Multi-company ad exchange, branded native videos bring in digital revenue

By Western iMedia

Western iMedia

Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA

Connect   

Click for speaker notes
Click for speaker notes

 

 

Equipped with mimosas and muffins, 180 attendees at the INMA World Congress Brainsnack session filled the Nobel Suite at the Pullman Hotel and were greeted by INMA’s CEO and Executive Director Earl Wilkinson and Mukund Mohan, Brainsnacks’ energetic and engaging moderator.

Mohan likened Brainsnacks, which kicked off the INMA World Congress in London, to doing an 7-minute workout — get as much information on the stage as possible. The sessions featured 11 news media companies, sharing successful stories in quick 7-minute presentations.

Gareth Codd, commercial director of Fairfax Media in New Zealand, presents on KPEX ad exchange.
Gareth Codd, commercial director of Fairfax Media in New Zealand, presents on KPEX ad exchange.

Gareth Codd, commercial director of Fairfax Media in New Zealand, took the stage first. Codd focused on advertising, quickly explaining Fairfax Media’s involvement in the Kiwi Premium Exchange (KPEX).

KPEX is an ad sharing company between New Zealand’s top four media companies, founded in an effort to localise advertising programming. Prior to KPEX entering the national stage, only five companies shared more than 50% of digital display revenue in 2014. The media companies realised this spelled doom and spent eight weeks planning KPEX behind closed doors.

“There’s no point in being the tallest gnome in the garden,” Codd said. To sustain individual media companies and battle big groups such as Google and Facebook, collaboration was — and still is — a necessity.

<>KPEX is one of the largest collaboration exchanges in the world. It provides a benchmark for performance of inventory. KPEX sets blind floor rates and releases full value of inventory.

Although any media person will admit collaborating with the opposition is difficult, it’s important, Codd said.

And it’s working. KPEX is growing. In terms of audience, it now maintains 70% of New Zealand’s market, Codd said.

Morten Blichmann, head of creative sales at Ekstra Bladet, shares branded video strategies.
Morten Blichmann, head of creative sales at Ekstra Bladet, shares branded video strategies.

Morten Blichmann, head of creative sales at Ekstra Bladet, a Danish tabloid, shared another successful digital advertising avenue. Ekstra Bladet focuses on colourful storytelling, as indicated by its homepage, crammed full of attention-grabbing headlines.

Ekstra Bladet is a market leader in the Danish media market.

“We have far more page views per month per user than our competitors,” Blichmann said. The company has achieved this statistic by engaging users with creative content: “Tell colourful and engaging stories.” 

The company did so by hiring a group of creative people, connecting them with marketing specialists, and asking the team to do what they know.

“What we did was make a creative task force with creative people and advertisers,” Blichmann said.

The results are engaging and the possibilities are endless, he said: A dating series, investigative reporting that invites users to contribute, food waste competitions are just some of the projects that have come from the advertiser collaboration.  

“It allows us to do what we are the very best at in collaboration with our advertisers,” Blichmann explained. “It’s a win-win situation. Win for us because when we’re able to create engaging content it more or less sells itself. And a win for our advertisers because they’re looking for new ways to engage users with their content.”

Blichmann summed his message up succinctly: If you have the right people and make the right content, both revenue and engagement will benefit.

About Western iMedia

By continuing to browse or by clicking “ACCEPT,” you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance your site experience. To learn more about how we use cookies, please see our privacy policy.
x

I ACCEPT