Introducing advertising on Stan Sport is a step in the right direction, even if some hoped that it would be the wider streaming platform that received ads, according to media agencies who attended Nine Entertainment’s Upfront 2025.
A rebuilt data stack, partnerships aimed at increasing measurement and attribution and a project to verify ROI and the effectiveness of campaigns to give marketers ammunition when it comes to proving investment were also praised by media buyers.
The Upfront presentation, a lunch for 1,200 at Sydney’s Carriageworks, was done without the usual line up of television personalities, instead relying on Nine’s senior sales team to talk directly to clients.
Atomic 212°'s chief investment & trading director, Lorraine Woods, said Nine’s upfront announcements were focused on what agencies and advertisers have been asking for around data and technology and a significant leap forward in measurement and attribution to deliver better business results.
“Nine’s advancements in tech and data are market leading and exciting, particularly with their partnership expansion with Adgile and DataCo, and their enhancements of 9tribes only strengthen an already impressive data stack,” she said.
“As campaign effectiveness is constantly scrutinised, measurement, attribution and optimisation are critical to everything we do. Nine has addressed this head-on, creating sophisticated data led solutions for us to identify and reach our target audiences more effectively, but also allowing us to measure and optimise campaigns based on real results.
“Their collaborative approach with MMM is particularly intriguing. It shows that Nine is truly committed to proving the effectiveness of their total TV product, willing to put skin in the game and invest in partnerships that provide measurable outcomes and hold Nine accountable. We will be very interested in working with them on this.
“Advertising on Stan is finally here, albeit focused on sport for now. It’s a smart move by Nine. It’s a positive step toward reclaiming some of the revenue from the growing streaming platforms.
“Really progressive and exciting is the launch of 9Galaxy+. The ability to manage campaigns and audiences across platforms and devices will be a game-changer. This, combined with the efficiencies 9Galaxy+ promises, will undoubtedly improve campaign performance and ROI.
“Regarding programming, Nine showcased their significant suite of sports across Stan Sport and Nine including the Melbourne Cup, all the tennis majors and the British & Irish Lions rugby tour. For general entertainment they’ve made a focus of owning the early evening, with two big announcements being The Floor trivia game show and The Golden Bachelor.
“The launch of the Good Food app will likely be well-received, offering exciting opportunities for brands in the food and lifestyle sectors to engage with a highly targeted audiences."
TFM Digital’s CEO Taylor Fielding said that he was quietly impressed with the tools on offer.
“Nine's Ad Manager was probably the biggest element to come out of the event,” he said.
“I hadn't heard much about the tech since the Upfronts last year - whether reps had been touting it I’m not sure, but it does seem to build on capability of what was available. Search, social and TV all on one platform is potentially interesting.
“How this offering fits into your holistic product marketing mix, will be up to individual advertisers, but it could offer some efficiencies. The jury is still out though on whether it will feel more like another Meta Advantage Plus or Google Performance Max."
Initiative’s Melbourne head of investment, Stephanie O’Donnell, said while it was assumed Nine would announce an ad-tier model across Stan, it makes sense to introduce advertising on Stan Sport first, given success of other SVOD sports led platforms, and continued growth of live sport audiences on total screens.
“Audio content was quite light, but it was positive to see investment into new podcasts that should bring a younger audience to Nine,” she said.
“We love any opportunity to implement efficiencies in process, and the automated campaign result reports was a nice addition. I am keen to see more on this.
“The pressure to shift investment to performance channels is an issue many clients have been facing. We welcome any opportunity to prove ROI and effectiveness of our client’s activity and are onboard with Nine’s initiative. Given the decline in total TV spend is affecting all networks, it feels like a bit of a miss that this wasn’t a collaborative effort with all FTA partners.
“In an interesting pivot from Nine’s usual presentation style, Nine's talent took a backseat rather than being front and centre promoting returning and new programming. This is perhaps because they had such a strong focus on ROI this year - making it the hero of the day.”
Principle Media Group’s founder and CEO, Chris Nolan, said it was a stirring pitch from Nine for the power of Total TV.
“Chief Sales Officer Michael Stephenson provided a compelling offer to partner with Nine to prove the return on investment of Total TV - it was really well received in the room,” he said.
"The introduction of sport into Stan is an interesting move for Nine, it offers a more premium viewing experience and ultimately the ability to trade across Nine assets, however it will no doubt depend on what sport inventory is made accessible as to its appeal for marketers.
