Nine has officially launched Nine Ad Manager, its tech platform utilising Artificial Intelligence that will give Australian small to medium-sized businesses the ability to buy postcode-targeted video advertising on 9Now.
The product, which allows Australia’s 2.5 million small to medium-sized businesses to build a targeted ad campaign with video creative generated by AI, is a game changer for businesses wanting to target a hyperlocal audience. It was first announced at Nine’s Upfront in September and has since created significant interest from SMBs.
It is the first time in Australia that SMBs can target audiences by postcode or interest using Nines 20 million signed-in users in Australia’s most watched programming on 9Now, including The Block, Married At First Sight, Lego Masters, 9News, 60 Minutes, the Australian Open and NRL.
Read more: Nine Upfront 2024: Nine to launch self-serve AI tech platform for SMBs
Ben Campbell, Nine’s director of data and digital advertising product, said: “The launch of Nine Ad Manager is a real milestone, opening up the possibility for Australian small and medium businesses to advertise on streaming TV for the very first time. Through the power of TV, SMBs can now turn their business into a household name within their local area.”
With the ability to precisely target audiences using age and sex demographics, household location down to individual postcodes,interests and behaviours or TV show and genre, SMBs can now reach their target audience with zero wastage. The barrier of small to medium businesses not having a TV commercial is also solved by Nine Ad Manager. Businesses can create an ad using AI simply by entering their website URL into a creative builder in the platform. The platform collates images, text, branding and colour palettes from the business’s website, creating a scripted video with AI-generated voice-over – all produced in a few minutes.
The platform has already proved transformational for one Sydney business, invited to trial Nine Ad Manager. Pacific Boating, based on Sydney’s northern beaches, have had a campaign appearing on 9Now for the last three weeks.
Phillip Pitt, managing director of Pacific Boating, said: “We logged in, and selected a male skewed demographic, with our ads only appearing in ten postcodes – all north of the Spit Bridge (essentially the Northern Beaches region). We chose this area to increase awareness and membership sales for our fleet of Pittwater based vessels.”
“Since going live, we’ve seen a 20% increase in the number of enquiries to our website, and a 10% increase in monthly sales, directly attributable to our $1000 investment. We will continue to use Nine Ad Manager throughout the year, and we will run different messaging for different geographic regions – something we have not been able to do in the past.”
Tim Rose, director of sales – Nine Plus, said: “Most small businesses across Australia would love the opportunity to advertise on television, but until now, it has been cost prohibitive. SMBs want to see their brand appearing alongside Nine’s premium content, but often to a highly targeted, local audience – not an entire city. They have smaller budgets, and they need to be able to measure the effectiveness of every dollar spent. Nine Ad Manager was built to deliver against all of these objectives.”