Condé Nast’s Golf Digest finds success in online video

Here Angie Byun, senior director of international strategy and development at Golf Digest, talks us through how this approach has been physically implemented and the rewards it’s bringing.

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Tell us about Golf Digest… (0:02)

Golf Digest is the number one authority when it comes to how to play, what to play, and where to play. And in the last year we’ve really increased our revenue by 68 per cent across digital. One of the main reasons for that was all of our branded content or native advertising. 

Your use of videos seems particularly innovative? (0:21)

Definitely, so we have really leveraged our talent when it comes to branded content, whether it’s partnering with our playing editors or playing instructors at Golf Digest, whether it’s using our own photography or really tapping into the editorial expertise of our staff. We’re creating these really great video series not only just on Golf Digest but our partner sites as well. 

Can you give us a recent example of this successful strategy? (0:48)

BMW came to us last year and they wanted to showcase their new Excellence series and really target affluent millennials. We thought it would be great to partner up with a group called Dude Perfect and they have a huge social media following – they’ve got like nine million subscribers on YouTube – so we thought we’d partner with them and really create a branded content video series of golf games. We created something fun and really kind of zany called the Plastic Golf Association and that was called the “PGA” of golf. We thought that that would garner about two million views it ended up really exceeding everyone’s expectations it turned out we were able to garner about 15 million views.

How important is the content? (1:34)

What I love about Condé Nast, what I love about Golf Digest, is we tell some really great stories. We are known in the industry to create premium, premier content and that’s our DNA. And so creating this really great content is first and foremost key and then building that story around whatever product or experience we’re trying to showcase. 

So it’s fair to say that collaboration is key? (2:00)

We have our own Golf Digest video channel, and a lot of the branded content can be seen on the Golf Digest video channel. We also ask whichever partners that we partner with if they can also have our content on their sites as well. So that we’re getting views not only from our sites but also out partner sites and then obviously through social media and through The Scene, which is part of Condé Nast as well. That’s our premium video channel that aggregates all of our Conde Nast brands onto their site.

Condé Nast is a member of FIPP.

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