Conde Nast publications, one of the most recognizable global brands when it comes to trends, fashion and lifestyle, will partner with the IBM Watson-enabled platform Influential to gain more personal connections and a deeper relationship with key audiences, the company has announced.

Conde Nast magazine

With top titles like Vogue, Vanity Fair, Glamour and GQ , Conde Nast's partnership heralds a key step merging targeted influencer marketing and artificial intelligence in the fashion and lifestyle industry. The platform will be used to help advertiser clients improve how they connect with audiences over social media and gain measurable insights into how their campaigns resonate.

"Partnering with Influential to leverage Watson's cognitive capabilities to identify the right influencers and activate them on the right campaigns gives our clients an advantage and increases our performance, which is paramount in today's distributed content world," said Matt Starker, general manager, digital strategy and initiatives at Condé Nast. "We engage our audiences in innovative ways, across all platforms, and this partnership is another step in that innovation."

By analyzing unstructured data from an influencer's social media feed and identifying key characteristics that resonate with a target demographic, the Influential platform uses IBM's personality insights into, for example, a beauty brand that focuses on self-enhancement, imagination and trust. This analysis helps advertisers identify the right influencers by homing in on previously hard-to-measure metrics –like how they are perceived by their followers, and how well their specific personality fits the personality of the brand.

With information gleaned from social influencers on this platform, it can amplify brand campaigns of each publication and provide real-time reporting and insights, the company said in their announcement today. Over the last few years, brands have been investing in influencer marketing, and it’s becoming essential to have a strong strategy. Conde Nast just raised the stakes even higher.

IBM's Watson worked with The Drum earlier this year to create the first magazine ever editing using AI.