"The ability to connect real time audiences to sales data is something that we have seen in other offerings, for some marketers, this connectivity to purchase data will provide another entry point into understanding video influence on outcomes. In addition, good to see they are introducing connectors in addition to the Adobe CDP which will no doubt open up that opportunity."
Mindshare’s Melbourne head of investment, Ante Pejic, said the news of the day was Nine commercialising Stan Sport.
“I think the market would’ve hoped for a full commercialisation of the asset to include entertainment. It’s something we hope they scale fast,” he said.
“On the other hand, what’s really positive for our clients, is the full integration of all available Nine video inventory to Galaxy+. With everyone needing to do more with less, advancements like these allow our clients and agency teams the capacity to be more strategic and effective.
“This coupled with Nine’s rich audience data provides for a very competent offering. It's pleasing to see Nine doubling down on video through shared content with Nine, 9Now, Stan and vertical video in Domain and Drive.
“The measurement approach gives another dimension to Nine's offering, particularly for those clients who don't already engage in econometric modelling. What remains to be seen is how these models integrate with brands' current measurement frameworks with the tech companies."
Avenue C’s media director Clare Zappia said the focus for Nine was simple: don’t over complicate and focus on the key statement - ‘Nine delivers Better Business Results’ - to land
"And this is exactly what they did,” she said.
“They did not have the bells and whistles of the previous years to dazzle and distract. Instead, they chose to centre on the huge audience opportunity that exists across their logged in subscriber base – 22M across all Nine Entertainment Co properties.
“They focused, not on what the upcoming show launches are, but instead on the success they’ve had by moving to a single audience view for their network and the 1st party data capabilities they have, as a result of the rich insights gained.
“They also talked a lot about the power of Total TV and the myth in the industry that TV as a whole is in decline. Boasting 6% broadcast audience growth and a massive 40% BVOD growth, their challenge, as they identified it, was to invite reappraisal of their channels for marketers who have lost faith in the upper funnel and are focused only on the bottom-line performance numbers.
“Nine’s aim was very clear: they want to take back share of budgets being lost to platform businesses and the way to do it is to prove their results. So, in a bold move the key announcement was that Nine will partner with Media Mix Modelling heavy weights to measure a selection of 14 major clients’ business results, utilising Nine’s suite of channels. Their aim is to put their money where their mouth is this year in order to claw back share, but without the Olympics behemoth in 2025 they may struggle to maintain growth.
“In amongst this push to prove out their offering, they peppered in a few key content highlights and moves for next year. This included the normal favourites returning such as The Block, MAFS, Travel Guides, LEGO Masters and the Summit, but with two new prime time players: The Golden Bachelor, a Bachelor spin off for lovers over 50 and The Floor, a new game show hosted by Roger Corser.
“While Stan general entertainment content did not get announced for an ad-funded tier, Stan Sport will be getting ads from 2025. This will be Nine’s challenge to Foxtel and Kayo, and although the scale is small the audience will be engaged as they seek out content only available with the higher tier subscription. Whether the extra $15 premium to access Stan Sports becomes too high for some with ads introduced remains to be seen.
“All of this, including Stan Sport, will be able to be bought via converged trading and a single CPM, showing Nine’s intention to focus on their scale and access to eyeballs. All in all, a straight-forward and very focused presentation, however without the Olympics to stand on, as well as no new block buster programs launching in 2025, the key watch out will be if they can maintain their momentum and deliver on their promise to perform."
Havas Media Network Australia’s national head of partnership and adtech, Kevin Fernandes, said the focus shifted from last year's Paris Olympics theme to a strong emphasis on consolidation, measurement, and showcasing effective partnerships.
“A key highlight was the power of Total TV, as Nine noted that over $600 million has migrated from traditional TV to lower-funnel tactics, reflecting marketers' demand for better return on investment (ROI),” he said.
“To address this shift, Nine announced a $30 million investment aimed at demonstrating the efficacy of Total TV. This includes collaborations with market mix modelling (MMM) partners such as Mutinex, Analytic Partners, and Annalect. These initiatives are already in place for 14 Australian brands, underscoring the belief that investment in upper-funnel TV and long-term campaigns will yield greater benefits compared to a short-term focus.
