Tokyo Olympics & Cricket Set To Be Seven’s 2020 Partnership Go-Tos

The Seven Network has used its upfronts this evening to announce its content led growth strategy for the next 12 months, delivering opportunities for its partners, underpinned by new and rejuvenated primetime offerings, and technological innovations CODE 7 and 7CAP.

Seven’s coverage of Tokyo 2020 is set to dominate Australia for the 30 days of the Olympics and Paralympics, forecast to reach 21 million people on broadcast and up to 5 million on 7plus making it the biggest digital event ever, and Australia’s most-watched winter and summer sports, AFL and Cricket, will prove to engage Australia all-year round.

These content offerings will be delivered in one place: across the largest wholly owned premium video and news network in Australia, reaching 90 per cent of Australia each month across metro and regional Australia following the proposed merger of Seven and Prime.* A new, exclusive partnership with Carsguide will leverage data to better reach key audiences. Plus 7mate, Australia’s number 1 multichannel goes HD, and 7flix rebrands to focus on young female audiences.

James Warburton, Seven West Media managing director and CEO said: “The execution of our content led growth strategy means Seven is delivering 52 weeks of premium content backed by a 30 per cent increase in investment into our tentpole programs and franchises.

“Combined with our unmatched sport and news offerings, we will deliver exponential impact for Seven’s partners in 2020.”

Kurt Burnette, SWM chief revenue officer said: “With CODE 7 and 7CAP, and our new partnership with Carsguide, we are ensuring that Seven is the easiest network for our partners to work with.

“One conversation with your Seven sales team will deliver access to the largest and most influential audience across Australia for the best possible results for advertisers.”

Seven’s investment in content to deliver results for partners and increased integration

Investment in content is led by new primetime shows, including Mega Mini Golf, Big Brother, Plate of Origin, Farmer Wants a Wife and SAS: Who Dares Wins. Joining these new titles are reimagined tentpoles My Kitchen Rules: The Rivals (national avg. 1.4m in 2019) and House Rules: High Stakes (national avg. 1.2m in 2019)i. Seven’s 2020 content offering represents the most exciting suite of opportunities for partners to reach their key audiences, including people 25-54, in 2020.

Speaking about Coles’ experience integrating with My Kitchen Rules, Lisa Ronson, chief marketing officer, Coles, said: “The MKR partnership has been successful in so many ways for us at Coles. MKR is a perfect vehicle and a perfect partnership for us to deliver on the vision and the strategy and the purpose of our organisation. Because it allows us to tell some inspiring and fantastic stories, so that we can cater to all those home cooks out there that want to be inspired on a day to day basis.

“We’ve continued every year to build on the success of the prior season to get better and better and better at delivering that content for our customers which we know is going to achieve our business goals ultimately. The Seven team understand what we want to deliver and are very supportive in ensuring that we’ve got a really great outcome. MKR presents us with so many opportunities to further engage with our customers outside of our stores and we really look forward to continuing our partnership in 2020.”

Supported by Home and Away, the number one drama, Better Homes and Gardens, Australia’s number one lifestyle programme, and The Chase, Seven’s 2020 content slate builds on its 12 continuous years of ratings leadership from 2007, delivering proven results for partners.

Commenting on the results achieved when partnering with Seven, David McNeil, chief marketing officer, international, Campbell Arnott’s, said: “At Arnott’s we believe that collaboration and integration runs rings around the old model of silo approaches. We had a new product coming to market and we embarked on working with Seven West Media to bring that new product to market. The way that I look at it is that Seven is really the multiplier in this whole equation, whether it’s through their platforms or through their talent they’ve been able to give us an exponential result that we wouldn’t have otherwise got. Working with Seven on this has been fantastic, we’ve got a real meeting of the minds philosophically about the importance of integration.

“The results have been phenomenal and at the end of the day that’s why we do these sort of things, but also in terms of the process. The way in which Publicis, Campbell Arnott’s and Seven work together seamlessly was a real highlight. Nothing beats having a proven track record. So, having a campaign of this sort of success behind us, that’s probably the single biggest thing that I’m excited about in considering working with Seven in the future.”

