D_Coded 2023: News Corp lifts the lid on Total Commerce offering
News Corp Australia has unveiled its Total Commerce offering where media, technology and commerce converge into a single consumer experience.
Managing Director, Client Product, Pippa Leary, said: “Our absolutely best-in-class technology will allow clients to transact directly from across our digital network through video, text, and images.
“Powered by our commercial data capability, brands can now match passive and active audiences with shoppable experiences to deliver superior outcomes across our sites. This really is the next level.”
Managing Director, National Sales, Lou Barrett said the company was well positioned with its audience insights, content and technology to offer Total Commerce solutions.
“The emergence of commerce media and its capacity to create measurable outcomes puts News Corp Australia in pole position to provide market-leading client solutions from the top to the bottom of the funnel and every stage of the purchase journey in between,” said Barrett.
At D_Coded, News Corp Australia announced a significant evolution of its data capability with the launch of Intent Connect, which identifies clear signs of intent from consumers in order to drive better client outcomes.
“Delivering commerce media outcomes all starts with data and we have the best data in the market,” Leary said.
Leary said the company’s Total Commerce proposition marked an important evolution in the publisher’s commitment to clients.
“News Corp Australia’s relationship with our commercial clients and partners has evolved the role of media as a billboard, where we amplified your message to what I would call ‘an integrated shopfront’ where we seamlessly sell your products from within our content. That’s total commerce,” she said.
Total Commerce is powered by technology co-developed with partner Vudoo. It enables consumers to click on video, text, or images, to initiate and complete a transaction and continue on their content journey.
Retailers retain full control over the relationship with their customers, including pricing, stock control, delivery and fulfilment, payments, and personal details through their chosen e-commerce stack.
“Consumers’ deep engagement with content across our network, whether news.com.au or Vogue Australia, allows the seamless sale of our commercial partners’ products from within that content,” Leary said.
“We’re making the journey so simple that consumers can shop clients’ shoppable content, wherever and whenever they are inspired.”
Also unveiled at D_Coded was the company’s use of Artificial Intelligence to create matches between a client’s products and content across the News Corp Australia network.
“Artificial Intelligence matches a retailer’s products with content on our digital network. We then display these matched products as ‘widgets’ around those relevant articles,” said Leary.
By way of example Leary said the technology would detect a consumer reading a story about fitness techniques in Body+Soul, then insert relevant fitness products from a retailer’s catalogue as widgets that will surround the article.
Leary said the technology worked for big retailers through to the smallest. “We have done the heavy lifting for those retailers who don’t have the scale or the propensity to build their own retail networks.”
The new offering followed the success of shoppable video advertising unveiled at D_Coded in 2022.
Pippa Leary
D_Coded 2023: Intent Connect to help News Corp clients anticipate audience needs
News Corp Australia has revealed a significant evolution of its commercial data capability, with the launch of Intent Connect.
Intent Connect is powered by the company’s Commercial Customer Data Platform, enhancing the company’s first-party content consumption data with data from Foxtel Group and REA Group. With 5,000 customer segments, this is an advancement on the previous capability of 3,500 segments. There is also increased investment in data science, to shift focus from past consumer behaviours to modelling and predicting their future intentions.
Managing Director, National Sales, Lou Barrett, said Intent Connect would connect brands with intent, to deliver Total Commerce outcomes.
“At News Corp Australia, we can turn audience engagement into client outcomes, which is why we’ve focused on helping our partners anticipate audience needs at the moments that matter, the next purchase,” said Barrett.
Intent Connect focuses on identifying consumer intent that drives top-to-bottom funnel outcomes for clients. It puts brings marketers audience insights, content, media targeting, measurement, and attribution capabilities in a single, purpose-built platform.
Managing Director, Client Product, Pippa Leary said: “Whether audiences are engaged with live sport on Kayo, the latest top-rating drama on Binge, or getting their daily fix of news and lifestyle content on news.com.au, we can help brands reach their intended audience with pinpoint accuracy.
“Our data is able to reach audiences when they are showing strong signs of passive and active intent for a specific product or service all the way down to the SKU product level.”
In addition, a new data partnership with Westpac DataX was announced, a first for Australian publishing. Westpac DataX provides deep insight into more than 12 million customers and six million daily card transactions through aggregated, de-identified data.
Director Commercial Data, Video and Product, Paul Blackburn said: “We are proud to be the first Australian publisher to partner with Westpac DataX. The agreement between News Corp Australia and Westpac DataX brings together a unique and powerful offering that takes advertising capability to the next level.”
