It’s a news brand with a rich history, and now BBC Worldwide has relaunched its North American news website to include the latest in high-impact ad units and greater navigability for users.
The relaunched site, announced yesterday, was designed with three goals in mind, Miranda Cresswell, SVP, BBC.com North America, explains: to create enhanced opportunities for advertisers in Canada and the US, increase ease of use for visitors and encourage more video consumption.
‘It’s marrying what our audiences are looking for from us – and that always comes first – and figuring out how to help our advertising clients take advantage of that,’ she says, noting that BBC Worldwide Canada handles ad sales internally and does not sell inventory through networks. BBC Worldwide Canada is a subsidiary of the UK-based BBC.
BBC.com is rolling out a new ‘XXL’ ad unit, which offers users page-turn functionality and video capability, which it is first launching in the US with a Mercedes campaign. A Canadian advertiser has not yet been tapped for the launch of the new unit here, but Cresswell says the BBC hopes to retain some of the relationships it developed via its World Cup coverage – such as Infinity – with the new look and ad-unit functionality.
The redesign of the site, which has an average of 2.8 million unique visitors in Canada per month, includes new navigation functionality and a cleaner look with more white space, as well as more room for the day’s top stories. The video recommendation engine and carousel were redesigned to encourage users to click through and view more clips.
Later this summer, BBC.com will also launch a new travel site, which Cresswell says will include many more opportunities for advertisers, since travel is a more advertiser-friendly environment than news. The site will include, in a BBC.com first, the ability for marketers to skin the site, and sponsorship opportunities for destinations will also be available. The site will be launched in partnership with Lonely Planet.
‘Travel is already one of our top three advertising categories in the news business, so we are really excited about being able to give our advertisers more travel content to put their messages around,’ Cresswell says.
