Tom Gunter, the experienced co-founder of Avid Collective believes focusing on branded content can help solve the advertising revenue conundrum for many UK publishers.

“Branded content is unique because it enables businesses to speak directly to potential customers,” he said. “This makes it an incredibly powerful channel for advertisers.”

Whether it’s attracting youngsters with TikTok videos or reaching an older demographic through long-form articles, Gunter believes branded content can be a winner for everyone, including publishers.

“Advertisers connect with specific audience targets and publishers benefit from a lucrative source of income, while audiences don’t find these messages intrusive,” he said.

While there are numerous income streams open to publishers, including display ads and programmatic advertising, Gunter believes many of them actually irritate readers and viewers.

“The principal value of branded content is that it’s the least intrusive format for publishers looking to drive their advertising revenue,” he explained.

Value of branded content

Of course, the definition of branded content formats has broadened over recent years to embrace videos, social media posts and podcasts, as well as more traditional sponsored articles.

This includes everything from itineraries on travel websites to entertaining 30-second videos and in-depth articles published in printed and digital magazines.

However, Gunter doesn’t believe UK publishers are making the most of the branded content opportunities and that’s why Avid decided to launch into this market.

“The product we’re selling for the UK market is a bespoke, purpose-built platform that’s available as SaaS (software as a service) to publishers,” said Gunter.

It contains a suite of tools that are focused on either saving publishers money in the creation of branded content or helping facilitate a better client experience.

“It’s a very simple approach,” explained Gunter. “If we can save people money – or help them to make money – then that’s a good spot for us.”

Avid PubSuite solution

The digital tools are part of a platform known as Avid PubSuite and include everything from pre-sales engagement with advertisers to reporting on the performance of campaigns.

For example, there’s an initial advertiser shopfront that can be packed full of key resources such as new opportunities, products and reminders to enrich the potential sales interaction.

The advertiser shopfront includes customisable branding and the ability to load key resources such as new opportunities, new products and updates The focus is on enriching the initial sales interaction and deepening advertiser engagement with your masthead

Then there’s campaign builder, which features standardised products for the sales team to enable bespoke and automated media plans to be built for would-be clients, which transform tedious media plan building from hours to minutes

This is followed by amplification manager. This includes automating ad-set creation across multiple channels and data targeting if required, enabling branded content to be more competitive on plans

Campaign manager, meanwhile, supports every step of the production. “The client can also log in and collaborate,” explained Gunter. “This saves a lot of time in getting campaigns live.”

In addition, there’s automated reporting tools and content analytics that enable everyone to understand, compare and analyse various data points, also reducing publisher time spent on reporting back to clients. 

Memorable campaigns

Gunter, who is experienced in both the UK and Australian markets, is well-positioned to comment as he’s helped international publishers curate numerous memorable ad campaigns for clients.

He’s also been with Avid from the early days when it was making 30-second videos for small businesses right through to the signing of partnership contracts with global giants such as eBay.

“We realised we had a unique offering and a chance to educate agencies about all the fabulous content creators in this space,” he said. “For the last three years, we’ve focused on the background technology.”

For Gunter, the proudest moments have been connecting major brands with unique publishers that they may not have otherwise met.

“Often advertisers don’t realise some of the stories that can be told about their brand, and I think that’s probably one of the misconceptions about branded content,” he added.

He cited the example of work carried out with a tourism body which involved the publication of a bespoke magazine about the Gold Coast by a publisher called Signature Luxury Travel.

“The CEO was walking around the office showing everybody this beautiful content,” said Gunter. “There are many emotive ways to tell a great story and integrate the brand.”

Of course, it’s not foolproof. The key to success is for the branded content to be authentic as the publisher is effectively putting its reputation on the line with this kind of promotion.

“I think audiences have a clear understanding that their publishers have to make money but they will turn off if the endorsement alignment is very poor,” he added. 

Opportunities in the UK

According to Gunter, countries differ in their approach to branded content. Some, such as those based in the US, often favour global campaigns that can cost a small fortune.

Others, meanwhile, favour a more targeted approach.

“Australians will smell a global ad from a mile off, so you’ll need media teams working out how to make US content tangible to smaller markets,” added Gunter.

