Condé Nast Unveils Expanded Digital Video Slate During NewFronts

The digital media company Condé Nast unveiled a slate of new video offerings, ad products and experiential franchises at its NewFronts presentation this morning in The Spiral at Hudson Yards, furthering its embrace of business lines that extend beyond its core editorial product.

Speaking to a room of marketing executives, global chief revenue officer and president Pamela Drucker Mann laid out her vision for the digital-first future of the company.

“Our cultural calendar allows marketers to activate across every cornerstone of culture,” Mann said, “and today we are announcing over 300 new pilots across 55 brand channels in 11 countries.”

Among a litany of announcements, several key products stand out, including new original video series, a continued expansion into the world of sports, a growing portfolio of international events, key video partnerships and two new ad products.

Expanded digital video slate

Condé Nast has leaned heavily into digital video in recent years, and its new slate of original series served as the cornerstone of its NewFronts presentation.

The company announced the return of over 230 original series, including Wired’s Autocomplete Interview, Vogue’s Beauty Secrets, GQ’s 10 Essentials and AD’s Open Door, which collectively drove over 700 million views last year, according to Agnes Chu, the president of Condé Nast Entertainment. 

The company also teased the debut of a variety of new series, which are rooted in the distinctive brands that make up its portfolio.

From Vanity Fair, A List with Franklin Leonard will feature a rotating cast of celebrity interviews, while Final Fitting from Vogue will accompany brides as they find their perfect wedding dress.

Home At Last, from Architectural Digest, will follow Queer Eye’s Tan France as he builds his dream home, and Street Eats will join chef Lucas Sin as he explores the food of Hong Kong for Bon Appétit.

Finally, The Mort Report will enlist street stylist Mordechai Rubinstein to chronicle the biggest looks in fashion.

Continued expansion into sports

Building off of its inaugural foray into the world of sports, Condé Nast will lean further into the space through a variety of new franchises.

GQ Sports, in particular, will bring back its Men of the Year activation, which took place at The Super Bowl and crowned its first honorees: Deion Sanders, Derek Jeter and Allen Iverson.

The publisher will also expand into the world of women’s sports, with special activations planned to coincide with the Women’s World Cup this summer. 

A doubling down on live events and Vogue World

The presentation followed just days after The Met Gala, which has grown into an experiential tentpole for Vogue, along with its Vanity Fair Oscars party in March, which generated 14 billion media impressions, according to Mann.

The company, hoping to build on the success of the fashion extravaganza, last year debuted its first original experiential franchise, Vogue World. 

Mann said that Condé Nast plans to host Vogue World on an annual basis going forward, moving cities each time. This year, the event will be a theatrical production held in London, and in 2024 the event will occur in Paris to coincide with the Olympics.

“London is not only the heartbeat of British fashion, but home to a cultural scene that is wonderful, experimental and truly one of the best in the world,” said Anna Wintour, the chief content officer of Condé Nast and the global editorial director of Vogue.

New partnerships reaching new audiences

As an extension of its video efforts, Condé Nast announced a handful of key partnerships with connected television partners and the social platform TikTok.

The company will unveil a brand channel for Architectural Digest on Roku, and it has expanded its roster of streaming partners to include Sling, Amazon Fire and Tubi. 

To better reach audiences on TikTok, Condé Nast has also entered into a partnership with the company to execute a campaign with Coca Cola. 

TikTok has not previously had a CPM product, although earlier this week it announced its plan to share 50% of the ad revenue generated through its Premium Pulse product with publishers.

New ad products and services

Finally, Condé Nast officially unveiled a handful of new ad products and services that were first reported last year by Adweek.

Inside Story will bring the creativity of the Condé Nast editorial team to bear on its branded content offerings, infusing the campaigns with the same sensibilities its editors bring to their work.

The company also announced the launch of Condé Nast Consulting, which offers brands access to the insights the company has gleaned through its first-party data and decade of digital expertise.

“We don’t make content,” Mann said. “We make culture, and in turn we make history.”