Huffington Post Canada has launched an online travel series called Like a Tourist that features brand integration with the Hilton hotel chain. Launched under the HuffPost Canada Originals banner, Like a Tourist follows host Dan Rodo as he explores Canadian cities.
The series is comprised of eight episodes, as well as two custom episodes showcasing Hilton locations in Whistler, B.C. and Quebec City.
While both custom episodes are identified as sponsored content, they mimic the look and tone of the show’s non-sponsored episodes, said Rashida Jeeva, general manager of Huffington Post Canada.
“We incorporated Hilton into the look and feel of the series, but we worked with them so that whatever we do appears to be organic to the user, because it is,” said Jeeva. “It has the same look and feel, the same flow, so the user sees it as an organic experience rather than ‘Oh, it’s just a commercial for Hilton.’ It’s much more viewable.”
Huffington Post Canada is also distributing clips from Like a Tourist to its various social media channels. “It’s all about getting relevant content in front of a relevant audience,” said Jeeva. “Somebody on Instagram is looking at it differently than somebody on Facebook. It’s about making sure that Hilton’s message with us is seen beyond just our site.”
While acknowledging brands are increasingly creating their own in-house content units, Jeeva said Huffington Post Canada’s audience makes it a desirable partner.
“Everybody wants to work with brands like us because they know we have scale,” said Jeeva. “They can produce all they want, but if they don’t have the distribution mechanism that content doesn’t go anywhere.”
She said the potential for the branded content space was “enormous,” with the Huffington Post Canada experiencing year-over-year growth of 60% for its Originals video content during the January to June period.
Video also remains a key growth area for companies like Huffington Post Canada parent AOL.
In June, research company eMarketer reported U.S. digital video ad spending would grow in the double-digits through 2020.
In a white paper entitled Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2015-2020, Cisco said it would take an individual more than 5 million years to watch the amount of video that would cross global networks each month in 2020.
The report said nearly one million minutes of video content would be uploaded each second within the next four years, with video traffic representing 82% of all consumer internet traffic (up from 70% in 2015).
“There’s a consumer appetite [for video] that’s showing no signs of slowing down,” said Jeeva.
This is the second straight year Huffington Post Canada has produced original series. The company introduced three new online series in the past three months, two of which – Like a Tourist and the Scotiabank-sponsored real estate series I’m Sold Canada – have sponsors attached to them.
Like a Tourist and I’m Sold Canada are co-productions, while a third series – Salute, which documents four instances of mental and physical trauma in the Canadian armed forces – was created entirely in-house.
