CNN Style attempts to woo luxury advertisers in Asia

“It has a distinct look and feel,” said Sunita Rajan, CNN’s newly appointed VP of advertising sales. “The site is responsive and that presents a nice opportunity for clients to showcase their brands across video and high-impact formats.”

CNN Style will span international and US digital editions of CNN.com, CNN Arabic and CNN en Espanol. Part of CNN Digital’s global strategy is building strong online verticals, with CNN Style taking its place alongside other brands such as CNN Politics and CNN Travel. Content is also integrated into CNN Money’s digital platform.

CNN Style editor George Webster and Fiona Sinclair Scott from Vice Media will oversee content. The company also has a team in Hong Kong, which it says is reflective of its commitment to Asia’s creative scene. “We’ll be on the ground at events like Beijing Design Week and Singapore’s World Architecture Festival, and it’s also our mission to showcase the work of Asia’s most exciting emerging talents across the fields of art, fashion, design, architecture, luxury and automobiles,” Webster said.

Webster points out that Asia coverage will focus on different issues, but the site’s fundamental approach remains the same. “The Asian market is totally unique. We won’t pretend that we know everything from the start, and that’s why we’ll always be speaking with and featuring the most authoritative and influential names across each industry,” he added.

Turner International Asia-Pacific, part of the parent company that owns CNN, has had a challenging time in the region. In 2013, it reduced its Asia-Pacific workforce by about 30 per cent as the company hoped to align the company's structure with "future ambitions", the company said in a statement.

Following the restructure, Turner Asia-Pacific was decentralised from its Hong Kong headquarters and fully focused on the company's three regions of South Asia, Southeast Asia-Pacific and North Asia. 

CNN Style launched on 1 July with luxury watch maker Audemars Piguet as launch advertiser.