinsey Investigation | 2 | 5 | 3 | 0 | Ted inquires about the shifting landscape of PR representation. Kip recounts Institutional Investor's high-stakes clash with McKinsey and aggressive crisis PR lawyers over their investigative report on MIO Partners. | |
| Sponsor Message: Ridgeline | 3 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Ted asks about constructive promotional PR, and Kip explains how institutional managers like Bridgewater and AQR partner effectively with media to distribute research and generate relationship alpha. | |
| The Art of Packaging: Design, Titles, and Cutting Through Clutter | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Ted prompts Kip to share practical content packaging techniques. Kip breaks down the critical importance of visual design, avoiding clickbait, and crafting headlines tailored to specific platforms and changing audience tastes. | |
| Distribution Strategy: The Power of Email and Sleeper Hits | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | Ted asks about content distribution and analytics trends. Kip explains why email remains the undisputed king over social media for institutional finance and highlights proprietary academic research as sleeper hits. | |
| The Conference Business and Designing Compelling Live Panels | 3 | 4 | 2 | 0 | Ted highlights the conference business as II's primary revenue engine and asks what makes stage programming compelling. Kip illustrates the power of real conflict through Dan Rasmussen's provocative private equity debate. |
Statements from this episode (27)
Institutional Investor is undergoing strategic review including a possible sale
“We're part of a public company, and it is public that we are going through a strategic review of the business, with one possibility being a sale of institutional investor.”
Institutional Investor spends more on journalism after ending print edition
“We actually now spend more on journalism than we did before, because we're spending less on printing and shipping magazines.”
Institutional Investor Media is profitable after abandoning print
“I won't give exact numbers, but II Media, standalone media is profitable. And it wasn't before.”
Institutional Investor U.S. readership grew from 1.1M to 2M+ by FY2019
“Whereas in 2017 we had 1.1 million U.S. Readers, in 2019 fiscal we had two million plus readers.”
Marketers stay frustrated by print's unverifiable, opaque readership
“And there persists in being frustration on the side of marketers with print products because it is such an opaque market when it goes out in the world and you have no idea if it's going to be read.”
Institutional Investor's most-read stories are consistently original long-form investigations
“It warms a journalist's heart that the most read stories of the year are always original, investigative, long form work.”
Articles with longest engaged time also draw highest total readership
“And inevitably, the stories that have the longest engaged time, that's readers spent reading it, are the ones that have also the most page use and the most readers.”
Asset management cultures treat marketing as a secondary support function
“There's always that cultural element that marketing within asset management organizations can be viewed as a secondary function, sort of a base level support function.”
Most asset managers lack individual-level readership analytics
“Most asset managers haven't got that granularity yet, and they are confronted with all this technology they have, right? You can get satellite data on, on Walmart's parking lot, but I still can't figure out if Paula Valente is reading my piece of thought leade…”
Granular reader engagement data will redefine asset management sales
“For someone to actually figure out a mechanism that an asset manager can produce meaningful content and know when clients and potential clients are engaging with it and how is very much the holy grail of asset management marketing because then it's just going …”
Dalio and Schwarzman never reveal unstrategic information in interviews
“It's sometimes hard interviewing folks like Ray Dalio or Stephen Schwarzman because they are so smart and so well-practiced. They will never tell you anything that they don't mean to tell you or that hasn't been strategically decided to tell you.”
There are four PR people for every journalist
“I believe there's four PR people for every journalist now. I suspect it's even higher in the financial industry.”
Narrative writing cannot be taught past the age of eighteen
“But I think that the best way to get the narrative writing, you cannot teach that past the age of 18.”
Effective writing makes leaving more painful for readers than staying
“And so it's about those hooks that the point is always to make it more painful for the reader to leave than to stay. They just have to read that next section to figure out what's going on. That is the key, whether you're writing a feature for institutional inv…”
No errors were ever found in the UC Regents investigation
“And that to this day we stand behind entirely because there's never been one error found with the story. And it's a story of UC Regents and Jagdeep Basher.”
McKinsey sent threatening letters to Institutional Investor and identified zero errors
“The article is called The Story McKinsey Didn't Want Written, and then we started the story by saying, during the reporting of this piece, McKinsey sent multiple threatening letters to institutional investor. We stand by this piece entirely, and they have not …”
Over-communicating during crises keeps allocator assets sticky
“The firms that over-communicate during crises are the ones that have the sticky assets.”
Clickbait headlines are the fastest way to ruin a brand
“Clickbait effectively is a title that doesn't match
The content. It's a promise that's not delivered. And so when we title an article, it's gotta be aligned with the actual content that it's sitting over top of. There's no worse way to ruin your brand quickly …”
Puns fail online and digital headlines require descriptive wording
“When you read an article in the New Yorker in print, the title is often a pun. It's like three or four words. You go online and look at the same story. The title is different. It's much more descriptive. And that's not just for search engine reasons. It's beca…”
Generic titles like 'Our Views' ruin high-effort asset management research
“I've just had a team of PMs and writers sit down and give 12 hours of their, like, scarce time
To writing this piece about fixed income, I don't want to screw it up by calling it our views on fixed income. You've just taken this gift and like thrown it in the …”
Institutional asset managers never win mandates from SEO search queries
“SEO is table stakes. Having your website optimized for search are table stakes, but us and institutional asset managers You're never getting a mandate via, like, no one types in hundred million dollar core fixed income search help.”
Email remains by far the most effective distribution medium
“Email is still by far the most helpful medium, and that is the case for marketers too.”
Institutional Investor avoids breaking newswire scoops due to P&I's larger staff
“We don't really search them out because P&I has a larger team of journalists and does that very well. So the Newswire stuff is not our gig. It's just not worth it for us.”
Institutional Investor is financially an events business, not a media brand
“99.9% of the people who are aware of Institutional Investor think of us as a media brand, and we are a media brand, but if you are a bean counter, we are an events business.”