Nine ups ante on ad charges

Nine Entertainment has overhauled its ad modelling, in a bid to compete more aggressively against tech rivals YouTube and Facebook.

Nine's chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson (right), and Head of 9Powered, Liana Dubois. Picture: Chris Pavlich/The Australian

Nine Entertainment will only charge brands for online video advertisements watched in entirety by consumers, in a move to compete more aggressively against tech rivals YouTube and Facebook.

Chief sales officer Michael Stephenson told advertisers at Nine’s annual “upfronts” that it would roll out a “cost per completed view” model for short- and long-form video, meaning brands will only be charged for ads that have a 100 per cent completion rate.

“We want to be a direct competitor to Facebook and YouTube. I don’t want the marketplace to see 9Now or Nine to be in the broadcast video on demand market. We are in the social video market … and the social video market includes Facebook and YouTube,” Mr Stephenson said.

“If we want to return brands to growth, we need to reset, rebalance and realign where marketers are spending their money to deliver the greatest return on their marketing investment.”

Mr Stephenson said the model would allow advertisers to compare the cost of advertising on Facebook versus YouTube and now on Nine.

“We do compete on incremental reach, and we will compete on a level playing field by moving to a cost per completed view metric,” he said.

Nine is looking to work its data assets harder across brands including 9Now, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, Domain, Pedestrian Group and CarAdvice. Nine said it now had more than 11 million user IDs.

Nine also announced the launch of its Australia 2020 initiative, an opportunity linked to Nine’s key television events.