Mamamia rebrands US website Flo + Frank as it shifts content strategy
Mamamia has re-badged its global platform Flo + Frank, renaming the offering Spring St as it pivots its content offering to focus on positive, uplifting, inspiring and inclusive content.
Speaking with Mumbrella, Mamamia managing director, Kylie Rogers, said there had never been a plan to rebrand the site.
“Mia and I went to the US in June and spent some time in New York with consumers doing focus groups, and spent some time with clients and agencies just talking to them about the state of the nation, the mood of women over there and what our competitors were doing,” she said.
“Two things were crystal clear in our minds – the first thing was no publishers in the States or anywhere were talking to grown-up women. Everyone is trying to get a piece of the millennial pie and there was a real gap in engaging women, say, 30-plus.
“Secondly there was a real mood of tension, negativity and anxiety and stress and women are feeling under siege by the sheer amount of negativity in the news right now, accelerated by the whole Trump situation over there.
“They’re deliberately walking away from negative news, they’re deliberately walking away from their Facebook feeds when something negative comes up. They’re seeking out a safe haven and positive news.
“We thought long and hard about this and recognised that it was a great opportunity for us to talk to a group of women who aren’t being spoken to and aren’t necessarily being spoken to in a way they want. Welcome to Spring St.”
Kylie Rogers: ‘It was a great opportunity for us to talk to a group of women who aren’t being spoken to’
On why they chose the name, Rogers said there were two reasons.
“Firstly Spring implies renewal, hope, happiness and joy, and secondly it is a physical space, we actually have our offices on Spring St in Soho. It’s a tangible space, it’s our headquarters in the centre of New York. Spring St is the new happy place for smart women.”
On why they didn’t extend the Mamamia brand to the US, Rogers said it wouldn’t have meant anything in the States.
“Mamamia was born out of Mia Freedman and her personal blog. This wasn’t her personal blog, there was no real need for us to go with Mamamia,” she said.
“This is a new global brand and a new global content filter. We have a number of Australian women engaging in Flo + Frank which will be now Spring St and it made no sense to have people engaging in two Mamamias.”
The shift to Spring St has seen the platform ditch the Flo + Frank content offerings of Time, Work, Money, Love, Family and Home with Spring St’s content categorised as news, pop culture & celebrity, self care, love & family, real stories, style & beauty, work and joy.
Where appropriate Flo + Frank content has been imported across to the new Spring St platform.
Flo + Frank was launched by editor Sarah Burden-Brown; however, Rogers asserts that it was never expected she would stay for the long haul.
“Sarah we bought on for the launch and set-up and build. She was never going to stay for the long haul.”
The new Spring St also appears to have ditched Flo + Frank’s e-commercy platform, which linked to Bryden-Brown’s Great.ly platform which connects makers of products with “tastemakers” who run curated Great.ly shops.
Spring St will continue the Flo + Frank tradition of no display or pre-roll advertising, with Dentsu Aegis providing exclusive branded content for the site.
Simon Williams, Dentsu Aegis global head of partnerships, said: “The Dentsu Aegis Network are very excited to be the launch partner of Spring Street, not only does the proposition offer our clients exclusivity and unique access to data but Spring Street itself is innovative and future proofed for our client partners, offering awesome talent alongside a content first opportunity for brands.”
On what’s next for Mamamia and its global ambitions, Rogers said the UK is next on its “hit list”.
“About 18% of our audience falls in the UK. It’s been a natural flow. That is absolutely next on our hit list from a commercial perspective and from a consumer and audience perspective,” she said.
“We have a long way to go to hit the mark in the US but there is a seemingly natural following and we won’t let that fall by the wayside, we will chase that and accelerate that growth and see where it takes us from there.”
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Hmmm, sounds like things aren’t quite going to plan here. As recently as April this year they were talking up the launch of the Flo and Frank brand in US, boasting about the “fantastic traction” the brand was getting there (https://mumbrella.com.au/mamamia-podcast-fake-news-story-us-expansion-357875). Now the brand has gone, the editor has gone (and what sort of nonsense is it to say that she was “never in it for the long haul”?), the ecommerce strategy has gone. All this just five months after the brand launched in the US. Maybe this apparent lack of direction or strategy is why they’re having such trouble holding onto senior staff..https://mumbrella.com.au/series-of-senior-departures-hits-independent-publisher-mamamia-womens-network-307089
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Flo & Frank was a dreadful name. Was the reference to periods and penises deliberate?
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100% with you on that.
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