Dive Brief:
- The Washington Post has a unit that is tasked with creating new digital ad products, and the second it has released in three months, called PulsePost, combines brand media with Post article recommendations.
- PulsePost effectively makes the advertiser a recommendation engine for the reader.
- The digital ad unit, called the Red team, is headed by director of ad product and engineering, Jarrod Dicker, a relative newcomer to the Post, joining the media company a little over three months ago.
Dive Insight:
The Washington Post, owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, has been making strides in its digital offering, even surpassing The New York Times in unique visitors in October for the first time.
About the Red team and The Washington Post’s digital approach, Dicker told Ad Age, "We're investing so much in doing things ourselves, and being proprietary, especially in the ad-tech department." He also said, "I kind of feel like the Post is going to be the first legacy media company that's going to be viewed as an emerging media company."
WellsFargo signed up as the first customer of the new PulsePost ad unit which shows viewers the brand's media along with a carousel of Post content recommendations. Dicker described the product to Ad Age, saying, "What I really like about this one is that the advertiser is really starting to become the recommendation engine for a particular user."
The Red team’s previous new product, FlexPlay, was released in early November and uses technology to optimize five to 10 seconds of video ad content, turning it into GIF and mp4 flexible size formats.
The Washington Post has also embraced mobile sharing of its content through Apple’s Instant Articles, announcing in September that it would share everything it publishes, including 1,200 daily articles and wire reports, on the app.