Bonnier Corporation Selects Wibbitz to Power Automated Video Production
Special-interest publishing giant is an early-stage user of Wibbitz’s new Listicle Format for over 15 brands
New York, NY(14 Jun 2016)
Wibbitz, the leading automated text-to-video company, today announced that it has partnered with Bonnier Corporation, one of the largest special-interest publishing groups in America. Bonnier has selected Wibbitz’s automated video creation platform to scale production for more than half of its properties. The partnership expands Wibbitz’s footprint in the U.S. publishing market and brings premium, short-form video content to Bonnier’s roster of diverse brands.
Bonnier is positioning its portfolio of unique brands at the forefront of digital video innovation, leveraging the Wibbitz platform to automatically create fully-branded video content for its owned-and-operated sites and social platforms. Wibbitz powers video for over 15 of Bonnier’s popular outlets including Popular Science, Motorcyclist, Islands, Cycle World and Honeymoon Destinations. Through the partnership, Bonnier will significantly increase its video inventory, better monetize its original content, and meet consumers’ growing demand for short-form video on both desktop and mobile.
“While our readers may be interested in specific and unique content, we’ve found that their appetite for digestible and visually rich stories is on par with that of most mainstream news publications’ readership,” says Sean Holzman, Chief Digital Revenue Officer at Bonnier. “Wibbitz’s platform allows our editorial teams to quickly create a variety of dynamic videos without adding additional resources or costs. We’re confident that this partnership will help support our investment in producing high quality video content for our targeted audiences, while creating new revenue opportunities across our sites.”
Bonnier was one of Wibbitz’s first partners to adopt the company’s Listicle Format tool into the core of its video strategy. Listicle articles are huge drivers of traffic for digital publishers, but creating videos to supplement the text requires time, skills, and resources that many can’t spare within their staffs. The Listicle Format tool eliminates this problem, giving publishers the ability to automatically create videos that visualize list articles. Publishers can quickly publish a video to enhance engagement and capitalize on high traffic listicle article pages. Bonnier has implemented the solution to create 'best of' listicle videos, ranging in subject from motorcycles to beachside wedding locations.
“Every media company is expected to have premium video today, but establishing a strong video strategy is still a challenge for publishers,” says Zohar Dayan, Co-founder and CEO of Wibbitz. “Our platform has proven to be a critical asset for publishers with highly specific audiences to compete in the market, especially as demand for mobile-friendly video content grows. We developed our Listicle Format so that publishers can overcome challenges with creating relevant video for niche content, and are thrilled to have the leader in special-interest publishing on board as one of our early adopters.”
Bonnier joins Wibbitz’s existing network of over 100 international publishing brands. On average, Wibbitz’s partners achieve a 60% increase in video views and a 90% increase in published videos each month. Wibbitz secured $8M in its last funding round and has expanded its U.S. footprint partnering with publishers such as USA TODAY Sports, Hearst and ViralNova.
About Wibbitz
Wibbitz provides publishers with a text-to-video creation platform that repackages text content into engaging, short-form video summaries within seconds. It supports simple and scalable video production for thousands of videos each month. Wibbitz has offices in both NYC and Tel Aviv. For more information, visit www.wibbitz.com or follow via Twitter @Wibbitz.
About Bonnier Corporation
Bonnier Corp. is one of the largest special-interest publishing groups in America, with more than 30 multichannel brands extending into all platforms including magazines, digital media, events, and product licensing. Bonnier Corp.’s brands include Popular Science, Saveur, Field & Stream, Popular Photo, Yachting, Flying, Salt Water Sportsman, Cycle World, Working Mother, and Outdoor Life. Bonnier Corp. is owned by Swedish-based Bonnier AB, a multichannel media conglomerate operating in 15 countries.