The retail media sector is coming for farmers and tradies in regional Australia with the launch of Works Media Group.
Established by Shopper Media Group founder Edward Couche and former News Corp Victoria and Tasmania lead Peter Zavac, Works Media will initially target farmers with digital out-of-home (DOOH) assets across Elders national network of 250 stores from today.
It is intentionally skipping regional shopping malls and supermarkets to partner with trusted environments that cater to farming and tradies communities.
Zavac—who hails from Wangaratta in country Victoria—told B&T the business is plugging a huge gap in regional Australia — Australia’s $100 billion agriculture sector, which employs 247,000 workers and run businesses that make huge recurring purchases on plant and equipment, financial services and more.
“Farmers are very hard to reach for suppliers,” Zavac said. “So we’ve partnered with a rural supplies company in Elders. Also we are looking at tradies, particularly the wholesale and retail area of trade outlets. The construction industry is forecast to be over $300 billion with more than .7 million trade businesses, and there are no retail media networks that specifically target farming and construction.
“The rest of retail media is very well catered to. So what you do is you look for a little niche, and what you want to do is drive a truck through it.”
These two sectors are complimentary. Aside from similar equipment manufacturers and suppliers, there are also similar non-endemic categories, such as four wheel drive trucks, work utilities, finance, insurance and cloud computing.
Launch partners
Works Media launch partners include Ford, RB Sellars, McGregor, IMAR Insurance, NuFarm, Bayer, ADAMA, Virbac and Pioneer Seeds.
Aside from commercial brands, Works Media Group is also targeting government advertising and messaging to run on the network. In the short to medium term at least, diesel suppliers might also be another opportunity.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into this and we’re getting some very good responses from many categories of advertising, particularly auto, government, cloud computing services, accounting services, insurance and so on,” Zavac added. “Its a similar case with tradies. People think of
Bunnings and Mitre10 as catering to tradies. I can assure you that all the big trade businesses go to their specialised wholesalers when they’re doing major projects on homes, apartment blocks or office towers. Every person that walks into an Elders store is a target audience.”
Retail media partner Elders is a “stock and station agent” that offers everything from fencing, chemicals, fertilisers and machinery to livestock and real estate sales, finance, insurance and other farming community services.
Emma Basso, Elders head of brand and marketing, said the partnership with Works Media Group creates “a new channel for brands to engage directly with producers, while enhancing the in-store experience for our customers and expanding our ‘owned’ advertising channels”.
The Works Media team
Works Media Group is led by Edward Couche, founder of Shopper Media, which scaled to more than 450 locations before it was bought by Woolworths’ Cartology. He is partnering with Peter Zavecz, the former managing director of News Corp (Victoria/Tasmania) and CEO of Pacific Magazines.
The wider team includes former Shopper Media executive Luke Warren, who led the digital team and in-house end-to-end technology solutions at the retail media company; Tom Zavecz, former Shopper Media Victoria Sales manager and more recently ACM National Agency Director – Agriculture; and Sam Johnson, who was previously a partner at the law firm JWS for 12 years.
The group launches with three core pillars:
- Agworks Media: A premium screen network embedded within Australia’s leading agricultural retail stores, connecting brands with farmers and regional business operators, launching with the network of over 250 Elders stores nationwide.
- Tradeworks Media: High-impact digital screens located at key transaction points and high-dwell zones, including service counters and wholesale trade desks, specifically designed to reach tradespeople. Further announcements on this pillar will be made in the coming months.
- Repworks Media: A strategic partnership arm that advises and represents budding or already established Retail Media Networks driving margin and revenue growth.
In terms of ambition, Zavac said that Works Media Group is targeting to grow its network to 1,000 panels across Australia.
“If we can get 1000 panels together, primarily targeting the trades and agriculture sectors, we will have one of the most unique and powerful retail media channels in this country,” he said.