As far as the UK is concerned, the Avid team is currently on a research mission to establish the best ways to help publishers cut costs and boost revenue.

For example, Gunter’s initial findings suggest widespread concerns about how they can make enough money through advertising channels.

“Having seen a few of the big news sites, the unfortunate answer seems to be putting more ads onto the page, which turns customers and audiences off, and has a negative effect,” he said.

The role branded content can play

Looking to the future, Gunter believes branded content provides one pillar in a publisher’s future-proofing strategy as it’s something exclusive they can offer to advertisers.

“Branded content is a great way to provide something different to advertisers, but we’ve just got to make it a far more seamless and far more competitive proposal to agencies,” he said.

One area of focus is standardising the terminology used in meetings with agencies and making the whole category more accessible.

“We’re actively looking to work with as many publishers as we can,” he said. “The goal is to have really honest, open conversations to understand how we can help solve their problems.”

The post How publishers can use branded content to grow advertising revenue appeared first on Press Gazette.

Video must be an essential part of every publisher’s business strategy as it has the potential to become one of their top revenue earners.

That’s the opinion of Tom Pachys, co-founder and CEO of EX.CO, the publisher video technology platform used by international giants such as Nasdaq and News UK.

“The rise of social platforms like TikTok are forcing publishers to be where their audiences are and that means creating more videos,” he said.

Unfortunately, monetisation can be incredibly challenging for publishers and not fully within their control, he pointed out, which is why a plan is vital.

“Investing in a solid video strategy is the most important thing publishers can do – even before they think about making money,” he explained. “It will guarantee long-term independence and success.”

[Find out more about EX.CO and book a demonstration]

Video strategy for publishers

The starting point, according to Pachys, is figuring out how video can engage audiences on as many relevant pages as possible – and then deciding where it will be seen by the most visitors.

“Audiences today are most familiar with the vertical video format from social platforms and leveraging a vertical video player for the web can also give you meaningful traction,” he explained.

It’s the reason why EX.CO has just launched a new vertical video player that’s optimised for both mobile and desktop viewing.

“Vertical video players for the web is another big trend that will be capitalised upon, as many publishers want to replicate the engagement that they’re seeing on social platforms within their own mobile websites and apps,” said Pachys.

EX.CO’s player allows users to consume a seamless feed of vertical video content without the need to rotate their phones for a better view.

Meanwhile, familiar swiping gesture controls are maintained for maximum engagement so users can easily navigate between videos in the same way as social media apps.

How to get video content right

While making the videos accessible is obviously crucial, publishers must not overlook the videos they’re choosing to post, pointed out Pachys.

“It’s important to think about the content itself,” he added. “Are you showing videos that are interesting to your audience?”

Ideally, to be truly effective, videos need to be personalised, contextually relevant and complementary to the article that the user is reading.

Ensuring your video player and content is compliant with guidelines laid down by the industry bodies in various jurisdictions must also form part of this analysis.

Making the right calls over content can be particularly challenging during times of global conflict, the like of which we’ve been seeing over the past 18 months.

“Unfortunately, negative news cycles tend to scare away many advertisers who don’t want to buy media around these articles for fear of a negative association with their brands,” said Pachys.

However, it’s a viewpoint he’s keen to counter.

“This is actually a unique opportunity for advertisers because when audiences read news content, regardless of sentiment, readers are more leaned-in and more engaged,” he explained.

The key, he believes is better educating young media buyers so that they understand the adverse effects of blocking keywords and, in some cases, whole news sites.

“Publishers also have a unique advantage right now because negative news cycles inherently drive more eyeballs and they will likely post more content because of this, some of which will be in real-time,” he added. “The more videos they place on each page, the more revenue they could earn.”

He also believes that publishers should continue to “double down on what they do best”, which is high-quality journalism.

“They should also be investing in their audience data to determine which types of content perform the best and why, so they can deliver more of what their users want,” he said.

Biggest video strategy mistake

Unfortunately, not every publisher will get their video strategy right. According to Pachys, the biggest mistake is separating video content from video revenue.

“They often partner with several vendors that specialise in one but not the other,” he explained. “It might be the easier route for implementation and aligns with other departments that have different key performance indicators.”

Unfortunately, this approach often results in a “mediocre user experience”, sub-optimal revenue, and negative sentiment by advertisers.

