Ooh!Media CEO Brendon Cook says now is the time for the business to expand its commercial offering across the company's youth media platform Junkee, as it looks to capture the lucrative Gen Z audience.
Speaking to AdNews, Cook said the company has spent the last 12 months conducting extensive research into the Gen Z audience, those born between 1995 and 2010, using that data to commercialise its newer platform Punkee.
Launched in May 2017, the platform has grown through a heavily backed social media strategy and has targeted Gen Z audiences through video, illustrated and other short-form content.
The amplificiation strategy, soon to be launched by Ooh, will be a combination of native content contributions into the platform, driven through a targeted out of home strategy.
"What we have been doing with Punkee over the last 12 months has really been about building out and developing audience engagement. Now it's about driving the commercialisation of that Gen Z audience," Cook says.
"We aren't just talking to major advertisers either, but instead we are putting forward a strategy showing different ways that a variety of brands can speak to this audience through our content."
Speaking on Junkee overall, Cook said the platform continued to grow as Ooh built out the team in both editorial and native content, adding more journalists on the team.
"Writing that content goes in two ways for us, one it's in general journalism that has increased in our reader engagement and continues to grow strongly and secondly, our capability to deliver very strong creative and native content contributions into the platform is also performing at a high level," Cook says.
Cook is also confident that this strategy will provide Punkee with a "tremendous opportunity" to be the number one Gen Z delivery medium in Australia.
Junkee is not alone in its quest to lock down this market, facing fierce competition from the likes of Pedestrian's Gen Z platform PEZ, BuzzFeed and the recently launched Nova Entertainment mobile-only site, Goat.
"Clearly we have grown our audiences in Punkee and we've done a great job in making sure we have improved the data capability and transparency capability we have," Cook says.
"What what we'll be taking to the market about soon is a combination of Junkee's products online, social media capabilities and out of home amplification of both ads and content."
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