There’s a good trend afoot in our industry, as publishers pivot to a more consultative relationship with their advertisers. The Atlantic is the latest to announce plans to create deeper, more long-lasting partnerships with their advertisers.
“This week it’s launching Atlantic Brand Partners tying together various capabilities from the wider company,” writes Lucinda Southern in Digiday. “The goal: Deeper partnerships generating more revenue from longer-term relationships and repeat clients.”
As Southern notes, other publishers have done the same, including Bloomberg Media.
“Providing more integrated campaigns that tie in different capabilities moves publishers further upstream, closer to the decision making, rather than working ad hoc on campaigns. Ultimately, publishers can be more efficient at generating revenue with fewer partners.”
The payoff for the ad partners is a closer fit on messaging, image and brand safety, something that has become extremely dear to brands during tumultuous times. As publishers lean in to this consultative approach, they are able to help brands with difficult messaging, and offer long-term strategies for better-targeted reach.
“The Atlantic holds up its work with insurance company Allstate as an example of how it’s forged long-term, smarter relationships over five years that brings together the capabilities of the whole of Atlantic Brand Partners,” Southern writes. “The Renewal Project from Allstate aims to tell the stories of individuals and organizations who are solving problems in their communities.”
What this approach aims to solve is the often fragmented approach many advertisers employ, trying an ad here, a campaign there, with little consistency in branding or message.
“When the pandemic hit, that accelerated and the pain points felt more painful,” explained Stephanie Parker, who is heading up the Atlantic Brand Partners operation. “We [now] operate an end-to-end solution, that’s an important distinction.”
This approach requires a shift from short-termism to a longer view, especially now as social media advertising is so risky to brand safety. This shift to a long term approach isn’t easy, especially as we are all existing in a place of often rapid change. Yet the payoff is real, and this idea of becoming a partner to your advertisers has a lot of merit.
We learned this year the absolute importance of becoming essential to your readers … and by extension your ad partners. Because isn’t that the best result a publisher could hope for… to become absolutely essential?