Brian Florido on Val Morgan's media convergence

It was the notion of media convergence that was the catalyst to prompt Val Morgan Group, a cinema and outdoor advertising company, to move into publishing in 2019.  

In the four years since, Val Morgan Digital has built its network to reach 4.17M 14-39 year olds, according to Ipsos Australia (IPSOS July 2023).

Val Morgan Digital’s managing director, Brian Florido, said media agencies don’t have a lot of time these days.  

"When you bring together an outdoor sales team and a cinema sales team within the same group, the overarching vision and aspiration inevitably revolve around seamlessly connecting these two channels with content to create an advertisers playground," he told AdNews.

What brings these channels together is digital and content. Every site that the company has brought on board either enhances or amplifies a cinema-going experience or an outdoor-going experience. 

For Florido, it’s also about thinking of Fandom and cinema as one.  

He said that the duo works perfectly together before a film comes out or a trailer drops. 

“We’ve carefully selected the brands we work with to enhance & complement a cinema or outdoor going experience. As an example, with Fandom we complement the cinema going experience perfectly as we surround each theatrical release with trailer drops, character deep dives, back stories behind each franchise prior to every release," said Florido.

The publishing division fits into the wider Val Morgan group through its content creators in-house, writing for the site and socials or creating bespoke content for its VMO screens.  

The company treat each channel for its own merits, said Florido, so every piece of content is very bespoke for its environment.  

“Our content team is very much integrated into everything we do across Val Morgan Group. They create bespoke content for out-of-home screens, publish original content across our sites, and amplify premieres and activations,” he told AdNews.  

In June of this year, Val Morgan Digital signed a multi-year content licensing agreement to represent BuzzFeed, Tasty and BringMe in Australia and New Zealand.

Two months into the Buzzfeed marriage, Florido said that the pop-culture entertainment site is very much integrated into Val Morgan’s broader business.  

"With Tasty, Buzzfeed’s popular food network, and its vertical videos on socials - that aligns perfectly with VMO’s retail media screen network,” he said.  

“All those amazing Tasty recipes that you see and follow on TikTok will now sit in proximity to Coles, Woolworths and Aldi. It has really influenced that ‘path to purchase’ mentality.” 

For the broader BuzzFeed business, which is rooted in celebrity entertainment, that will start to strongly inform the cinema environment and what Val Morgan does from a cinema perspective, said Florido.  

“BuzzFeed has been the perfect addition to our strategy as it allows us to double down in one of our core passion points - entertainment. While Fandom allows you to go deep into a franchise, BuzzFeed allows you to play with that franchise," he said.

"Think about a Buzzfeed quiz and Barbie. Audiences interact with the ‘Which Barbie character are you?’ quizzes before and after they watch the film, which creates a deeper connection to their cinema-going experience.”

Florido said there are certainly challenges within the general publishing landscape at the moment, where for the last ten years, everyone has been feeding off the social juice and traffic of audiences.

“There is also the fragmentation of different audience sources and changes in the dynamics of how AI is producing more content which have impacted publishing,” Florido told AdNews.

Val Morgan Digital have a core focus on community and igniting the communal passions that binds its brands together, said Florido.

“No other digital publishing network has what we have; a sister brand that has outdoor screens across retail, health clubs, and petro & convenience environments.  Our content doesn't always have to sit on site or on social; it engages people in the real world,” he said.

“We have a bespoke content strategy for all the respective verticals within VMO’s network.

“You’ll find Tasty in shopping centres, POPSUGAR in gyms. We’re in an enviable position where we connect with people in the real world.”

The broader business of Val Morgan Group focuses on that coveted 14-39 year-old demographic, whether it’s cinema or out-of-home, said Florido.  

“Whether it's Gen Z kids or Millennials, they are core to the brands that we have, the audiences that we engage with, and also where social platforms are headed, especially with TikTok," he said.

“We have such a unique offering and yet we're only four years old. We've gone through aggressive growth by adding more brands and as a digital publisher, we have that opportunity to drive growth in this environment.”