“We’ve spoken to many publishers that work with legacy online video platforms that may serve many of the publishers’ video strategy needs, but don’t necessarily have advanced monetisation capabilities,” he added.

The second biggest mistake made by publishers is putting all their eggs in the social basket, pointed out Pachys.

“They’re concentrating so much on creating video content for social platforms that they lose sight of the fact that they can’t monetise there,” he said. “Publishers need to make sure they equally invest in the video content on their owned and operated sites.”

Generative AI and video strategy

Of course, the spectre of artificial intelligence is looming large over the entire industry and Pachys believes that publishers still wondering how to approach it may already be late to the game.

“They should stop being afraid and just find ways for AI to support them such as improving editorial workflows or assisting journalists with mundane tasks such as researching and checking sources so they can ultimately get stories out faster,” he said. “There are also start-ups that utilise AI to help organisations become more efficient by optimising meetings, tasks, emails, and more.”

More broadly, however, the current – and upcoming – waves of technological developments have left Pachys feeling very positive about the outlook for the coming year.

“Here in the US, we expect to see a significant uptick in monetisation around news, particularly with the 2024 election cycle becoming such prominent content that audiences will consume,” he said.

Pachys also believes there will be more short-form reels and live video streams appearing, as well as more dynamic contextual ads, AI-driven video content, and AI-driven verification tools.

“Publishers should invest in high-quality content that will engage readers and make sure they are working with one OVP that can help them navigate trends and rapid industry changes, and support their entire video strategy, not just one aspect of it,” he added.

[Find out more about EX.CO and book a demonstration]

The post How online publishers can turn video into a top revenue earner appeared first on Press Gazette.

After a digital overhaul, German national news site t-online remains committed to free online access with no plans to introduce a paywall.

Sven Scheffler, Chief Operations Officer of the site’s owner, Ströer Content Group, believes the media group has a duty to provide free information.

“We have a society that is drifting apart so it’s important to give people access to news, even when they’re not willing or able to pay,” he said.

He believes the key to success is attracting loyal readers and then selling advertising packages on the back of these growing audience numbers.

Of course, this is no easy task given the sheer number of rival online publications, not to mention the millions of people posting on social media platforms.

Major transformation of online infrastructure

This increasingly competitive environment was one of the reasons why the site underwent a major transformation to improve its journalism and website infrastructure.

The goal was straightforward: To produce a high-quality journalistic product that was effortlessly easy for the editors and reporters to constantly update.

This radical overhaul has seen a shake-up of its editorial team and news offering, as well as the introduction of a new content management system from Livingdocs.

“You need to provide great, reliable and trustworthy journalism,” said Scheffler. “If you’re able to build stories that are relevant to people with information they can trust, you will always play an important role in the daily life of your users.”

‘Germany’s most profitable publisher’

It’s an approach that seems to be working, with t-online claiming 31 million unique users every month, as well as around 400 million visits and 800-900 million monthly page views.

“For a general news publisher like us, it’s important to have a solid business model and we have ad-based monetisation,” explained Scheffler. “We are probably the most profitable publisher, at least in Germany, so we don’t see a reason to change the business model.”

The first task was improving the quality of the journalism, including the addition of talented new writers and editors, before attention switched to the technology side.

“Once we were on track and being quite successful with our journalistic efforts, we decided to modernise our technological infrastructure,” said Scheffler.

At this stage, the focus was on introducing a modern, headless CMS and integrating the company’s media library to make editorial department workflows more efficient.

Another priority was a browser-based editor to enable the site’s journalists to work from different locations, as well as a serverless architecture to help future-proof the entire operation.

While a number of options were considered, Livingdocs was chosen due to the ease of implementation and the fact that other services could be easily integrated.

“We knew a very easy-to-use and intuitive system for editors would support great journalism,” explained Scheffler. “It would give them more time to think about the stories they wanted to write.”

Instead of spending ages working out the mechanics of uploading copy, populating it with photographs, then publishing, the t-online team needed to focus on news.

“It has to be as easy as possible and that’s the Livingdocs approach, which is the main reason we went for it,” added Scheffler. “It means we are now a state-of-the-art publisher working with a reliable CMS that has proven to be not only innovative but also a market leader in the DACH region.”

