Reuters’ distributed approach to native advertising
Reuters has a 160-year-old tradition as a news agency serving publishers, but now with its Content Solutions division, it’s extending that reach to help marketers reach a worldwide audience. In addition to Reuters.com, marketers can distribute their branded content across Reuters’ publishing platform, Media Express, with its 750 broadcaster and 1,000 newspaper clients. Reuters last week announced it would give away some of its content to publishers in an effort to grow its customer base. If it works, advertisers will have access to a bigger audience.
Reuters has been doing custom work for advertisers for a couple of years, including one year under the Content Solutions banner, but it hasn’t talked in detail about the unit before. It’s a 70-person team that reports up to Steven Schwartz, global managing director of the news agency and has offices in New York, London, Delhi, Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo. They produced more than 30 campaigns in the past 12 months, for such clients as All Nippon Airways and the Indexed Annuities Leadership Council. Campaigns have in size from two-day affairs all the way up to ones that can run a year or more and cost up to the seven figures. A separate part of the group provides white-label editorial content to Reuters’ news clients.
“It was an opportunity to do what we had been doing and evolve that into a new channel, for brands,” said Daniel Mandell, managing director of Content Solutions. “Given our global footprint, infrastructure, DNA and talent, we have a lot to bring to bear for brands.”
Reuters maintains a strict separation between branded content and the newsroom. The Content Solutions group, in addition to its own staff, draws from freelance journalists including Barbara Fairchild, the former editor of Bon Appétit; and Rich Beattie, the former executive digital editor for Travel + Leisure, to name two.
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