Buzzfeed, purveyor of half the world’s funny cat pictures, has grown astonishingly over the last year. Its 40m regular users lap up highly social aggregated meme and news content, rating, slating and sharing everything from animal gifs to quirky news stories.
Its audience is principally the much sought-after 18-34 demographic, and all in, its founders can be very pleased that they have created a powerful and lucrative ad-funded platform, which brands fall over themselves to create content for. None of this has escaped CNN, who are perhaps a surprise candidate to have taken their relationship a step further. The broadcaster this week launched a YouTube video channel in partnership with Buzzfeed, which will source around 3 stories per week from current and archive footage, that it believes will best resonate with the audience. For CNN, the potential to engage that younger audience is highly desirable – and in one fell swoop, the partnership should see CNN guarantee a certain level of viral for pretty much whatever content it puts up.
It’s a smart move, and may prove to be a highly cost-efficient and effective mode of advertising for the broadcaster. It wouldn’t surprise us to see other brands seek similarly deeper partnerships with the site…
M&C Saatchi Performance is an award-winning performance marketing firm focused on driving measurable results for organisations in all industries. Feel free to get in touch with us about your new project.
