Media agency Initiative has launched a national media-diversity directory to coincide with their inaugural Forgotten Upfronts.
Forgotten Upfronts is a platform for publishers catering to niche audiences to showcase their unique offerings to the industry with the same attention and fanfare as major networks receive.
During the event, Initiative announced the creation of The Diversity Directory – an open-source website for the media industry to search for and contact publishers catering to niche communities.
Positioned as a starting point to better enable more inclusive planning, the site is designed to build over time as more media owners are made aware and register their businesses.
Alongside the announcement The Forgotten Upfronts showcased four businesses:
- Starts at 60 – exists to connect brands with digitally savvy +55 year-olds, showcased how they are evolving from a media publisher to a content and commerce ecosystem. Headlined by their boomer marketplace, they are providing brands direct opportunities to capitalise on one of Australia’s most affluent audiences.
- NITV – highlighted a suite of premium First Nations program releases and integration opportunities, such as Yokayi Football, Mob Breakfast and Ernie Dingo’s travel show “Going Places”, returning with four new First Nations hosts.
- Boomtown – reminded marketers that all tentpoles and solutions they are seeing in metro upfronts are available in regional/rural Australia, whilst also showcasing a suite of workshops and open-source planning tools to change perceptions of regional Australians media habits.
- S&J – shared emerging opportunities to target Chinese Australian audiences across Chinese streaming, social, and shopping channels, alongside announcing their Multicultural Premium Network – enabling marketers to customise engagement to over 57 different nationalities.
Initiative chief strategy officer, Chris Colter, said: “We were blown away by the industry response to this event.
“To have more than 500 of Australia’s leading marketers, publishers and agencies join our Forgotten Upfronts is testament to the importance we all see in breaking our marketing biases. Feedback has been incredible and we can’t wait to host many more in the future.”
Initiative has committed to Forgotten Upfronts being a bi-annual event and will continue to draw attention to lesser-known opportunities for marketers.
