Men’s lifestyle publication, Man of Many, held its first-ever upfronts event yesterday, streaming it live to industry partners. Themed ‘Momentum’, the event set the stage for an ambitious 2025, unveiling new offerings designed to drive value for commercial partners and make life easier and more productive for media agencies and brands eager to engage with its audience of “discerning” Aussie blokes.
Chief among the announcements were a new flagship video content series, Man of Many’s first foray into podcast territory, user sign-ons and premium content implementations and a self-service buying platform.
“Momentum is about moving forward with purpose, and this year’s Upfront was a chance to share our commitment to helping partners succeed in 2025. From our expanded video series lineup to quarterly digital editions, we’re excited to bring new opportunities for brands to connect meaningfully with our audience,” said Frank Arthur, co-founder of Man of Many.
New Content Announcements
Set to go live later this month, Man of Many’s website is relaunching. Designed to enhance user experience and increase brand impact, the new platform features UX and UI improvements that streamline content discovery, deepen audience retention and optimise ad viewability.
Enhanced high-impact ad formats, custom-branded content options and richer first-party data will offer brands more targeted and effective campaign opportunities and audience insights.
Expanding the publication’s focus on video format, Man of Many has announced its original video series lineup for 2025. It includes brand partnership opportunities across health, luxury and automotive categories, giving brands access to high-engagement avenues across these categories. Adding to Man of Many’s YouTube and socials, these new series will be housed in a new on-site Video Hub, launching with the new website redesign.
The men’s publication also announced its first foray into audio content, with Man of Many Podcasts expected to come in 2025. Its first podcast series will offer engaging content that aligns with the brand’s core lifestyle themes, providing more opportunities for brands to connect with audiences through a new storytelling format.
“All of these new content offerings provide advertisers with more diversity and extended reach options. Overall Man of Many is giving advertisers what we crave, a brand-safe, premium environment with rich advertising creative that can be contextually targeted,” Louis Williams, insights director, RQmedia, told B&T after the show.
The Man of Many 100 is also set to release in 2025, an annual showcase of the top 100 products of the year that align brands with sought-after recommendations in lifestyle, tech and automotive categories.
Adtech Offerings
Man of Many will launch a streamlined user sign-in and membership system to enhance engagement and capture valuable user data. New email and social media login options will provide users access to personalised profiles. The Premium Membership program will offer subscribers access to exclusive content, member-only events and perks, creating deeper brand loyalty and opportunities for targeted advertising.
“This is going to be the most interesting offering to see, and I’m really excited about it. In such a contextually rich environment, if Man of Many can know how people are interacting across the website, even in small ways, they can leverage that data in a powerful way for ad targeting. The content of the ads produced will probably be better as it will respond directly to what readers are consuming and what’s making them interact with articles and stay there,” added Williams.
“With their shift to premium content that requires viewers to log in for access, I anticipate a significant enhancement in targeting capabilities as they embrace a walled garden approach across Man of Many,” he added.
Man of Many will implement advanced first-party data strategies in 2025, integrating solutions such as LiveRamp, ID5, SharedID and IotA with its own data to enable precise audience targeting. It will also utilise privacy-first technologies such as Google’s Confidential Matching and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Man of Many said these tools will enable highly personalised, effective campaigns, helping brands optimise targeting accuracy in a trusted, secure and cookieless environment.
“People were worried about Google and cookies crumbling, and that’s why Man of Many has moved in this direction. Obviously, Google brought back cookies, but it makes sense to future-proof themself as a publisher. First-party data targeting capabilities will be useful for that extended network for advertisers to leverage,” added Williams.
Live campaign reporting and real-time analytics also form part of Man of Many’s future plans. Providing clients with the ability to track key performance metrics and optimise campaigns on the go, these new tools provide transparency and ensure that branded content initiatives deliver measurable impact, empowering brands with actionable insights for data-driven decision-making.
“I think more traditional newspapers need metrics for advertisers. This new analytics offering will help us get live reporting rather than post-campaign analytics. This will reduce the back and forth of ‘how’s it going?’ and bring more information to advertisers who want control over what’s happening. The majority of publishers don’t have live reporting right now, so this is a great thing to see from Man of Many. Clients want data now,” said Williams.
Man of Many has also expanded its high-impact display services to offer visibility across trusted platforms in a brand-safe environment. The new Audience Extension service amplifies campaigns beyond Man of Many’s platform, extending reach across top-tier publishers via CleverAds for greater impact across display, video and CTV formats, ensuring high engagement in premium environments.
Launching in 2025, Man of Many’s Self-Booking Platform, developed with Placements.io, will provide a streamlined ad-buying experience. Brands will have increased control over campaigns and benefit from live reporting dashboards offering real-time insights, designed to make the ad-buying process transparent and efficient.
“These new changes will lead us to investing more in luxury brands across Man of Many. With the publisher having over 2.5 million visitors a month and quality journalism, I am sure many advertisers are going to be rushing to invest in Man of Many,” said Williams.
Events & Activations
Man of Many also released some news about its upcoming activations and events.
Building on the momentum and success of the Sydney Whisky Month and Digital Editions launch events, Man of Many will expand its experiential marketing options, providing immersive, in-person brand activations throughout 2025.
Sydney Whisky Month will return in 2025. This event offers brands direct engagement with whisky enthusiasts through expanded partnerships, bespoke activations and robust media coverage.
