Category: Digital & Publishing

Upcoming Publishing Features

Make an impact with Australia's best lifestyle content

Our readers are primed for indulgence – new opportunities available across Nine’s leading publishing assets!

Plan your marketing campaign with a premium publishing partnership with Nine.

With the colder months here, our readers are primed for indulgence and ready to spend. Whether it’s styling their winter wardrobe, planning a much-needed getaway, making home improvements, finding inspiration in arts and design or immersing themselves in the gourmet food world, there is plenty of opportunity to wrap your brand around our upcoming special issues. 

Across Good Weekend, AFR Magazine, Sunday Life, Traveller, Life & Leisure, Good Food and the recently launched Fin! Magazine, there is an abundance of opportunity to engage our readers with your brand message.

LIFESTYLE

SUNDAY LIFE, GOOD WEEKEND and LIFE & LEISURE //

Commercial Wish List

Driven by the success of seasonal wish lists, a new opportunity exists for brands to showcase products in their very own gift guide, available all year round.  

Across Good Weekend, Sunday Life and Life & Leisure, brands can create product-centric pages showcasing up to 12 of their items across Nine’s premium lifestyle content, with the option to extend digitally across publishing’s online portfolio.

Contact your Nine representative for more information. 

 

Commercial Wish List

FIN! MAGAZINE //

Summer Issue

On Sale: Friday 14th October

A new glossy lifestyle publication, Fin! Magazine, launched in May 2022, building on the strong readership growth enjoyed by The Australian Financial Review.

Inserted quarterly into the Financial Review newspaper, and promoted across afr.com, the new Fin! Magazine is visually sumptuous and discerning, and a joy to read!

It will inspire readers with the very best in fashion, design, watches, jewellery, motoring, art and travel, and has been created by the team behind the award winning Australian Financial Review Magazine.

Booking Deadline: Friday 2nd September

Material Deadline: Friday 16th September

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LIFE & LEISURE //

New Kids on the Block | Millennial Edition

On Sale: Friday 7th October

Life & Leisure is back with the annual issue dedicated to the Millennial generation being the new kids on the block!

Deep diving into food, travel, art, fashion and more and what is igniting the next generation!

Booking Deadline: Friday 30th September

Material Deadline: Monday 3rd October

 

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AFR MAGAZINE //

Young Rich

On Sale: Friday 28th October

Meet our millennial mega-millionaires and billionaires.

The Young Rich List is the only list of Australia's richest 100 people aged 40 and younger. Our Rich List team spend months uncovering the new entrepreneurs who are our biggest changemakers. For anyone interested in the future of making money, this is an issue not to be missed. AFR Magazine will feature the most inspiring stories of people rocketing up the Young Rich List, while the Young Rich List itself will appear in a seperately bound magazine.

Booking Deadline: Friday 16th September

Material Deadline: Friday 30th September

 

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DESIGN

GOOD WEEKEND //

Arts Special

On Sale: Saturday 29th October

Our annual Arts issue celebrates the creatives who enrich our lives, warm our souls and keep us sane in these uncertain times. Stories range from a profile of one of our most beloved art benefactors, through to the creation of Sydney Modern, a game-changing addition to that city's cultural infrastructure, through to a look at the finalists in this year's National Emerging Art Prize and a round-up of the best books on authors and writing.

Booking Deadline: Friday 30th September

Material Deadline: Wednesday 19th October

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LIFE & LEISURE //

Fashion & Spring Racing 

On Sale: Friday 16th & Saturday 17th September

Life & Leisure's inaugural gloss fashion special edition hits the
shelves this September, just in time for spring racing season, the
most important fashion calendar opportunity of the year.​

​Our fashion writers are hard at work to bring our readers breaking
stories for the season – from the new guard of Australian designers
destined for international greatness to an in-depth profile on the duo
behind one of our most enduringly trend-setting brands, now
celebrating an important anniversary.

