There’s a maxim that to reach the consumer in our fragmented media environment content has to be available everywhere. Many media companies have attempted that by making costly investments in dedicated streaming platforms and exclusive content deals. But one high profile company is turning heads and driving revenue with a different tack. A+E has created a far-reaching yet unified “A+E Everywhere” ecosystem. While their content runs across myriad touchpoints – linear, MVPD, vMVPDs, FAST channels, and more – they consciously chose to skip their own streaming set-up.

Even with that intentional strategy, the media brand has accrued staggering scale, reaching nearly two-thirds of U.S. TV viewers each quarter. “We took a gamble years ago, and it’s paid off tremendously,” explains Stacie Danzis, Senior Vice President, Digital Ad Sales.

Danzis described their distribution approach as a “community garden” – running counter to how some competitors are walling off content. For those that have streaming services, she mentions, “It’s hard to keep their content pipeline fresh and vast, stay competitive with subscription prices, push viewers to an ad tier, let alone the expense to buy sports rights. So, by using the community garden approach, we’ve seen great success and growth – especially with CTV and FAST – and an expansion from 10 to 15% in all of the major demos this year.”

Another plus: given that the company owns the lion’s share of their inventory everywhere, A+E can provide partners with the reach and branding of traditional TV, the targeting and measurement capabilities of digital, and ever-more sophisticated outcome guarantees.

Particularly exciting to Danzis, is that A+E’s community garden approach also unlocks “uniques” – and unique opportunities for client activations across its broad video ecosystem. “By placing our content in as many places as possible, we have little overlap in the audiences…almost like a mini aggregator. If you look at vMVPDs, for example, we know that if you’re a Philo lover you’re probably not also watching on Sling or on DIRECTV. So, when you put together all of the different endpoints that we’re on, it’s much more than ‘1 + 1 = 2.’ It’s a ‘1 + 1 equals many.’”

Pair this “Everywhere” ecosystem with ownership of over 2000 hours of bespoke premium content this year alone and it adds up to more flexibility and leeway to be more creative around sponsorships.

She offers an example from last year’s holiday programming on their female-focused brand, Lifetime. Princess Cruise Lines was able to extend its reach through a multi-faceted sponsorship that ranged from a digital holiday hub featuring a custom travel guide with editorial on cruise destinations, to a rich media movie playlist of travel-themed holiday movies. The media also included prominent integrations, a curtain raiser, credit squeeze and even social carousel posts that promoted holiday cruise destinations while also driving tune in.

She gives the example of some shows and verticals that have been successful year after year, season after season, that people can’t get enough of, such as curated channels like Crime360 and Lifetime Movies and even single series like Mountain Men or Storage Wars. These are all top performers. “They just knock it out of the park. Our curated channels also pull in different audiences, whether it’s car enthusiasts or crime lovers.”

To bring sponsors along on the A+E Everywhere FAST ride, she describes how Dance Moms is back “in a major way” after a hiatus. The reboot kicked off with a new streaming hub in April, followed by a 2-hour reunion special on May 1 and more than 11 hours of new digital content including in-depth midform exclusives with the Dance Moms cast on the set of the reunion.

The breadth and distribution of the Dance Moms FAST channel on Roku, Samsung TV Plus and Plex was an important deciding factor for Maybelline before they signed on as lead sponsor of the fan favorite IP. A+E creatives built out a multi-platform experience that included sponsoring digital-exclusive content across Lifetime apps, website, and YouTube. Maybelline was also the launch partner for the Dance Moms streaming hub that launched in April; and was featured in custom social videos where talent recreated looks from the show across Tik Tok, Instagram and Facebook.

For Maybelline and others, Danzis adds, “Our model of ownership and distribution allows us to provide diversity, or to be as targeted as possible with all of those different components.”

“We know if clients are going to aggregators, or even large portfolios, they might not know what percentage of their media is actually running on a certain network publisher, or even if it’s running in content versus just sitting on a home page,” points out Danzis. “However, when you partner with us, that’s not a concern since we own all of our content and all the IP that goes along our shows. So, we pride ourselves on being able to offer transparency and being open and honest.”

Since KPIs vary on a client-by-client basis, being able to both sell across all touchpoints efficiently and easily on a precision basis is also key. So, the company is highly focused on programmatic advances – from an agency or partnership standpoint and also on their reseller business. “We’ve seen huge growth in programmatic buying, not just because it’s automated and sometimes easier, but also because of those targeted audiences that people are looking to reach.”

“But,” she adds emphatically, “we want to make sure that we offer all of our clients, especially on the agency side, purchase paths that make sense for them. So not only are we selling direct IO business, but we’re also selling programmatic guaranteed deals, biddable guaranteed deals and certainly a lot of growth in PMP as well: buying their media the way it suits their client. We’re also not a company that reserves specific inventory that’s available to our programmatic marketplace. It is available for all. We are welcoming of any purchase path.”

Base Rationale

In addition to the appeal of transparency and being purchase path agnostic, the A+E Everywhere footprint equates to an audience scale that can, as Danzis puts it, “play ball with the ‘big 4.’ We reach two-thirds of U.S. adults across our linear and digital platforms,” Danzis notes. “That’s scale comparable to larger partners, but with the nimbleness and client focus that dwarfs smaller players.” It should also be noted that while ad-supported streaming tiers have generated buzz, their actual video ad impressions to date remain relatively small compared to A+E’s substantial unified audience footprint.

So, yes, most major advertisers should and will continue investing with media’s biggest players, but Danzis argues that adding A+E to the mix creates a powerful balance and cost efficiencies. “Our scale can offset the high pricing you’ll find with streamers in those mega-deals. And our consultative, white-glove service from specialized teams like digital, programmatic, Precision and Performance and advanced analytics adds even more value.”

The ongoing goal for A+E being everywhere and offering something for everyone? Make things easy for their advertising partners – from measurement to ease of understanding of new currencies, from frequent innovations to enabling reach and frequency. And to always have their finger on the pulse of what’s trending so they can continue to innovate to drive their clients’ business forward.