Mark your calendar for Mediaweek, October 29-30 in New York City. We’ll unpack the biggest shifts shaping the future of media—from tv to retail media to tech—and how marketers can prep to stay ahead. Register with early-bird rates before sale ends!
As businesses prepare for a new calendar year, Condé Nast has unveiled a number of new commercial products, as well as enhanced existing ones, with the aim of making it easier for clients to work with the publisher amid an uncertain economic climate.
The offerings fall into two camps, according to Deborah Brett, chief business officer, digital, at Condé Nast: three new products related to its commercial creative team, which produces branded content, and a series of improvements to its contextual targeting and first-party data capabilities.
The new additions to its commercial creative team include the debut of a Global Creative Studio; a consulting service called Global Strategy; and Global Casting, a program that lets advertisers recruit internal Condé Nast talent for campaigns. These services will launch officially in 2023.
Meanwhile, the improvements to its contextual targeting and first-party technologies build upon nearly five years of evolution to its Spire suite of ad products. The enhanced capabilities will let advertisers extend first-party data targeting to Chrome, in addition to Safari and Firefox, as the advertising world continues its transition away from third-party cookies.
These enhanced targeting capabilities are now in-market, and year-over-year they have driven a 25% increase in ad awareness, a 500% increase in recommendation intent, and a 110% increase in purchase intent, according to data collected by the measurement firm Moat for Condé Nast.
“In the last year, we have really focused on the cookieless future,” Brett said. “We have tried to put the math behind the obvious fact that combining contextual with targeting is the most effective means of advertising.”
The releases reflect a continued push from Condé Nast to diversify its revenue stream by generating new lines of business, as well as increase the deal size of client contracts. And in enhancing its contextual advertising capabilities, the media company better positions itself for a privacy-minded digital landscape.
Increasing deal size and creating new business
The three new offerings from the Condé Nast commercial creative team all seek to better position the company as a global resource for clients looking to create bespoke campaigns, according to Bree McKenney, global svp at Condé Nast Creative.
Global Creative Studio aims to connect the Condé Nast commercial creative team with its editorial leads, letting clients tap into the creativity that powers the titles within its portfolio. The new-to-market offices will sit in New York and London.
The first project from the studio, a video series from Gucci starring Egyptian soccer phenomenon Mohamed Salah, comes from the mind of GQ editor in chief Will Welch. Another concept, envisioned by Vanity Fair European editorial lead Simone Marchetti, will cater to a number of luxury and fashion brands.
Global Strategy builds off a desire from clients to get input on their marketing strategies from Condé Nast brands. Titles like Vogue, Vanity Fair and Wired have expertise in the fields of fashion, entertainment and technology, and clients have often requested feedback and trend forecasting from the teams, McKenney said, which led to the formal creation of an advisory service.
“To make sure we’re recognizing the value of this unique offering, we’re launching a strategic consulting function that will support our media and content sales,” she said.
Finally, Global Casting reflects the increasing importance of fielding subculture-specific influencers for creative campaigns.
Unlike A-list celebrities, niche creators share an intimate connection with their followers, and many such influencers work within or adjacent to Condé Nast.
The cookieless future
Through Spire, the media company has developed thousands of segments built on its first-party data, including content consumption, commercial transactions and demographics. Now, the company has extended its ability to tailor ads based on first-party data across all browsers, including Chrome, where third-party cookies still function.
To add heightened precision to its first-party data, Spire has married it with machine-learning capabilities that scan pages for up to 30 keywords, accounting for the placement, frequency and sentiment of the terms.
Spire also uses predictive contextual targeting, making inferences about the interests of unknown users by comparing their behaviors to those of known users. The more data the platform ingests, the more accurate its predictions will become.
Condé Nast is not the only publisher to use advanced contextual capabilities, which have become an increasingly vital way for premium content holders to help their clients serve relevant ads in cookieless environments.
“We are always trying to balance honoring the Condé Nast legacy of rich, additive contextual advertising, while making sure we are as advanced and privacy-compliant as possible,” Brett said.
