The luxury and lifestyle-focused Coveteur is the latest media company to launch a content studio, called Coveteur Creative. First announced on Wednesday, the new arm makes official the client work that the company has been dabbling in since 2013, with brands including Chanel and Estee Lauder.
The Coveteur team has no immediate plans to add new employees to do the extended editorial work. Co-founders Stephanie Mark and Jake Rosenberg will continue to oversee the editorial side of things while also manning Coveteur Creative, and their 30 employees will now be tasked to work on both. That’s by design, per the company.
“The benefit of working with Coveteur Creative is that you have access to the same people who come up with the concepts for the site, who write the stories, style them and shoot them,” said Mark of this decision, though she didn’t rule out adding more photo and video staff over time to the core team.
Jessica Hart stars in a Coveteur campaign for Aerin’s The Rose Cologne
Despite this, the team is banking on the content studio to bring in up to 15 or 20 percent of its total revenue by the end of year one, CEO Warren Webster said. Their current annual run-rate is $8 million, he said, the majority of which comes from advertising — about half of which is native. The company declined to share revenue numbers.
“This doesn’t change the business model, but adds to it,” said Mark. “It’s just another way for new brands and already existing clients to work with [us].”
“Breaking [off the] content studio as a dedicated line makes it easier for media planners and buyers at agencies to understand the offering,” said Ashwin Deshmukh, the co-founder and director of insights at Hungry, a digital agency. “Coveteur are the cool kids, and likely have personal relationships with most of the clients they work with; this move is about scaling beyond that circle to unexpected and larger opportunities.”
The Coveteur team hopes that relying on the same staff that works on editorial will help them differentiate against competitors in the space like Conde Nast’s 23 Stories and the branded content arm of New York Media, which rely on separate teams. “We can offer direct access to our top editors as well as the co-founders of the business,” said Mark. “Typically, when media companies open content studios it’s a different team entirely and, while I’m sure our team will grow, there will always be input from myself and Jake which is rare to find, and a big selling point for clients.”
An image from Coveteur’s Lady Dior campaign
Past campaigns have included a video series for Reebok starring Gigi Hadid and an online editorial with Dior for their Lady Dior bag, both in 2016.
In addition to content creation, Coveteur Creative will offer services like social media strategy, copy and script writing and access to the network of buzzy influencers that have been featured on their site. Since the site’s launch 2011, that has included everyone from industry favorites Miranda Kerr and Christian Louboutin, to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Ad position: web_incontent_pos1
According to ComScore, Coveteur had 426,000 unique visitors in the U.S. in April, and the company claims 800,000 monthly uniques globally per Google Analytics. Their total audience across all platforms — digital, video and social — is said to exceed 3 million.