“On the content front, Nine introduced several new shows, including The Floor, The Golden Bachelor, and Madam, all crafted to engage a unified audience of over 16 million. This aligns with Nine’s commitment to innovation and personalized content delivery at scale.
“Additionally, Nine announced that its streaming platform, Stan, will begin incorporating advertising across its content. This strategic move aims to enhance business outcomes for advertisers, expanding their reach within Nine’s growing ecosystem.
“All these initiatives and partnerships are exactly what brands and agencies are asking for. I'm excited to see how Nine continues to push boundaries, offering an end-to-end perspective on effectiveness and driving impactful outcomes for clients and partners alike."
PHD’s group investment director, Lauren Griffin, said in difficult economic times when marketing budgets are under increasing pressure to deliver outcomes, Nine has promised to be the partner that delivers Better Business Results for clients.
“Nine have partnered with clients, spanning multiple categories, to run market mix modelling and dedicated over $30M worth of inventory to assist with independent research to prove the effectiveness of the Nine ecosystem,” she said.
“For clients outside of the measurement study, they will be able to utilise the category findings as an unbiased data point to justify investment into specific channels.
“Nine have bolstered their data strategy beyond their impressive 22 million registered users by adding Dataco to their staple. By unlocking transactional data from 8 million ANZ Bank cardholders, we will be better positioned to target category buyers and report on sales uplift. A partnership with Adgile will allow us to report on the performance of other business outcomes as well, ensuring an end-to-end view of effectiveness.
“Media buyers will welcome the news that 9Galaxy has expanded to all channels and day parts. We already have extensive experience and confidence in the platform so this will be a significant market advantage for Nine. This development as well as the unification of publishing brands under one adserver and the automated campaign results via self-serve dashboards will only increase the ease of transacting across Nine’s ecosystem.
“The introduction of ads on Stan Sport is extremely exciting and will unlock new inventory across in-demand sporting content, allowing advertisers to follow their audience no matter which platform they choose to engage with."
The Media Store CEO, Stephen Leeds, said Michael Stephenson (Stevo) challenged marketers to invest in brand for long term growth versus the bottom of funnel for short term KPI’s.
“In a direct and honest pitch, Stevo made it clear that he doesn’t like that $600 million has left total TV for performance channels and has given an incentive with a guarantee to see that return. Was it a sign of desperation or an invitation to seize an opportunity?” he said.
“In what was a relatively demure upfront, Stevo was the star. It’s why we come to these events. Not to be shown a program reel, but to learn something new. We expect the sell, and that’s what he delivered last night. Nine returned their attention to good old TV - reach, scale and results! The programming slate is solid, but for me it wasn’t about that, it was a reminder to be confident to invest our clients’ money in TV.
“I suspect there will be commentary around the missed opportunity that acting CEO Matt Stanton didn’t really address the cultural issues, some expecting an apology, that maybe he glossed over it, but for me the main focus was Nine’s pitch that total TV still delivers.”
OMD Melbourne’s group transformation director, Elizabeth Calwell, said what Nine has shown is how to deftly navigate that elusive two-speed approach required for digital transformation.
“They’ve been quietly evolving their foundational tech stack while continuing to deliver one of the markets most robust data offerings outside the walled gardens,” she said.
“What we’re seeing now is their earlier strategic calls starting to pay dividends: continued focus and investment in the tangibility, quality and scale of their 22m logged in users means their new Adobe CDP infrastructure isn’t just an empty shell, but immediately an ecosystem featuring both data breadth and depth that’s ready to embrace collaboration and enhanced AI capabilities now.
“It's this evolution, not revolution, that makes Nine’s data proposition so compelling for brands. Nine understands that the incremental growth gains for advertisers will come from attention to data detail, not reinventing the wheel.
“Their approach to enhancing their 9Tribes segments is evidence of this, but also their data partnerships (notably this year's DataCo announcement) which strategically solve for their blind spots, adding complexity rather than clutter for those trying to extract value from their campaigns.
“If they can truly weave the data thread effectively across their consumer touchpoints and channels as they say, then it will be an exciting data playground for experimentation that is certainly capable of delivering the ‘Better Business Results’ that Nine is promising.”
Frontier Media's head Of biddable media, Denver Rego, said despite a turbulent year, Nine boasted growth across total TV, audio and publishing - underpinned by the coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
"A number of product developments were announced such as partnership with BBC Studios on its new FAST channels and debut of the Good Food App," he said.
