Millennials and media. They go hand and hand. Finding a way to stick out in an endless amount of media brands is becoming harder and harder. But that’s exactly what Refinery29 has done. Since launching in 2005, Refinery29 has become a powerhouse online media company that has successfully targeted one particular audience, millennial women. AdAge calls Refinery29 the women’s media icon of the digital age. But gaining their audience has taken trial and error, as well as some luck.
Founded originally by high school friends Justin Stefano and Philipe von Borries, Refinery29 was just a women’s fashion blog focused on under-the-radar fashion designers and artists in New York. They would publish their “29 best” list, which prompted the name Refinery29. As the site gained some popularity, von Borries brought in his wife Piera Gelardi as creative strategist, and she brought with her Christene Barberich to oversee editorials. They became obsessed with social media brands, reviewing mentions and comments, leading from the evolution of a fashion blog to a media brand.
As Refinery29 continued to expand, the four founders wanted to keep communication between the website and its users very open. They valued feedback from their users, who told them to cover new, diverse topics. As the content started to shift, the founders found Refinery29 taking hold in rising market, millennial women. They had found an untapped audience who felt misunderstood by the media. An audience who was looking for that wanted visibility, tools, and resources to succeed.
While being somewhat extrinsically motivated to gain an audience, the founders have become more intrinsically motivated as they discovered their target audience. In an interview Berberich discusses their motivation: “We did it for ourselves mostly, and for our audience, and that was a huge reason why beauty was such a successful category for us. It wasn't about feeding into this expectation that women have to be perfect or married or thin or beautiful, and it was really fun and satisfying for us to explore the fringe of what everyone else was talking about with beauty.”
Refinery29 is now an online media brand that focuses their content on millennial women. Articles and videos are shown that other mainstream outlets shy away from. They strive to include body positivity, intersectionality, gender inclusivity, and sexuality inclusivity into their brand. In March 2011, they did the Month of Hair, which showcased different women’s natural hair every day, for the month. Street casting was done to ensure full representation of different ethnicities and hair types. The content on their website ranges from style to food, politics to entertainment, beauty to work and money, and almost anything in between. To finding out the newest style trends, to what’s happening in international politics, to finding resources to help them build their lives, Refinery29 has truly become a media outlet for millennial women.
Website: http://www.refinery29.com/
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I've watched some Refinery29 videos in my free time so it's really interesting to see the backstory behind such a fun and interesting website. I had no idea that Refinery29 was one of the first websites to explicitly try to create content for millennial women, which I, as a millennial women, certainly appreciate. It was really interesting to see how a creative perspective and being willing to reach outside normal audiences can create such engaging products.
ReplyDeleteI love Refinery29 videos! I think they have a lot of creative ideas and I also like they they're geared towards women like myself, so it's cool to read a bit about their background. The quote in this article really shows how the creators were both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated, and how the combination of these two things can really manifest into a great product that lots of people, including the creators, love and enjoy.
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