Booking Deadline: Friday 9th September

Material Deadline: Monday 12th September

 

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TRAVEL

TRAVELLER //

Cruise Month: Ocean Cruising Special

On Sale: Saturday 3rd September

As Australia gears up for the return of a full summer of cruising, and in recognition of CLIA Cruise Month in September, we look forward to the “wave season” and the great variety of cruise lines and cruise ships returning to Australian and New Zealand waters. We profile a dozen cruise categories from luxury to expedition, small ship to megaship, and match them with a specific vessel, describing the cruise style and on-board amenities and outlining the itineraries it will sail during the Australian and NZ season.

Booking Deadline: Monday 29th August

Material Deadline: Wednesday 31st August

 

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GOOD WEEKEND //

52 Weekends Away

On Sale: Saturday 8th October

In the 32nd year of our much-loved 52 Weekends Away
franchise, Good Weekend collaborates with its Nine
stablemate Traveller to present 52 of our favourite places to
stay nationwide, from city to country, modest to opulent.

Given the time it's been, including the opening up of
international and interstate travel over the past year, this will
be one of our most eagerly anticipated issues of the year. For
our highly engaged readers, who are educated,
cultured and love to explore the world around them, it can't
come soon enough!

Booking Deadline: Friday 9th September

Material Deadline: Wednesday 28th September

 

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SUNDAY LIFE //

Europe Special

On Sale: Sunday 23rd October

With Europe on our travel bucket list again, it's no wonder so many of us are dreaming of flocking back to revel in the joys of the Continent. So, don’t miss Sunday Life’s Europe special this October where we will be celebrating all things European, from continental chic to the best ways to enjoy the unique things Europe has to offer.

From fashion inspired by the world’s most stylish cities and the latest beauty treatments to home, food and travel inspiration, our editorial experts will whisk our readers into a world of international sophistication. Our travel emphasis will be on luxury cruising, the most popular way many of our readers choose to travel, from relaxed river cruising to the high life on the seas.

Booking Deadline: Friday 23rd September

Material Deadline: Thursday 13th October

 

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FOOD & DINING

GOOD FOOD & GOOD WEEKEND //

Good Food x Good Weekend 

In an exciting collaboration between Good Weekend and Good Food, the weekly magazine has expanded its culinary pages to include a weekly restaurant review, penned in NSW by Callan Boys and in Victoria by Besha Rodell.

The recipe section has also been refreshed, with Danielle Alvarez and Julia Busuttil Nishimura joining Karen Martini and Helen Goh on rotation to provide home cooking inspiration for readers every week. Yum yum yum!

With premium opportunities already across Good Food Tuesdays and Good Food Kitchen, this new collaboration with Good Weekend expands the Good Food super brand even further with opportunities you can't miss.

Contact your Nine representative for more information.

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Meet AFR Weekend’s Andrew Burke

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Rethink Ink
Meet AFR Weekend Editor,
Andrew Burke

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“We set out to provide worth to our readers every weekend." AFR Weekend’s Andrew Burke discusses how to give your readers what they need to know and what they want to read.

In B&T's ongoing Rethink Ink series, we chatted with AFR Weekend editor Andrew Burke. In his seven-year tenure, AFR Weekend has grown to be one of the most read newspapers in Australia, enjoying significant print and digital growth despite the pandemic. And As Burke reveals, its success isn't all about insider stock market tips.

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We all know the AFR during the week, but is the weekend edition all for stock market addicts who can’t switch off? The “money never sleeps” brigade?

It’s interesting and it’s hard to measure this stuff. My impression, which comes from a lot of readership surveys we’ve done, is that people read the weekend edition of the AFR as much for the investment advice as the news and political analysis.

The weekend gives people more time to read things such as our news features section that they might not have time for during the week. We’ve also got the Weekend Fin down the back of the newspaper and it's a larger, colourful section that always comes back as people’s favourite thing to read.

People buy it for what they want to know, but also what they want to read.  That’s one of the more critical differences about what we do and the Monday to Friday edition.

Inner Pages Magazine

Who is the AFR Weekend reader?

I’m quite proud of the fact that with the AFR Weekend we have a position that’s in the middle of the market in terms of where more financial newspapers lie.

Sure, we believe in the markets, and we play in that centre right, but we’re in the middle of the market, as far as politics are concerned.

