Gustavo Serrano y Josh Fromson Buzzfeed
The global online entertainment company Buzzfeed also had a place on VidCon. In its Getting to know Buzzfeed presentation, Gustavo Serrano, director of Content & Strategy & Global Publishing, along with Josh Fromson, SVP of Agency & International Partnerships of Buzzfeed, described the keys and strategies needed – from their publishers’ point of view – for scoring a victory with digital content. Buzzfeed.com won 300 million viewers in 2022 and 20 million repeats in the same year. Serrano began by sharing the experience of bringing the brand to Mexico seven years ago and its expansion across Latin America over the past two. With their platforms Tasty, Complex and Buzzfeed, they apply a strategy with three central axes. The first is to generate experiences through content: This is not about attracting people with good copy – social networks now offer a lot more,” Serrano said after describing the successful case they had with Sprite, for which they managed to keep updating the subject of diversity not just for a month but for the whole year. The second axis, the community, is all about understanding the audience with the help of data science tools, which allow them to find the insights for creating relevant content for the public. And finally, as the third axis he mentioned the content itself as the fundamental area of their strategy, and gave the example of a rather unconventional interview with Argentine rapper Niki Nicole, which won 3 million views in just a couple of hours: “That was not by chance!” Meanwhile, Fromson insisted on the importance of data and the way they apply it on each of their platforms. He explained the value of Lighthouse, their data service tool, which allows them to create better campaigns and branded content, the principal basis of their business model. The presenters also unveiled their latest project for developing long-form content at Buzzfeed Studios, where they have already created content for Peacock, Netflix and Amazon. One of their films, A Book of Love, was produced in Chiapas under the direction of Analeine Cal y Mayor. “More growth is coming to Latin America, it’s a very important market for the group,” Fromson said.
