ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

New York Times extends mobile presence to engage additional demographics

NEW YORK ? A New York Times executive at Mobile Marketer's Mobile FirstLook: Strategy 2015 conference said producing rich content and maintaining a multichannel presence has helped the media brand expand its audience demographic, with mobile being a key driver.

During the ?Content, Media and Publishing: Monetization and Advertising Challenges Loom Large? panel session, executives from The New York Times and Tumblr discussed how the best advertising efforts are sprouted from media brands? editorial content. Michael Barris, staff reporter on Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily, moderated the panel.

?We have to have a presence on platforms like Tumblr,? said Scott Stanchak, director of mobile marketing at The New York Times. ?It?s important that as we?re using these technologies, the effort makes our content accessible. 

?It?s a good place to find good, rich content, and our users can use the platform to express themselves,? he said.

David Hayes, head of creative strategy at Tumblr, also participated in the session.

Ongoing challenges
Media brands are still having trouble generating revenue for their content, but mobile is opening a door of opportunities to create engaging experiences, that also mirror as content, in the form of advertisements.

Mr. Hayes from Tumblr and Mr. Stanchak from the New York Times discussed progress from these challenges and how static ads serve as an ultimate disruption and how interactive ads can help drive engagement.

In addition to advertising, media brands are having to expand their presences on a multitude of channels to help increase readership. The New York Times has been a prestigious publication for many decades that has traditionally attracted an older, wealthier audience. However, its most recent products NYT Now and NYTCooking were created to attract younger, tech savvy audiences. 

The aforementioned multitude of channels includes Tumblr, which attracts predominately a younger audience but nonetheless hosts rich content, which is why the New York Times thinks it is necessary to maintain a presence on the platform.

Constant drive
Most recently, the New York Times launched an updated version of its real estate mobile application that leverages the features of the iPhone to reach an already considerable mobile audience for real estate content.
 
The app, redesigned for the first time since its 2007 launch, now combines the best real estate articles with the week?s most desirable properties on the market chosen by Times editors, in a continuously updated news stream paired with the ability to search for homes for sale or rent. The move continues the Times? effort to highlight its mobile properties to boost engagement with its content (see story).

The news publication, continuing to leverage its mobile properties to boost engagement with its content, offered free unlimited access for one week in October 2014 to NYT Now, a recently launched subscription product.

The promotion was tied to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication?s National News Engagement Day. It was the latest effort at the time by the venerable newspaper, known as America?s paper of record, to be where its core readers were as more and more people consume news on mobile (see story).

The news publication is also putting out ads to drive users to its apps.

The New York Times has recently implemented targeted advertising using social channels to take mobile app users back for more via a collaboration with data collector Gallop Labs in an effort to further engage with users. 

Starting in summer 2014, frequent users of the publisher's app could expect to see targeted ads on social sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, as executives looked to not only deliver the most personalized content to users but also the most targeted ads elsewhere. The strategy, which was executed in partnership with Gallop Labs, is one of the many ways that the New York Times ramped up its mobile strategy last year (see story). 

?There?s a ton of ways for brands and marketers to play nice with mobile and not spending too much on content development,? Mr. Hayes said.

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York