Southern Cross Media Group has rebranded to Seven Media Group and unveiled plans to integrate audiences and tech across Seven, SCA, Listnr and The West.
New chief revenue officer Natalie Harvey, who has been in the role for a handful of weeks, told B&T the aim is maximise the value clients can get across the whole ecosystem, while making it easier to trade.
Harvey worked at Seven for nearly eight years, most recently as national sales director before leaving in 2024 to Mamamia. She has been a key recruit for new boss Rohan Lund.
B&T kicked off by asking her what it was like returning to Seven.
“It’s like coming home, but the house is being renovated, and I don’t know where to find the plates and the knives and forks,” she said.
The major announcements
Launch of Seven iD – connecting clients and brands to meet audiences where they are.
Launch of Studio Seven – new integrated strategy, creative and content partnership capability bringing brands closer to the content Australians love.
Development of Phoenix Exchange – a next generation trading ecosystem and Phoenix Video – advancing approach to multi audience buying across broadcast TV and BVOD with plans to add SCA’s digital audio inventory.
Extension of LANDMARKS ID partnership to launch SCOPE.
Harvey explained that these announcements are largely about “bringing together the best of both worlds” from the merger between Seven West Media and SCA.
“One thing that I found is that the way that the two businesses were operating were quite different, and there’s real strengths in both of them. So from a LiSTNR perspective, with 2.8 million logged in users and the amount of data that’s in there, how can that complement what’s going on with 7plus, and then vice versa. So it’s bringing the best of both worlds together,” she said.
“We want to maximise he overall value for our customers using every part of the ecosystem so the first part is opportunities in audiences across the different platforms, and how we bring our clients along for the ride.
“What this means for brands is that they’re going to get deeper than ever before, across more platforms, which will deliver much better results.”
Incremental revenue gains
For Seven Media Group it should translate to incremental revenue growth as brands tap into more parts of the ecosystem rather than advertising in silos.
Harvey said this has already happened, “but it could be more though”.
“Our team can identify how we can make a campaign stronger by pulling in different parts of the business, and then that will give us an unfair advantage versus our competitors. But it also delivers a much better result for clients,” she said.
“I think that we will double or triple full ecosystem briefs come through after our Upfront.”
Seven’s national television sales director Katie Finney explained that brands have been able to tap into Sunrise and now extend deeper into communities by leveraging local radio from SCA.
ING is one example of starting on Sunrise in the mornings, appearing in midday news and then launching a podcast on Listnr.
Another example is HBF, which has integrated Seven sports into sponsorship on TripleM.
Nine joint venture, is audio next?
Harvey confirmed to B&T that Seven is exploring a joint venture with other partners, including Nine, on how it can trade BVOD through a single interface, but talks are still at an early stage and couldn’t provide further details.
“From our perspective, we’re trying to create a more sustainable BVOD product for our customers and for our own businesses as well,” she said.
“There hasn’t been an evolution of the purchase journey for a very long time in that space. We’ve been doing some reviews on how we can make a better product and enable that clients to get the most value as possible out of what we do.”
Olly Newton, the group digital director who oversees Listenr commercial, revealed to B&T that it’s not just the BVOD sector that is looking to join forces to make trading easier.
“The headline for my business as well is that we definitely agree with the projects and we agree with the joint venture. It’s quite a complex situation moving into an outcome, but also I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens in the audio space as well at some point in the future,” he said.
Harvey ended the conversation by telling B&T that she is “very optimistic” about Seven Media Group’s future.
“What we’re seeing, particularly from our business, is a real focus on building for the future versus trying to protect the old ways of working and the old ways of attracting and retaining audiences,” she said.
“Australian communities want Australian content without a doubt, and so to create a healthy ecosystem, we need support from the government because the world is moving very quickly, and we need some levels of protection of our own product….rather than the government spending $10 millions of dollars on global platforms.
She continued: “What I’m really happy to see is that marketers and agencies are talking a lot more positively about local media and saying that they want to support.
“We need to see those words put into real action and investment. I do think that it is coming, there’s a really positive movement out there.
“We need to see a real opportunity for Australian publishers to have a real chance when it comes to where those marketing dollars are going.”
