• by Sara Guaglione , September 20, 2019

Trusted Media Brands is revealing a new logo and dedicated content studio. The changes are part of a new “community-first” market positioning at the publisher of Reader's Digest, Family Handyman and Taste of Home. 

The focus on building a community will touch future editorial franchises, consumer products, marketing programs, enterprise solutions and other events and activations at the company.

Trusted Media Brands will apply this community-first approach to its relationships with advertisers, consumers and research.

An “expansive research study around community” for advertisers and consumers will be unveiled in Q1 2020, Ronak Patel, senior vice president of marketing, told Publishers Daily.

Patel, who joined Trusted Media Brands five months ago, said an example of this new market positioning is the multi-year franchise “Nicest Places in America" from Reader’s Digest. The publisher partnered with Nextdoor to announce the “nicest place in America" and encouraged the public to get involved by asking them to vote.

To launch its new market positioning, Trusted Media Brands is hosting a panel at Advertising Week on Tuesday, with speakers from Kantar Research, Nextdoor and Reader’s Digest.

Trusted Media Brands will reveal preliminary findings from a survey on advertisers' and marketers' attitudes on brand belonging at the panel. "We'll be discussing how the best and most successful brands are able to build meaningful communities," Patel said.

The new content studio, Trusted Studios, will be led by Patel and Beth Tomkiw, Chief Content Officer. They will build out the team over the next year, hiring content strategists, marketers and producers, Patel said.

Trusted Media Brands had a content arm, but not a formalized studio until now.

The cross-brand team will work with clients to create branded and native content, including print, digital and video, as well as activations and other enterprise solutions.