Dive Brief:
- Code Nast, the storied publisher of high-brow magazines like Vanity Fair, Vogue, and The New Yorker, has turned to YouTube celebrities to ramp up its digital offerings.
- The publisher has decided to team up with Claudia Sulewski, who has more than a million subscribers on her BeyondBeautyStar channel. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Sulewski is reportedly going to be a regular host on Teen Vogue's YouTube page—collaborating with Teen Vogue editors and Conde Nast Entertainment to create original content for the YouTube channel.
- While the deal with Sulewski is the only one set in stone, Conde Nast is said to have plans to work with other YouTube stars across its other niche brands like Wired, Bon Appetit, and GQ.
Dive Insight:
Fashion and beauty brands have major competition in the digital space when it comes to prominent YouTubers—Sulewski's YouTube channel gets nearly 2.4 million views monthly, compared with Teen Vogue's 887,000 monthly views—so it's mutually beneficial for Conde Nast to team up with Sulewski. Sulewski gets credibility working for the 112-year-old publisher, and Teen Vogue's YouTube channel is sure to benefit by having a major name in the beauty space on YouTube hosting videos.
"Condé Nast realizes it’s losing ground on digital. Working with YouTube stars is a very necessary step for them to revive their presence on digital, especially on digital video. And if they don’t do that, they’ll be dead," Fahad Khan, CEO of Tube Centrex, an app builder for brands and YouTube stars, told Digiday.