As competition for viewer attention continues to grow, streaming platforms are finding new ways to connect with audiences through sports and highly curated content experiences. Fern Feistel, vice president of marketing at Xumo, explains that recent sports partnerships, including the FIFA Club World Cup, demonstrate the confidence content providers have in Xumo's ability to deliver reach, scale, and meaningful audience engagement. These opportunities also reinforce the platform's focus on serving dedicated fan communities with relevant programming.
Beyond sports, Xumo combines human-led editorial curation with integrated marketing strategies to help audiences discover content while creating new opportunities for advertisers. Editorial collections are paired with on-platform sponsorships, media campaigns, and off-platform promotion to build awareness around key programming and reach viewers where they already spend their time. By blending thoughtful content discovery with targeted marketing, Xumo aims to strengthen viewer engagement while delivering greater value for content partners and brands.
Katie Williams:
Hi, I'm at the StreamTV Show in Denver and I'm here with Fern. Fern, I know that Xumo has been leaning a lot into sports lately with the recent announcement of the World Cup and upcoming sports announcements. Can you offer a little more perspective on the significance of those announcements for Xumo?
Fern Feistel:
Yes, the World Cup specifically is amazing. It was a huge opportunity for us. It was last minute, but we rallied as a team. And it really showcases how programmers are seeing Xumo and Xumo Play now as a new destination for scale, for reach, for impact, and trusting us, honestly, trusting us to deliver that content at scale and drive that viewership. And it was a testament to all of our teams that we could pull together and support such a huge initiative on a national scale. So we're excited. And upcoming sports announcements will really showcase, again, that trust in the distribution and how we are able to reach an audience that is dedicated to that sport. And that really speaks to, again, what we have built over the years.
Katie Williams:
That's amazing. So what are some other areas of focus and differentiation for Xumo from a content perspective?
Fern Feistel:
Yeah, so we've been really looking into, as with the sports, we've been looking into content that is driving a lot of engagement in viewership and really finding where those fandoms, where those obsessions lie. They lie potentially within subgenres or within multiple genres. And we're spending a lot of time identifying where we can capture that attention further, where we can build that engagement and build even marketing campaigns around that engagement and get in front of those fans and meet those fans where they're spending all of their time. And that really speaks to our DNA as a company too, of meeting the fans where they are.
Katie Williams:
Great. So I know that Xumo has both a streaming service and a platform. Just to close us out, can you tell me a little bit about how both of those factor into your integrated marketing mix and what other levers are you pulling?
Fern Feistel:
Yes. As a company, and I cannot take credit for this, but as a company, we specialize in editorial. There are humans behind the keyboards. We are building collections and curations that are relevant, that are dynamic. And also, they can be sponsored. So they are available for sponsors to look at, but they are also relevant and contextual. And what we do is we build editorial collections and curations and then we pair that with potential media buys around it that surround that plan. So we continue, we start small, and we build the focus and the reach and the scale. We even pair that with off-platform campaigns. So all in, integrated is wonderful. We even start with potentially going after specific pieces of content or programming whereby we know we can build a campaign around it to capture, again, that attention that we're ultimately looking for and to serve that given audience.
So it's very exciting. It gives us a good focus that we can all rally around, which is always a good thing.
Katie Williams:
Fantastic. Well, thank you for your time today, Fern.
Fern Feistel:
Thank you.