Nine has unveiled four commercial partners for its 'social experiment' tent pole show Married At First Sight.
Last night, Married at First grew its average launch TV audience by 10.5% YoY to 912,000 metro and 1.28 million national viewers.
This season, KFC, HotelsCombined, Youfoodz and Finder.com.au have come on board with Nine also reporting strong demand in the casual spot advertising market.
“The number of major partners we have on the show has increased YoY and the way brands are leveraging the format across every single channel has changed a lot year-on-year,” Nine chief sales office Michael Stephenson tells AdNews.
“Advertisers are really creating marketing campaigns around all of those distribution channels.”
Several partners have developed bespoke integrations for the show.
HotelsCombined, returning for a second year and supplying the honeymoons and weekends away for the couples, have Married at First Sight-inspired ads featuring last season's stars, Perth twins Sharon and Michelle Marsh.
They will also be partnering with Married at First Sight episode recaps on Nine’s leading women’s network, 9Honey.
Finder.com.au will create a Married at First Sight highlights section on Nine’s celebrity news website, TheFix, which will cover behind-the-scenes gossip and insider information from the show. They will also own a weekly Facebook viewer poll where the audience get their say on topics in the show.
KFC, Youfoodz and West Australian hairdressing chain Maurice Meade (in Perth only) will have key spots and billboard placements around the program to increase brand awareness.
“What we know through research is the brands that integrate their story within our content and leverage the IP of the show across every platform inside and outside our ecosystem, including the use of talent, certainly drives engagement and better outcomes,” Stephenson adds.
“All of our partners last year had great commercial outcomes from Married At First Sight as a marketing platform. Advertisers are investing in formats to build their business, drive brand awareness, increase unprompted and prompted brand saliency and ultimately sell more of their product, whether it's family meal deals or hotel rooms.”
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