APN launches into content marketing

Rachael Micallef
By Rachael Micallef | 16 February 2015
 
Emotive team

APN News and Media has launched into the content marketing space, unveiling a new company to help brands “embrace their role as publishers”.

The company, Emotive, is backed by APN – which owns Australian Radio network (ARN) and Adshel – and will see former MD of Brand New Media and former CEO of MCM, Simon Joyce, at the helm as CEO and founder.

Emotive's foundation client is ARN's digital music platform iHeartRadio, with the partnership initially including the creation of original music content programs for brands.

Joyce said Emotive is a new model of content marketing which will help marketers inject emotion into content creation and therefore guarantee it hits the right audience.

“We know that emotion is the single most important motivator in purchasing decisions,” Joyce said. “APN, which includes ARN and Adshel, represents the ideal partner for Emotive. It is a forward-thinking business with real momentum, and having access to the large scale audience APN can provide enhances content distribution and differentiate the Emotive offering.”

Emotive is an independent business, meaning it can work with other clients. Along with Joyce, Emotive has several other new recruits including former co-founder of Boom Jamie Crick who is leading the business's content amplification offering, former Ensemble executive Charlie Leahy who is executive creative director, and former MCM CFO Ben Keep who is COO.

In addition, Alison Mitchell has joined as marketing and activation manager, Aimee Stewart is partnership director and former Razorfish executives Matt Merryfull and Dan Leon Krause are chief technology officer and digital director respectively. The company is still looking for a commercial director.

APN News and Media CEO Michael Miller said the partnership is part of APN's strategy of investing in growth categories.

“The rapid growth in content marking expenditure provides great upside for Emotive,” Miller said.

“APN's interest in Emotive will provide further integration and revenue benefits for all APN businesses and better results for clients.”

Speaking to AdNews last month, ARN CEO Ciaran Davis said he saw the iHeartRadio platform as “content marketing platform, not a streaming service”.

“It's not an add on to the radio but it's a content marketing platform,” Davis said. “We see the opportunity to grow our audience of iHeartRadio beyond our FM assets into other spheres, other genres of music, other activities.”

The news follows the announced of APN's 2014 full year results which saw ARN's business revenue grow by 18% year on year to $180.9million and EBITDA grew 14% to $66.5m.

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