Brand investment into 7plus for the Brownlow Medal ceremony and upcoming AFL Grand Final has grown more than 70% compared to last year, according to Seven’s national sport sales director, Rob Maclean.
The 2024 Charles Brownlow Medal ceremony, which aired on Monday night, notched a national reach of 2.9 million with the biggest broadcast audience since 2015, but it was the 7plus Sport audience that was up 62% on 2023 to 212,000 viewers.
Maclean said that Seven has seen brands use a mix of 7plus-exclusive advertising along with a continued investment in the linear offering for the 2024 AFL season.
“There are brands that recognise the power of buying all platforms together because it delivers the largest possible audience; a 7plus audience will deliver an incremental uplift on broadcast reach, but it also unlocks new and younger audiences as well,” he said.
“At the other end of the spectrum, 7plus by itself offers a way in for brands that might not typically have had the investment to play in a meaningful way on linear broadcast.
“The introduction of streaming is a game changer, not only for fans, but for brands as well, because it will facilitate more ways in for them to be a part of the game, whether that's connecting with an audience watching the live broadcast through to minis, highlights or FAST channels.”
This year’s AFL Finals series reached 8.5 million people nationally on the Seven Network, with all eight Finals number one in their timeslots in all people, 25 to 54s and 16 to 39s.
Last year’s coverage of the AFL Grand Final reached 4.98 million Australians on Channel 7, as it became the most watched TV program in 2023 outside of the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the total audience was up 22% on the previous year.
455,000 viewers watched live on 7plus – the biggest ever audience for an AFL match on a streaming platform.
For advertisers, Maclean said that integrating within the broadcast offering is key to harnessing that success.
“The last couple of years, we've worked closely with AAMI to create content that celebrates a series of culturally significant moments, and ‘AAMI to the Rescue’ was deployed in a really relevant way last year and we're working on something big for this year as well,” he told AdNews.
“A brand like McDonalds is harnessing augmented technology for an immersive execution on Grand Final day. You’ve got the Coles fan chat, which is about leveraging innovative technology to bring fans into the game by aggregating social commentary aligned to big match moments.
"Harvey Norman, Toyota, Google, Telstra – whoever it is, we find a really relevant way for brands to become a part of the narrative.”
Seven’s national television sales director, Katie Finney, said with the network’s campaign management team under 7RED, it works with clients to enable them to show up through both the integration inside the broadcast as well as through their standalone advertising.
“More and more brands are leaning in to integrating AFL-related creative into their own creative, but also with creative that we will make on behalf of them, whether that's to be integrated into the format itself or running in those powerful 30 second in-play breaks,” she told AdNews.
“We have CMOs that go from one company to another and say ‘we need AFL on the media plan’ and that advocacy for the fact that it works means that brands are continuing to come on board.”
Looking ahead to what’s in store for next year, Maclean said that Seven wants to unlock new ways into different fan types for advertisers, whether that's light sport viewers or hardcore football fans, as they all have material value in terms of brands connecting with them based on their different content consumption and consumer behaviours.
“Live streaming is going to be really important as we recruit key audience segments into the platform, and as we build towards the start of the 2025 AFL season where 7plus will be in the mix for the first time, the introduction of our streaming rights will give us the ability to populate things like team show pages with a lot more content, as well as minis, highlights, player profiles and more,” he said.
“The availability of AFL and cricket now in 7plus gives us really consistent, highly engaged pockets of audience, 52 weeks a year. That just add to our sports offering, which already includes horse racing, boxing, Supercars, LIV Golf, cycling, hockey, athletics, netball and more.
“That's going to bring more sports fans into the platform, lift our active monthly users and further enhance discoverability and overall consumption across our wider sports portfolio. For brands, this really presents an opportunity to connect to an engaged, sports-loving audience.”
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