Any launch is a challenge, but how’s this for a monumental one? A new lifestyle media brand aimed at the most discerning audience: metropolitan, creative, hyper-connected female millennials – young women who are mobile-first and who demand relevant, smart content fast. Oh, and add to that the vital need to work in a new way – adopting the agility and responsiveness of a startup – but within the confines of a large media organisation.
That was the challenge behind launching the Debrief last February.
But if the project started like any good startup should – a lean team led by myself and launch editor Hattie Brett retreating to a Post-it note-covered cupboard with a laptop, wine, an idea we were passionate about and 12 weeks to deliver it – it was rooted in the same thing that governs any of Bauer Media’s launches: rigorous consumer insight.
We’d already travelled around the UK interviewing 20-something urban females. We found they were less defined by gender than they’d once been, were shopping in a more considered way and ruled by a fear of missing out – always needing to have something to add to the conversation. But the most important learning? That The Debrief girl is glued to her mobile phone – 32% admitted they’d once rescued it from the loo – and in her digital landscape there was a clear opportunity to play for. The sites she visited were either too mass (yes, she went to the Daily Mail but so did her mum) or too niche (she was obsessed with the personal tone of fashion blogs) – but nothing offered her both the breadth of hard-hitting content and irreverent fashion that she felt spoke directly to her.
A year on, we’ve proven that by filling that gap – delivering smart, unique, unvarnished content 24/7 – it’s possible to build a loyal readership of exactly the millennials we were hoping to attract. By breaking news stories - such as our exposé of the Facebook group Women Eating On The Tube, which kicked off a mainstream media circus with everyone from Buzzfeed to the Independent linking to us – we’ve been able to achieve traffic figures far surpassing our targets.
Why the success? Primarily, it’s thanks to an innate understanding of delivering relevant content to our audience – at exactly the moment she wants it. The Debriefer checks Facebook for the news before she gets up, so our American Editor’s #whileyouweresleeping posts deliver. She’s looking for ballsy sex talk but not when her boss is there. Enter #sexoclock at 6pm. Then there’s #latenightreads for her iPad and when second-screening, it’s about stalking her day in a non-creepy way.
But we wouldn’t have seen consistent month-on-month growth without obsessively tracking metrics and constantly evolving the content. Realtime analytics are crucial: seeding of social content is paired with best-in-class strategy of keyword commissioning. Underpinning everything we write is an obsession with driving engagement. We currently boast a dwell time of three minutes.
As our audience evolves, so do we. While Facebook and Twitter are crucial, our audience are using a broader social mix and so must we. Our Snapchat partnership with Henry Holland gave users exclusive Snapchats backstage from London Fashion Week. We also gained 100k followers through our Viber partnership, and Vine is a key format for our beauty content.
The challenge we faced is that often the very hallmarks that make startups effective can be hard to replicate in a big corporate organisation. Working at pace, quick decision-making, creative freedom and room to make mistakes (that you ultimately learn from). Luckily, the brief we were given very much responded to the need for a different way of working. We were given space, freedom and autonomy and ultimately rewarded with quick decision-making, funds and resources. We’ve particularly benefitted from being part of Bauer Media from a commercial standpoint.
So far we’ve collaborated with likeminded brands such as Bacardi, Rimmel and Levi’s, working with them to create quality content we know is getting cut-through. 64% of our audience said they were interested in reading native advertising as long as it was relevant and engaging – proof that intrapreneurship is worth encouraging.
Lauren Holleyoake is the publisher of the Debrief
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