International publishing giant Condé Nast used its annual NewFronts pitch to advertisers this week to announce a big expansion of its video output, with 100 new pilots and 235 returning digital video series planned for the coming year, alongside increased live video output.
Many publishers are rethinking their video strategies, with some choosing to dial down their video output, given audiences’ increasing preference for ultra short-form video. Some publishers who previously found success with mid-length video on YouTube are struggling to replicate this success on the likes of TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Reels. And even for those who are finding strong engagement on those platforms, monetisation is a struggle.
But video has served Condé Nast well in the digital age. On YouTube, popular series from Condé Nast brands like WIRED’s autocomplete interviews and Vogue’s ’73 Questions’ series have racked up tens of millions of views for their most popular episodes.
As YouTube has put more emphasis on Shorts at the expense of these longer videos, these series don’t tend to perform quite as well as they used to. But the publisher remains committed to video – at the end of last year it merged its editorial and video teams, a signal of intent. And now the company is adapting its output to what works – with more investment in live content and vertical video.
Mid-length videos fade out
Despite the fact that historically strong video series across Condé Nast’s brands don’t pick up as many views as they used to, the publisher says video engagement as a whole is still growing. Total video views last year reached 20.9 billion across all platforms, up 41 percent on 2022. And Condé Nast brands have 86.7 million subscribers on YouTube, up 12 percent year-on-year.
Live streaming has played a big role here. Vogue’s live stream of last year’s Met Gala alone reached 1.5 billion global video views – so nearly 8 percent of all video views across all Condé Nast brands last year. Other live events covered by Condé Nast’s brands include coverage of the Oscars, as well as its own events such as Vogue World, Glamour’s Women of the Year, and GQ’s Men of the Year.
The company is therefore investing more in live. Vogue for example wants to increase its coverage of the Met Gala and Vogue World, while GQ plans to run an NBA Finals watch party live stream in partnership with ESPN.
There will also be more focus on vertical video within Condé Nast, notably within tech publication WIRED. WIRED’s global editorial director Katie Drummond said the publication is adopting a new vertical video-led editorial strategy and global newsroom that will span from technology and politics to culture and gear.
Condé Nast will continue running many of its more popular YouTube series too, including WIRED’s autocomplete interviews and Tech Support series, Vogue’s Beauty Secrets, GQ’s Iconic Characters, and Architectural Digest’s Open Doors. But it wouldn’t be a surprise to see this series become less and less of a focus. Collectively, all of these series generated 500 million global views last year – i.e, a third of the views delivered by the Met Gala live stream alone.
