Women’s lifestyle network 9Honey has announced the launch of its 9Honey Parenting vertical.
As a part of this, 9Honey Mums, Essential Kids and Essential Baby will all be re-branded into one site, 9Honey Parenting.
Mediaweek caught up with Nine Digital editorial director Kerri Elstub to talk about what this means for Nine Digital’s parenting content and the future of 9Honey
Elstub said that this announcement was the culmination of six months of work by the Nine Digital and 9Honey Parenting teams and that it made too much sense not to do.
“For the Nine digital team and the 9Honey Parenting team it just made sense. It was the next logical step for us to roll everything under one brand, under the one vertical like 9Honey and make that the home of all things parenting. Previously there have been three separate brands so we’re bringing the best of everything together.”
Elstub said that with this new vertical that Nine Digital wants 9Honey Parenting to be a one-stop-shop for mums, dads, carers, grandparents, whatever their age, or whatever their stage of parenting.
“Particularly for places like Sydney, you’re emerging from stay at home orders and from homeschooling and we’re talking about kids going back to school. Now’s the perfect time to launch 9Honey parenting because families are looking for a return to somewhat normal. They want information, they want to know what’s going on, but they also want entertainment and distraction. And I think we’re going to get to do that under this new vertical.”
To coincide with the re-brand, 9Honey Parenting will feature exclusive columns by actress and mum-of-two Tammin Sursok; dad-of-two and reality TV star Matty Johnson, and motivational speaker, author and mum of two, Turia Pitt.
“I think the future is very bright we’ve got some really big name columnists who have signed on and a lot of Nine talent are really keen to be involved.”
The vertical will also feature video content and expand on the editorial offering previously seen on 9Honey Mums, Essential Kids and Essential Baby.
“For the first time ever, we’re able to do parenting videos, our older platforms on Essential Baby and Essential Kids didn’t allow for that. So it’s a really great thing for the audience. And a great thing for advertisers too. Starting a video content plan from scratch in Covid is challenging but the team has done an amazing job.
“The site is going to be run by the Essential Baby and Essential Kids team and they are really excited to have a new platform to tell their stories. But we are always looking for new content, what’s next, new voices and voices from a very diverse range of backgrounds.”
Elstub said that video was an important next step in Nine Digital’s parenting content, to ensure that it reflects contemporary consumption habits.
“Anyone who’s got a kid will tell you that’s how kids consume their media. That’s how they relate to each other. So I think it’s important that parents use video, consume video and understand it.”