Beyond new and reinvented primetime offerings, 7NEWS, Sunrise, The Latest, The Morning Show and The Daily Edition will continue, with 7NEWS averaging 1.5 million viewers every night across Australia.

Combined with 7NEWS.com.au, which has established itself as the #5 news website in Australia in just 6 months and The Latest on Facebook Watch, which sees over 600,000 views daily on average Seven’s news and public affairs offering spans all screens and delivers an unparalleled capacity to reach consumers, enabling our partners to be there when news breaks and Australia turns to Seven.

Tokyo 2020 will deliver unparalleled audience reach

With just one hour separating the east coast of Australia and Japan, Tokyo 2020 is forecast reach over 21 million people on broadcast and up to 5 million on 7plus, creating the single largest opportunity to reach Australians in the history of broadcast television, far surpassing even Sydney 2000. A combined 30 days of Olympic and Paralympic coverage, across 7 and 7TWO on broadcast and 35 live streams, and for the first time, captioning in multiple languages to choose from, on 7plus, will dominate the Australian psyche, delivering valuable and niche audiences at a scale never seen before.

Tokyo 2020 will be the biggest digital event in Australian history – equivalent to a grand final every day, for 17 days straight. 7plus will be the online Olympic hub, with up to 5 million Australians forecast to engage with the platform throughout Tokyo 2020, up to 3.5 million of which are forecast to log in to view up to 35 streams of live action.

Seven’s investment in creating a world class streaming experience for Tokyo 2020 will leave a legacy on the business for years to come. Enhanced content discovery, personalisation algorithms, new ad formats and member benefits that will be crafted for Tokyo will engage 7plus audiences and keep them watching for longer in years to come

The Olympics are for everyone and Seven’s plans for Tokyo 2020 on broadcast and 7plus will make it the most accessible Olympics in history.

Remarking on the experience of partnering with Seven for the Commonwealth Games and Tokyo 2020, Melissa Hopkins, head of consumer marketing- CMO, Optus, said: “For us our biggest highlight has been our partnership with the Commonwealth Games. We built together a unique broadcast partnership with Seven West Media. The broadcast integration was amazing, our return on investment was unbelievable. But perhaps for us the most important thing was the fact that we actually built a true partnership that dare I even use the word that’s not used a lot in business, that felt like family.

“We were one team and that’s everything from the broadcast team to the sales team right up to the senior management team and that meant a lot to us. So we’re really, really, really excited as sponsors and partners of the Australian Olympic Committee and the Paralympic Committee, to be partnering again with Seven and their planned broadcast of Tokyo 2020. The only thing Australians are going to be watching through July and August is Channel Seven.”

Innovation in Seven’s sport coverage to create unmatched partner opportunities

Beyond Tokyo 2020, Seven is the home of AFL and Cricket, the most-watched winter and summer sports. Coming off one of the most competitive seasons seen in 2019, the 7AFL’s coverage of the 2020 AFL Premiership Season promises to be captivating viewing. Dynamic scheduling of matches enables flexible scheduling of matches, placing the more of the biggest matches in prime time and creating more impactful opportunities for partners. Seven’s coverage of the 2019 season reached over 14 million people, delivering exceptional results for our partners.

Talking about the power of 7AFL, Mim Haysom, executive general manager, brand and marketing, Suncorp, said: “First of all commercially the AFL broadcast delivers us a really great return on investment year on year. But also it’s a really great fit for us for the AAMI brand in terms of customer segmentation and market alignment. The really big marquee events like the AFL and the AFL Grand Final really enable you to tap into a large number of audiences that are otherwise hard to get to.

“You are talking about a really passionate and highly engaged audience and through that passion we can really use creativity to connect with that audience in a more emotional and engaging way and that’s a great thing to be able to do creatively with our brand as well. You know I think the continued partnership is a really strong one for us and it does deliver year on year in terms of return on investment for us. And I think every year we get better at how we integrate creatively and we’re seeing that come through in our business results and also the audience engagement. So it’s a very natural progression for us to continue to join forces and take the brand into the future.”

