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“New stories bring new context, and new context trigger new advertisers.”
As part of our Collectif, in which we feature the work of our partners (see more here), Joris van Lierop of The Content Exchange explains how content licensing is being disrupted, and crucially, how significant content licensing opportunities have emerged for media brands of all sizes. It’s simply a question of harnessing them…
Content alliances are not new – Getty Images built its business off the back of it. However, over the past few years, a new breed of content licensing specialists has sprung up. Crucially, these companies are not only disrupting the content licensing space, but they are also opening up opportunities to publishers of all sizes.
Furthermore, these startups have proven business models and are now attracting publishers of the calibre of Future plc, Immediate Media, The Independent, and many others. In short, the opportunities for media companies are significant.
Foremost amongst this new generation of disruptors is The Content Exchange, founded by CEO Joris van Lierop. Headquartered in the Netherlands, but with an international footprint, Joris states that, “publishers need to maximize the revenue produced off the back of their content and content licensing provides a seamless way to do so. It adds a healthy revenue stream for what is really minimal effort.”
The business model is straightforward: Publishers retain full control of what content they make available to third parties and their content is listed in a secure, ring-fenced marketplace by category. Third-party publishers from other geographical territories can then select the content they wish to re-publish under license, often using a minimum bundle package.
Content is normally licensed abroad so it doesn’t compete with a publisher’s own market and, if it is re-published in English, canonical URLs are stipulated to ensure that the original owner of the content is safeguarded.
Joris van Lierop, CEO, The Content Exchange
At FIPP World Media Congress 2023, Joris gave a full presentation outlining the global opportunities for content syndication, and how strong stories can create more value for publishers of all sizes.
Here are a few key insights from the session:
1. As publishers, we hardly share any content between ourselves
“You can only reach your audience with the brand you happen to have. If you are very lucky, you have a really big brand, and the story might reach quite a lot of people. If you have a smaller brand, it will be quite a specific audience.
So what most publishers do is they share their content to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, and these platforms have achieved great success with publishers sharing all their content on these platforms. But, as publishers, we hardly share any content between ourselves.
2. A space where publishers and creators can easily interact and exchange good content
“Publishers sometimes attempt content sharing between each other, but it takes a lot of cups of coffee and a lot of contracts before you get a deal. That’s why I quit my job and started The Content Exchange – a digital space where publishers and creators can easily interact and exchange good articles, strong content, engaging videos, together all in one place.
“It functions as a marketplace. So publishers can offer their content on the platform, other publishers can look for it, and then you have an exchange or transaction or a deal going on.
The difficulty of course, with marketplaces is when the first buyer arrives and all the shelves are empty, there will be no buying. And if someone says, oh, I would like to share my content, but I’m not sure if someone going to buy. So it’s what you typically name as a kind of a chicken and egg problem. But we did solve it step by step, growing and growing.
3. New context, new advertisers
“The audience wins because they see a story they would never have seen. The publisher who’s buying the story wins because he got a brilliant story for a price they could not have created by themselves.
“And also the creator wins, because they get more money out of the story, which they have already produced. So it’ll just be additional margin to what they’re doing.
It can also attract new categories of advertisers. So new stories also bring new context, and new context also triggers new advertisers.
You can watch the entire session here:
