Mamamia reveals commercial partners for new beauty launch TheGlow
The Mamamia Network has revealed the commercial strategy for its newest website beauty and health offering TheGlow.com.au ahead of a formal launch next week.
TheGlow, which has already launched in beta test mode, will offer advertisers native ad opportunities similar to Mamamia, with brands, including Clinique and The Athlete’s Foot already on board, along with brands which have used the native ad offering on Mamamia.
“Brands like Nissan and Dove who want to expand their native advertising reach they’ve already got on the network to TheGlow… It’s been an absolutely positive response in market, people are really excited to see someone doing something in the online health and beauty space that’s a bit different,” said Mamamia editor-in-chief Jamila Rizvi.
With a staff of three full-time employees, including Alyx Gorman as editor, Nicky Champ as beauty director and Kahla Preston as a writer, the site will operate similarly to that of Mamamia, drawing on a network of contributors from personalities such as Zoe Foster.
Gorman
Gorman said: “We want it to be the health and beauty site readers are happy to share with their friends,” she said.
While the site is part of the Mamamia network it will operate as a standalone website from Mamamia and iVillage, with some cross-over of content between the three expected to occur similar to what happens between Mamamia and iVillage, Rizvi explained.
“It’s been something we’ve been working on for more than six months now and working on really intensely for the last two months since Alex joined the network.”
Gorman joined in mid-March after a stint as features director of Elle with Bauer Media.
Gorman said: “TheGlow is all about the ‘pyschographic’, if you are in a particular mindset that you want to do something a bit fun, a bit indulgent and a bit self-focused you’re going to go to TheGlow. We’re going to have content that appeals to really young women and content that appeals to women in their 60s and their 50s.”
The site has been live in a beta, testing mode for a number of weeks after the domain was registered and a Twitter account set up at the end of last year.
“There’s just some things you can’t get get right from a technical perspective while you’re messing around behind closed doors and we are confident and comfortable enough with where it’s at at this point to have it live for a little while and just not be sending people there,” Rizvi explained.
“But that’s what will be changing on Tuesday, we’ll be going live with a whole stream of new content, Alyx and her team will be producing everyday.”
Gorman added: “There’s a lot of curiosity around new things and it’s better to have something that gives a taste rather than letting people speculate idly. Having it up has been great because it means our editorial team has been operating as an editorial team should.”
Rizvi
For Rizvi the live beta testing ensures that when the site moves into normal operating mode the user and advertiser experience will run smoothly.
“There isn’t going to be kinks and bumps and problems, we’ve dealt with them already so our advertisers are getting what they paid for,” she said.
On the site following Mamamia’s author model, Gorman said it is important in the health and beauty space to have “a mix of expert and amateur” voices because that’s how readers relate to the topic in their day-to-day lives.
“You want a mixture of hearing it from someone who kind of knows what they’re talking about and you also want to take the piss sometimes. It’s entirely legitimate to house both in the same place, it makes it feel real,” she said.
Rizvi added: “It’ll have that human side which is what makes Mamamia special,” she said.
As for how the network of contributors will be paid, TheGlow is adopting the same base fee model as Mamamia which was introduced in July last year.
“It’s the same model as Mamamia which means writers are paid a base fee but obviously it depends on their expertise, their experience but we have been excited to see that we’ve had a bunch of people who just want to write and get their story out there,” Rizvi said.
“And there are individuals and organisations who just want to get a message out, the Cancer Council have a great story in terms of skincare that they want to get out. They don’t want money for it, they want awareness and readers. It will be similar to the Mamamia model but with that base payment model.”
The official launch of TheGlow comes as the network continues its experimentation online with another site called RandomHarry which is all about viral, sharing content.
Rizvi said: “RandomHarry is something we’re playing with. Because we’re online, and we’re playing in this new space where new tricks and tools are available there’s all these things we want to try and sometimes you don’t want to try things out on your beautiful main brands. RandomHarry is just something we’re playing around with, it’s not monetized yet, we’re just trying some things out. It’s had a whole lot of success with just us messing around, it’s like our little plaything.”
While it is easy to compare the site to BuzzFeed or Reddit, Rizvi said it is not trying to be like anyone or anything online.
“It’s very much a viral focused website, it’s about seeing what we can do with sharing at this stage and it’s obviously playing in the women’s space. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s got an identity yet, as the name says its random partly because we’ll keep trying different things out on it as we want to test things. When we are going to roll out something on TheGlow or Mamamia or iVillage we need to be sure it’s going to work and it’s going to be successful and deliver for our readers and our advertisers. This is just something we can have a bit of fun with.”
Rizvi did not rule out launches in other geographic markets by founders Mia freeman and Jason Lavigne. She said: “I’m sure the US is in their sights, as are a whole lot of other countries. At the moment it’s really about growing our presence in Australia and then starting to look at where we go next and what we do next.”
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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Two years ago Alyx Gorman was editing the Vine. Now she is with mammamia writing about beauty. Who knew. Good luck with the launch. Will be interesting to watch.
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Agreed with Forest. Alyx Gorman is a sensational writer & editor. Why she’s dropped down to a beauty site is beyond me.
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Go Alyx! Who says beauty and health can’t be intelligent and engaging? She’s a great editor, she’ll make it great. Simple. Also, playing the long game in digital publishing is really smart.
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Health includes all feelings, so embraces attitudes and opinions on all aspects of life,
Relationships, social interactions,community all effect well being, so the canvas is vast. Leave it to Alyx to make it colourful,
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The problem with Mamamia right now is that stories appear on the front page and then – literally within a few hours – scroll off and are lost in the back content.
They’re there and then they’re gone – as evidenced by the fewer and fewer comments each story gets. The turnover is too fast, and too many stories aren’t being seen in the race to provide “fresh” content.
And too many of the stories are just awful, and off the mark. Last week, commenters turned on one writer after the whole entire premise of the piece was found to be totally wrong.
Anyway, I can’t see key brands and those with a message being too keen on their pieces disappearing so fast and not being seen, or being associated with amateur content.
You could probably get the same deal from your average mummy blogger for about 1% of the cost.
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