There is plenty of numbers associated with Meredith Corporation’s $2.8 billion acquisition of Time Inc., but here’s perhaps the most salient: Meredith’s audience represents two of every three dollars that are spent in virtually every key consumer category.
Leading up to the 2018 Digital Content NewFronts, “We offer an unparalleled combination of things no one else has,” says Jon Werther, President of the company’s National Media Group.
The industry’s leading publisher now reaches 175 million people monthly, 110 million of them women, plus 80% of all Millennial women and nearly two-thirds of all Latinas. It leverages insights from this audience via a combination of proprietary technology platforms and capabilities that range from shopper marketing to branded content, over-the-top video to augmented and virtual reality.
“Video is a massive opportunity for us as a company, and we’re very excited for our capabilities together with the combined company,” Werther says in this interview with Beet.TV. “We have a unique ability to provide premium video content to consumers, from short-form to long-form wherever consumers want to consume that content.”
Live video in particular is a pathway to reaching consumers who may not be familiar with the content—primarily print—that Meredith has produced for the past 116 years. The company does about 1,500 hours of video programming annually and now offers 50 live-streaming programs each week.
“Live video is incredibly important,” says Werther. “Ultimately, live to us is an opportunity for us to continue to engage new consumers, often younger consumers, perhaps different consumers than we traditionally engage on our more traditional owned-and-operated, short-form video.”
The upcoming royal wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will showcase Meredith’s live-streaming offerings, which will differ by title and provide the company with the opportunity to “bring that iconic moment to life across multiple brands.”
For example, PeopleTV will live-stream the wedding while Martha Stewart Living will focus on beauty tips. In Style’s coverage will detail “shoppable moments” from the wedding and Real Simple will cover “the things we would envision the royals doing leading up to that wedding.”
Asked about the state of the digital media ecosystem, Werther says, “Our brands have never been stronger. Our traffic is pristine in terms of real users consuming our content each and every day. We have industry leading viewability.”
As for Meredith’s value proposition for advertisers, “We can drive results as no one else can” and the company is “willing to stand behind that with results guarantees like our sales guarantee to drive unparalleled return on advertising spend,” Werther says.
This video is part of a series titled The Road to the Digital Content NewFronts. It is a preview of topics to be explored at IAB’s NewFronts, which begin on April 30. This series is presented by Meredith Corporation. For more videos from the series, please visit this page.
