Facing declining referral traffic from search and social platforms, increased competition for scale-driven campaign budgets, and a myriad of other challenges impacting ad revenue, several digital publishers still have some leverage. We are doubling our event business.
Strategies range from increasing event volume and turning your event business into an independent brand, to turning your experiential franchise into a pop-up commercial content creation studio. But for publishers, the goal remains the same: to maintain revenue.
Take, for example, BDG, publisher of Bustle, W Magazine, and Nylon. Jason Wagenheim, BDG’s president and chief investment officer, said the company’s 2024 advertising strategy will pivot around experiential, talent and premium content to drive traffic to its website. The company has shifted away from display advertising, which it relies on.
Gallery Media Group, which is owned by VaynerMedia and publishes PureWow and ONE37pm, and World of Good Brands, which owns the four media brands formerly owned by Leaf Group, are developing long-term experiential products for 2023. He made a big bet on the franchise. In 2024, these media companies are looking for ways to take experiential services to the next level.
“We made a bet in the right direction, and advertisers keep coming to us for Google, Facebook, linear stuff. [TV] Networks and other big platforms simply can’t or won’t do that,” Wagenheim said. He announced that he will be leaving BDG at the end of the year and joining FootballCo as CEO of North America.
And media buyers say this is the right move for small and medium-sized digital publishers to take in the new year.
One media buyer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said clients tend to only pay for experiential or large-scale brand activations once a year, but they look to digital publishers to spend that budget. He said there is.
“It’s a difficult business model to sustain, but I think that’s where we can get the most value.” [and] It’s a place where publishers can operate in this space and show their value,” Buyer said.
Go big or go home
World of Good Brands was separated from Leaf Group in May to create an independent portfolio media company consisting of four brands: Well+Good, Hunker, Livestrong.com and Only In Your State. During that transition period, CEO Lindsay Abramo said the company wanted to capitalize on advertisers’ interest in events and the success of Hunker House, a residential property the company rented in Venice, California. We have decided to launch our fifth experiential brand called “House of Good”. Design brand Hunker will be hosting events and brand activations.
“We’ve done great work within the design community through the lens of Hunker, but we always felt like it was really limiting us,” Abramo says. “Being able to reimagine the home through the lens of our larger World of Good portfolio…gave us a broader perspective on how we could use the home.”
From now on, each WGB editorial brand will host an event in the house once a year, and for the rest of the year, brands will be able to purchase space there and occupy part of the ground floor, or even buy out the entire house. become. days or weeks at a time.
“We are sold out in the fourth quarter and will soon be sold out in the first quarter,” Abramo said. He declined to say how much revenue House of Good brought in in the second half of 2023, but 40% of WGB’s advertising revenue over the same period came from deals that included House of Good to some extent. said. Abramo added that the price range for in-house sponsorship activations is in the six- to seven-figure range, and given how quickly the calendar sold out, he expects that price to go up “a little bit” next year. She did not reveal the exact amount.
House of Good can handle about three sponsorship acquisitions a month, most of which take place over about three days on weekends, and it takes at least four days for WGB to hand over the space to the next sponsor. Walmart was an exception this month with a two-week holiday shopping-themed acquisition. Abramo said an average of 1,200 people come and spend time inside the house over a three-day period, and the publisher also produces digital content to distribute on social media and other platforms for wider exposure. That’s what it means.
At the moment, brand activations at WGB’s House of Good are primarily focused on brand awareness and discovery, rather than driving deals in the space itself. Currently, his QR codes and options are available for visitors to purchase items from the home online, but in 2024 the company will add his POS system, turning the home into a retail space. , Abramo said, with the potential to earn more revenue. Of the funnel campaign sale.
sweeten the deal
Similar to House of Good, Gallery Media Group has developed a semi-permanent experience strategy for the end of 2022. Event franchises, including House of Wow, are tied to the company’s editorial brand, are based in places like Miami, New York City, and the Hamptons, and run for weeks or months at a time, with multiple sponsors coming and going. becomes possible.
But in 2024, Gallery CRO Chris Anthony and Chief Brand Officer Mary Kate McGrath are looking to further expand the value of event sponsorship. This is especially important given the fact that almost all client inquiries are related to events. “I can’t understand how many people there are.” [asking], “What is your experiential strategy?” How is the community coming together? It’s all the calls,” McGrath said.
Therefore, “redefining the ROI of the experience” is the best way to not only increase the value of event sponsorship, but also to offer clients more ways to extract value from the money they spend on gallery events. Anthony added that it is a priority. To that end, Anthony’s team plans to develop an on-site creative agency strategy that will produce advertising creative and other commercial assets for clients that have nothing to do with the event itself.
“We have influencers here, we have products here, we have this beautiful venue here, and we already have all the best-in-class stuff.” [photographers] And the editors. … Don’t just get one piece of content. [that’s meant to create] FOMO from consumers who don’t really care.Instead, shoot and provide months worth of content [a sponsor’s product] In 16 different ways,” McGrath said.
The gallery’s goal is for client brands to “walk away saying, ‘Did we buy an event or did we buy a large content program?'” Anthony said.
As the number of events increases, the inventory available for sale increases.
In late 2022, BDG relaunched its experiential business, hosting exclusive celebrity-led events adjacent to other major cultural events, in a way that mimics Vogue and Vanity Fair. For example, Nylon and the W brand hosted events for influencers and celebrities at Art Basel and Coachella.
The relaunch will prove fruitful, as BDG’s events business will contribute eight times more to the company’s total revenue by the end of 2023 than in 2022, Wagenheim said, although he did not provide exact numbers. It is said that it was done.
Wagenheim said the goal for next year is to increase the number of pop-up events and participate in about a dozen cultural moments, with BDG potentially putting on shows at the Paris Olympics, F1 races and the Super Bowl. He said that there is. Up. At the end of the day, many of these events are sales-driven, so when and where they happen is determined by the sponsors.
“event” [are] Becoming a bigger focus…influencers continue to grow [in appeal]. And some of that overlaps, and I think that’s where it’s particularly interesting,” said Stacey Stewart, UM’s U.S. chief marketplace officer, who oversees clients’ advertising budgets. .