On a political level we want to be credible, and you never want a reader to know what they’re going to read before they get there. From that respect, I think that’s something our readers value in the product. There’s independent critical analysis that’s not necessarily coming from one side of politics or the other.

If the bookies are to be believed, Albo looks a shoo-in at the next election.
I can’t imagine AFR readers being too thrilled about that.

You’d be surprised, but our readership is only marginally more skewed to the Coalition, by a few percentage points. Our view at the AFR Weekend has always been to take each of the party’s polices on their merit and never necessarily from a political party view. We just report what’s happening and from that we draw our analysis. It’s not like we’re preordained, just because one  party comes up with a policy. We’ve been very critical of the government over lots of things recently.

 

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A criticism of the AFR would be that it feels quite “male” in its style and reporting. How do you respond to that?

We’re very conscious to ensure there’s a balance in who we are interviewing. I understand that business and politics is often deemed as a very male pursuit and so we are active in trying to write about women as much as we can, never just for the sake of it. The anecdotal evidence is that a lot more women now read the AFR Weekend.

 

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This all makes for a prestige environment for advertisers.

Obviously on the weekend you’ve got a lot more time to engage with the reader. Something I’m quite proud of is that 70 per cent of our readers aren’t subscribers. That means they’re going down to their newsagent every Saturday morning to seek us out. You always want more subscribers, but I’m proud that our readers want to seek us out, and with that comes reward for the brands that form part of our product. There’s a value exchange for a product when a reader must pay for it.

Creative_Mocks

We hear about the “death of print” all the time. But the AFR Weekend’s numbers certainly tell a different story, print sales remaining surprisingly strong.

It’s a fact of life that people are carrying a little computer around in their pocket all the time these days. News is instant. But all the stories in Saturday’s paper are online on Friday afternoon, albeit behind a paywall, and our readers are still quite happy to go into a newsagent the following morning and part with $4.50 for the printed copy. I also think we have entered a period where print is being celebrated again by brands and creatives for its ability to cut through the digital tsunami and offer consumers escapism and a focus away from the always-on digital world.

Obviously B&T’s core audience is adland. How difficult can it be to take a print product like the AFR and try and sell its merits to 20-somethings in a media agency?

People read the AFR in the office, even more so now that they  are no longer working from home as much. On the weekend people are reading it in their homes, and at the same time they’re making a lot of purchasing decisions about things like investing, holidays or cars, whatever. Those sorts of decisions are made by couples and that’s where AFR Weekend comes in. People are engaged with it around the coffee table, they’re less likely to be on the phone, on the laptop, on the emails. I like to think our content goes across the demographic divide in the house, the husband or the female executive. And so you get more eyeballs on these pages.

 

Mags

For all of COVID’s faults, it’s been a boon for people seeking out media. TV and radio numbers are up markedly. How has that played out for the AFR Weekend readership?

Broadly speaking, we’ve had large increases in our digital paying subscribers and that’s enabled us to hire 20 new staff in the last couple of months. In terms of print, we’ve held up our readership really well. We saw a print readership spike of 54 per cent during the height of COVID. What we’ve been really conscious about is delivering news about the pandemic that is relevant to people. You don’t want to scare readers, you want to provide worth to your readers.

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Meet Sunday Lifes Pat Ingram

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Rethink Ink
Meet Sunday Life Editorial Director,
Pat Ingram

SundayLife_Black

"Our Philosophy has always been to celebrate women & their achievements."

Pat Ingram, Editorial Director of Sunday Life, is arguably one of the best-known names in the history of Australian magazine publishing, up there with the likes of Ita Buttrose, Kerry Packer and Nene King.

Now “a million years after those heady days”, Ingram’s words, not ours, when the Paper Giants ruled the roost, Ingram admits she still loves being back on the tools editing a single title.

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For women of all ages

What makes Sunday Life readers unique is that they are a broad demographic – young women in their 20s to women 60-plus, from singles to those in relationships, mothers and grandmothers, high-income earners and the more budget-conscious. But what they have in common is a shared love of reading fascinating profiles, thought-provoking content about love and life, and keeping across the latest trends in fashion, beauty, health, home, food and travel.

