News Corp Australia brought together participants from across the programmatic supply chain to take part in an action-packed afternoon of strategy, teamwork and friendly industry competition.
The Programmatic Pursuit saw teams roam across the Sydney CBD to solve clues, complete checkpoint challenges with partners – Nexxen, Yahoo, Google, Index Exchange, The Trade Desk and Pubmatic – who tested everyone’s programmatic knowledge.
Paul Oyama, head of programmatic supply at News Corp Australia, told Mediaweek that by bringing together the businesses involved in a programmatic campaign attendees learn from each other and about News Corp’s ‘tech driven, human centric’ vision.
“There’s a lot of technology that drives activating a programmatic campaign. It’s really built there to have as little touch points as possible to run an efficient campaign. However, there is a forgotten element of the humans behind the scenes making things possible within the supply chain.
“Part of the Programmatic Pursuit is to bring everyone together. There’s going to be challenges where they get to learn about the programmatic industry in general but also learn about the capabilities between News Corp and some of our programmatic DSP and SSP partners.”
Paul Oyama (pictured), head of programmatic supply at News Corp Australia, told Mediaweek that by bringing together the businesses involved in a programmatic campaign attendees learn from each other and about News Corp’s ‘tech driven, human centric’ vision.
Oyama: ‘Part of the Programmatic Pursuit is to bring everyone together.’
Importance of human connection
The technology behind programmatic makes it possible to there to be as few touchpoints as possible when activating a campaign, but Oyama highlighted that the humans behind it are the forgotten yet powerful element of the programmatic supply chain.
He explained that many programmatic buyers’ “cherry pick” different impressions through target exchanges or SSP (supply side platforms) across thousands of sites.
“While that might help deliver out just reach, it doesn’t really target specific types of audiences that might be valued higher than others. At D_Coded last week, Lou Barrett introduced Engaged Reach, and that talks to the power of our content and the way we measure the loyalty, trust and conscious choice that 17.5 million Australians make every month to engage with our content.”
News Corp showcased enhancements to Intent Connect at D_Coded, its audience intelligence platform that helps brands reach high-intent consumers through AI.
“When you are buying on an exchange in the marketplace, you’re not really getting the benefits of the insights of a publisher. Having that human element between us and the client, we’re able to use AI to respond to a brief or put a strategy forward for them so they can make sure that they hit the right audiences for their campaign.”
Yahoo’s checkpoint challenge at Prince Albert Park
Google takes over Telstra in Pitt Street Mall for its checkpoint challenge
News Corp’s move into AVOD
News Corp also launched its new partnership with Tubi as an advertising supported video on demand platform at D_Coded. The platform has a content library with more than 275,000 movies and TV episodes that are available globally. In 2024, there are 97 million monthly active users with 10 billion streaming hours globally.
“It’s definitely a large audience base. Tubi brings the extended breadth of offerings at News Corp. Traditionally, we’ve been seen as a display and short form business. Tubi allows us to extend that offering to the living room, to the big screen, to what we’re calling all screens for all Australians, allowing us to run campaigns and reach that engaged audiences, no matter where they are or even what time of the day.”
He noted that New Corp content has been stronger in the morning as people commute and or around lunchtime on mobile phone or desktop as they looking at taste.com.au for a recipe to cook that afternoon.
“With Tubi, that now brings us the afternoon and evening audiences where they might be relaxing and fully submerged into a movie or a TV show. Having the ability to reach engaged audiences all throughout the day is a big thing for brands, and it allows us a new proposition to market.”
The ad funded platform, which will be available to key programmatic partners through one-to-one deals or on the open market, does not require consumers to pay for a subscription, which caters to people concerned with cost of living and conscious of monthly costs.
Oyama added: “We are starting to see some of the bigger platforms move more from a paid monthly subscription to an ad funded model as well. So you can see that these are the type of audiences that brands also want to be speaking to.”
Nexxen sets up a programmtic themed game of Guess Who? in Prince Albert Park
Team Alpha at the finish line of News Corp Australia’s Programmatic Pursuit
Transparency and efficiency
WARC’s “The Future of Programmatic” report, released last June, surveyed 100 programmatic experts and highlighted the opaqueness of the media supply chain as a main concern
Oyama said the programmatic industry is in a better place with transparency, SSPs and cleaning up their supply by removing low-engaging websites and made for advertising websites.
“Part of my role is to ensure that programmatic buyers are able to access news.com.au, The Australian or Tubi in the most cost-effective and transparent way.”
Oyama highlighted the two ways News Corp does this: ads.txt. and ensuring a clean bid stream. He explained most programmatic buyers have implemented ads.txt., a IAB TechLabs initiative, helping publishers declare their authorised sellers. New Corp’s approach of only allowing direct entries – a publisher’s direct relationship with a third party – across all its display and video inventory.
“In a world of signal loss, we are constantly ensuring that the right types of signals are also being passed through in the bid stream.”
By ensuring the bidstream is clean, New Corp work with its agency and in-house clients through private marketplace and one to one programmatic deals. Direct engagement with clients allows then to align tech stack to fit SPO strategies. New Corp’s agnostic approach allows them to support how buyers want to trade.
Oyama also spoke about programmatic buyers making the switch to advertising to attribute ROI and have transparency on how it is spent. He noted that in today’s economy, brands are looking for ways to run media campaigns that have a direct correlation to return on investment, and they’re able to see exactly where almost every single cent has been spent.
“Part of the key initiatives that we have around transparency phase is to ensure that they can measure that, and they can see exactly where that’s been spent. We have seen at News, campaigns that would have typically run through a traditional IO are starting to move to programmatic guaranteed to create efficiencies on both the buy side and the sell side.
“We’re also starting to see performance-led campaigns that have a direct correlation to an outcome. That way they’re able to measure the effectiveness of their marketing budget and able to really achieve key KPIs that actually matter to a business, such as driving sales or a particular action on a website.”