Bauer is eyeing up dollars from social budgets through its recently launched digital women's network. While Bauer Media conceded that it has come late to the digital party, director of sales at Bauer, Tony Kendall, believes that the platform will quickly gain traction with advertisers, and can even take on the social networks.
The media company unveiled its much rumoured digital network last month. At launch there were no advertising partners on board, but Kendall told AdNews that while gaining market share in an already crowded market isn't easy, the quality of the network puts the publisher in good stead.
“It's always a challenge to win market share but if you've got a new and innovative offering, which we have, then we stand in good stead,” Kendall said.“We've got good brands and we're good at what we do, and we have scale.”
Kendall said that the brands that will struggle in the digital space in the future are those without scale.
“Agencies don't have enough time and energy to buy the longtail of sites and businesses, the fact that we've got scale will help us in the long run.”
Bauer believes that unlike certain social networks it has created a platform in which women will be more receptive to receiving ads, Kendall explained that Bauer has a high engagement on its sites and that creates an opportunity to take ad dollars from social sites.
In recent months social networks such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have bolstered their ad formats as they chase revenue. Instagram rolled out ads for the first time this year and Facebook brought its ad preferences tool to Australia allowing users to have greater control over the ads they see, in recognition of users feeling bombarded with ads.
Ello, a social network built specifically without ads, also popped up in September fast gaining traction with users who wanted a network that wasn't dominated by advertising, although the momentum appears to have dropped off.
Kendall said: “There's certainly been a lot written about how women particularly don't want ads as part of their social media experience. Certainly the experience we're going to build in terms of an advertiser's point of view, hopefully, is contextually relevant, so they're going to enjoy advertising as part of the experience.
“In terms of the social media platforms, we think there's a lot more engagement in our sites. People don't want ads served to them [on social] so that’s an opportunity [for us].”
When it comes to new offerings in the digital network, as well as the publisher doing away with its brands and grouping content across verticals rather than titles, Kendall told AdNews that the publisher will also be going to market with content creation “in a big way”.
“Everyone is talking about native, but native is what we've been doing for a long time now,” he said.
“We've got all the editors and journalists creating great content that lives both in magazines and online and is a big part of our offering going forward.”
For advertisers, though, Kendall said the best part of the new offering will be the data piece.
“The network will be very targeted, so you'll know – and be able to reach – exactly who you're targeting. Brands will be able to understand what the propensity a consumer has to enjoy your particular product might be, how they fit into the content and where they are in their life.”
The first roll-out of the network will happen in quarter one of 2015.
For more news:
Bauer breaks down barriers of mag brands with digital network
Bauer plots digital women's network
Bauer hires head of digital commercial strategy
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