Competition in publishing is everywhere these days, Ingram says, even more so as we ease out of the pandemic. But with that competition comes discipline and the need to make bold, fast decisions.

Mags

Redefining me-time reading

Sunday Life has made significant changes to its content during the pandemic.

Ingram says: “We have retained all our editorial pillars, such as fashion, beauty, food home and health and the like, but we tailored them to fit the climate and the changing lifestyles of readers. For example, we focused our food pages more on easy family meals, our home pages on ways to update and accommodate working from home, and how to refresh the home environment.”

Similarly, Ingram says the magazine has skewed its health offering to focus more on mental health and exercise, and the beauty pages to at-home treatments.

“We encouraged our big band of high-profile regular columnists such as Jo Stanley, Brooke Boney, Dr Susan Carland, Kerri Sackville and Kathy Lette to share their pandemic experiences. And we have reinforced our commitment to being a me-time treat for our readers,” Ingram points out.

It would appear that Sunday Life’s changes have been resonating. Great readership growth across the last two quarters saw the title hit 510,000 in the latest Roy Morgan numbers.

With digital drivers keeping society obsessed with the next new thing, how has weekend publishing remained exciting after all these years?

“It’s still the thrill of producing a tactile experience,” says Ingram. “We have a sophisticated readership, and the feel of the magazine is very important. We have also upped our number of regular columnists, so readers keep getting fresh voices, while mixing up the comfort of familiarity with seasonal themed issues.

“For example, we introduced new special themed issues such as Winter Reading where we showcase leading fiction writers. We have teamed up with Good Food to produce a monthly special food section, which runs the first Sunday of every month with Sunday Life. And we’ve made our beauty and home-style pages more product-focused in line with the online shopping boom.

“As we celebrate 25 years of publishing in 2022, more special issues will mark this milestone, offering brands great go-slow content that can be leveraged to tap into our readers’ Sunday state of mind.”

Group 10

Closing the loop: From tactile experience to digital driver

“Last year we had some exciting and successful executions in conjunction with our advertising partners such as Mecca and Blackmores. Travel is another area where we expect to see greater involvement as the industry strengthens post-pandemic,” says Ingram.

“We will also innovate the way in which we help to connect the offline experience with the digital world. At last year’s Nine Upfront event, Sunday Life announced the launch of ‘shop the page’, using the simplicity of the QR code to enable instant access to retail outlets from the magazine spreads to drive retail dollars.”

Mocks

A Cover Star Tells and Sells a magazine

One thing that has never changed since newsstands dictated what people choose to read is the power of the cover star. The Sunday Life cover philosophy has always been to celebrate women and their achievements.

Ingram says: “We have broadened the range over time to reveal more women in the arts, film, literature, opera and ballet, as well as sport and politics. From Julie Bishop, Alice Pung and Deborah Mailman to Ajak Deng, we put women of all ages on the cover. From young achievers to older women. It’s about striking the right balance on who is going to intrigue, excite and garner the reader’s attention. What worked one month won’t necessarily work the next. It’s all about timing.”

With Pat Ingram at the helm, and a quarter of a century under its belt, perhaps Sunday Life’s greatest work is yet to come.

Mags_V2

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Rugby on Nine

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UNLOCK THE POWER OF
RUGBY ON NINE IN 2022

Nine is the home of Rugby Union. Reaching more fans than ever before across the year. A major global sport and truly multi-cultural game, which connects Australia with the rest of the world on an international stage.

It's the game they play in heaven, and Rugby on Nine in 2022 will see fans feasting on an unrivalled commitment to premium Rugby content spread across our Television, Radio, Digital and Print offering.

Featuring a commentary team lineup of Rugby Union superstars and experts led by Roz Kelly and Nick McArdle, Wide World of Sports will produce every game shown on Nine and Stan Sport, with cutting-edge technology and studios that offer the best possible experience for Rugby fans.

To find out what your brand can achieve with a Rugby Union partnership, request a tailored response to help realise your marketing objectives.

Request presentation

Check out what's to come for Rugby on Nine this season...

Rugby Union is a compelling platform for brands - offering authenticity, excitement and connection with millions of highly engaged fans.

