Despite recent skepticism over the role of venture capital in digital media start-ups, Group Nine Media this month raised a $50 million new funding round, pushing its valuation to a lofty $600 million.
How is it going to make good on that confidence? Not by plain old advertising alone.
In this video interview with Beet.TV, Suzanne Kolb, chief brand officer at the publisher whose portfolio includes Thrillist, Seeker and NowThis News, describes Group Nine’s approach to branded content.
Kolb says Group Nine’s line-up includes:
- Brand Shop, a branded content production house.
- Integration in to programming distributed on other networks.
- Long-form series co-productions.
And Kolb’s offer includes placements within NowThis News, the video and social news service.
“News has always been built on the notion of knowledge is power, and NowThis really puts that into action for their audience in a really unique way,” Kolb says.
“Much of our audience, they’re just not consuming more traditional outlets of news, this is their place to come and really be informed and really know what’s going on in the world.
“NowThis also covers a bunch of topics that a lot of the more traditional news networks just don’t cover that matter a great deal to millennials.”
This video is from a series leading up to, and covering, the Xandr Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Xandr. Please visit this page to find more videos from the series.
