The New Yorker has a redesigned website, a new paywall system in the works and now an ad agency to promote it all.
SS+K in New York has landed the assignment after a review, outstripping a handful of other, undisclosed shops. The New Yorker's media spending approached $20 million last year, according to Kantar Media.
The venerable media brand hasn't had an agency for several years, so there was no incumbent.
Initially, SS+K will develop a brand campaign and marketing around The New Yorker's 90th anniversary, which is in February. The brand push is expected to break around the time the new paywall meter takes effect, in October.
Agency co-founder Rob Shepardson described the Condé Nast-owned magazine as the "gold standard for writing, whether reporting, commentary or criticism."
With The New Yorker, SS+K adds to stable of media accounts that also includes HBO. To promote HBO's mobile offering, HBO Go, the agency in the spring created ads that captured the discomfort of the alternative: young adults watching adult-themed content on TV with their parents. That campaign was dubbed, "Awkward Family Viewing."