From the Rugby purist to the casual viewer, Nine covers all the action - with broadcasts of Wallabies and Wallaroos test matches, plus a Super Rugby Pacific match every Saturday night live on 9Gem throughout the season.

And with Nine's WIN network partnership, it really is a sport that touches all corners of the community.

CAPTIVATING MORE HIGHLY ENGAGED FANS THAN EVER BEFORE

Reached 4.8 million Aussies in 2021
Metro + Regional 

9NowGemWin

Record breaking Super Rugby AU Final in 2021

Eyes on Nine for the eToro France Series Finale in 2021

Reached over the duration of The Rugby Championship in 2021

Source: OzTAM Metro + Regional Data, Nine Network, Cumulative Reach, Super Rugby, July Test, Bledisloe Cup, Rugby Championships, 19/2/2021 – 2/10/2021, YOY v Channel 10 Super Rugby 2020, Consolidated 7 data.

RUGBY ON NINE CONNECTS WITH HEARTLAND AUSTRALIA

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Super Rugby Regional Viewers in 2021

Rugby Championship Regional viewers in 2021

Source: OzTAM Regional Data, Nine Network, Total People, People 25-54 & Men 18-54, Cumulative Reach, Super Rugby, July Test, Bledisloe Cup, Rugby Championships, 19/2/2021 – 2/10/2021, Consolidated 7 data.

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Rugby Girl
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Rugby Storytelling Across Nine's platforms

Nine broadcasts every game with an always on strategy across 9, 9Gem and 9Now, including amplification across our news and current affairs portfolio as well as the Today Show, weekly updates on Nine Radio, in depth analysis within our publishing mastheads, alongside Stan Sport for the Rugby purist who wants to see every single game in high definition, live and on-demand.

Rugby - TV Amplification

TV

Network amplification across Today Show and Nine's News and Current Affairs.

Mics

RADIO

Weekly code updates from Nine's Rugby commentary team across WWOS radio on 2GB and 4BC.

Rugby - Publishing

PUBLISHING

Sydney Morning Herald and Age Rugby page views up 23% year-on-year.

Rugby - WWOS

WWOS.COM.AU

With dedicated columnists and reporters.

2.6 Million Unique Visitors
4.6 Million Visits
1.5 Million Total Streams

Rugby - Social

SOCIAL

3x Rugby social channels up 120% year-on-year. 

Source: Roy Morgan database ending June 2021. OzTAM Metro + Regional Data, Nine Network, Cumulative Reach, Super Rugby, July Test, Bledisloe Cup, Rugby Championships, 19/2/2021 – 2/10/2021, Consolidated 7 data.​ GfK Radio Ratings, SMBP Survey 6 2021, Mon-Sun 5.30am-12MN, Cume (000s), Nine Talk Radio – 2GB, 3AW, 4BC, 6PR; Nielsen Consumer and Media View National Online Survey S03 2021. Fused April 2021; Roy Morgan Asteroid single source database for the 12 months ending June 2021.​ Adobe Analytics, WWOS – Rugby, 19/2/21 – 4/10/21, unique visitors, visits, page views; Internal Brightcove data, WWOS – Rugby, 19/2/21 – 4/10/21 total streams, viewed minutes

​

One Network covering all the action

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Hospital Cup & Shute Shield
July Test
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Wallabies Spring Tour
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Realise Big Ideas
and drive results
for your brand

Big ideas make brands famous.
As does the power of premium sporting content.

And with the help of Powered by Nine, we have a big idea for every budget, underpinned by Australia’s best Rugby Union content. From the main game to the experts and the entertainers, we provide brands with an unrivalled platform to tell their story.

Explore Powered Studios
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ISUZU LEVERAGED A CROSS-MEDIA RUGBY PARTNERSHIP TO DELIVER HIGH IMPACT MARKETING MOMENTS

Nine x Isuzu

CHALLENGE: At the heart of every Isuzu lies a tried and tested DNA of a refined combination of power, efficiency and reliability. In 2021 Isuzu wanted to bring this to life through the launch of the latest Isuzu D-MAX and MU-X, and to ultimately connect their product with a male audience.

