Buzzfeed was one of the first media giants to present at the IAB's New Fronts in New York overnight, and while there wasn't a raft of announcements, the media company has set its sights clearly on Facebook's Live video offering and ensuring advertisers know it's “open for business”.
Ad Age reports that while the event didn't deliver a lot of news from the media company, president of the business, Greg Coleman, declared "If you haven't figured it out, we are open for business" with the publisher aiming to work with brands that are interested in integrating in three areas: shows, specific subjects it covers or verticals, and themes.
The publisher is also looking to work with brands who want to help it crack Facebook Live. Buzzfeed recently dabbled with the new Facebook offering, live streaming a video of two people attempting to explode a watermelon using rubber brands.
Buzzfeed's CEO, Jonah Peretti, referenced the offering at the New Fronts, outlining that its Facebook Live event drew an audience of 800,000 concurrent viewers.
Peretti explained that this was exciting for the publisher because it's the first time the business has had a number comparable to TV.
Buzzfeed's presentation comes just a few months after CMO, Frank Cooper, told the interactive festival at South by Southwest (SXSW) that the publisher was rolling out a beta test for all its advterisers of its Swarm offering.
Swarm is Buzzfeed's 360-degree ad offering, which allows brands to roll-out branded content across all of Buzzfeed's assets.
Cooper said at SXSW: “[We thought] What if we open up an opportunity where all the levers are pulled, and where our advertisers can participate.”
“Coming out of that strategy, was a product called Swarm. Swarm is our 360 cross-platform strategy that was designed to light-up our entire network in a big coordinated way, for a condensed period of time,” he added.
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