Why Refinery29’s global push can work
UK agencies welcome the addition of the women’s publication, with its blend of fashion, style and current affairs, but it’s a competitive marketplace. The UK is Refinery29’s No. 2 market, with monthly visitors to the US side reaching 7.5m in the month of October, according to comScore. By comparison, Vice’s female-focused channel, Broadly, has 4.8m monthly uniques and Bauer’s Debrief has 2.6 million monthly uniques.
The site offers little by way of inventory — in the US revenue comes from creating native ads in the form of branded experiences created in-house.
“The real opportunity would be to subvert the usual advertiser and media owner relationship,” said Adam Fulham, managing partner at Mindshare. “I would like to see that consequent bump in quality of content that can be produced with a brand partner. Refinery29 would need to be super selective in the brands they associate themselves with, cherry-picking aspirational partners who their audience would feel quite natural, rather than intrusive.”
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