Following the merger of WeddingWire and XO Group, which owns sites like The Knot and The Bump, at the end of last year, the two companies are now coming together under one name: The Knot Worldwide.
The joining of these two brands positions The Knot Worldwide as the largest digital wedding planning resource. Dhanusha Sivajee, CMO of The Knot Worldwide, said, “bringing the best of both worlds together allows us to pool our resources and really think about how we can innovate, not just for our users but also the hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the country that we help connect with these users.”
Sivajee said that the decision to put The Knot’s name at the center of this new company stems from the fact that brand, which first debuted back in 1996, was a one-of-a-kind property at the time when there were few online resources for wedding planning. There is a subtle homage paid to WeddingWire in the name, however: the initials of The Knot Worldwide are TKWW, which are also the initials of The Knot WeddingWire.
“The Knot was the very first digital wedding planning brand on the scene back in 1996,” she told Adweek. “It actually pioneered and created the industry of digital wedding planning. We thought The Knot Worldwide paid tribute to our heritage and the innovation that lies within it.”
Despite the new name, The Knot, WeddingWire and the company’s various other websites including The Bump, The Nest and How They Asked will remain separate. In the case of The Knot and WeddingWire specifically, both of which are wedding planning websites and offer similar features like vendor contacts and venue reviews, Sivajee said the decision stemmed from having multiple avenues to cater to different types of customers.
“We find that people have very different mindsets as they come in and plan weddings,” she said. “The WeddingWire couple is much more action-oriented, coming in with high intent to take actions and move onto the next decision, while The Knot user is much more experience-oriented. They’re really thinking about every aspect of wedding planning and want to immerse themselves in it, from inspiration to finding their vendors to creating a wedding website and registry.”
Besides The Knot Worldwide’s sheer size and reach around the globe, the company also has a collective 40 years’ worth of data from both original companies, which will be used not only to help customers but to also foster relationships with advertisers. Marketing, however, will still be done by the individual brands themselves, with The Knot Worldwide acting as a parent company for its portfolio.
“As they’re thinking about the vendors they want to find, the registry options that they want to pull into their registry, we’ve got a lot of data that can help our users through the experiences of other users,” said Sivajee. “And for advertisers, we offer brand and performance-based ad products that allow them to reach our couples at just the right time.”
Creating a positive experience for the users, however, comes first.
“Our mission as a company hasn’t changed,” said Sivajee. “We want to help couples navigate and enjoy life’s biggest moments together. We want to put the user first and work with advertisers and partners who want to get to them with the right messaging at the right time.”
