Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
This is View from the Top, a new video series from Digiday where we sit down with leaders and pioneers at brands, agencies and publishers to find out how they’re adapting to the modernization of media and marketing.
When Philippe von Borries and his co-founder Justin Stefano started Refinery29 in 2005, they didn’t have Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to build an audience for their budding city guide to fashion and culture. Instead they went door-to-door and introduced themselves to retailers and anyone who’d sign up for their newsletter.
Von Borries said, “We stepped into a space that was digital media [and] actually the fruit wasn’t fully ripe yet.” Now nearly a decade later, Refinery29 is not only a leader in fashion content but also stepping into national news (they recently interviewed Hilary Clinton), creating videos on hot button issues (they just launched a video series with Planned Parenthood and musician Jack Antonoff), all while putting on live events that trend on social media.
Von Borries talked to Digiday about building Refinery29 from scratch. “I would by no stretch of the imagination have foreseen where we are today,” he said.
More in Media
Creators say it’s difficult to make money from news — with platform rules and brand guidelines
With more people getting news from creators than traditional media, those creators are still trying to build sustainable businesses.
Why CNN International is building for agentic ad market that barely exists yet
CNN International is still chasing its first agent-sold dollar by Q1.
Media Briefing: The transatlantic push to rein in stealth bots is gathering pace
U.S. and U.K. publishers are pushing for laws to crack down on stealth AI crawlers as bot scraping surges and demands for transparency grow.