Login
close
Login is restricted to DCN Publisher Members. If you are a DCN Member and don't have an account, register here.
Search

Digital Content Next logo

Menu

Category results for "Innovation"

Innovation | Perspectives

Forbes and Prospero Analytics Team up to Offer the Forbes Executive InsightCenter

There’s a whole lot of talk about the power of data these days. The thing about data—big or other-sized—is that its real value lies in the insights generated from its thoughtful analysis. This week, Forbes announced a new partnership with Prosper Analytics to release the Forbes Executive InsightCenter, which is designed to offer clear, usable insights derived from thousands of data sets and consumer insights.

Forbes’ founded its Insights business two years ago and has seen impressive growth thus far—doubling business last year and on track for another 50% growth this year, according to Bruce Rogers, the company’s chief insights officer. Rogers says that the launch of the Executive InsightCenter came about when they identified “a bit of a missing piece in the insights we were offering the marketplace; we really didn’t have a consumer component to our insights.” The new subscription-based platform is designed to benefit business executives who work at consumer-focused business in the U.S. or China, or that have customers in China.

Rogers emphasizes that this is not another market research product. “I don’t want to compete with market research companies,” he says. “I can throw a rock out of my window on 5th avenue and hit someone who does market research. We want to provide something they can’t get anywhere else—usable insights.”

They may overlap with traditional market research in some ways, but Rogers says that a unique way that Forbes’ foresees their data being used is to fuel informed content marketing initiatives, an area in which Forbes has a good deal of experience. “Companies are spending as much as 25% of their budgets creating content to fill communication channels. But there remains as shortage of genuine thought-leadership and expertise.” Forbes InsightCenter is designed to quickly provide insights that can be leveraged to create research-based content which Forbes has found generates high levels of engagement. “Research is candy on the web.”

One thing that distinguishes the tool from its crowded field of market research peers, is an easy-to-use dashboard, says Rogers, which was a product of its collaboration with Prosper. A high-level view is generated by customized data sets tailored to an executive’s specific needs and industry. The data includes a U.S. consumer panel of about six thousand respondents that can be queried to provide leading indicator information. In addition, Prosper has developed a consumer panel in China which Rogers describes as “no small feat.” As he points out, “the world is pivoting to Asia and while China provides an amazing, huge opportunity—it is fraught with challenges.”

Forbes brings perspective and “journalistic insight on what is actionable and usable from the data, along with distribution.” This is not a brand licensing deal. The Forbes Executive InsightCenter is the result of a partnership with Prosper Analytics which he sees as a strategic brand extension for Forbes Insights. “This tool offers a powerful way for organizations and executives to demonstrate expertise on a topic and we look forward to helping them succeed.”

Innovation | Revenue | Video

Video Day Provides a Look at the Opportunity and Experimentation in the Online Video Market

eMarketer estimates that 142.5 million people in the US—56.3% of internet users and 44.7% of the population—will watch digital TV shows at least once a month this year, and this will tip to the majority of consumers in 2016. And 22% already watch original video online each month, according to the IAB. Both firms report that flexibility of viewing is one of the greatest drivers in online video viewing, which isn’t surprising given the evolution of video consumption from on the couch, to on-demand, to on-the-go.

The opportunity this creates has not been lost on media companies of all types. Certainly, traditional broadcasters increasingly offer web-based or app viewing (TV Everywhere) options. But even organizations that have a print-legacy or began as text-based online are adding video to their content mix. A wide range of these offerings were explored on November 6th at Digital Content Next’s Video Day..

Opportunity Knocks
Todd Beilis, managing director for the media & entertainment industry at Accenture, was certainly bullish on the opportunity for online video saying “Cord cutting is real, which creates a genuine opportunity for the people in this room.” He specifically focused on the incremental opportunity which sits between amateur video and online delivery of broadcast television fare. He said that Accenture has identified between 20-25 million household where there will be a prime opportunity by 2018 and as many as 8.6 million households where there is already an opportunity for an incremental offering that competes with Pay TV.Accenture

Beilis pointed out that key ecosystem players are already starting to reposition to address this growing market. Though he said that the 35-49 demographic is the fastest growing audience for online video, Accenture believes that this new market will be dominated by Millennials who want a “seamless, any-screen, digital-first experience with analytics-driven personalization—all priced significantly lower than pay TV.”

Growing Online Video Innovation
Meredith Corporation is already making strides to address this market. According to Laura Rowley, VP of Video Production and Product, Meredith reaches more Millennials than MTV, boasting 60% of that coveted population. While she points out that the company has “a long history in sight, sound and motion” including local TV and a nationally syndicated daily lifestyle show, the company has been on the move to build up its video inventory for all of its editorial titles, with about 10 thousand videos in their library so far and a recent Connected TV launch. Despite this, the company is still best known for its magazine brands, which include Better Homes and Gardens, Fitness and Family Circle. Thus, when she began Meredith’s video push, Rowley said she “hired a video team with TV and analytics experience to collaborate with our magazine editors instead of just telling the magazine staff to ‘do video.’”