From filing to publication in 44% fewer clicks

The CMS from Livingdocs includes a WYSIWYG editor for articles and pages, based on a collection of components that can be inserted with ease via drag and drop. Moreover, editors can seamlessly browse the integrated media library, as well as crop and resize images to fit, all without having to leave the article they are working on.

According to Scheffler, the number of clicks required to publish a new story has dropped by 44% as a result of the new system, while the time needed to produce an article has been reduced by 37%.

The site also moved from an on-premises approach to the cloud. This will enable it to expand as required, without the need to constantly update servers and the associated technology.

AI fuels headline suggestions and agency rewrites

For example, working with Livingdocs has enabled t-online to integrate various plug-ins, as well as artificial intelligence services used to produce and display stories.

These AI solutions include the use of headline suggestions and the rewriting of news agency copy into house style. Scheffler believes future developments can be easily integrated into the set-up.

Having a reliable CMS infrastructure has enabled t-online to showcase the talents of its editorial team better and establish the types of stories visitors want to read.

The site also takes full advantage of the various data sources that provide insights into the articles drawing readers’ attention. Understanding this behaviour is important.

What kind of stories are they reading? What makes them stop reading an article? Do changes need to be made to the site’s design or the writing?

“It’s heavily data-based as that’s what differentiates digital journalism from newspapers but never 100%,” said Scheffler. “For example, if our editorial team decides to go for a certain article or series of reports then they will do so without looking into the data.”

However, the data element is useful as far as general strategy is concerned because it guides both what readers want to see and how this also meets the needs of advertisers.

“If you’re good at understanding the needs of the users, you can design your content more to them,” he added. “The better it meets their needs, the more likely they are to visit and stay longer.”

There is also the question of striking the right balance between the interests of both readers and advertising clients.

“We don’t go with too fancy advertising,” he said. “Of course, it can grab attention, but the reader is looking for the news update, the comments or the video.”

Ensuring the reader remains the priority, therefore, is crucial.

Readers must really want to use your product

Looking to the future, Scheffler is very much aware that digital publishing is a fiercely competitive industry. The winners, he believes, are those who are properly prepared and supported by a future-ready technological setup.

“You will only be successful if you have readers that really want to use your product,” he said. “If you have a high number of users, you’re well prepared to meet the challenges of the future as you’re not dependent on social media or search engine algorithm changes.”

“Moreover, when your editors are working with the right CMS, they can create content more easily and better focus on the quality of their stories so that readers have access to an engaging product which they want to use time and time again.”

The post Why Germany’s most profitable news publisher is staying free online appeared first on Press Gazette.

Leading publishers including PBS and the San Francisco Chronicle are utilising AI-driven speech-to-text technology to streamline their production and turn words into text.

Speech to text platform Trint has been developed by former CBS news correspondent Jeff Kofman as a productivity tool for journalists inspired by his own frustrations juggling multiple tasks at speed.

Trint uses artificial intelligence to enable users to transcribe, edit, translate and share files easily.

This allows them to quickly search transcripts, pull out key quotes, generate closed captions, and collaborate with colleagues to share stories.

The technology is already being used by media groups including The Washington Post, Der Spiegel and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Helping editors quickly find broadcast snippets

The first is to identify key sections of interviews for use in broadcasts, something that would have previously been an arduous task. A broadcast interview might take 20 or 30 minutes, with only a minute of sounds actually broadcast. Trint helps editors to quickly find snippets.

Creating transcripts of the audio enables the NewsHour team to search through the copy and pinpoint exactly what’s needed for different packages.

Maintaining quality, despite the pressure to be first with breaking news, is also a prerequisite. Trint transcripts come back with well over 90% accuracy.

PBS also uses Trint for a secondary purpose: interviewing potential guests for its evening show to get a sense of what they might say in the discussion.

Putting the interview on the platform enables the audio to be swiftly converted into text. This transcript can then be forwarded for the approval of senior editors.

Finding ways to reduce the time spent manually transcribing interviews and speeches was the original inspiration for Trint founder Kofman.

The experienced broadcaster, whose 30-year career included stints as a foreign correspondent, had seen reporters coming under intense pressure.

“The demands are overwhelming,” he said. “I saw the opportunity to build a productivity tool that could make the workflow smoother, easier, faster.”

