SPH in digital partnerhip with NY-based Outbrain

Singapore

SINGAPORE Press Holdings (SPH) has inked a partnership deal with New York-based content discovery platform Outbrain to improve its online content and programming experience, as part of its commitment to boost digital publishing innovation.

"We are delighted to announce our partnership with SPH," Anthony Hearne, Outbrain's regional director, South-east Asia, India and New Markets, said in an announcement on Monday. "Together we will continue to drive digital publishing innovation in the region."

An SPH spokesman said that the agreement was signed last November and would run for 15 months from then.

It would enable SPH's digital offerings - such as AsiaOne, Stomp and Lollipop and the digital properties of The Business Times, The Straits Times and The New Paper - to deploy Outbrain's proprietary content discovery solutions on their platforms to showcase the most valuable content in real-time, allowing better engagement and monetisation.

For instance, Outbrain's widgets - which will be displayed on individual article pages and may be personalised - can recommend other contextually-relevant articles from the same publication or from sites beyond SPH.

"Internal recommendations will drive higher engagement, while external recommendations will drive higher revenue; we earn a revenue share on advertising budgets spent by other brands or sites whose content articles are displayed in our external recommendation widgets, for instance," the SPH spokesman told BT. "There is no investment here. We are partnering Outbrain's technology," he added.

Founded in 2006, Outbrain is said to be the world's largest content discovery platform, serving more than 190 billion personalised content recommendations monthly and reaching more than 561 million unique visitors globally. It has raised over US$99 million in venture capital and acquired three content discovering platforms since its inception.

Organisations that have engaged Outbrain's solutions include CNN, ESPN, New York Post, McDonald's and Singapore's Economic Development Board.

When asked about major trends in the media and digital publishing industry today, the SPH spokesman pointed to content recommendation and content marketing, both of which said came to light in the region over the last couple of years.

"Content marketing, in particular, plays a key role in engaging consumers with a less hard-sell advertising approach - writing an article about clean air vs selling an air freshener - so as to convert customers further down the purchase funnel.

"Publishers like SPH have the know-how in creating content that resonates well with consumers. Content marketing is just a way of marrying that with what the brands need," he added.

SPH shares rose S$0.01 to close at S$4.14 on Monday.