Mamamia has unveiled its plans for the coming year, and they aren’t without a few surprises. The women’s network has announced it will be turning its back on niche, moving instead towards the unification of its offerings into a single website. This is alongside the introduction of a consultancy business, and expansions on podcasts and user-generated videos.
Content director Mia Freedman says the brand is “moving away from niche sites. This is really important and a big shift. We know she’s busy, she doesn’t have time to visit lots of different homepages or blogs or even necessarily one every day.”
Freedman continues that this no longer means a focus on the ‘mum’, commenting: “She doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a mum or as anything else. We’ve really seen the twilight year of mummy blogs, mummy blogs are almost over. In fact, personal blogs in general have collapsed in engagement this year.”
Head of editorial strategy Kate Spies explains the plan in more detail: “Mamamia has always been our hero brand. Reshaping our websites as a single brand, a one stop shop for women, will see content produced by The Glow, Debrief Daily and The Motherish all feeding seamlessly into the mothership Mamamia.”
Content itself will also undergo a makeover, with Freedman stating that the business plans to focus more on humour and positivity than in previous years. She says: “We’ve phased out clickbait and ended outrage in 2015. Both on our websites and on social media channels. That leads to more thoughtful opinion and a positive optimistic filter on all our content. Mamamia is firmly positioning itself as a high quality brand safe environment for women and advertisers.”
Alongside the unification of its networks, Mamamia will be introducing the MM Video App to encourage contributors and audience members alike to share audio and video content across the website. Podcasting will also undergo a noticeable push, with the company looking to quadruple its current offerings. Finally, there will be the launch of a bespoke women’s consultancy business, Broad Media, as well as Mamamia’s US incarnation Flo and Frank, which is expected to debut in February.
