Blue Ant Media has opened a New York sales office as it looks to build on its investment in the multichannel network (MCN) operator Omnia Media earlier this year.
Ryan Fuss, senior vice-president of business solutions for the Toronto media company, said the U.S. expansion provides a better conduit to global brands, enabling it to develop partnerships with its stable of YouTube content creators.
Blue Ant’s digital sales division offers access to more than 750 established and emerging YouTube content creators in three verticals: music, gaming and style. The AUX Music Network, gaming network Square One and style network Style Collective generate more than 800 million monthly digital views combined.
In addition to pre-roll and display ads, the office will offer custom integrations. The company has already signed Budweiser and Samsung for custom programs on the Aux Music Network and Style Collective MCNs.
The office will be led by Jason Cason, former director of partner development at the gaming-focused site Machinma. Jillian Bove, formerly senior manager of digital sales at New York-based influencer marketing company Style Coalition, is joining as an account director.
The announcement comes one day after Blue Ant announced a new summer concert series developed by AUX in partnership with the entertainment-focused loyalty card Scene.
Created in association with Scene and its media agency of record, Gaggi Media, the program includes digital video, custom content and social amplification leading up to live concerts for 200 people in both Toronto and Vancouver. The concerts will also be live streamed via both AUX and Scene’s Facebook pages.
The program is built around three phases, starting off with a national awareness campaign featuring advertising across AUX’s on-air and online properties, as well as its social solutions team.
The as-yet-undisclosed bands will be revealed during a two-part documentary series that will be promoted across the AUX Music Network—comprised of the AUX.tv website, content production arms and its digital iOS and Android magazine—while Scene will also feature content in select theatres across the country.
The second phase also incorporates Blue Ant’s new “dynamic native advertising” platform with custom content inspired by Scene’s foray into music.
The third and final phase will be the two concerts, which will be showcased via promoted tweets, exclusive video clips and Facebook ads. The concerts will be broadcast live from AUX’s YouTube channel.
The program makes ample use of Omnia Media, which is one of the largest MCNs on YouTube with more than 300 music-related channels. Omnia will play a “vital role” in providing reach for the program, said Jordan Bortolotti, director of digital solutions for Blue Ant in Toronto.
“This particular activation offers Scene the opportunity to reach serious music fans looking for contextually relevant content, rather than simply buying against a demographic or set location,” said Bortolotti.
He called the program a “great indicator” of the power of a media/advertiser partnership. “When a brand can enable fans to have once-in-a-lifetime experiences, power content they’re actively looking for on social spaces and push to us to expand our capabilities or evolve, it’s a big win for everyone,” he said.
The initiative is the first from Blue Ant’s newly established experiential content marketing division, which Bortolotti said gives the company the ability to bring bands to life.
“If we’re already spending brand dollars to bring experiences to life on camera, we believe fans should be able to participate in this activations,” he said. “Great content is about connecting people with their passions, and this new offering gives us the chance to do that at scale.”
Additional experiential content plays are slated for 2015, he said.
The program was assembled over several months, with Gaggi approaching Blue Ant directly rather than entering into the standard RFP process. “We all know that with condensed timelines and such a fast-paced media environment, the RFP process is broken,” said Bortolotti. “That’s where strategic partnerships with vendors are so important. Gaggi knew there was a great fit and let us craft the perfect solution for their clients’ objectives.”
