Vice expands video distribution to partner network

Vice Media is expanding the distribution of the original content it produces for brands using its video capabilities across its publisher partner network of sites which reach more than 130 million young adults globally.

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The new distribution platform, Vice Player, will tailor editorially relevant content to the best-suited digital publishers and platforms across its “AdVice” network, which beyond Vice’s own sites include PFSK, The Poke, Idol Magazine, The Onion, The Quietus and Sharemyplaylists among others.

Vice Player will also allow for video content created by its publisher partners to be syndicated across the network.

Vice says the platform was designed to address the “increasing gap” in the market between large video aggregators – such as Vimeo and Dailymotion.com – and “huge publisher audiences” and to allow brands to reach a new and bigger user base they may not have been able to reach by going direct to other publishers.

Brands that do not want to invest in expensive original content series can also reach the AdVice audience via “premium video advertising” – such as pre-roll and post-roll – and traditional online display around existing content created by Vice and its partners, which will be syndicated across the network of sites.

AdVice general manager Dan’l Hewitt says: “The reason we are doing this is that we want to create more pre-roll inventory as we sell out every month against the content we create. YouTube is really important but it’s also important for us to maintain and control our content on our channel platforms and how we syndicate that out to partner sites.”

While brands have invested heavily in targeting technology to reach the right types of audiences, Hewitt says the majority of online ad content is still not engaging users.

He adds: “Fundamentally we want to tell the best and share the best stories. Traditional media is not doing that for a younger audience at the moment. The returns on traditional media are diminishing because it’s less interesting and users are suffering ad blindness; TV formats are all derivative of themselves now and the majority of large portals and aggregators are just sharing content rather than creating it themselves.”

Vice has invested in video content for some years, creating its own in-house investigative journalism pieces on subjects as far reaching as “The Vice Guide to North Korea” to programmes for its “Noisey” music channel. The publisher has also created a number of branded content series for advertisers such as Intel, Marshall, General Electric and Ford.
Video advertising grew 46 per cent year on year to £160m in 2012, accounting for 12 per cent of online and mobile display spend, according to the latest IAB/PwC digital ad spend report.

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