New Vice Media takes shape around updated website, inclusive approach to brand safety
Following rounds of layoffs and promises to consolidate its digital properties over the last six months, Vice Media has reorganized to focus around discoverability and inclusion.
Vice is streamlining its website and adding monetizable vertical videos
Key brands such as Munchies, Noisey, Motherboard and Vice News will no longer have stand-alone sites, but will have dedicated verticals on the new Vice.com. Vice is also closing stand-alone sites for brands such as Tonic, Waypoint and Vice Sports, which will be rolled into the new Vice website.
Vice is also launching vertical video features called Vice Stories. Vice made an earlier bet on similar vertical TV-style shows on Snap; now the company plans to leverage vertical videos on its own platform and sell custom ad units for the product.
Among its new and renewed originals, Vice is bringing back The Vice Guide to Everything to mark the company's 25th anniversary. The company will produce a series of 25 guides on a range of topics across its digital properties.
Brand safety
Vice is unblocking a list of 25 'blacklisted' terms with the aim of running more ads on trustworthy content and promoting inclusivity.
Vice will no longer accept brand's request to block words and phrases such as 'LGBTQ,' 'feminist,' 'pregnant,' 'Middle Eastern,' 'Jewish,' 'climate change,' 'refugee,' 'immigrant,' and 'overweight' because "many of these words relate to our audience."
Vice made these announcements at its IAB Digital Content NewFronts on 1 May.