Nine has announced that major brands HotelCombined, KFC, Suzuki and Lottoland are all partnering with season four of Married at First Sight.
MORE: Behind the scenes at Married At First Sight 2017
The newest season of the show returns to Nine tonight with an expanded 90-minute format and, for the first time, sponsorships integrated into the program.
The series is being produced for Nine this year by Endemol Shine Australia.
“Tonight sees the start of what is a very exciting 2017 programming slate for Nine,” said Michael Stephenson (pictured), chief sales officer. “Married at First Sight has for a number of years been an audience favourite and we are excited about how we now have the expanded format and are also able to offer exciting new commercial integrations into the show.”
Stephenson told Mediaweek: “Having major partners on major formats is a big focus for us. It gives brands the opportunity to tell their story through locally produced content. That is one of the reasons why there is an increased investment in local content.
Program partners HotelCombined and KFC have each taken out specific integrations, with HotelCombined being integrated into the Married at First Sight “honeymoon week” to support its current “right here waiting for you” advertising campaign. KFC has taken out a dedicated sponsorship of the short-form videos of spontaneous and fun moments from the program on 9Now.
Suzuki and Lottoland are also partners of Married at First Sight and they will have key spots and billboard placements around the program to increase brand awareness.
Stephenson added: “What we did is go to market well before our upfront presentations in informal presentations. We showed what we had coming up for the next 18 months. Advertisers are increasingly eager for quality Australian content that can provide opportunities for strong, effective integrations and key placements around that content to drive strong results. We wanted to give them the time to integrate into our shows and into our content across every platform, giving them the maximum time to leverage the partnership.
“Agencies want to push the boundaries to leverage the greatest possible return on those shows, and I think they should do that. We also continue to challenge ourselves to find new and different ways for brands to be able to tell their story in our content and to get a much greater return.”
“We are confident that this year’s season of Married at First Sight will be bigger and better than ever, and effective for advertisers eager to reach key demographics of Australian audiences.”