Vox Media yesterday announced its sports brand SB Nation is "working with NBC Sports to both develop and distribute content, including a digital video series, related to 'Sunday Night Football,'" according to Jeremy Barr of AD AGE. NBCU last year invested $200M in Vox. Also, Concert -- a Vox/NBCU advertising partnership announced last month -- will "incorporate Google's programmatic advertising technology." AT&T "is Concert's launch partner." Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff said, "The biggest theme is that brands matter again. The signal to the audience that they are getting something authoritative, something that is authentic, something that is high-quality, is that brand" (ADAGE.com, 5/4). Meanwhile, ADWEEK's Tim Baysinger reported SB Nation and NBC's Telemundo will "create the first mobile, bilingual sports property." Vox is also "expanding its Snapchat presence to incorporate all eight of its brands" and will "move away from a 24/7 Vox channel in favor of a 'big events' format." Vox is "building out a studio dedicated solely to the social platform" (ADWEEK.com, 5/4). Bankoff said Vox is interested in "creating new types of products that could be sold to other distributors, whether that's programming to Amazon, Netflix, Hulu or cable networks" (WSJ.com, 5/4).