When Justin Maiman joined Business Insider (BI) in the newly-created role of executive producer of video about a year ago, BI was producing three to five videos a week. Today, the site boasts about 25 new videos per week and 10 million views a month. How-to videos represent a about 20% of the videos BI produces and Maiman offered a few tips on how to make them, which included finding universal, evergreen topics that will appeal to your audience and making videos people want to share. For his audience he focuses on jobs, career, strategy and technology, but has also has had good success in videos about life in general as well, such as “The Truth About ‘The Most Interesting Man in The World’” and “Scientists Discovered What Makes Someone a Good Dancer.”

Maiman says that the entire BI team is involved in creating video now and that field shoots or animation work well. His over-arching strategy: Keep the video length short, to 90-seconds or so; put the video together in a day or two, post it on a Monday but know that in six months or so, it can be shared again.

timeAt Time Inc., which is producing 700-800 videos a month, J.R. McCabe, the company’s senior vice president of video, says there’s no one length that works for their brands, which appeal to both lean-in and lean-back audiences. While they’ve done well with shorter videos that complement text-based content, they have also seen success with short-form documentaries. McCabe said that Time is “putting a model in place to monetize video on our own sites and create the ability for demand-side marketing to capitalize on the shift from TV to online video.” Given the company’s recent hiring of Mark Ellis in the newly created role of senior vice president of corporate sales, monetization is clearly high among its online video priorities and they are exploring a wide range of solutions to that end.

Demand for video far outpaces supply at Slate, according to Anthony DeMaio, the company’s associate publisher and vice president of national sales. However, rather than invest further in video creation, the company has taken a different route to increase its video-related revenue by partnering with Teads to incorporate “outstreaming” advertising into its text-based content, which runs between paragraphs on article pages. The video ad only plays when 50% or more of the ad is in view and sound is user-initiated. For Slate, this addresses viewability concerns and gives the site “life beyond pre-roll”.

NewsBeat Social, on the other hand, went all-in on video from the start, producing more than 50 “snackable news” videos a day that are not more than a minute long. And, according to the company’s Director of Operations, Tyler Peterson, “something amazing happens when you put relevant engaging video down someone’s newsfeed… you get engagement by real people, not bots.”

Hurdles Remain
Given that the majority of digital marketers plan to increase their digital advertising spend by 22% and, in particular, plan to migrate a portion of lucrative TV ad budgets to digital, and the fact that 90% of consumers are already watching video content online, it is no surprise these companies—and many others—are exploring ways in which to meet the demand from both marketers and consumers alike. Beilis from Accenture also said that video advertising supports higher eCPMs that are two to ten times greater than general display ads.

However Beilis also pointed out that inventory is not the only issue with growing online video revenue. Audience measurement remains a challenge, he says. He also advises organizations targeting this growth market to create robust first-party data and analytics infrastructure and employ market-leading ad delivery capabilities.

More coverage of DCN Video Day:

Facebook Likes Publishers, But Will They Like It Back? (November 10, 2014, AllFacebook.com)

Innovation | Video

Reuters Offers a Look at its Vision for the Future of News: Reuters TV

It’s not the nightly news. It’s not search-and-click web news. It’s not a fleeting stream of headlines in a social feed. It’s something new: Reuters TV.

On November 10, Reuters previewed its forthcoming video news service, which has ambitions to create an entirely new category for digital news, according to Managing Director Isaac Showman. While many types of media organizations are making a foray into digital video, Showman points out that most avoid the TV moniker. However he embraces it.  Television has traditionally been a lean back medium and Showman noted that the  Reuters TV team aligned that behavior with the experience they plan to deliver in the New Year.

This product should not be confused with traditional television experiences, however.  “We wanted to create a television-quality experience but the difference is that you can consume your news at the right moment for you.” The world of media as a whole is changing radically, as are consumers’ consumption habits.  “An on-demand experience doesn’t really work for news,” Showman points out. “A recording of the nightly news isn’t particularly useful hours later.”

Thus, Reuters leveraged the resources of Thomson-Reuters and a talented group of technologists to reinvent its process for the creation and delivery of news. The goal is to provide consumers with a complete picture, optimized for their interests and time constraints, whenever and wherever they want it.

There are two primary components to Reuters’ new service:

Right Now: Rather than create finished linear programming, Reuters’ vast network of global editors will produce segments that are continuously updated to cover top national and international stories. These segments will then be algorithmically assembled using a proprietary technology that allows users to create an on-demand news show that maintains the flow, pace and elegance of a traditional broadcast. Right Now allows Reuters to customize each broadcast to the length, location and interests of each subscriber. At any moment, they can watch a news show that will be to be up-to-date, relevant to their interests and of the length that they choose.

Live Feeds: Gives subscribers access to the world’s news events as they take place. From presidential addresses in Tennessee to public protests in Tahrir Square, viewers can choose the events they want to watch, in high-definition from wherever they are.

Reuters TV is slated to launch January 15th, be priced at $1.99 a month and include very limited advertising, such as one brief commercial per break. Despite the wide array of news available online, the company firmly believes that there’s an audience for its new service.

As Showman points out, those under 50 are least likely to watch television news. And while many media companies are chasing the millennial segment of that audience, Reuters TV is aimed at what they are calling the “realists.” This is a psychographic group comprised of what Showman describes as those who need to be in-the-know: “They are affluent, intelligent and globally minded. They remember life before the internet but today live their lives through connected devices. They demand visual storytelling on their terms and that fits into the busy lives they lead.”

These are not people you’ll find scheduling their lives around the nightly news broadcast. At the same time, Showman believes they can be better served than by the existing web news experience, which requires searching and clicking in the hopes of cobbling together a full picture of world events. Even if you only have five minutes, the Reuters TV offering is designed to provide high-quality streamlined versions of all of the key stories of the day. Those with more time will receive a deeper perspective on these stories. Given the audience target, time was a key component. This can also be seen in the offline viewing feature, which allows the user to set daily times for automatic downloads—say at morning and evening commute times, during which internet access might be spotty, but one has a predictable block of time to stay informed.

Because social media increasingly plays a role in how we learn about, share and participate in breaking news the Reuters R&D team included social integration features, including a tool that reads Tweets in real time, gleans their meaning and then organizes and displays them within Reuters TV. This allows viewers  to see all of the social conversation about an event they are watching.

Reuters, says Showman, has always been an organization with a business model to produce content once and make it available to a variety of users, as widely as possible. This effort, he says, is simply an “extension of what we do; one we hope will have scale.”

The challenge he sees is that creating an entirely new category of news requires “educating the market,” a process Reuters kicked off at its reveal party last night. Reuters TV will be launched on iOS, but it has been designed for adaptability with an eye, no doubt, to keeping pace with the changing way that consumers consume the news.

Innovation

Digital Content Next and FirstMark Team up for Startup Day

“Digital Content Next is the only trade association in the industry that solves problems for the content companies of today and the future.”
—opening remarks Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next

In keeping with this vision, on November 4th, 2014 Digital Content Next and FirstMark Capital co-hosted their first-ever “Meet the Startups” event. Seven start-ups were given ten minutes each to talk about the problems publishers face today and how their companies are innovating to solve these problems now and in the future. The goal, according to Lawrence Lenihan, FirstMark Founder and Managing Director, was to provide an opportunity for DCN members to get to know how the technologies presented may affect and impact the media industry.

Lenihan called out several trends currently causing disruption and that he thinks publishers should be monitoring: mobile; brands are going direct to consumers; the internet of things, big data and the cloud. While most of these themes were touched upon throughout the day, the need to keep up with rapidly evolving consumer expectations around content discovery, consumption and delivery dominated the presentations. The FirstMark funded companies on the agenda were TapAd, Testfire, Pinterest, Artisan, Tubular, Disconnect, and NewsCred.

It certainly doesn’t’ come as a surprise that mobile and device proliferation continues to change user behavior, communication, consumption habits, content discovery and shopping. As such, many of the day’s featured startups address the evolving expectations of today’s consumers and the innovation required by publishers seeking to grow audiences in a crossplatform world.

Are Traasdahl, Founder and CEO, TapAd pointed out that today’s consumer moves seamlessly across devices up to 27x per hour. As content companies strive to be mobile-first (or mobile-only) and master mobile’s very different platform, they are investing a huge amount of resources. It is necessary, though, because Traasdahl says that the publishers with which TapAd has worked are seeing as much as 75% of traffic coming from mobile. He finds that a key focus for his company is helping publishers keep pace with consumer demand for content on any platform at any time and maintaining user experience and trust across these platforms.

And keeping pace is no small undertaking. According to Testfire founder and CEO Robert Chea, publishers are investing vast amounts on mobile app development. Companies like TestFire and Artisan aim to increase resource efficiency in these areas by offering their improved QA tools and “instant publishing” technology, which enables real-time modifications. These innovations are designed to improve consumer engagement and product satisfaction, and to free up developer resources and increase productivity.

TapAd’s Traasdalh noted that advertisers are also demanding better targeting, consistent messaging and cross-platform measurement–overall, improved results–from publishers. Their device-bridging solution that “connects a billion devices to individual consumers” provides advanced measurement and increases consumer satisfaction by enabling brands to create consistent experiences across devices.

While device proliferation provides a multitude of challenges for content companies, it also provides opportunities to stand out and improve user experience, which several of the startups also addressed. Smartphones and tablets provide consumers with additional hours of media consumption but in return, they are flooded with many more options. David Ives, CRO of NewsCred said that 200MM pieces of content are shared a day, 1.8 billion photos are uploaded, 500 million tweets are posted, and 400 million Snapchats are sent. Companies like NewCred are stepping in to aid in the process of content discovery and creation for both brands and publishers.

Citing a statistic that 70% of consumers prefer getting to know a company through content vs. advertisements, Ives pointed out that as brands strive to become publishers and connect with consumers through great storytelling, third-parties such as NewsCred are bridging the gap. The company offers a software platform in addition to content strategy, licensing and creation for brands and publishers.

Perhaps the best-known start-up of the day was Pinterest, which has had a big impact on the way users consume content via its visually-focused content discovery and sharing platform. Pinterest is growing as an important traffic driver for publishers, driving highly-qualified, passionate consumers to their sites. Rob Macdonald, head of Media Partners for Pinterest, emphasized the ways in which the platform can help publishers leverage evergreen content, plan editorial calendars and uncover additional audience insights.

