With the growth in branded content showing no signs of abating, the Irish Times has launched a dedicated stand-alone unit to create content for brands and clients.
Called the Irish Times Content Studio, the new unit is headed up by Gary Quinn, a senior editor within the company, and was officially launched this week with a view to “reinvigorate the sponsored content landscape with solid journalistic content written, researched and developed by an experienced editorial team. The Content Studio will also drive the evolution of the Irish Times multi-media footprint, crafting brand stories worth sharing, worth experiencing, and worth evolving.”
According to Quinn, the Irish Times Content Studio will continue to build on the decades of commercial publishing the Irish Times has created a strong, ethical, editorial unit that will champion commercial brand stories across all platforms.
“Dynamic, experienced and creative, it aims to dominate an industry that is rapidly changing. In the digital age, quality counts more than ever and the Irish Times Content Studio resets the benchmark for what quality in brand content advertising means,” he says.
As part of the new offering to brands, an important aspect will be the way in which brand content is discovered by audiences on irishtimes.com. A strategic content promotion plan has been introduced allowing greater visibility of branded content within the main news stream on the homepage and on the various landing pages. This will be supported by a new social media strategy to ensure brand content reaches a much wide audience says Quinn.
“Commitment to innovation in publishing excellence is nothing new to the Irish Times, and this, the latest development, has been built with the customer in mind – both brand and audience. Since 1859, the Irish Times core purpose has been to produce content that is trusted, appropriate and engaging, values that have not wavered in over 150 years,” he adds.
