INTERACTIVE BYTES : The remaking of Flossie By Alastair Thompson Unlike the Media Counsel, rumours of the demise of Flossie Media Group are greatly exaggerated, according to its founder and ceo, Jenene Freer.
A brand new, fully automated Flossie.Com is expected shortly as the new home for Freer’s revised version of her female-skewed online advertising network. In its new phase Flossie will focus on sales of inclusions in email newsletters for a “hand-picked” 15 of the group’s former 50 publishers.
The announcement of the Flossie Media Network in 2008 was significant as the only NZ online pure media play to receive significant external venture investment over the past two years.
Wellington-based Movac (part of the investment syndicate behind Trade Me) and merchant banker Lloyd Morrison (an investor in Freer’s successful teen-focused website NZGirl.co.nz) invested a reportedly seven-figure sum in the venture.
Flossie’s idea was to aggregate female skewing online internet audiences into a package with scale. Critically, as it turned out, the business plan included taking the same model into Australia. In theory big advertisers were to have trickled across the Tasman into the NZ market. Unfortunately they didn’t. Instead networked display advertising simply proved too hard a sell – “for us”, says Freer.
The launch of Flossie was enthusiastically received in 2008. When advertising networks ratings debuted in May ’09 Flossie had around 30 NZ publishers, 3.5 million pages and 300k monthly browsers. At its peak in October ’09 it had topped five million monthly page views.
However traffic does not equal revenue and while the NZ network performed, the bottom line deteriorated. The network had a particularly hard April through June 2009 coinciding with the Australian launch.
Freer says that while advertisers and agencies wanted scale, once in the door they often would only purchase 5% to 10% share of the audience. On December 1 the closure of the Flossie display advertising network was announced. In a written statement Freer said the network was dropping display advertising in favour of an email placement business.
Freer says the 15 hand-picked NZ and Australian sites Flossie has kept in its network have 500,000 email addresses between them. The focus will continue to be female consumers.
On December 23 NZGirl.co.nz, which had been a subsidiary of Flossie, was split off to operate independently. Freer is a 17% shareholder in both companies.
With the benefit of hindsight, was the decision to shoot for the Australian market expensive and hazardous? Freer thinks not, and says she felt welcomed in Australia. Several copycat networks set up shortly after she arrived made business hard, however.
While Freer thinks it is a shame that advertisers and agencies appear unwilling to move budget from the big portals to independents, and fears what impact it will have on the development of new online media, she says she did feel Flossie has been supported by NZ agencies during its brief period in the display market. They had been interested – just unwilling to actually move significant display budget.
The transformation that the business has now undergone has seen it take an enormous amount of cost out, and Freer remains confident in her new business strategy – which now far more closely resembles the successful mix of editorial promotion and email activity that she developed at NZGirl.co.nz.
That said, Freer, now 31, was also considering how she may reduce her role in leading the business over the coming year.
InterActive Bytes is compiled for AdMedia by Scoop.co.nz, NZ’s leading indigenous online news agency attracting a readership of 400,000 unique visitors a month. Send feedback to co-editor Alastair Thompson at alastair@scoop.co.nz
© Copyright AdMedia magazine February 2010
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