Tubular is also focused on providing insights, in their case all focused on video content. Data, according to co-founder and VP Enterprise Allison Sterns, drives successful content offerings, distribution and promotion. The company works with brands and publishers to leverage YouTube data to create content that resonates; partner with aligned influencers; and effectively engage fans and advertise to the right audiences.

Perhaps one of the most disruptive startups on the agenda was Disconnect, which offers users an alternative paid browsing experience in which they control their personal data and keep their online activity private. While consumers increasingly offer information about their preferences through participation in social content, the increasing number of ways in which data is collected about them across the digital ecosystem has turned the subject of privacy into one of the most important technology discussions of the next decade, according to founding member and COO Gus Warren. For publishers, the Disconnect solution decreases the “leverage” held by Google, Facebook, etc. and drives higher CPMs by offering “private and secure advertising.”

These FirstMark startups are building their businesses by helping content companies such as A&E, RueLala, DIY, Vice, Jamie Oliver and Time Inc. keep up with a rapidly-changing consumer environment and market demand, increasing labor and workflow efficiency. The over-arching goal for these startups, it seems, is to help publishers better serve their customers demands and desires by improving content discovery, maintaining trust, and offering advanced analytics and consumer insights.

Innovation

Q&A: Philippe von Borries, Co-founder and CEO Refinery 29, on Media for Millennials

Q: In your opinion and experience, do millennial readers have brand loyalty as a rule? How do you develop brand loyalty with them?

Millennials do have loyalty, but the challenge is in building it. Brands–whether they’re a publisher, beauty brand or tech company–need to be aware of a millennials’ aspirations to live mindful lives. They need to understand the values of millennials and inform his or her needs. In our case, our audience wants content that appeals to her passions, her goal-driven sensibility, and that ultimately empowers her expression. Brands need to make their message experiential and craft it around her personal life – it is all about being relatable and driving purpose.

Above all else, millennial women are passionate. While their mothers might have loyally read Vogue or always used Dove soap, when millennial women find a brand they love, they don’t just buy it, they talk about it, post it, save it, share it. They become a spokesperson for that brand, not just a consumer.

Research shows 70% of millennial consumers want to hear about brands from a trusted source. 82% agree that they only share brands that they are truly passionate, so building that affinity is critical.

Q: Do you approach the development of user experience or content differently for the millennial audience?

Absolutely. At its core, Refinery29 aims to inspire our audience to live more stylish, well-informed, and creative lives. But, there’s nothing one-dimensional or unilateral about our approach. Millennial women are (obviously) multi-faceted and their interests reflect that. Refinery29 reflects that as well. At any given moment, you could find a hair braiding tutorial next to an interview with Chelsea Clinton, alongside a comprehensive guide to fall shopping and a thought piece on hashtag activism or an essay by Sandra Fluke. We know our audience thinks about and cares about style and creativity just as much as they care about entertainment, feminism, and technology. And you can best understand this on our mobile feed, where you see all of our content, across all of these categories and more, living in harmony in one continuous feed.

Q: When working to attract and retain millennial media consumers, what would you say are the most important things to consider?

For us, it is all about user engagement. We want our audience to interact with our content in a meaningful way—and we want to get in there (in the comments on the site, on every possible social platform, and in person as well) to create real dialogue with them. It’s not about relentlessly scaling your audience, but about finding the right audience that really cares about what you are producing.

Millennial-minded women take a deliberate and thoughtful approach to their daily lives, and we approach our content in this way as well—not least of all because a large chunk of our editors and writers are millennial women. It’s this approach to engaging and inspiring our audience that has led us to become the largest independent style and lifestyle site in the US.

Philippe von Borries_Refinery29 9.30.13Philippe von Borries is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Refinery29. He founded the company with his friend Justin Stefano from a kitchen in Brooklyn in 2005 with a mission to inspire people to lead smart, stylish and creative lives. Philippe oversees Refinery29’s content, product and marketing teams and drives the strategic direction of its content strategy which has been the driving force for the company’s growth. Philippe got his start in digital media working at The Globalist, a DC-based international affairs startup. He graduated with a degree in history from Columbia University.

Innovation | Revenue

DCN Panel of Early Movers Sheds Light on the Evolution of Time-based Measurement

From the threat to cookies to inventory-glut, banner advertising was already in enough trouble when the dire statistics about viewability started to come in. In 2012, AdSafe Media found that, on average, 20% or less of all ads were in view for 15 seconds or more prompting the Media Rating Council (MRC) to issue a viewable impression advisory in November of 2012 aong with a call for the industry to develop intelligence around non-viewable ads.  Though momentum was building. In June 2013, comScore still found that 54% of display ads were not seen at all, creating even more pressure on the marketplace to deliver solutions that factored in viewability.

And the industry responded. This March, the MRC lifted its advisory of viewability  and industry interest in buying and selling on this metric began to heat up.advertisers became able to buy and sell display ads based began in earnest. The standard for a viewable online impression was set as 50% of its pixels remaining in-view for one continuous second or two for an online video ad. While there are differing opinions on where this bar should be set, a viewability standard is a solid start in developing digital advertising metrics that demonstrate effectiveness. Seeing an ad is certainly a step in the right direction given that the goal of advertising is to capture the attention of an audience long enough to make an impact.

