Nine to launch ad platform for small to medium businesses
Nine is launching a new platform for small and medium businesses, which will allow them to self-book television campaigns.
The 9Voyager platform was announced at the Nine Upfronts this evening, and will allow smaller businesses to create their own schedules using the off-peak and multi-channel inventory through an automated trading platform.
Prospective businesses will be able to pay for the campaign through credit card or PayPal, and if they don’t have a TV commercial to use, 9Studios will help to develop bespoke solutions.
Nine’s chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson, said the new platform, which will be available from January, will give small business owners the ability to create a log in from home and buy a schedule.
“That is huge for the two million SMEs that currently only have the ability to do it with Facebook or Google,” he said.
Michael Stephenson announced the launch of 9Voyager this evening
It comes almost four years after Ten began a similar push for small to medium businesses, offering heavily discounted advertising packages.
9Voyager is part of a series of announcements for Nine, which will also look to build out a two-year roadmap for 9Galaxy, its automated trading platform. The platform, launched at last year’s up fronts, now accounts for 30% of off peak and multi-channel inventory. By mid 2019, Nine will look to integrate new OzTAM measurement tool, Virtual Oz, into the database, as well as its seven million user IDs.
Nine hopes this will give advertisers the opportunity to buy against behavioural segments, age and sex demographics, across both linear television and broadcast video on demand. By 2020, Nine is promising 9Galaxy will allow marketers and agencies to buy all audiences on Nine – across linear, live streaming and 9Now on connected TV, mobile, or desktop.
“I’m a bit obsessed by effectiveness and efficiency, my two key words at the moment,” said Stephenson.
“12 months ago at our upfronts, we launched or pushed the big, blue button and officially launched 9Galaxy, and we said it would make television easier to buy. It’s fair to say that 12 months down the track it has well and truly delivered on that promise.”
Stephenson said almost 30% of the off peak and multi-channel inventory is now running through the platform, and every single campaign delivered so far has been done so without a single shortfall.
“Having great targeted and addressable advertising is brilliant, but we need to be able to transact that within one technology platform. By the end of 2019, 9Now and all our video on demand inventory will also be integrated and included in 9Galaxy,” he added.
“You’ll be able to come to us and buy linear television or on demand from one platform. That’s a pretty huge announcement when you think about how we are consuming content across all of those platforms.
“By the end of 2020, which is the dream coming to life, absolute utopia – Galaxy 4.0 – we will have a decisioning technology that sits within 9Galaxy that will allow us to deliver that audience against a demographic or segment in real time against all of our sources of video.”
At the same time, Nine is focusing on building out its strategic clients solutions division. With the appointment of head of effectiveness, Jonathan Fox, Nine will look to better communicate return on investment to advertisers and focus on premium partnerships through its client solutions division, 9Powered.
Lizzie Young, Nine’s group content strategy director, said 9Powered was an area that Nine would heavily focus on.
“We’ve been working on 9Powered for several years now and we have had great amount of success with lots of clients that we work on, but we probably recognise that now is the time where never has there been more need for us to deliver these big content partnerships that live cross-platform,” Young said.
“We really believe that big ideas are what will drive the industry moving forward and that executing those big ideas in the largest content platforms in the country is the real opportunity that Nine delivers for brands.”
Nine CEO Hugh Marks said a combined Fairfax Media and Nine group would allow for better and more powerful content partnerships.
“The combined Nine-Fairfax group will provide a scale and unparalleled breadth of platforms across television, radio, digital and print media,” Marks said.
“Delivering content that will be recognised for its diversity, quality and recognition that one media company can serve a number of audiences.”
Nine taking a leadership position, investing in technology, looking to grow the TV market.
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