Nine Shakes Up Digital Structure To Better Target Aussie Female Audience

Nine has taken fresh measures to reach the coveted Aussie women market, expanding its lifestyle network 9Honey to incorporate more verticals and reach a larger audience under one cohesive umbrella.

Over the past 18 months, during which Nine transitioned from ninemsn to an independent digital platform, Nine launched a series of lifestyle verticals, but as more people responded positively to the 9Honey branch, Nine made the decision to amplify it into the signature brand to captivate female audiences.

Image L-R: Kerri Elstub; Helen McCabe; Anna Quinn

The move sees Nine Digital launch another segment, 9Mums, with content aimed at engaging and informing busy mothers, as well as the existing beauty and fashion website being rebranded as 9Style.

The 9Honey network now includes: celebrity news site 9TheFix; cooking and recipe site 9Kitchen; interior design site 9Homes; fashion and beauty site 9Style; travel site 9Elsewhere; and fitness website 9Coach, alongside its newest offering, 9Mums. Together these websites, according to the Nielsen figures, have a unique audience of 1.276m.

“In Australia there are over nine million women online and we wanted to make sure that our online offering was catering to that audience under one clear brand,” said Helen McCabe, Nine’s head of lifestyle.

“Our intention is to produce a quality mass-market site for the millions of women who watch our TV shows.

“9Mums was really the missing piece of the puzzle. We wanted to have a conversation with women around children, family, relationships and parenting and we are confident that this will help us do that.”

Helen McCabe also announced that 9Honey will be edited by the former supervising producer of A Current Affair, Kerri Elstub, while Anna Quinn will lead the content strategy (pictured above with Helen McCabe).

Speaking to B&T about the changes, McCabe said, “I’ve stepped into it, amplified it and given it some personality. I want to rebuild the site to reflect its size and power, because we’re not quite in the design mode that we’re trying to achieve.”

McCabe said in the future he focus will be to integrate video, content and podcasts into the site.

“It’s different in big media companies to get digital and traditional media brands to integrate. But the space moves to quickly that it’s hard to predict what will be important in six months time.”

In terms of their competition, McCabe said she has no interest in chasing the users of other women’s networks, instead choosing to focus on the 7.2 million-strong female audience watching Nine’s TV shows.

“I don’t want to go after competitors at all, but focus on the Nine network,” she told B&T.

“We’ll integrate more catch-up content from our shows, incorporate TV presenters for news updates, and get talent like Leila McKinnon, Sonia Kruger and Shelley Craft to write posts.”

McCabe was appointed head of lifestyle in July, after departing her post as editor-in-chief for Australian Women’s Weekly.

Michael Stephenson, chief sales officer of Nine, said the launch was already seeing interest from brands keen to speak to this audience.

“Major brands have been asking for a dedicated offering tailored to a female audience and the 9Honey network represents one of the most significant content launches we have made in some time,” Stephenson said.

Alex Parsons, chief digital and marketing officer of Nine, said the launch of the 9Honey network was one of Nine’s most significant digital plays.

“Under Helen and Kerri’s leadership the 9Honey network will be the force in market,” Parsons said.

“Our lifestyle websites already have an audience of more than 1.276 million and I am confident that this next evolution of the nine.com.au digital offering will speak to an audience of everyday Australian women who want engaging content across a variety of areas.”

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