Nine launches Real Addressability to the Australian market

Nine has today become the first Australian broadcaster to launch real addressable advertising to the Australian market through 9Now, its broadcast video on demand (BVOD) product.

This new offering will give marketers cross-device targeting on video and be available through both direct sales and programmatic, via the Telaria platform.

The initial stage of the launch will see Nine work with partners to offer addressable advertising based on age, sex and location through 9Now’s database of more than 6.5 million User IDs.

“Today has been a long time coming,” said Michael Stephenson, Nine’s Chief Sales Officer. “We have long recognised the shift towards identity-based marketing, as part of a broader marketing campaign, and for this reason Nine led the Australian market in requiring consumers to log-in to our broadcast video on demand platform, 9Now.

“Over the past two and half years we have built a powerful data asset containing 6.5 million IDs which has allowed us to be the first media business in Australia to offer addressability at scale in a premium, brand-safe environment.”

Nine’s Commercial Director – Digital Sales, Pippa Leary, said today’s launch was recognition of the appetite in the market for real addressability based on an at-scale database of declared User IDs. She also noted that Nine was one of the only players to have made this leap globally.

“The leap we are making today is a big one not just in Australia but globally,” said Leary. “What we are offering through 9Now is true addressability.”

Today’s announcement is the first stage of Nine’s addressability solution. A further enhanced rollout with deeper and more targeted audience segments will commence in 2019.

“Without declared data you are simply targeting cookies and devices – this is not true addressability,” Leary said. “Cookies and devices don’t buy goods and services, people do. That is why our solution does not use inferred data, only declared data from real Australians, making it a truly people-based marketing solution.

“The market knows how Nine has led the way in building a powerful video asset through shows like Married at First Sight and Love Island Australia, which both broke BVOD records, and this is now the logical extension of the journey we have been on.”

In 2018, Nine has led the Australian market in the premium BVOD space with smash hits like Married at First Sight and Love Island Australia breaking records in the size of the on-demand audience.

Married at First Sight was the first reality show on BVOD to achieve a VPM rating of 300,000 for some of those infamous dinner party episodes, while Love Island Australia targeted new audiences in the 16-39 demographic, which saw very different consumption habits. More than 10 per cent of the TV audience live-streamed the show on 9Now for some episodes, and more than half the Love Island audience coming from BVOD.

“The BVOD market is growing faster than any other media channel and 9Now is the market leader,” said Stephenson. “We were the first to require user log-ins from consumers because we knew they would be central to our future.

“Today’s announcement benefits both consumers and advertisers, offering more targeted advertising to audience segments that will deliver real business growth.”

In June, 9Now grew by 14.7 per cent to become the number one BVOD site in Australia across both unique audience and time spent, with a reach of 2.61 million and average time spent of 2.25 hours.