Kofman teamed up with developers to explore how the increasingly accurate output of artificial intelligence could ease the burden of transcription.

How Trint voice-to-text platform works

Artificial intelligence is at the core of the team’s offering. It uses automated speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) to decipher audio.

This is then converted to text within seconds, with Trint saying that a first draft, time-coded transcript can be 99% accurate.

Video or audio files, including mp3, wav and mov, can be uploaded straight into the software, while live transcription is also available.

The transcribed files can be easily searched, while a variety of highlight colours can be used to pinpoint specific quotes. Transcripts and ideas can also be easily shared between team members.

Saving time at Handelsblatt Media Group

One beneficiary of Trint’s focus on saving time has been Handelsblatt Media Group (HMG) in Germany.

Florian Hueckelheim, head of business editorial at Solutions, part of HMG, said in case-study on the Trint website: “If I compare Trint to the way I used to do interviews, I’m four times faster in bringing content from a recording or my notes to an article that can be sent to colleagues for review.”

Hueckelheim and his team now use Trint whenever they need to turn audio into text. This means a 40-minute interview between two or three people can take a fraction of the time.

“That way it takes me 30 minutes instead of maybe 120, 150 minutes,” he said. “It’s nice to see that there’s a solution that can handle this for us.”

The group’s editors also use Trint to transcribe their audio recordings into German, which is one of the 30-plus languages that the software can accommodate.

According to Hueckelheim, the German transcripts are “good enough to be very useful”, even if people drop a syllable or make up words during interviews.

“If you read a line that looks strange, you can easily jump to that sentence and listen to the recording again to correct it,” he explained.

Translation tools

The translation function has also benefitted the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), which enjoys an enviable reputation for journalism and ground-breaking storytelling.

Translating into Spanish and Russian have been among the requirements at Reveal News, the CIR’s national radio show and podcast.

Quoted on the Trint website, CIR senior editor David Ritsher said: “With Trint, we are free to transcribe and translate much more material, which helps us easily find better excerpts to use.”

He also praised the Trint’s ability to integrate with other platforms: “One of the critical strengths of Trint is its really powerful API,” he explained. “We were able to integrate Trint with the Media Asset Management system we use to overcome some internal challenges.”

Being able to collaborate effectively and reducing the time wasted are seen as additional benefits of using the platform. At CIR Trint as enabled reports to work more efficiently and focus on the content of reporting rather than on menial tasks associated with processing raw recordings.

San Francisco Chronicle: Security benefits for investigations

At the San Francisco Chronicle Trint is widely used by the podcast team: Every interview is put into Trint as a first step.

It helps the team edit their interviews more precisely by reviewing the transcript to decide which sections to cut and which to highlight, and how to fine-tune each episode.

It is also valued as security tool used by the title’s investigative team to ensure that the accounts of sources are kept securely

Feldberg also values its role as a security tool that has helped support the work of the organisation’s investigative team over the past year.

Trint acts as a single secure location for interviews with sources. It means that on sensitive stories, interviewees can be assured their data is safe.

Trint is fully certified to ISO 27001:2013 as set by the International Standards Organization to provide a global standard for information security management systems (ISMS). This is considered the platinum standard for data security as verified by SAM (US government vendor), the UK Crown Commercial Service (CCS) and Cyber Essentials.

Trint mobile app enables lives transcription in more than 30 languages

Trint has just launched their new industry-leading collaboration tool Trint Mobile Live. Mobile Live allows anyone working in a fast-paced news media or business environment to capture and transcribe audio from their phone and share with colleagues in real-time. All users need is the Trint mobile app installed for iOS or Android to transcribe it live in more than 30 languages. Mobile Live is an exclusive feature for Trint enterprise plans.

Free trial period for publishers‍

Trint is so confident that journalists and publishers will love the platform that it’s offering a week’s free trial without any need to share credit or debit card details.

There are starter and advanced packages available. Depending on the option chosen, users can transcribe, collaborate, create, share and publish their work.

In addition, there’s an enterprise option for organisations that have more complicated security, management and workflow requirements.

The post How PBS, San Francisco Chronicle and others are using AI-driven speech-to-text software appeared first on Press Gazette.