Tom Gunter, the experienced co-founder of Avid Collective believes focusing on branded content can help solve the advertising revenue conundrum for many UK publishers.
“Branded content is unique because it enables businesses to speak directly to potential customers,” he said. “This makes it an incredibly powerful channel for advertisers.”
Whether it’s attracting youngsters with TikTok videos or reaching an older demographic through long-form articles, Gunter believes branded content can be a winner for everyone, including publishers.
“Advertisers connect with specific audience targets and publishers benefit from a lucrative source of income, while audiences don’t find these messages intrusive,” he said.
While there are numerous income streams open to publishers, including display ads and programmatic advertising, Gunter believes many of them actually irritate readers and viewers.
“The principal value of branded content is that it’s the least intrusive format for publishers looking to drive their advertising revenue,” he explained.
Value of branded content
Of course, the definition of branded content formats has broadened over recent years to embrace videos, social media posts and podcasts, as well as more traditional sponsored articles.
This includes everything from itineraries on travel websites to entertaining 30-second videos and in-depth articles published in printed and digital magazines.
However, Gunter doesn’t believe UK publishers are making the most of the branded content opportunities and that’s why Avid decided to launch into this market.
“The product we’re selling for the UK market is a bespoke, purpose-built platform that’s available as SaaS (software as a service) to publishers,” said Gunter.
It contains a suite of tools that are focused on either saving publishers money in the creation of branded content or helping facilitate a better client experience.
“It’s a very simple approach,” explained Gunter. “If we can save people money – or help them to make money – then that’s a good spot for us.”
Avid PubSuite solution
The digital tools are part of a platform known as Avid PubSuite and include everything from pre-sales engagement with advertisers to reporting on the performance of campaigns.
For example, there’s an initial advertiser shopfront that can be packed full of key resources such as new opportunities, products and reminders to enrich the potential sales interaction.
The advertiser shopfront includes customisable branding and the ability to load key resources such as new opportunities, new products and updates The focus is on enriching the initial sales interaction and deepening advertiser engagement with your masthead
Then there’s campaign builder, which features standardised products for the sales team to enable bespoke and automated media plans to be built for would-be clients, which transform tedious media plan building from hours to minutes
This is followed by amplification manager. This includes automating ad-set creation across multiple channels and data targeting if required, enabling branded content to be more competitive on plans
Campaign manager, meanwhile, supports every step of the production. “The client can also log in and collaborate,” explained Gunter. “This saves a lot of time in getting campaigns live.”
In addition, there’s automated reporting tools and content analytics that enable everyone to understand, compare and analyse various data points, also reducing publisher time spent on reporting back to clients.
Memorable campaigns
Gunter, who is experienced in both the UK and Australian markets, is well-positioned to comment as he’s helped international publishers curate numerous memorable ad campaigns for clients.
He’s also been with Avid from the early days when it was making 30-second videos for small businesses right through to the signing of partnership contracts with global giants such as eBay.
“We realised we had a unique offering and a chance to educate agencies about all the fabulous content creators in this space,” he said. “For the last three years, we’ve focused on the background technology.”
For Gunter, the proudest moments have been connecting major brands with unique publishers that they may not have otherwise met.
“Often advertisers don’t realise some of the stories that can be told about their brand, and I think that’s probably one of the misconceptions about branded content,” he added.
He cited the example of work carried out with a tourism body which involved the publication of a bespoke magazine about the Gold Coast by a publisher called Signature Luxury Travel.
“The CEO was walking around the office showing everybody this beautiful content,” said Gunter. “There are many emotive ways to tell a great story and integrate the brand.”
Of course, it’s not foolproof. The key to success is for the branded content to be authentic as the publisher is effectively putting its reputation on the line with this kind of promotion.
“I think audiences have a clear understanding that their publishers have to make money but they will turn off if the endorsement alignment is very poor,” he added.
Opportunities in the UK
According to Gunter, countries differ in their approach to branded content. Some, such as those based in the US, often favour global campaigns that can cost a small fortune.
Others, meanwhile, favour a more targeted approach.
“Australians will smell a global ad from a mile off, so you’ll need media teams working out how to make US content tangible to smaller markets,” added Gunter.
As far as the UK is concerned, the Avid team is currently on a research mission to establish the best ways to help publishers cut costs and boost revenue.
For example, Gunter’s initial findings suggest widespread concerns about how they can make enough money through advertising channels.
“Having seen a few of the big news sites, the unfortunate answer seems to be putting more ads onto the page, which turns customers and audiences off, and has a negative effect,” he said.
The role branded content can play
Looking to the future, Gunter believes branded content provides one pillar in a publisher’s future-proofing strategy as it’s something exclusive they can offer to advertisers.
“Branded content is a great way to provide something different to advertisers, but we’ve just got to make it a far more seamless and far more competitive proposal to agencies,” he said.
One area of focus is standardising the terminology used in meetings with agencies and making the whole category more accessible.
“We’re actively looking to work with as many publishers as we can,” he said. “The goal is to have really honest, open conversations to understand how we can help solve their problems.”
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