Fortune writing articles for advertisers

Lucia Moses of Adweek writes that Fortune magazine has a deal where it is writing some articles for advertisers.

She reports, “Fortune is rolling out a new response to this dilemma in the form of a program called Fortune TOC—Trusted Original Content. Similar to licensed editorial content, TOC involves creating original, Fortune-branded editorial content (articles, video, newsletters) exclusively for marketers to distribute on their own platforms. The publisher has set a price range from $250,000 to $1 million.

“‘As marketers fight to engage with users [and] readers in a noisy, competitive world, marketers have all become publishers,’ said Jed Hartman, group publisher of Time Inc. news and business, with oversight for Fortune. Capital One has signed on as the first client, using Fortune to create content about small-business strategies.

“TOC represents the first formalized process by a Time Inc. title to make good on outgoing CEO Laura Lang‘s promise of ‘next-generation’ advertising products that join its magazine content with marketing in new ways. Time Inc. titles like People and InStyle have run ads that combine their own content with an advertiser’s message.

“‘There have always been ways to license content,’ said Paul Caine, evp, chief revenue officer and group president, advertising at Time Inc. ‘But what’s emerged is the ability for advertisers to populate their owned and earned media with our content. That’s part of what some of these solutions represent. What we need to do is create easy ways for them to get to our content.’

“While brand-created content has gotten better, it often falls short of quality editorial product. By creating the TOC edit, Fortune ostensibly will avoid that pitfall.”