Top Session Takeaways from Digital Content NewFronts 2018

Settled in the bustling city of New York, marketers and content experts gathered to talk strategy, market positioning, product releases/enhancements and partnership opportunities last week. With the influential presence of content publishers like Refinery29, Hulu, and Condé Nast combined with social platforms like Twitter and YouTube showing their latest insights and latest content, NewFronts 2018 was better than ever before.

We’ve listed out our favorite insights from the events below and will be elaborating on these new opportunities in the months to come as they roll out.

With phenomenal 60% YoY growth, Hulu is now worthy of every marketer’s attention. Even more impressive was the fact that Hulu TV sees more time spent than average linear TV.

Hulu was also proud to announce exciting partnerships with major league sports that enable Hulu users to watch live sports at any time. The most notable update from Hulu’s NewsFront session is that downloadable content is coming — with ad options! Keep an eye out for more exciting developments around how marketers can take advantage of this capability.  For those Handmaid’s Tale fans, Season 3 is coming!

Probably one of the most interesting sessions, Condé Nast shared what new capabilities and updates they have to offer brands and advertisers including DayDream, Wired’s new OTT Streaming App, Condé Nast X and Prime. Check out the latest on these capabilities below:

In Fall 2018, Condé Nast will be expanding its partnership with Google Daydream through four new series built for the Daydream VR Experience. Each 3-episode series will provide viewers with captivating, immersive experiences across the Beauty, Tech and Food verticals.

Thanks to its innovative and tech-loving audience, Condé Nast was proud to announce that WIRED will be the first Condé Nast brand to release a dedicated OTT app to increase their reach. It will be interesting to see how advertisers can tap into this new OTT opportunity.

Designed for authentic integrations on Condé Nast’s YouTube, X is the only way for advertisers can buy into the highest quality content on YouTube, integrating directly into top performing series across Condé Nast’s exclusive YouTube channels.

With the intention of providing the most culturally relevant videos in a brand safe environment at scale, Condé Nast’s Prime answers the needs of marketers in search of the highest quality video experiences, by offering new video programming lineups featuring new and returning series and aggregating and organizing the most popular videos by category. For advertisers, this means the ability to align with curated lineups of exclusive editorial video across 16 content verticals — such as fashion, food, and beauty.

Similar to Condé Nast’s announcement, probably the biggest takeaway from the Refinery29 session was the launch of Channel29, Refinery29’s OTT channel. Set to launch in Fall 2018, as a live and on-demand video destination available on connected-TV devices, smart TVs and the company’s existing digital platforms. Channel29 is designed as a new vehicle to reach engaged audiences with an expanded lineup of original news, entertainment and lifestyle programming — and shopping opportunities.

Twitter is back and it’s better than ever before. With 95% of brands scheduled to go big with live video this year, Twitter has finalized some incredible partnerships, feature updates and so much more. In preparation for this, Twitter announced the creation of Twitter Live brand studio. Think: Twitter teams combined with Tech Support to help with content creation, real-time analytics and more.

The Twitter session primarily focused on the platform’s presence with cultural relevance in sports conversations, music and entertainment and more importantly, how advertisers can be apart of these conversations.

Highlights

Multi-year partnership with NBCU Universal & its 7 brands will continue on Twitter to support live content

Black Twitter’s influence and the introduction of a new Twitter show, Power Star live.

House of Highlights LIVE will be launching on the platform this fall and is intended for celebrating big moments in sports.

Twitter + ESPN Partnership with the first show featuring Fantasy Football with the second focusing on Sports Center live.

NFL Live Show

LIVE NBA Show with The Warm Up continuing

In one of the final sessions of NewFronts, YouTube shared the specifics surrounding its extension of YouTube TV, including the new ability to advertise in Google Preferred Contact and accessibility to buy via DBM and AdWords. Beyond these updates,

Advertising in music videos will be available with Google Preferred Contact

Re-contracted with Coachella for the next three years for music festival live stream

Extension of Nielsen Catalina for sales lift studies

Overall, this year’s NewFronts lineup was jam-packed but more tightly focused on premium content companies.  Digital video’s presence and growth against linear tv amongst today’s marketing strategies was a consistent theme in each of the presentations. OTT (over-the-top) will continue to be a hot topic in the months to come, with evolving conversation centered around premium content that allows users to be apart of respective brand experiences.