Advertisers and marketers are spoilt for choice when choosing channels for their campaigns. The average campaign can run across nine different channels, from print, digital and social to outdoor, audio, TV, retail media and EDM. Each channel's purpose and how their audience engages is totally different, so creating content that ‘lands’, is highly engaging, and gets attention is an art. Creative in context is complex, carefully balancing a deep understanding of the audience behaviour via data and intuition, the brand environment, and the channel purpose.
The average reading time for a print magazine is one hour and 16 minutes, but someone scrolling through their news feed might only have a millisecond. There are very different techniques for creating content that feels seamless, empathetic to the chosen channel and environment, evokes an action and gives the consumer exactly what they need at that moment.
According to Jane Waterhouse, general manager of brands and commercial solutions at Are Media, contextually relevant creative work is the publisher’s best-kept secret. She explained how Are Media’s commercial and editorial teams are trained to create cut-through content in new, unexpected and thumb-stopping ways within the various magazine brand channels while delivering a client's campaign objectives. “The main reason our clients work with us is to be a part of our trusted, famous brand environments,” Waterhouse explains. “How we integrate them is as much the craft of content creation as it is being a sharp contextualist.”
Jane Waterhouse
During the early stages of a campaign, Are Media remains channel-agnostic when responding to a client brief. Some brand campaigns can have six, seven or even eight different channels that may be relevant, depending on a client's campaign objectives – and often the obvious magazine brand choice isn’t the only solution to a client’s problem. Food, travel and interior design publications are often an unexpectedly perfect fit for fashion clients. While people typically think of Gourmet Traveller as food and travel, fashion clients get great results in this environment. “It’s premium,” adds Waterhouse, “yet unexpected for fashion and high-end accessories, so the cut-through is strong in that brand environment if the content is empathetic.”
One campaign that ticked the ‘unexpected’ box was marie claire’s Outfit of Dreams campaign, which featured none other than Barbie herself. Working in partnership with Barbie and fashion designer Karen Walker, marie claire invited children aged 12 and under to submit their ideas for Barbie’s 'outfit of dreams'.
With a strategy to increase consideration for a new generation of shoppers and consumers, the aim was to make Barbie synonymous with fashion in a fresh and modern way. By empowering kids to influence Barbie’s style, we put the power in their hands and gave them the opportunity to decide what Barbie wears.
Entries from around Australia were received with the ultimate prize going to Maddison Condick, age 10, who won a custom-made Barbie outfit of her design, hand-crafted by Karen Walker herself. Are Media worked alongside media agency UM to bring the campaign together, with Are Media creating content across social, print and digital.
“This was a client and an agency in UM who were prepared to say something new and also do something unexpected,” says Waterhouse. “Targeting kids via marie claire mothers was firstly new, and then the creative for every channel was completely unique – and yet it was the same coherent campaign messaging across all channels.”
Natalia Rodrigues, senior brand manager at Mattel, added: “In partnership with marie claire, we executed an omni-channel approach that utilised our core dolls and key brand ambassadors to engage our consumers and communicate these messages.
“We really enjoyed working with the Are Media and UM teams to bring this campaign to life and believe that we not only executed a great campaign but also showed the brand in an engaging and unique way.”
For Special K, Are Media worked with the team at Kellogg’s to develop The Positivity Project, a major network-wide initiative celebrating the power of humour and positivity in women’s lives. The partnership with Special K was engineered by insights from ‘Humour’, an exclusively commissioned study by Are Media, on how to effectively use humour to connect positively with women.
The Positivity Project highlights the impact positivity has on health and wellness, inspiring women to find joy through laughter while revealing how enjoying themselves will boost their feel-good vibes. Led by editorial, the campaign encouraged women to have a positive start to the day and was integrated through native features, magazines advertising, video, social media, podcasts, and PR across marie claire, ELLE.com.au, Who, Woman’s Day and Now to Love.
Lucie Wolstenholme, marketing director at Kellogg Australia, says: “The partnership with Are Media enabled us to integrate Special K across key media brands and channels in innovative ways that go beyond traditional media placements to connect with Australian women and help them find those daily moments of joy that contribute to their overall health and wellbeing.”
Are Media’s research team is a key tool in making these campaigns come to life. As a publisher, Are Media is heavily focused on audience insights and its primarily female audience – what she is thinking, feeling, doing and wanting now and next. With a panel of 15,000 women, it regularly asks questions as part of larger research projects, or to provide unique, granular insights for its clients.
“Our research department is extremely popular with our clients as they know they can get insights and data they can’t get anywhere else. So too are our editorial and commercial editorial teams, the creative team and of course the customer strategists,” says Waterhouse. “The strength of our content, the inclusion of shoppable formats and QR codes mean even our more traditionally top-of-the-funnel channels for awareness and consideration are delivering and driving more immediate purchase.”
Are Media’s aim is to tell clients something they didn’t know about their audience, with insights backed by a creative team of strategists, journalists, writers, designers, art directors, videographers and producers.
“Storytelling across multiple categories is in our DNA,” says Waterhouse. “Whether that’s via our rich editorial content, video, SoundSocial or how we integrate brands in our engaging live or virtual experiences, contextual relevance is the key. This is why advertisers want to work with us and this is what gets results.”
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