Head of Westpac DataX, Jade Clarke said: “By harnessing the power of Westpac’s comprehensive transactional data insights, advertisers will be able to more effectively identify, create and connect with their target audiences – supporting more efficient allocation of marketing spend and better planning.”
News Corp Australia also announced a data clean room solution with UK software company InfoSum, the first Australian publisher to offer this solution. The data clean room solution is an enhancement to Customer Match, revealed at last year’s D_Coded.
D_Coded 2023: Lou Barrett, Paul Blackburn and Pippa Leary.
D_Coded 2023: News Corp partners with Adgile and invests in Omnichannel Attribution Suite
News Corp Australia has invested in an Omnichannel Attribution Suite, delivering top-of-funnel brand measures through to bottom funnel transaction measures. Behind this capability is a new partnership with video effectiveness platform Adgile.
The offering provides independent measurement solutions to prove the efficacy of client investment with brand, footfall and sales measures, reflecting a commitment to transaction-based outcomes and return-on-ad-spend.
Managing Director, National Sales, Lou Barrett said the company’s investment and focus on full-funnel attribution, in digital and physical environments, by identifying intent and delivering outcomes, was fundamental to the Total Commerce solutions unveiled at this year’s D_Coded event.
“In challenging economic times, whether rightly or wrongly, we know that all business investment, including marketing investment, is under the microscope and independently verified measures of success have never been so important,” said Barrett.
“We can show clients that investing with us leads directly to tangible business outcomes. Through our enhanced attribution suite we can track and prove those outcomes understanding how we impact your business across every stage of the purchase journey.”
Director Commercial Data, Video and Product Paul Blackburn said the company’s agreement with Adgile would deliver industry-defining measurement of digital video. “Adgile’s measurement allows us to understand the types of video having the greatest impact on engagement, action and return-on-ad-spend across a client’s entire screen plan,” said Blackburn.
“We took a look at how short-form video stacks up in our premium environments and the first data generated with Adgile has delivered some incredible insights.
“We are seeing video on our digital network outperform BVOD, with the engagement rate 48 per cent above the BVOD benchmark. Clients were 1.4 times more likely to reach a unique audience compared to other networks and, in tested campaigns, 92 per cent of people reached were exclusive to our digital network.
“If you’re thinking about driving outcomes with video, these results might make you think differently.”
Lou Barrett
D_Coded 2023: News Corp announces Vertical Video Platform
News Corp Australia has unveiled its new video storytelling capability with the launch of a mobile first, Vertical Video Platform.
This web-based platform tells audio visual stories to better engage audiences and provide world- leading integrated advertising and marketing products to clients.
Managing Director, Client Product, Pippa Leary said launching this platform was critical as most audiences now consume video primarily on mobile devices.
“We are one of the first premium publishers to launch a vertical video platform, optimised for mobile, at this scale,” said Leary.
“We’re investing in the future of storytelling that inspires action. Original vertical videos will engage audiences and then be interspersed with relevant shoppable video ads – connecting brands and consumers within advertisers’ video content, where people don’t have to leave our content to make purchases.”
Managing Director, National Sales, Lou Barrett said: “Three quarters of all video is consumed on the smartphone. Full screen vertical video storytelling in our premium digital environments presents so many new commercial opportunities for advertisers to reach their audiences in context and at scale with high quality video ads.”
Director Commercial Data, Video and Product Paul Blackburn said: “Shifting to vertical video, we know from the engagement of our content in social channels like Tik Tok, where news.com.au has 75 million video views per month, that users are choosing more snackable, mobile optimised content, and they are doing so from trusted news and lifestyle sources. Now we are ready to deliver this for our audiences and our clients.”
Full screen vertical video is now live and embedded in content and across News Corp Australia sites including taste.com.au, Kidspot Kitchen, Body+Soul, news.com.au and the company’s state- based and regional mastheads.
Designed for performance from the ground up for the open web, the platform is able to deliver content recommendations, audience insights, ad targeting and measurement, and SEO to drive new audiences through the company’s commercial data capability, Intent Connect.
The new Vertical Video Platform has been created using a technology stack that takes its cues from video platforms, pulling all of the content together into a swipeable, clickable, shoppable, and interactive video experience.
News Corp Australia announced its Vertical Video Platform at D_Coded, the company’s fifth digital marketing event for advertising, marketing and media executives.
The D_Coded video hub can be accessed here.
