Content aggregator Video Elephant launches in Australia and New Zealand
Content aggregator Video Elephant has launched in Australia and New Zealand, headed by former Fairfax, Nine and News Corp editor Sean Maher.
The announcement:
VideoElephant, the premium video content aggregator, has entered the Australian and New Zealand markets offering media companies quality video content from internationally trusted brands on an unprecedented scale, with a catalogue of over 2 million videos and another 2500 added daily from brands such as Fox, Endemol, ITN, The New York Post, Cheddar, Bloomberg and The Telegraph.
Addressing two of the local market’s biggest challenges – access to trustworthy content that resonates with audiences and easily driving revenue and engagement from great video – VideoElephant connects media companies with major content brands, in particular focusing on highly saleable verticals like lifestyle, travel, beauty and consumer technology.
Headed by former Fairfax, Nine Entertainment and News Corp editor Sean Maher, VideoElephant brings a combined sales and editorial focus to supporting a commercial strategy.
“Our team is unashamedly obsessed with content and most of us come from either an editorial or media sales background, so we know how to tailor our content to make it work for any publisher,” explains Sean. “From there, we can simply bundle it up and push it into their existing catalogue.”
Like anyone who’s been in this industry long enough, I’ve seen both editorial and sales teams face seismic change in the past 20-plus years. Initially it was the shift from print to digital, then the ongoing rise and dominance of mobile. Now the challenge is very much about scale – media organisations have not been able to compete with the reach of big tech and have seen ad dollars dwindle as campaigns dried up.”
An unfortunate outcome of big tech’s rise has obviously been that loss of trust in the content that advertisers are running campaigns against and the quality of video available to audiences generally. By injecting this huge catalogue of vetted, quality video from known brands into the APAC market, VideoElephant is aiming to not only rebuild that trust, but also offer inventory to local media that will put money back in their pockets. That’s the content we’re now bringing to the local market on a massive scale – video from brands that audiences already love and trust,” added Sean.
Sean has worked in the media industry for more than 25 years, starting as a cadet journalist for NewsCorp before working as a news and online editor for The Guardian Group and Associated Newspapers in the UK as well as heading up the current affairs and finance teams for Nine Entertainment’s digital properties back in Sydney, before managing AVOD platforms for Fairfax and News Corp. Just before joining VideoElephant, Sean was head of content and editorial at Australian startup Oovvuu, managing their content acquisition while training news desks around the world on how to grow video performance.
Supported in their international expansion by Irish export agency, Enterprise Ireland, VideoElephant, which launched in Dublin in 2012, expects to expand rapidly across APAC. “We have seen VideoElephant achieve great success in the US and European markets working with broadcasters such as USA Today, Forbes, BitTorrent, Frequency, DailyMotion, PCH, and Zoom Media. The size of their catalogue matched with their local market knowledge and experience is a great addition to the local media space,” commented David Eccles, A/NZ Director, Enterprise Ireland.
Source: Video Elephant media release
