News Corp Australia is taking its digital marketing service, News Xtend, overseas for the first time in a deal with Singapore Press Holdings.
As part of the three-year agreement, News Xtend, a marketing business within News Corp that provides advice to small and medium businesses on how to market themselves digitally, will target Singapore’s market, including working with business owners in the region to help them create targeted digital campaigns.
“As Singapore’s largest media network with a quality audience, we are happy to collaborate with News Corp Australia to take our comprehensive omnichannel offerings to the next level with News Xtend,” says Anthony Tan, deputy CEO at Singapore Press Holdings (SPH).
"With Singapore’s digital penetration at almost 90%, SPH is excited to provide businesses with an affordable and convenient digital marketing solution to help them achieve their desired results. With this new partnership, we are well-positioned to support SMBs by bridging the gap in the solutions available in our domestic market.”
The deal comes as News Corp follows an aggressive digital strategy in the face of declining advertising revenue. This has involved the closure of more than 100 newspapers around Australia, with most moving to digital-only titles, and more investment in digital advertising and marketing solutions.
News Corp Australia says its News Xtend business has been one of its fast growing businesses over the past five years.
“This partnership demonstrates News Xtend’s globally recognised and award-winning capability in running performance marketing campaigns,” says Michael Miller, News Corp Australasia executive chair.
“It also recognises our ability to innovate digitally and create digital businesses that are easily scalable.
“We’re now exporting our know-how by partnering with another media company that, like ours, has successfully transitioned to the digital landscape. This is exactly the space we want to play in. It’s a great acknowledgement that the investment we’ve made to grow and diversify our business is now being deployed by another media business in another region.”
According to PwC research, Singapore’s SMB sector generates almost half of Singapore’s gross domestic product and accounts for 72% of employment.
“Singapore’s explicit digital agenda places it among the region’s most digital savvy nations, which is something that extends to its small to medium business sector and is highly attractive to a business such as ours,” says Emma Fawcett, News Corp Australia managing director for commercial product and platforms.
"The fact Singapore has important synergies to Australia in terms of industries and digital habits, language and a highly supportive environment for foreign investment are wonderful extras and, of course, Singapore’s status as a critical commercial hub for the entire region is an added bonus.”
The partnership will see SPH resell News Xtend’s services.
“We'll be running campaigns for their customers that include advertising services such as search engine marketing, social media advertising, video and display advertising,” Fawcett says.
This will allow Singapore Press Holdings to open themselves to an entirely new customer base and also allow them to meet more of the needs of their existing customer base.
“We will also be providing marketing services such as call tracking. This will be packaged up into simple, outcome-focussed solutions designed to make it easy for customers to achieve meaningful business results that they can measure.”
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