Reaching over 14 million people in its first summerix, 7CRICKET returns this summer, with a condensed Big Bash League season delivering more primetime finals and, for the first time, a strategic time-out that will provide advertisers valuable solus breaks to integrate their strategic messages. More day/night test matches and games into November will deliver the best summer of Cricket yet, building on the outstanding results seen by Seven’s partners over the 2018-19 summer.

Remarking on the first summer of Cricket on Seven, Kristi Woolrych, chief marketing Officer, KFC, said: “KFC and Cricket are synonymous with summer and letting your hair down. When we work with Seven to generate content that really brings that spirit to life, we know that powers our brand and it builds our cumulative reach through the summer season.

“And the way that we work through every detail of the Cricket activation really helps us bring the best experiences to life for our brand and connect with our audiences.”

Seven’s sport coverage in 2020 continues after the final siren. Cementing itself as the undisputed number 1 footy show in 2019, The Front Bar, returns bigger and better than ever before to cover the 2020 AFL season, delivering solutions for our partners to reach sport fans beyond the match. Armchair Experts, Seven’s innovate social sports show, continues to grow in 2020, expanding to cover the NFL along with AFL, creating innovative new ways for partners to reach sports audiences across digital and broadcast platforms.

Between the first ball of the Women’s BBL and the 2020 AFL Grand Final, Seven will broadcast over 265 days of live and free sport. From Tokyo 2020, to 7AFL, 7CRICKET, Horse Racing and much more, Seven’s sport is market-leading in 2020 and will deliver unmatched results for partners.

CODE 7 to deliver seamless buying and real time reporting for partners

Along with Seven’s 2020 content slate, CODE 7 was announced today as Seven’s easy, one place to buy solution. Using a combination of technology, process and people, CODE 7 is fast, guaranteed audience delivery for broadcast (metro and regional) and digital. With no makegoods and guaranteed audience, CODE 7 will deliver increased effectiveness for Seven’s partners and make Seven the easiest network to partner with.

Importantly, CODE 7 will be seamlessly integrated into the future industry platform for cross screen trading and VOZ.

7CAP enables Australia-first Contextual Ad Placement optimised and automated in broadcast

Cementing Seven’s status as a market leader in technological innovation, 7CAP is Australia’s first Contextual Ad Placement service for broadcast television. By partnering with Amazon Web Services, artificial intelligence and machine learning is used to analyse and code all Seven programming – identifying objects, environments and mood states within the content which brands can choose to align with.

7CAP’s data driven approach to contextual ad placement within broadcast ensures brands can be aligned to moments of greatest relevance that maximise impact, cut through and ROI.

Using 7CAP, ad recall is doubled and brand awareness is significantly boosted. With 7CAP the effectiveness of digital targeting arrives to broadcast.

Seven leverages data in Carsguide partnership to better connect with audiences

Seven’s new, exclusive partnership with Carsguide leverages the combined data of Seven and Carsguide to enable partners to reach auto intenders like never before. New marketing solutions will further enhance the power of the partnership, which represents a step-change in the way auto, insurance and finance brands reach their target consumers.

7mate goes HD and 7flix rebrands to deliver better viewer experiences

Australia’s number 1 multichannel 7mate will go high definition in 2020, providing an enhanced experience for partners and viewers alike. 7mate dominates multichannels for the hard-to- reach young male audiences. In 2020, Seven will also relaunch 7flix with a new brand to target younger female audiences.

In 2020, Seven will deliver for its partners. New and reinvigorated primetime content will reach key audiences. Unmissable sport and market-leading news and public affairs will reach Australians to an unmatched degree. Enhanced and refocused multichannels will strengthen Seven’s complete network offering and audience reach power. Leveraging data, Seven’s partnership with Carsguide will enable partners to reach auto intenders in new and innovative ways.

As the biggest broadcast and premium video network in Australia following the proposed merger of Seven and Prime*, and backed by market-leading technological innovations CODE 7 and 7CAP, Seven will deliver results for its partners in 2020.