So while viewability sets a baseline, many believe that that the true measure of ad-effectiveness is time-spent. Our research shows that 60% of premium publishers are already considering transacting based on time and 8% will begin testing it this year. And 4% of those participating in the research are already testing time-based measurement.

Among the early leaders are Gannett and FT.com, both of which participated in a panel on time-based measurement at a Digital Content Next  members-only event on October 22nd. The program featured a panel of experts that included Josh Schwartz, Chief Data Scientist at Chartbeat; Jonah Goodhart, Founder/CEO of MOAT; Daniel Rothman, US Director of Marketing & Insight at the Financial Times; and Steve Ahlberg, Vice President, Advertising Solutions and Product Management at Gannett Co. Inc. Ad Age reporter Michael Sebastian moderated the panel.

Digital Content Next CEO Jason Kint noted in his opening remarks, “I’ve never seen a topic pick up this kind of momentum in the market. Viewability is part of our world going forward but time based measurement will absolutely be part of that future.”

Gannett was early on board for viewability, implementing validated impression measurement and guaranteed viewability in 2012. However, as Ahlberg pointed out, “We still have a long way to go before there’s value to everyone in the ecosystem. This problem has been going on so long that it has caused a lack of trust.” In fact, he predicts that it will be another 18 months before the advertising world is widely transacting on time. “Engagement isn’t something we see in DFP [DoubleClick for Publishers] right now,” he said, making the point that all of the components of forecasting, billing, etc. must be designed to incorporate engagement metrics, of which time-spent is a telling factor.

This summer, the Financial Times began to test a method of buying and selling inventory using time-spent. The company believes that viewability is a positive development, but that it doesn’t go far enough. During the panel, Rothman outlined FT research which found that the tipping point for ad engagement is not one or two seconds. “We can prove that five plus seconds matters,” he said.  Ad recall, familiarity, association and consideration all get between 51% and 58% uplift at the five second mark according to Rothman. Thus, he is piloting a program in the New Year that will guarantee 100% viewability for five seconds.  “We recognize that not all impressions are created equal. The research has proven that this is not opinion. This is fact. We need move the conversation on from quantity metrics.”

The FT works with Chartbeat, which got its start by providing real-time insights on content for editors and reporters. The editorial side of the house, according to Schwartz, “got it immediately. They want people to spend time with their articles; that’s why they write them. And, with the advent of viewability, it starts to matter to the business side of the house.” To his mind, monetizing on time better aligns both sides of the content business.

While Schwartz said he would be “highly surprised if the exact model that companies Gannett and FT are using right now is what we end up with,” he applauds the experimentation so that the industry can move towards metrics that provide value to the entire ecosystem. MOAT’s Goodhart cautions against counting on any publisher’s solution (or any single metric) dominating the industry. “It is a mistake to make it about one nuance of the idea of attention. We believe in attention, but we think it might be a combination of time and other things. We need to move people away from impressions and clicks, but give them options.”

Certainly, this transition away from CPMs will not happen overnight. At the FT, Rothman says that all of the agencies and partners they are working with “find this interesting and exciting” however they also hear that time-based measurement doesn’t fit in with how they are already buying media. “There’s a need for them to look outside their spreadsheets.”

Goodhart reports that, in just a matter of months, he has seen a huge shift in the understanding of viewability and finds CMOs are asking for it and that for 2015, he believes that a large number of agencies will “put a stake in the ground here.” And when that happens, Schwartz predicts that programmatic will take a big hit and that “publishers that redesign their sites around viewability are going to benefit.”

And, referring to the new Digital Content Next Research “How Time-Based Measurement is Grabbing Digital Publishers’ Attention,” Ahlberg said “For the five percent that said viewability that doesn’t matter, go back and tell your business leaders it is here. Educate your sales teams about the metrics that work and be confident in your story.”

 Other coverage of this event and the related research:

Survey: 80% of Premium Publishers Want to Sell Ads Based on Time (Ad Age)
Online Publishers Are Serious About Selling Ads Based on Time (WSJ)
Survey: Publishers embracing shift to time-based metrics (Capital NY)
DCN: 80% Of Pubs Using Time-Based Metrics (NetNewsCheck)
80% of Publishers Interested in Transacting on Time: Digital Content Next Report (Chartbeat)

Innovation | Revenue

Meredith Begins Performance-based Ad Solution Rollout with Relaunch of Fitnessmagazine.com

With the relaunch of Fitnessmagazine.com and the introduction of native advertising, Meredith Corporation is signaling a new phase of innovation for its sites that are aimed at improving experiences for end users and advertisers alike. According to Andy Wilson, Meredith Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer, the company has had an adaptive design strategy for some time however, given that sites like Fitnessmagazine.com derive as much as half of their traffic from mobile, it was time to make a more significant shift.

The new site is tailored to their users’ media consumption habits and advertiser objectives.  It features a responsive design that’s fully optimized for users across devices and screen sizes. Fitness was an optimal place to start within the Meredith suite of brands, says Wilson, because “we are finding that certain brands, like Fitness, are more attractive to the millennial target. The way they are accessing our sites has changed. They use the content at different times and are doing much more on mobile devices.”

Increasing mobile consumption was not the sole motivation for the site redesign, of course. Creating better opportunities for content discovery, and better aligning content consumption with advertising were also significant factors. The site includes enhanced social sharing and new features like infinite-scrolling category pages that allow users to easily discover the brand’s deep content in areas like workouts, healthy eating and diet and weight loss.

