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‘We don’t follow the market here in Australia’: Nine adds LiveRamp to its data offering

Nine has unveiled a strategic partnership with Acxiom’s data technology provider, LiveRamp, to improve its offering for advertisers.

The new partnership will give marketers and agencies access to online and offline data, to target consumers across Nine’s Digital network.

Commenting on the fifth key partnership for Nine, alongside Experian, Data Republic, Red Planet and Adobe, Alex Parsons, Nine’s chief digital and marketing officer said the digital network doesn’t “follow the market” in Australia.

“We don’t follow the market here in Australia. 9Now – launching that subscription service for consumers was marketing leading in Australia,” Parsons said.

“With data we don’t really follow what everyone else does here. What we do is take a good hard long look at what’s happening in consumer or client land and come up with the best solution to suit consumer needs or client needs and preferably both.”

The latest partnership aims to give brands the opportunity to connect to Nine’s audience, and connect their data across Nine’s properties, such as nine.com.au, 9Honey Women’s Network, TheFix.com.au, WWOS.com.au and 9Coach.com.au.

LiveRamp will also give marketers access to Acxiom’s offerings including custom audience development and 600 custom audience segments.

While LiveRamp is one of five key strategic partnerships for Nine, most publishers offer one or two, Parsons said.

Asked whether other publishers should consider multiple partnerships, Parsons said: “Ultimately we want to be able to have our clients use the data which works best for them.

“Having our stake in the ground saying, ‘This is the only data we’ll let you use’ in some instances, will be the best data for those clients to use, but not in all instances.

“We’re in a world where we want to do as much as we can to help clients achieve the best results they can, because that in itself is good for our business and that’s what we are going to do.

“If other publishers take a different route to market, good luck to them.”

Despite other publishers engaging in one or two partnerships, Parsons said data was becoming a key battleground for publishers looking to offer more to brands and advertisers.

“The use of data for publishers is how publishers can differentiate, but the data itself is really the differentiator for brands and for clients.

“Our ability to use data is a differentiator but data itself is probably really the differentiator for brands. Brands that really get to grips with their data early and well and utilise it in an efficient and effective manner over long term will do really well,” he said.

“The more a brand knows about their current and future consumers and the more a brand can translate that knowledge into data and use that data across publishers, like Nine, the better that brand will be.”

Commenting on the decision to integrate LiveRamp into Nine’s current data offering, he said it a “simple decision”.

“We spent a lot of time speaking to our clients, and when I talk about clients its two fold. One is agencies and the other level is brands.

“We came to the understanding after extensive market research that if we utilise LiveRamp that will help our clients get better results, therefore it became a relatively simple decision.

Parsons said Nine will “absolutely” continue to expand its offering dependent clients’ needs.

“If you don’t listen to your clients you can do that at your own peril. That’s been the same for hundreds of years.

“We like to think of our clients, both brands and agencies, as partners,” he said.

“Ultimately, we want clients to have either an increased number of consumers, or increased consumption per consumer and we will do whatever we can to help them achieve those goals.”

Last year, Nine announced a strategic partnership with Data Republic and one week ago, Nine Digital’s Mi9 in New Zealand partnered with Experian.

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