Mail Metro Media makes fewer competing ads a product worth selling

Mail Metro Media is offering an advertiser all the advertising around a mobile article. The attraction is straightforward: one brand can develop its message without competing brands repeatedly demanding the reader’s attention.

StoryFlow, announced on 22 October, makes that exclusivity into a product. It is a sensible direction for publishers to test. Advertisers gain a more coherent canvas; readers may encounter fewer competing messages; the publisher gains something more distinctive to sell. The cost is the ordinary advertising displaced, plus the work needed to produce the campaign. Those costs belong in the price.

The useful management decision is to reserve a small, clearly defined allocation of pages for this experience and test the complete proposition. A commercial team should be selling a reason to choose the publication, rather than finding another rectangle to fill.