Engaging audiences on behalf of the advertiser
“Trust means not fooling the reader,” said Jim Jacovides, SVP, Time Inc. International Licensing and Development, USA. Jacovides spoke to attendees at FIPP’s Middle East and Africa event today in Dubai, about native or ‘branded’ content, and how Time Inc. manages this part of its business.
Time Inc.’s Foundry business launched in August 2015, to provide “storytelling and immersive consumer experiences” for its audiences. The Foundry was set up as a content marketing organisation, to help advertisers design and develop large-scale content marketing initiatives and campaigns that engage audiences across media brands.
Said Jacovides: “Our brands have been built up over the years by delivering again, and again, and again. It’s not something we’re going to sacrifice for short term advertising gain. But we’re leveraging the skills and talents we’ve developed over the years, like storytelling and presenting it a way that is compelling to our audiences.”
Jacovides went on to say that engaging an audience on behalf of the advertiser, results in a high quality product, which is fundamentally different from editorial, but follows the same process.
The Foundry boasts clients including Ford, Land Rover, and campaigns utilise a multitude of channels including print, digital, social and video, via the team’s “wide-ranging set of skills”. It creates all sorts of campaigns – the social amplification component and distribution at scale of which is a pre-requisite.
“We have access to world-class content producers at our brands,” said Jacovides, however “we’re not going to betray our audiences’ trust for advertising dollars”.
More like this
Time Inc. launches branded content shop ‘The Foundry’
Editorial or native advertising: The key to success is to be reader-centric
