With Advertising Week APAC fast approaching for 2023, it’s time to start choosing which sessions to pay a visit to once the gates at Luna Park open. As a major partner of the event, News Corp will have a major presence across the two days.
It’s not just AdWeek keeping the News Corp team busy either, with a number of announcements set to come before the year is out.
Mediaweek spoke to News Corp’s managing director, national sales, Lou Barrett about what punters can expect from News Corp at AdWeek, and to get a sneak peek at what’s ahead.
News Corp at Ad Week
“I love AdWeek!” Barrett says. “What it enables News Corp to do is be able to connect with the marketing and media community at scale.”
As a primary partner of Advertising Week APAC, News Corp has a presence that spans the length of the event. Barrett says that there are several perks of being involved, but one stands above the rest.
“There are so many young people that go through AdWeek, which I love because I really want to build a connection with younger buyers and younger marketers for News Corp. That’s a real priority for me.”
When asked if there were any events she and the team are particularly looking forward to, Barrett says that she won’t be able to miss the major event News Corp is involved with, but she’s excited about it all the same.
“The one I’m going to miss is actually one I set up! That’s the dinner with Michael Miller and Karl Stefanovic. Michael was really adamant that if he was going be interviewed by someone, it had to be someone that wasn’t a News Corp person. I said, what about Karl? He goes – ‘Great idea.’
“Karl has a great sense of humour, so I think he’ll have a bit of fun with Michael. There will be some significant things that he touches on – I don’t want to say controversial, but probably controversial things that he touches on with Michael as well.”
As well as the dinner, Barrett says that the News Corp presence at Advertising Week will provide both information and entertainment.
“We’ve tried to be a bit diverse – we’ve tried to put some interesting information and research pieces in the Growth D_Stillery and we’ve got the entertaining piece, which is obviously the Matty Johns chat with Gary Jubelin. Both of them are very, very different, but both have incredibly successful podcasts. So I think our presence will be entertaining, and I think it’ll be very insightful, as well.”
News Corp in 2023
Reflecting on the state of the industry right now, Barrett says that she’s feeling more positive than she was previously.
“I’m feeling like the markets may be picking up a bit. I feel like there are a lot of briefs in market at the moment – it’s just winning those briefs. That wasn’t the case for the last quarter. But it’s now starting to pick up, so I’m starting to feel a little bit more confident.”
In March this year, Barrett and the News Corp team held the annual digital marketing event, D_Coded, announcing some major innovations like the launch of a mobile first Vertical Video Platform and the rebranding of News Connect to Intent Connect.
See Also: Content and commerce: Lou Barrett on the nuts and bolts of D_Coded 2023
“There were some big announcements, and the focus for us has been on getting those up and running,” says Barrett. “What we’ve been doing since D_Coded is running Decoding D_Coded sessions with clients. So for those that couldn’t get to D_Coded, or for those that really wanted to understand it more, we’ve been hosting these sessions which can be individualised for our customers.”
“We’re just about to announce our first vertical video partner, it’s going to be TikTok. They’re a great vertical video partner, and obviously, they see the benefit of having a trusted partner in which to showcase vertical videos. We’re excited about TikTok coming on board.”