US women’s media brand Betches, which was acquired by Ladbible Group in 2023, has launched in the UK aiming to fill a “gap in the market” for Gen Z and millennial audiences as well as advertisers.
Betches UK has started as a social-only extension of the original Betches brand on Instagram and Tiktok. It is expected to later expand into other verticals, podcasts and events on this side of the Atlantic.
Betches chief executive Aleen Dreksler told Press Gazette in London last week that the key to bringing the brand over is that it feels “super authentic to the audience here” and has a team that “knows how to speak to British women in the same way that British women speak to each other, in the same way that Betches US does for US women”.
Dreksler said: “The reason why we’ve been successful is focusing on the brand. This is the first big extension of that brand, and I want to make sure it’s done right.”
Dreksler co-founded Betches with her college roommates in 2011, first as a blog, then as “early adopters” to social and then building a large podcast network from 2015. It now also has specific sports and pop culture verticals as well as a strong video offering.
She said their key selling point is that they are “relatable, we’re funny, but mostly we speak to women in the way that they speak to each other”.
“We’re not telling them what to do, but we’re all doing it together. We’re all figuring out life together.”
Dreksler said they had been “really intentional” and had not rushed into the UK launch because they needed to work out “where do we fit? Is there a white space?”
“The answer was yes, because I think there’s a lot of publishers talking to women, but very few brands talking with women.”
The other key distinction, she added, is that Betches is “not a publisher, we’re not just your average kind of traditional media company”.
“I think that we’re about that community conversation and not telling women what to do or giving a prescriptive lifestyle. It’s about – we all kind of have these flaws, and let’s celebrate them by laughing and creating connection between people, creators, comedians, celebrities, and just finding ways that we all relate together through forms of media.
“So I think humour also is a really big white space for women here and really in the US, and that’s why we’ve been able to really own that space. Because humour is really hard to execute well, and because we’ve been doing that since day one, that’s really part of our DNA and part of the brand, I think that it’s going to be successful here.”
Betches profitable ‘since day one’
Betches was profitable “since day one”, Dreksler said, meaning they could be discerning about a potential acquisition. “We didn’t have any investors, we bootstrapped the business. And so myself and my co-founders said that if we were ever to join and have a parent company, needed to be really the right one.”
Ladbible Group acquired Betches in October 2023 for $24m, with up to a $30m payable in instalments based on revenue and profitability targets to 2026. It met its revenue target for 2024, triggering a $5.5m earnout paid in May this year.
Dreksler said Ladbible Group had a “very similar vision, which is to become this entertainment powerhouse” and that it has become a “really strategic partner”.
Ladbible Group chief executive and founder Solly Solomou said in a statement that bringing Betches to the UK “reflects our ambition as an entertainment powerhouse to grow distinctive, community-led brands with global relevance in an authentic way”.
Dedicated editorial staff have been hired to work on Betches in the UK, although exact numbers have not been shared. Two Betches UK creators travelled to the US office to create videos highlighting their cultural differences for a soft launch earlier this month.
Ladbible Group is still advertising for a content lead to “spearhead the day-to-day editorial content strategy of the Betches UK Instagram and TikTok accounts”. As Betches UK launches on more platforms, channel managers will be launched to work on them.
There are also three people on the commercial side dedicated to Betches UK, a number that is also expected to expand. Both teams will collaborate with wider functions across Ladbible Group including video, web, branded, podcasts, marketing and affiliate.
The majority of revenue at Betches comes from advertising, as well as subscriptions (currently for bonus podcast content) and e-commerce (primarily branded merch sales).
Citing social media engagement rates calculated via interactions including shares and comments, Dreksler said: “Our audience is so sticky and so loyal, our engagement rate is more than seven times the industry average, so how do you give them more and create different monetisation strategies.”
Of the merch, she described it as a “marketing tool that we use because our audience loves the brand so much they want to wear it loud and proud” as well as a way to engage smaller communities such as fans of the U Up? podcast who can buy merch linked to their favourite in-jokes.
Betches events in the US include live podcast recordings and comedy shows including recently under its Women Aren’t Funny initiative.
Betches UK comes as advertisers moving spend ‘from celebrities to creators’
Jess Wrigley, director of client solutions at Ladbible Group, told Press Gazette the Betches UK launch has come at the right time for the industry because brands are “moving from celebrities to creators” to help them cut through in culture.
She added: “It’s got to be community first. We don’t want to go all singing, all dancing and start launching our podcast immediately. We have to really integrate the brand into culture here properly and make sure that as and when we bring brands on, it’s the right brands, there’s a connection to our audience, and we’re doing it in the right way.
“And then it will be that phased approach, where Betches really cuts through to that audience and has such distinction in the market. And with podcasts, we absolutely want to bring that. We know it’s huge for the female market. Being one of those consumers myself, it’s how I really connect to brands. So that will be our next phase.”
Ladbible Group creates 360 partnerships that often include branded content, digital display, production capabilities, Wrigley said, and are frequently treated as a long-term relationship.
“Betches is such a clear identity, and point of view,” Wrigley continued. “We’ve sort of shifted in the industry in general, where before you were understanding what a client wanted to say, understand what we wanted to say, and finding that sweet spot in the middle.
“But I think now clients really understand that to connect with an audience you’ve really got to be authentic with them and whether it’s a brand partnership or whether it’s editorial, actually, the audience don’t mind, as long as the content is great.”
But she described a “quality over quantity” philosophy for choosing partners, at least initially.
“We haven’t necessarily just gone to the market and said to everybody ‘come and work with us’. But actually it’s been a lot more organic, our conversation.
“So between the two locations, we have so many contacts: a lot of US brands that already know Betches and want to be part of the UK launch, versus partners that we, at Ladbible Group in the UK, have had on board for a long time who are really excited about that new, distinctive female brand coming here and filling that gap in the market.”
She added that this could mean working with brands on an episodic series that “adds value and feels very Betches and true to what Betches do” or it could be more of a reactive moment leaning into the latest Tiktok trend.
“The beauty is kind of flexing into all of those different spaces, but making sure the Betches tone of voice is there, because if it is, the audience will love it.”
Wrigley added that although there are “fantastic brands” in the UK women’s sector already, they often have a specific niche whether it’s something lighthearted (from fashion to the celebrity “hun culture”) or more serious (careers and mental health).
She claimed there is not another brand “that can really transcend all of those” and that feedback from brands shows they often divide a big campaign across a number of publishers.
“I think they were quite excited about a brand that could be everything to them.”
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