At the sandwich shop Subway, ‘Size Matters’, according to its recent tongue in cheek campaign. But in an advertising context, size (aka as reach) is not the only measure of success in an advertising context – engagement is just as important.
That’s the message from News Corp, which doubled down on its engaged reach mantra by showing that using this approach alongside its tech and data stack can work wonders for brands like Subway.
News Corp threw “almost every piece of product innovation over the past six years” to beat local and global media companies and tech platforms, including the likes of Amazon, deliver an impactful ‘Size Matters’ campaign for the QSR challenger brand in spite of only having a fraction of the budget as rival fast food giants.
Subway’s chief marketing officer Rodica Titeica told News Corp’s D_Coded event that lunchtime visitations had halved in the past six months.
By working with News Corp, Subway was able to “access the profile of what our ideal consumer would look like, where to find them, the best devices to target them… and have meaningful conversations”.
“It isn’t just about the reach, it is about how we create meaningful connections when we’ve got this opportunity,” Titeica said.
The campaign led to a 50 per cent increase in foot traffic and a 3 per cent lift in sales.
News Corp’s managing director of client partnerships, Lou Barrett, told B&T the QSR category has traditionally been the domain of broadcast TV, but using engaged reach and News Corps suite of tools and products has delivered “phenomenal” results for Subway.
“There’s a lot of empty eyeballs out there and making sure you can deliver a return on investment for customers is absolutely critical,” she told B&T.
“When we break it down, engaged reach gives a three-times better result than without. Marketers want to know that they’re going to get a return on their advertising spend, rather than buying empty eyeballs.”
Other case studies that back this up include Chemist Warehouse, which worked with News Corp to reduce bounce rates by 50 per cent; Inspiring Vacations, which saw a 40 per cent lift per dollar spent; and Mars Petcare, which saw strong lifts in relevance, likability and differentiation.
Advertising’s ‘sleeping giant’
Another major announcement that excites Barrett is Fox Corporation’s Tubi. The streaming platform, whose ad sales had previously been handled by Foxtel, will now be exclusively sold by News Corp’s 450-plus strong ad sales team.
Tubi has 1.3 million active monthly users in Australia and 97 million globally. In the US, it is the third largest streamer behind Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Barrett, who was previously the executive general manager of Network 10, sadi she has wanted an opportunity for News Corp to play in the BVOD and connected TV space for years, particularly as budgets increasingly shift there.
In 2024, investment in video grew by 19.6 per cent to reach $4.5 billion, making it the second largest category of digital advertising.
“Now we can play in that space, so we’ll have both short form and long form video,” she said.
Barrett said that under Foxtel, Tubi had not been a priority as sales efforts were thrown behind growing Kayo and Binge, but this would change under News Corp.
“I think it’s a sleeping giant,” she said. “Once we put the might of a 450 person strong advertising sales team behind it, it’s going to be an advertisers dream. The product is made for ads.”
Tubi will be sold as either a stand alone proposition or packaged up with News Corp’s other assets, such as short form video.
It typically runs an ad load between 3-6 minutes of advertising an hour, which is below industry norms of 6-9 minutes.
Barrett said the addition of Tubi would open up new advertising markets to News Corp that previously were the domain of TV and streamers.
“This will allow News Corp to have conversations with people that I traditionally haven’t been able to have conversations with because they only advertise in the BVOD or SVOD space,” she said.
“You are looking at the QSR category, motoring the finance industry and others who spend a lot of money in broadcast TV.”
It also expands News Corp’s pool of younger viewers as 57 per cent of Tubi viewers are either Gen Zs or millennials.
News Corp is offering a special ‘screens or streams’ CPM rate of $15 until the end of June.
