Vice Media Group Wants to End Data Discrimination

Vice Media Group’s Wednesday NewFronts presentation took a strong stand against data discrimination, with the company arguing that the advertising industry uses a person’s gender, age and ethnicity for targeted messaging, while making false assumptions and vast generalizations about their identity. “I think we can all agree that this is a shallow and diminishing way of grouping human beings,” Daisy Auger-Dominguez, Vice Media Group (VMG) chief people officer, said during the presentation. “It defines your audience in a way they would never define themselves.” To combat the practice, Vice debuted a new contextual targeting solution that encompasses VMG’s audiences to allow brands to connect with communities with “off-the-scale” rates of engagement. “Demographics are not just useless, they’re flat out discriminatory,” said Auger-Dominguez. “Whatever you’re building, start by defining the audience the way the define themselves, and your chance of cutting through will be exponentially higher.” The product has two central components. First, Vice expanded its syndicated cookieless audience universe by 1,000%, saying advertisers can now go beyond solely targeting top line subject matters, and reach audiences according to subtopics, sentiment, emotion and predictive models. The company also developed a proven activation methodology centered around populating a first-party seed set based on live creative testing to steer clear of bias and let data drive decisioning. “We’ve spent the past 18 months developing a community-based, contextual targeting solution that allows brands to connect with these communities with off-the-scale rates of engagement,” said Auger-Dominguez. She noted independent case studies showed that contextual data helped clients exceed return on ad goals by 289%, and reduced cost per acquisition across display ads by 2.5 times. Partnership with Google Google and Vice announced a new collaboration, bringing Google’s Web Stories to VMG’s platforms. The storytelling medium will be featured across all of Vice, Vice News, Refinery29 and i-D’s web platforms. “I think we can all agree that stories are a game-changer. But, up until now, they've really only been available in the closed app environments of social platforms. But that's all changing,” said Cory Haik, VMG chief digital officer. Vice said that advertisers can use the product in three different ways: Direct, programmatically and co-branded solutions. “We're known for branded content and bringing that to this format in the same way that we do in this immersive experience for editorial,” said Haik. “We’re excited to offer that to our brand partners immediately.” Bringing experiential back Vice is ready to (safely) bring back experiential experiences. This fall, the Refinery29 brand is debuting the 29Rooms experience in New York City in a built-in collaboration with 29 creators, artists and brands. Refinery29 is also launching the “All Black Everything” experience from Unbothered in the form of a multi-day meetup. The company also introduced a new music-led tentpole with Noisy Residency. The multi-platform fan experience will also include live performances as it becomes safe, but will also reach global audiences in video, merchandise and collaborations across Noisey’s channels. Finally, Vice Media Group debuted a new brand identity with a new tagline: “What Happens Now.” The company said the new identity represents Vice Media Group’s family of brands. “We created a visual expression of our new brand strategy by interweaving the brand proposition into all of the design elements. We were inspired by the idea of a forever-evolving logo, constantly moving forward and representing the global content we create,” said Julie Ruiz, vp creative director design, in a statement. “The new visual identity also represents Vice Media Group’s unique lens of culture that navigates what’s happening in the world and highlights the spectrum of content we create.” Crackle Announces Redesign and New AVOD Service

NewFronts

Vice Media Group Wants to End Data Discrimination

The company introduces a new contextual targeting solution at NewFronts

Mollie Cahillane

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Mollie Cahillane