When lifestyle media company Dotdash announced plans to acquire Meredith Corp. for $2.7 billion last October, the deal carried with it an unmistakable air of symbolism: the new, digitally-native operation had finally supplanted the old, ink-entrenched publisher.
But the significance of the acquisition extended beyond its optics––the deal also validated a thesis nearly a decade in the making.
Dotdash Meredith, along with a handful of other media companies including Red Ventures, Ziff Davis, Recurrent Ventures and Future Plc., employs a business model now referred to as intent media, a commercial strategy whose core premise involves creating content that answers the specific search queries of consumers.