"As expected, Nine announced that advertising will arrive on Stan Sport in 2025, this enables advertisers to execute a single campaign across Nine's total television platform. An exciting opportunity, however it will come with its own challenges, not limited to, but including pricing, ad clutter, and consumer experience.
"In another significant announcement, Nine is partnering up with Analytic Partners, Mutinex, Annelect, GroupM, IPG and Publicis Groupe to prove the power and efficacy of total television, its role in the marketing ecosystem and the importance of top of the funnel advertising for brands.
"They will aim to prove or disprove 30 hypotheses to help inform better campaign planning to deliver better results. Examples of hypotheses could include when and how to optimise, and whether a higher percentage of investment into TV delivers better business results for a company.
"Nine has continued to improve their data capabilities - on pace with its competitors. Partnership announcements with Adgile and Data Co, plus product improvements with the introduction of Tribe Intenders, and clean room enhancements, should provide advertisers a deeper view into targeting and measurement, flowing into better business outcomes.
"Overall, a solid show from Nine and I'm looking forward to learning more about the solutions and applying them for my clients."
iProspect’s group investment director, Vera Manalac, said Nine’s focus this year was on their ability to achieve better business results for clients through their house of brands across total television, publishing and audio.
“One of the biggest announcements they made was their new partnership with ANZ bank which will give advertisers access to ANZ’s credit and transactional data,” she said.
“This data can be fused with our client’s 1st party data and Nine’s registered users. This will be exciting for marketers who are constantly being asked to prove out their upper funnel activity and will also allow agencies to not only plan against Nine’s audience segments but also prove out the ROI of their campaigns.
“It will also allow advertisers and agencies to validate which audiences are actually pulling through to purchase and buying within their categories, rather than just relying solely on claimed or qualitative data.
"In 2024, the market saw the screens ecosystem rapidly expand with most SVOD services introducing an ad-funded model. Excitingly, Nine have thrown their hat in the ring by allowing advertising on Stan Sport.
“We are seeing a growing interest in client’s wanting to incorporate these new ad-funded SVOD services into their media plans but one of the biggest challenges agencies face is that the measurement and DSPs across the new SVOD services are yet to be standardised which can make reporting and de-duplication challenging. Excitingly, any inventory purchased across Stan Sport will be reported against your linear and BVOD buys.
“As a TV trader at heart, one announcement I was particularly excited about was that prime time inventory will be available on 9Galaxy from today! Previously, dynamic buys were separated from our peak buys, but traders will now be able to transact across 9Galaxy across all channels and with one CPM.
“Both of these developments are the right steps towards evolving how agencies buy to truly reflect how audiences are actually consuming screens.
“Overall, Nine’s passion and continued commitment to proving out the power of total television is really what came through. Their commitment is evident in their investment into the independent research study with agencies, Mutinex and Analytic Partners to prove out the effectiveness of TV against traditional performance channels.
“I’m sure the market will eagerly await the results as we are all facing pressures to prove out the ROI on all of our marketing and advertising spends.”
Enigma's executive director for media, Sally Lawrence, said there were three main agenda points that Nine wanted to hammer home: TV is not in decline (Nine had growth in all aspects of TV last year), they can reach a young audience, namely Millennials and Gen X, and that they drive business results.
"They’re willing to put their money where their mouth is on the latter with their new partnerships with Adgile and pilot programs with leading MMM partners," she said.
"A clever move and a sign of the times we're in as an industry and they obviously know that they're competing more than ever against performance channels, and I truly think these announcements will help them stand out in Upfronts season.
"They introduced advertising opportunities across Stan Sport and this had us thinking if this was going to be the start of a broader strategy to introduce advertising across the platform. The ability to buy across Nine, Nine Now and Stan Sport through one platform is compelling and I got the sense that more than ever there is a convergence happening across the Stan and Nine properties.
"From a digital perspective, the most interesting announcement for us is the Data Co partnership and the ability for us to overlay intent with our Nine audiences. This will allow Nine to have a stronger product in the mid funnel, which again is important given their push for advertisers to stop prioritising performance channels as much.
"Overall, the Upfronts felt strictly business and no party. A fair decision by Nine in what has been a tough year for them, and I think they broached that topic in a very professional and suitable way yesterday. In saying that, they are an entertainment company, so a smidge of fun and games would have closed out the event nicely."
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