News Corp has achieved the sports tie-up trifecta, with the publisher inking a five-year deal with the Australia Olympic Committee (AOC), in order to give consumers and advertisers access to all the 2016 Rio Games content.
The partnership will see the publisher create a 10-week campaign in the lead-up to the Rio Olympics to generate interest, and also work with brands in order to ensure they are able to make the most out of the hype.
News Corp's national head of sales, Sharb Farjami, explained that for brands, the Olympics is a huge opportunity, but it's also a huge challenge. He told AdNews that where possible, the publisher hopes to build bespoke solutions for advertisers around the games to ensure they are able to generate cut through.
“In some ways I’d be disappointed if somebody just bought a standard ad package,” he said. “For advertisers working with someone like News Corp, which has constant contact with our audience base; if we can't be more bespoke and if we can't be more adaptive about the way we deliver our advertisers' messages, we're probably not doing our job.”
Farjami explained the challenges around the Olympic Games usually consists of time zones, consumer behaviour and technology, however he believes that by partnering with the publisher, brands will be able to navigate these pitfalls.
“Firstly we had the acquisition of products Storyful and Unruly, the advancement of our technology platforms and the changing consumer behaviour; over 70% of our digital audience consumes our content via mobile. We’re across the changing behaviour, so if we're working with a brand we can apply those learnings,” he said.
Farjami wouldn't be led on the brands who are currently in talks with the publisher about the Olympics, he did note however that News has only been having preliminary conversations about the partnership for a few weeks.
The announcement was made at the same time the publisher confirmed it had inked a historic broadcast deal with Nine Entertainment and Telstra to deliver $1.8 billion to the NRL, securing the game’s future for the 2016 to 2022 seasons.
That announcement also follows its involvement in the signing of the AFL broadcast rights agreement.
News Corp's agreement with the AOC includes the 2016 Rio Olympics, the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
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