Are Media set to invest in women and research in 2021
Are Media, formerly known as Bauer Media, has Australian women captive, according to the publisher’s 2021 media showcase.
“Are Media is the leading content company for women in Australia,” said director of sales, Andrew Cook, “connecting 6 in 10 Australian women with commercial partners, each and every day”.
CEO of Are Media, Brendon Hill, said the company would have a “tenacious” focus on women, food, homes, beauty and entertainment going into 2021. The publisher is looking to increase investment in retail and direct consumer channels to further cement its position in the market.
As part of its focus on women, Are Media will launch a suite of new and refreshed digital assets, including a relaunch of Girlfriend and the return of ELLE as a curated retail and shopping platform. This follows the launch of SYRUP, a unisex digitally-led fashion, beauty and culture brand targeting 16 to 22-year-olds which launched earlier this year.
ELLE will be returning to Australia as a digital-only platform.
“Magazines had one of the largest falls in advertising revenue this year, what we are seeing from Are Media is that they are investing heavily in women and investing in their business,” said Steve Allen, Fusion Strategy managing director. “Advertisers are looking for that investment (from Are Media), they needed to back themselves, and they have.”
Following the success of the Better Homes and Gardens Shop, Are Media is curating a new home retail platform in 2021. In addition, it will look to collaborate with manufacturers and launch magazine-branded lines of furniture and homewares.
Investment has also been made into research by Are Media. It has become the first global publishing partner for attentionTRACE Media Planner, a planning tool for media agencies. Developed by Prof. Karen Nelson-Field, founder and executive director of Amplified Intelligence, attentionTRACE is based on research design that tracks the human gaze on a second-by-second level for mobile and TV.
Prof. Nelson-Field said: “We know from our research that active attention – eyes on the screen is the best type of attention – as it drives the most sales uplift for advertisers. The more attention paid, the longer the brand stays in memory. From 2021 advertisers will be able to measure the active attention of Are’s brands.”
In addition, Are Media and Amplified Intelligence are working on a natural setting, scalable methodology to collect attention-based data for print magazines.
Andrew Cook, director of sales at Are Media.
Cook explained: “The amount of attention advertisements receive has been the missing piece when it comes to media planning, but now media agencies will be able to make buying decisions based on the measure of attention which is important for brands when it comes to memory and avoiding wastage.”
Data for the first stage will be collected early 2021.
Following the acquisition of Pacific Magazines, Are Media has also completed development of a unified programmatic tech stack for advertising across its lifestyle titles. “We can always improve the digital offering, and through our unified tech stack, we are aiming to provide better opportunities for advertisers,” said Cook.
Are Media is also adding new resources to amplify branded content. Its SmartVid platform uses artificial intelligence to take digital branded content and turn it into video content. While SmartBite will take written words and turn them into short-form audio content enabling it to be distributed to voice assistants, smart speakers and podcast platforms such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Spotify and iTunes. These are complemented by SoundSocial, Are Media’s commercial podcast offering, which has been generating an average 15,000 listens per post.
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Olivia Kruimel is the managing editor at Mumbrella. She has more than 15 years of experience in journalism, communications and marketing. Her journalism career began at Fairfax Media (now part of Nine) and includes various B2B publications such as B&T, Travel Today and ALB. As a marketer Olivia has worked for Standard Chartered and various global law firms.
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