The new design not only helps increase content discovery, but has the added benefit of improving ad viewability. “This relaunch not only gives consumers a mobile-first experience, but it also allows us to develop richer integrated opportunities for our advertisers to drive better performance and viewability to meet their goals,” says Wilson.

MeredithNativeMockupWith the relaunch of the site, Meredith Digital also introduced its Native “Buzz” Platform. Buzz units will integrate marketers’ messaging into trending and highly contextual content areas. According to Wilson, Meredith is rolling out native advertising with its newer sites and leveraging a cross-platform approach for ad sales and ad distribution. “It simplifies things versus selling each individual platform. But more importantly, it lets us focus on performance, regardless of platform.”

Buzz is the first in a suite of performance-based ad products that will soon rollout across 10 Meredith owned and operated websites. “We are very excited about delivering a line of performance ad products that will let us tap into search and content marketing budgets.” The new products will allow Meredith to capture new ad revenue streams and go head to head with the big players in search and social. “Our offering will be compared against the Google and Facebook ad spend but we provide a contextual environment and engaged audiences and we are 100 percent audited. We are going look good in these comparisons.”

Innovation

Q&A: Jonathan Hunt, VP, Global Marketing and Partnerships, Vox Media on Media for Millennials

Q: In your opinion and experience, do millennial readers have brand loyalty as a rule? How do you develop brand affinity/loyalty with them?

A: Yes and no. Above all else, young people (and frankly everyone) value quality and honesty. If another media brand can come along and offer a superior product then they have an opportunity to usurp loyalty. The fact is we live in a time when we’re getting our information from hundreds of different sources — publishers, social feeds, mobile apps, our friends and family and coworkers — all day every day. This is referred to as an Attention Economy. So more so now than ever qualities like utility, entertainment, honesty, and personality can easily trump loyalty.

But what happens when you consistently provide premium, honest stories to your readers? You can create loyalty. It’s easier said than done, but that’s our approach to every aspect of our business and why we’ve been on an explosive growth trajectory.

Q: Do you approach the development of user experience or content differently for the millennial audience?

A: We have to, but again I wouldn’t say this is relative to Millennials only–it’s a fundamental shift in how we all discover and share content, it just so happens that young people are quicker to experiment and adopt new ways of getting what they want when they want. At Vox Media, we’re platform and content agnostic. We’re not precious when it comes to how we get in front of as many people as possible; this is how we’ve been able to scale so quickly. So you may experience a Vox Media brand through one of our responsive sites, or on Tumblr, or as a video or a cinemagraph, through Xbox or Yahoo, or on a partner’s mobile app. As long as I can reach you and give you a reason to care about what we have to say, I know I have a better chance of getting you to experience our brand through other more premium experiences that impact our P&L.

Q: When working to attract and retain millennial media consumers, what would you say are the most important things to consider?

A: This is a question with no single answer. You want to cater to consumption habits (you going to them vs. them always coming to you); content formats (speaking to them through the types of content they create and share themselves); and providing them stories or news that have utility, are unique and entertaining, aren’t pandering, and don’t attempt to frame your brand as something that it’s not. This is the smartest generation ever, and they know it, so the best litmus test when building something for this audience is to ask yourself, “Who cares?” If you can’t answer that question unequivocally then there’s a good chance the answer is, “No one.”

jonathan-hunt-vox-headshotJonathan Hunt is the Global VP of Marketing at Vox Media where he leads audience development and distribution, co-sales partnerships, paid media strategy, and comms. Prior to Vox, he was the Global Marketing Director at VICE Media.

Advertising | Innovation | Revenue

Cox Launches Gamut, a New Company Addressing Evolving Needs

These days, media leaders are betting on a cross platform future. Reading signs from advertisers and publishers alike, CoxReps recently launched a new company, Gamut, to offer a full spectrum of support and media solutions. Gamut combines the assets and strengths of what were formerly Cox Digital Solutions and Cox Cross Media to offer a suite of capabilities and a streamlined service for publishers, advertisers, agencies and small-to-mid sized businesses.

Gene Pizzolato, president and general manager of Gamut, says that Cox Media Group started as a group of publishers and that the new company will stay true to that foundation. He adds that the company recognizes increasing convergence in the marketplace and, with the launch of Gamut, will better provide “expertise, efficiency, data, audience and innovation by combining these two aspect of our business.” Pizzolato says the company has seen growth in cross-platform demand, “Brand advertisers are increasingly asking for multiplatform solutions, they want TV but they also want solutions that includes display, digital video and mobile.”

Gamut is comprised of four channels of solutions: Programmatic+, which enables publishers to maximize yield for their inventory with a real-time pricing engine; Reps+, featuring an experienced team that guides campaigns through the full lifecycle; Reach+, a turnkey wholesale product for publishers to generate cross-channel ad revenue; and CrossMedia+, offering custom solutions for integrated, multimarket television-driven campaigns, complemented by digital solutions at a local, regional or national scale.

