News Corp harnesses Unruly to bet big on mobile and video in programmatic tie-up
News Corp has kicked off its Cannes activity this year, using its video ad tech unit Unruly to launch a new vertical video ad format purpose built for mobile audiences that will be made available to advertisers across its stable of titles, including The Sun and New York Post.
The new ad formats will be available on The Sun and New York Post
The media powerhouse claims the newly launched outstream video ad format will chime well with its readership, and in a bid to help back these claims, it has also paired with viewability firm Moat to assure advertisers as to the effectiveness of the offering.
Speaking at the press launch of the new units, Unruly chief executive Sarah Wood said her outfit would act as an SSP (supply-side platform), and that the ad units would initially be available on The Sun and New York Post (others will follow) and the inventory is available programmatically, not just via I/O [insertion order].
In the run-up to the launch, Unruly, and News UK (the UK arm of News Corp which publishes both The Sun and The Times times) quizzed consumers on just what it is they do, and don’t like about consuming content (including ads) on their mobile phones.
The findings of these insights featured heavily in the launch, with Wood stating: “The future is mobile, and the future is video””
However, with that said, there are some annoyances, such as people having to turn their phone horizontally, with those in the UK and U.S. over-indexing than the global average, explained Wood, adding that the outfit purposely chose to conduct “lightning/flash surveys of consumers”, as they are the overlooked element in the advertising industry.
“If you’re an advertiser, you want to talk to someone in their native language… and if you know Unruly, you’ll know that we feel passionately about forced advertising… if you’re forcing viewers, then it could really work against you,” she added.
The new ad product "a polite ad format, we’d like to say,” in Woods’ words, adding that it (along with the insights gleaned from the consumer dialogue would help bolster CPMs, as well as the results advertisers are after.