News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller officially launched the News Prestige Network tonight at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney, redefining the company’s proposition to prestige and luxury brands.

The new network has been designed make it easier for prestige brands to strike connections with customers at scale by combining the audience power of its prestige media brands – which include The Australian, Wish, Mansion, Vogue Australia, Vogue Living, GQ Australia, delicious. and Buro 24/7 – across digital, print, social and experiential to deliver a suite of marketing products through which to access them.

Initiatives of the News Prestige Network include:

• Prestige Digital Network – combining the digital audiences of News Corp’s prestige portfolio with innovation in storytelling and unrivalled connections to deliver prestige audiences at scale.
• News Connect Prestige – utilising the audience targeting capabilities of News Corp’s News Connect, which overlays consumption data of news readers, with Quantium data covering eight million shoppers to identify digital audiences to improve marketing effectiveness and deliver high-impact digital campaigns with accuracy.
• Prestige creative ad formats – utilising the skill of News Corp’s Ad Lab team to deliver innovative creative formats across mobile and desktop.
• Prestige content marketing and native solutions – offering clients content marketing strategy and solutions, plus the extension of News Corp’s native product, Native in Colour, to deliver native campaigns at scale across the prestige brands.
• Prestige social and influencer marketing platform – delivering social campaigns to the 7.6 million social footprint across News Prestige Network brands, as well as access to an exclusive publisher partnership with influencer marketing platform Scrunch.
• Prestige experiential – Allows clients to tap into the reach of the existing prestige event calendar such as Vogue Fashion’s Night Out, or full-service event creation for brands, with event management, talent and influencer engagement, content production and amplification.
• Prestige network solutions – four high-value packages designed for brands/clients showcasing the network’s new suite of tools (Discover – offering research, data and audience at scale; Involve – delivering engagement through brand content in safe environments; Act – offering experiential activations and access to brands and talent; and Share – offering socially-led solutions and engagement with influencers).
• Prestige insights and thought leadership: providing leading research and insights into the prestige and luxury consumer market.

The News Prestige Network will be led by News Corp Australia’s prestige and lifestyle director, Nick Smith.

Smith said the development of the network was driven by research and insights into the luxury consumer from around the globe.

“It will be the first port of call for prestige brands looking to make true connections with discerning consumers to drive consideration, purchase and loyalty,” he said.

Miller said the network delivers a powerful proposition for prestige and luxury brands in Australia.

“Our unique proposition is engaging with affluent consumers at scale in prestige environments with credible, trusted global and local brands,” he said.

“We understand this audience and connect with them using News Corp’s unique customer intelligence and data to produce the best content and experiences for our luxury customer.

“Our Prestige Network means we now have the data, the brands, the audience and the team lined up together to deliver for our clients.”

News Corp Australia chief digital officer Nicole Sheffield said: “We know that prestige advertisers need to be in digital as that is where consumers are. However, they require safe environments to ensure their brands are properly managed digitally along with their need to buy engaged audiences.

“A major part of the News Prestige Network is the creation of the Prestige Digital Network that combines the digital audiences of our prestige portfolio to further leverage their influence in market and deliver brands the right audience in premium environments at scale.”

The Australian CEO Nicholas Gray said: “Whatever the demographic or prestige consumer category, News Prestige Network will give marketers the right solution to connect with them.

“Be it in the palm of the their hands with the most sophisticated targeting capabilities of our mobile and digital solutions, through real world or virtual experiential activations, or at their doorstep through our incredible community media network that reaches the most affluent consumers at home.”

The News Prestige Network officially launched with the release of a whitepaper, The Prestige Promise – Redesigning Consumer Luxury in 2017, available exclusively to clients of the network covering the characteristics of prestige and luxury consumers, an economic overview of the global and Australian luxury industry, and the key consumer trends driving it.