Expanded video strategy to open up fresh opportunities for News Corp clients

The company’s groundbreaking new video strategy will be revealed at the sixth annual D_Coded symposium for marketers over the coming fortnight.

“What we present at D_Coded, we deliver on,” says News Corp Australasian executive chairman Michael Miller.

Enhanced audience engagement strategies and the evolution of artificial intelligence data capabilities will be showcased at News Corp’s annual industry summit for marketers over the coming fortnight.

The company’s groundbreaking new video strategy will also be revealed at the sixth annual D_Coded symposium, to be held at separate events in Sydney and Melbourne this week, and in Brisbane next week.

The next-gen data enhancements are being introduced to improve the media company’s existing audience intelligence platform, Intent Connect.

Speaking to an audience of News Corp Australia’s clients and partners plus marketers and digital specialists at D_Coded will be the company’s Australasian executive chairman Michael Miller and client partnerships managing director Lou Barrett.

Ahead of the D_Coded roadshow, Mr Miller recalled the investment the group made into what was originally called News Connect in 2016, and is now branded Intent Connect.

“Along that journey the product has evolved with our data partners; we have enhanced its capabilities,” he told The Australian.

The company is “more than happy” to be judged on its past record when it comes to claims made at previous D_Coded events, Mr Miller said.

“What we present at D_Coded, we deliver on,” he said. “This is not a company that makes empty promises. We listen to the needs of our clients, our agency partners and we develop a solution. We then come back and show them what we were able to achieve for them.”

Ms Barrett added that “D_Coded is more than just an event for us”. “It’s a bold statement of our leadership and unwavering commitment to driving client success,” she said.

“This year is a demonstration of proven outcomes. We will showcase how brands can leverage News’s innovative solutions to gain a strategic advantage and reinforce our position as the partner of choice.

“We will unveil our expanded video strategy and partnerships which will open up exciting new opportunities for our clients; we will show how our supercharged audience intelligence data tools will produce deeper insights and smarter campaigns; and we will deliver tangible proof that real audience engagement leads to unparalleled client outcomes.”

Under the leadership of Ms Barrett, News has simplified the pathway to maximising a client’s desired outcome, understanding who their audience segments are and their campaign objectives, Mr Miller said.

The News audience compares to the reach of the biggest technology platforms, he said.

“News has a bigger audience than the Australian government on its network. We compete with Alphabet and Meta on reach,” Mr Miller said.

“It’s audience engagement that we are particularly focused on. The way we measure engagement is how many pages do each of our unique audiences view per month. That is where we’ve seen big increases. Taste had its best Christmas in two years recently. Body+Soul is up 78 per cent year-on-year.

“As a group, we have 125 page views per unique audience versus Nine, which has only 38 – three times more than our nearest local competitor.”

In addition to competing with tech platforms for advertising, News Corp is continuing discussions with Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta about the news media bargaining code.

Meta walked away from its agreements with news organisations about a year ago, but Mr Miller said negotiations with the tech giants were live.

“The government, last December, made a fairly firm statement around the news bargaining incentive. It has encouraged the platforms to come to commercial agreements with Australian publishers,” he said.

“Because of the upcoming election, I think we’ll put those discussions on pause. I would say I’ve been in contact frequently with all of those companies in the past month.”

When asked how receptive the digital platforms had been to making restitution for the benefits they got from having News content on their platforms, Mr Miller said “it’s too early to give you an answer that”. “But the lines of communication, as encouraged by the government, are there,” he said.

Although News Corp Australia had a stronger relationship with Google than it did with the Facebook parent, Mr Miller said he’d had “more conversations in the current calendar year with Meta than in the previous year, and it’s only March”.

News Corp Australia is the publisher of The Australian.