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By Lukas I. Alpert 

The motto for Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei's new venture, Axios, is that "media is broken." One way he hopes to fix it starts with advertising.

The political and business news-focused outlet -- which kicks off Monday with a slate of newsletter offerings and will launch in full Jan. 18 -- is beginning with the premise that banner ads and long-form native advertising don't work.

In its place, Axios will only offer advertisers a type of short-form branded content. It will fit all on one screen and will lie more naturally within its editorial concept of providing readers bite-size bits of hard news and information.

"People want more digestible news. They want it shorter and more shareable, so it makes no sense to not have ads structured the same way, " said Mr. VandeHei, chairman and CEO of Axios. "To keep doing the same thing as has been done in media nowadays means death."

Axios will launch with 10 advertising partners, including J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Boeing Co., BP PLC and PepsiCo.

While many news outlets have been betting heavily on in-house native content teams to help turn the corner on digital advertising, Mr. VandeHei and his partners say the approach so far -- with campaigns built around long stories and elaborate video and graphic offerings -- miss the mark.

"Long-form native doesn't work because it is built on a dated assumption -- that news content and magazine content is engaging and if advertisers created content the way publishers created content then people would engage," said Axios co-founder and president, Roy Schwartz, also a Politico alum.

"The truth is that about 80% of readers don't even make it past the first few hundred words of as news story, let alone a native ad," he said.

Axios doesn't plan to rely solely on advertising, however. Following the model they helped build at Politico, Messrs. VandeHei and Schwartz are aiming to launch a high-end subscription offering targeted at CEOs, top business leaders and political insiders in about six months. Costs will vary as packages will be tailor-made, but could run as high as $10,000 a year.

They are also looking to build an events business and will start by co-sponsoring events with Business Insider, NBC News and the Information.

Later this month, Axios will bring on board Kendra Tucker, the former managing director and head of sales for financial services and new markets at Corporate Executive Board, to become head of subscriptions. It is also bringing in former Politico deputy editor, Danielle Jones, to help set up its native content unit.

The site will begin with a staff of about 50 people with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. The initial newsletter launch will feature morning email blasts on politics, tech and media from Politico alum Mike Allen; financial deal-making from Dan Primack and health care from David Nather.

While short stories will be king, Mr. VandeHei says they won't be dumbed down, and the site will be aimed at the 15% of the population he estimates "really care about news."

"We are doing serious things, but trying to do it in a voice that digital native people are used to but without falling into the crap trap of dumbing down the content," he said. "Our audience will be everyone who truly cares about serious news on a daily basis."

Write to Lukas I. Alpert at lukas.alpert@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 09, 2017 00:14 ET (05:14 GMT)

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