Forbes is seeing growth in branded content

Branded content accounted for 40 percent of the revenue Forbes generated from its direct advertiser relationships last year, reports Max Willens of Digiday.

Willens reports, “Through the first half of 2019, Forbes has produced and distributed more branded content — over 400 pieces of text, video and social content — than it did through the entirety of 2018. Though Forbes had a hand in producing most of the content, it is also using its distribution channels to share content its clients create as part of its research as well.

“BrandVoice, the content studio Forbes launched in 2010, has done this by merging with Forbes Insights, its research and analytics arm. Forbes Insights once operated as a separate line of business, helping clients with custom research. But combining the two operations together has led to record growth for BrandVoice, thanks both to brands’ growing content needs and to a unified sales staff that can begin pitching clients on multiple ways of working together sooner.

“‘We do think about extension quite a bit,’ Forbes Media CRO Mark Howard said. ‘We have a single distribution channel, and either of those products, [Forbes- or brand-created] can flow through.'”

Read more here.