Condé Nast is continuing to position itself as a one-stop-shop for publishers and marketers alike, with a new influencer platform designed to help advertising partners identify talent and develop campaigns.
The influencer network helps sweeten the deal and woo additional advertisers by giving them access to a network of more than 3,500 influencers with robust followings of more than 300 million total users. In its nascent stages, the influencer network will mostly serve fashion and beauty clients that are “endemic to the company’s core DNA,” before expanding into other sectors, according to Pamela Drucker Mann, chief revenue and marketing officer at Condé Nast. Condé Nast will offer help in building out campaigns collaboratively with advertisers, bringing in resources like its in-house agency and branded creative arm, 23 Stories.
The effort is reflective of the media conglomerate’s attempts to identify new revenue streams amid the shuttering of print verticals like Teen Vogue and Self. The influencer network also builds upon the recent launch of Next Gen Network, a collective of Condé Nast’s newer digital-only publications with demographics largely comprised of millennials and Gen Z readers. Next Gen officially debuted last week after it was previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and is designed to give advertisers access to all of the publications at once as part of a package deal. Participating publications include Teen Vogue, GQ Style, Them, The Hive, Healthyish and Architectural Digest spinoff Clever, as well as recent additions like Goop, video brand Iris and Lena Dunham’s newsletter, Lenny Letter.
Drucker Mann said both Next Gen and the influencer network were built out of an opportunity to capitalize upon the rapid growth of Condé Nast’s evolving digital publications, while tapping into a lucrative millennial audience. Across the Next Gen publications, millennial readership comprises 83 percent of traffic.
“Not only are these brands generating a lot of engagement, but also, from a plurality perspective, the communities behind them are so passionate,” she said.
Featured influencers were selected using data and analytics from CitizenNet, an audience prediction technology company acquired by Condé Nast in 2017. Like Condé Nast’s acquisition of the experiential events company Pop2Life and event technology platform Ribyt, CitizenNet was part of a strategic growth plan designed to expand the company’s capabilities.
“[The influencer network] allows you to go to one source that you can trust that helps you build the right assets with some of the best editors in the world,” she said. “It helps enhance and amplify that message, not just within Condé Nast but across the social stratosphere.”
