Meredith showcases digital programming lineup targeting women

Dive Brief:

• Meredith Corporation — publisher of People, Time, Better Homes & Gardens, Food & Wine and other well-known brands — announced today at the IAB NewFronts in New York City its new lineup of video programming designed to support its publications and offer brands advertising opportunities, according to a press release. 
• The new lineup includes two new series that are part of Meredith’s partnership with the Association of National Advertisers and its #SeeHer movement to increase accurate media representation of girls and media. Those series are #SeeHer Story, a weekly online video series hosted by Katie Couric and spotlighting women whose contributions to society may have been overlooked, and #SeeHer Style, about women who are changing the world.
• An additional 20 new series — of which 15 are already live — will reach consumers through a variety of venues, including Meredith’s owned-and-operated networks like the streaming ad-supported PeopleTV, as well as on Twitter and the Instagram standalone video app, IGTV. These series include: Parents magazine’s “How I Mom” with actress Tiffani Thiessen; Real Simple magazine’s “Beauty on the Move;” Martha Stewart Living’s “Frosted;” PeopleTV’s “Royal Report,” covering the latest news from the British Royal Family; and EatingWell’s “The Future of Food.”

Dive Insight:

As the video programming market splits into TV, cable, OTT, social media and other venues, Meredith, which says it reaches more than 175 million American consumers each month, hopes to ride the many waves with a cross-channel content strategy it hopes will attract advertisers. 

One key advantage Meredith’s programming could provide for marketers is that the company’s publications — including many of the best known magazine brands on market — each have a clear and targetable audience. While mass market programming still survives, the energy of many brands is focused on narrow-casting to specific and reachable market segments, including through video programs in a variety of lengths.

As indicated in its presentation last year at the NewFronts, Meredith is releasing short-form video programming through its own channels, such as PeopleTV on the web. But it’s also expanding mid- and long-form video for distribution over YouTube and over-the-top (OTT) channels. Interestingly, Meredith is also distributing many of its new series through IGTV, a video app from Instagram that is seen as an answer to YouTube but is still getting its wings.

With high-speed bandwidth becoming commonplace, video is the place many brands want to be. For instance, Procter & Gamble, whose market size makes an impact on advertisers, has touted its sponsorship of a variety of short-form video projects that also target defined audiences.

A newly released report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau supports this trend. It found that that advertisers will boost spending on video content this year by more than 25% on average, with about half going to original material.