Programmatic has been a touchy subject for digital media companies. However Cox — and others — are taking an approach that allows them to offer programmatic as part of a range of solutions that leverage its efficiencies while providing other services to enhance marketing outcomes and publisher revenue. “From a revenue standpoint, if you look at our Programmatic+, Reach+ and Reps+, those are pure digital solutions that offer value to both the publisher and advertisers,” says Pizzolato. “We see a big opportunity in our programmatic solution to offer private exchanges and premium direct programmatic solutions to agencies and marketers in 2015. We have a quality base of supply on publishers’ side that is very attractive to advertisers.”

Gamut’s programmatic offering will “cut across three screens,” according to Pizzolato who emphasizes that it will be enhanced by direct sellers through Reps+ and by the organizations’ complementary TV solutions. “We sit in a good place with our publishing partners. The technology we offer is designed to drive yield for publishers, not secure lowest yield, which in turn pays off by them providing us more premium inventory to offer advertisers. Other channels give us the opportunity to drive demand for our publishing partners.”

As the media industry continues to migrate towards the digital landscape, Pizzolato believes that there will be a greater role for both technology and human service in the media buying and selling process. Gamut represents Cox Media’s vision for the future, which is “to continue to offer a spectrum of services that provide best-of-class innovation that adapts with the needs of our clients. This may manifest itself in several forms, but will remain rooted in our core belief that powerful technology, deep expertise, cross-channel capabilities and a streamlined process will provide both our publisher and agency partners maximum benefit.”

Innovation | Revenue

Purch Increases its Commitment to Connecting Content, Commerce and Community

Purch continues to build up its ecommerce offerings with the launch of two new digital storefronts this month, which integrate curated commerce experiences into its top science properties, LiveScience and Space.com. This reflects the company’s continuing momentum to better reflect its mission to help consumers make purchase decisions through content and ecommerce, which kicked off with a rebrand in April from Techmedia to Purch.

The company has been in the ecommerce business for about a decade, according to CEO Greg Mason. He joined the company in December 2012 and has undertaken a series of significant corporate and editorial hires, including the hire of 21-year Consumer Reports veteran Paul Reynolds to serve as Global Editorial Director for TopTenREVIEWS.

Mason says that ecommerce always represented about 10 to 20% of the company’s revenues. “Historically,” he says, “it has been closer to 29%, but now because of our significant growth in other areas, it is less than that. But revenue-wise, it is bigger than it’s ever been.”

So it comes as no surprise that Purch added two new storefronts and has plans for more. The objective is to connect content, commerce and community, and the new stores are designed to facilitate purchase decisions for science and space enthusiasts. They feature products that reflect the sites’ editorial focus — ranging from wearable fitness trackers to telescopes. While Mason says “we want the editors involved in curating the merchandise because they understand the psychographic make up of their audiences,” he emphasizes that “editors absolutely do not have to write about these products.”

This distinction may not seem as important for Space.com, where the editors don’t normally do product reviews, but it is a significant statement for a company that produces TopTenREVIEWS. “Products have to be reviewed completely on their merits…. I think the user obviously wants to know we’re not recommending products because we have an economic stake in that product. Our motives are very clear.”

User experience and design are also factors in maintaining user trust, says Mason. “We can’t say ‘this is rated number one’ and it’s right next to a big fat ad. We have to be really careful that we don’t give the impression that there’s impropriety in this regard.”

Despite some of the challenges faced by content companies considering adding commerce to their revenue mix, Mason believes it should be a given. “Most publishers think about this in an old school way. Consumer attitudes have shifted. They are looking for more logical integration within the environments where they have loyalty.”

Mason believes that the biggest challenge that brands and media companies face today is meaningful engagement and loyalty to their experiences and that publishers need to expand their offerings because consumers have so many choices of where they can go for information. “In this age of endless choice of information sources on the web, it is ever more challenging to maintain that loyal base of consumers who will always rely on your brands and services. As publishers we haven’t thought broadly enough about expanding that full level of services we can create through different mechanisms.”

He says that Purch’s mission to make complex buying decisions easier allows us the company to think more broadly about serving that need. In addition to integrating content and commerce, Mason says that Purch is thinking hard about community. “We’re working to better integrate our most loyal users and get more user participation in the product experience itself. We believe that the future of publishing is not just a marriage of content and commerce, but that strengthening the community is very important as well.”

Innovation | Press

Six New OPA Members Announced, Reflecting Changes in Digital Content Business

The Online Publishers Association (OPA), the only trade association that exclusively serves the diverse needs of digital content companies, today announces six new brands joining its elite membership of more than 55 publishers and industry leaders (full list here). As the industry continues to evolve and content experiences extend into new platforms and unique formats, these new members signal what’s next for both the association and the industry.

“It’s integral for an organization like the OPA to help our members react to an industry in disruption, to continue creating a dialogue around sometimes divergent opinions and to add brands to our membership that not only represent the very best but are at the center of this evolution.”

