Unlikely Media Partnerships
If you’ve been noticing a ton of interesting partnerships popping up in your news feed — you’re not alone. Lately I’ve been starting to see a lot of unlikely partnerships take shape, it was only after I began to list them out that some common traits and an underlying pattern started to show.
In many ways these unions are proof of a bubbling trend in the industry — the convergence between traditional and new media. These partnerships ignore the industry standard, to put forward fresh model that quickly exhibits shared benefits for both.
Here are some partnerships that are worth noting.
PureVow (Women’s lifestyle publisher)+ Vayner Media Publishers like Vice and The New York Times have begun to encroach on advertising agencies and they’re original content production businesses by launching in-house production studios, for example The New York Times has T Brand studio a brand marketing unit, that offers services like design, strategy, tech etc.
Vayner Media surprised the industry when it did the reverse, it purchased PureWow a women’s lifestyle publisher. The publisher comes with a subscriber base of millennial and younger women, which will help Vayner understand and more easily reach consumers in that demographic. This deal is being pegged as a model that other advertising agencies might follow, giving shops new ways to grow and closer proximity to target consumers. Source.
The New York times + Spotify Many say this partnership is one of the most intriguing bundles in modern media. It comes at a time when The New York Times is seeing a surge in digital subscriptions, but for any subscribers that are still undecided the access to Spotify premium might just be the nudge that they needed.
While Spotify and The NYT appear to be very different on the surface, they’re both dedicated to helping subscribers live better lives and both rely on “freemium” business models Source.
Bank of America + Zelle A new peer-to-peer payments system Zelle, is more than just a Venmo clone. It’s run by major U.S. banks, with Bank of America being one of the first to announce Zelle integration into its mobile banking app. Zelle’s launch and growth are an indication that the peer-to-peer market place is now large enough to accommodate many players and broaden the base making room for an older demographic that are less likely to post an emoji every time they return a couple of dollars to a friend.
In the past Bank of America has had a turbulent relationship with its customers. A survey that was conducted with 36,000+ people to get a sense of how consumers view Bank brands, and which banks they are most likely to be loyal to. The results found that among 6 banks, BOA was ranked 5th, ahead only of PNC Financial. My belief is that partnerships like the one with Zelle not only bring new technology to the bank but also create appeal with a younger demo and lead to new wave of positive sentiment for a brand like Bank of America that has been around since 1930.
CNN + Casey Neistat The Youtube star who has 6.5M subscribers (CNN in comparison has 1.8M) is set to launch a new daily show for the news channel. In Nov 2016, CNN bought Neistat’s app Beme for $25 million and the general consensus was that CNN would begin to broadcast using the app — not true, CNN shut the app down and instead began to work with Neistat and his team.
Casey Neistat’s style of content is first hand, personable and unfiltered, it’s very unlike the style and format most serious news media is expected to adhere to. Casey spoke about this perception of news channels with a quote from his dad “My dad sees it as the word of God, but I think the young people definitely do not”
With this partnership CNN appears to be making a genuine effort to reach out and participate in the daily conversations that dominate our lives. Source.
There is something inherently exciting about these stories, they attract my attention not so much from a business/marketing perspective but more so because of a rebellious attitude that led to their creation.