The latest brands joining the OPA are as follows:

  • Business Insider, one of the fastest-growing business media companies, was built for the digital age offering real-time coverage of tech, finance and general business news.
  • The Daily Caller, a 24-hour news publication providing its audience of 16 million monthly readers with original reporting, in-depth investigations, thought-provoking commentary, entertainment and breaking news.
  • NewsBeat Social – launched Feb. 2013 – reaches more than 1 billion global viewers, delivering one-minute video news and brand advertising to hyper-engaged audiences at scale. The premium source of unbiased news, covering world, science, technology, business, culture, health and politics.
  • Newsday connects Long Islanders to their passions, their communities and their daily lives and offers comprehensive up-to-the-minute information enhanced with multimedia, interactivity and locally-focused features.
  • Telegraph Media Group is a multi-media news company based in the UK that publishes the latest news, business, sport, comment, lifestyle and culture from the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers and video from Telegraph TV.
  • Vox Media owns and operates The Verge, SB Nation, Vox.com, Eater, Curbed, Racked and Polygon which reach passionate audiences of nearly 100 million each month with high value digital storytelling, journalism and branded content at scale.

“Our members wake up every morning thinking about the best new ways to create and monetize content,” says Jason Kint, CEO of the Online Publishers Association. “It’s integral for an organization like the OPA to help our members react to an industry in disruption, to continue creating a dialogue around sometimes divergent opinions and to add brands to our membership that not only represent the very best but are at the center of this evolution.”

All OPA members demonstrate a commitment to creating high-quality content experiences, as well as an ongoing, scrupulous commitment to best practices in delivering value to both consumers and marketers.

In addition to representing the interests of these digital publishers, the OPA will continue lending its voice and intelligence to marketers, advertisers, consumers and the industry at large. On September 18 in New York City, the OPA will host Content All Stars, an exclusive event highlighting the future of marketing and media with compelling content experiences. Along with a roster of world-class speakers, marketing and digital media leaders from a diverse range of businesses will come together to discuss the evolving intersection of content, media, marketing and consumer relationships. Request an invite at www.contentallstars.org.

ABOUT THE ONLINE PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION
Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) is a not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to representing high-quality digital content brands before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. The OPA produces proprietary research on advertising and media consumption online for our members and the public, creates public and private forums to explore and advance key issues that impact content brands, and works to educate the public at large on the importance of quality content brands.

Innovation | Video

Meredith Builds its Multiplatform Strategy with Debut of Better Homes and Gardens on Connected TV

Meredith reaches 60% of millennial women adults across its platforms. That’s more than MTV or Netflix. And, just over a year into her tenure as Vice President, Video Production and Product for the Meredith National Media Group, Laura Rowley plans to deliver content to this audience exactly when they need it and where they want it. To that end, Meredith recently announced that its Better Homes and Gardens brand has made its way onto Connected TV.

According to Rowley, this is a natural progression for Meredith, given its significant push into video over the past two years (the company now boasts more than 10,000 video titles across its sites). That progression, she believes, was a necessary one given the preferences of younger audiences. “We’d be crazy not to do a deep dive into digital video. We know that it is how Millennial women want to consume information. And they want it on whatever device suits them –tablet, mobile and, increasingly, Connected TV.”

The launch of the 30-minute Better Homes and Gardens streaming program marks Meredith’s first foray into Connected TV. As Rowley points out, Connected TV is rapidly growing in popularity, with three-quarters of TV’s predicted to be internet-connected by 2017. “So extension to this platform is key.”

The Better Homes and Gardens show will air twice a month on Net2TV’s Portico TV service, which is distributed to more than 30 million screens via smart TVs from Samsung, LG, Sharp and Philips; on Roku-connected TVs; and on Toshiba tablets and notebooks. The shows will also available online at www.portico.tv.

Rowley feels strongly that among Meredith’s 14 magazine titles and nearly 100 special interest publications, the Better Homes and Garden brand was the right title to begin with. “It is an ideal launching pad for Connected TV because it not only has the widest potential audience, but also the best content for a lean back experience.” That, she feels, is the sweet spot for Connected TV, as opposed to lean-in moments that are better suited for desktop or mobile.BGHhost

After looking at “a whole lot of possible hosts,” Jackie Tranchida
(NBC’s First Look) was chosen to host the new Better Homes and Gardens show because of her genuine, personable style, one that Rowley feels is consistent with the brand. Maintaining that brand authenticity is essential as Better Homes and Gardens continues to build out its multiplatform strategy. Collaboration with the editorial team is a key factor in ensuring this consistency. “Meredith is one of the most collaborative companies I’ve ever worked for,” says Rowley. “Our editorial team is at the heart of our video creation strategy.”

She also credits Meredith’s emphasis on audience understanding as a crucial component in building out its content strategy. “I come from the Huffington Post, so the marriage of science and inspiration is natural for me. At Meredith, we have hundreds of data points on our audience of women and we are already at the center of the conversation they are having about better living and style.” Connected TV, says Rowley, “is the next step in a multiplatform strategy to empower her passions.”

She also says Meredith is continuing to experiment on content including quality, subject matter, duration and delivery. Next month, as part of the Meredith Originals strategy, the Parents brand will debut a web-based reality show called Baby Sleep 911. The series will follow a baby sleep-whisperer who offers tips and expertise for sleep-deprived parents.

Meredith has an “incredibly connected audience and we want to do everything we can to help her needs in the moment,” says Rowley. For her, the opportunity to lead this strategy is even more personal, “it is a thrill to create video for an audience so deeply invested in these brands. There’s so much video out there, but we are someone these women can trust.”

©2024 Digital Content Next. All Rights Reserved.