SOLUTION: Rugby on Nine was identified as the perfect sporting vehicle to support Isuzu, over 33 weeks, through compelling storytelling across our Total TV offering - including Channel 9, 9Now and Stan Sport, alongside print executions and radio integrations.

RESULTS: Utilising Nine's Rugby Union coverage, Isuzu put their brand message at the heart of the action - with a campaign consisting of a pre-match Game Changer TVC, Live Break TVC, Billboards, Half time Key Moment, Radio integration and much more.

PUT YOUR BRAND AT THE HEART OF THE ACTION WITH RUGBY UNION ON NINE IN 2022

Sports marketing is a powerful tool that many brands have leveraged to deliver real success. Best of all, it’s a genre that works across virtually every industry. Why does it have such power? Because it has the ability to connect brands with fans.

There is plenty of opportunity available to grow your brand through the power of Rugby Union on Nine in 2022. We're up for the challenge. Brief us today.

Rugby Scale

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Meet Good Weekend Editor Katrina Strickland

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At the core of Good Weekend is its features: definitive stories on the people, places and issues that matter - to you, to Australia, to the world.  The Good Weekend’s editor, Katrina Strickland talks about the power of print and shaping the stories everyone is talking about on Saturdays.

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In the 2020 film News of the World, Tom Hanks played an 1870s character who travelled through remote towns of America charging people a nickel to hear him read from a newspaper. In this social media-driven world, in which we’re all often alone with our phones, Hanks’ character feels like an artefact of a long-forgotten past.

Yet you need not look too far below the surface to realise that the human spirit’s craving for shared experiences is alive and well. Good Weekend editor Katrina Strickland was reminded of this during the pandemic, when Instagram and the Good Weekend inbox would light up week in, week out with photos of people doing The Quiz together over Zoom - family groupings, friendship circles, work colleagues.

“It was incredibly heartwarming, a sign of the power of a group activity to make us feel better about ourselves and the world,” said Strickland, who has been editor since mid-2017 of the magazine that’s inserted every Saturday into The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

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So popular is The Quiz that two devotees set up their own Instagram account in its honour. Now run by Good Weekend, it has more than 43,000 followers. The magazine has further extended the brand by instigating live quiz nights as part of Good Food Month.

Incredible Reach

Strickland learnt about the incredible reach of Good Weekend’s games the hard way, having decided when she took over to kill off the Get It puzzle that accompanies The Quiz every Saturday. The reader backlash was such that she quickly brought it back.

“Get It writer Greg Bakes was very gracious about it. He just laughed and said, ‘Someone else tried to cut it once and got the same reaction,’” Strickland said. “A magazine with the history and broad audience of Good Weekend - 37 years and more than 800,000 readers - is one in which that audience has very firm opinions of what they like and don’t like. And they’re never afraid to tell you.”

Reader favourites include Two of Us, Danny Katz’s Modern Guru and Benjamin Law’s Dicey Topics, but the heart and soul of the magazine is its features, penned by experts in the craft of longform writing such as Jane Cadzow, Amanda Hooton, Tim Elliott, Melissa Fyfe and Konrad Marshall.

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Stories on subjects as diverse as celebrity chef Jock Zonfrillo, cancel culture, Attorney-General Michaelia Cash, the Dark Emu debate, Sydney fraudster Melissa Caddick and Melbourne court clerk Ashleigh Petrie rate incredibly well online, attracting strong engagement on social media too.

We're looking for the issues and people Australians are fascinated by

“What’s interesting to me is that in a time of bite-sized news and supposedly short attention spans, it’s these stories of 4000, 5000 words that perform the best - with those who’ve grown up with us but also with 20 and 30 somethings, who might come for The Quiz but then stay for the features,” said Strickland. “That tells me that we’re all actually craving substance, a definitive story on a subject that allows us to grapple with it in all its shades of grey and nuance.”

That’s particularly so, she said, in an age of spin. “We’re all very marketing savvy these days, and we increasingly want the unvarnished truth. The rise of the real on Instagram - stars like Celeste Barber and The Inspired Unemployed - reflects that, too. News magazines have always played in that space, and I think, ironically, the times are coming back to suit that aspect of what we do. People are fed up with nicey-nicey content that actually doesn’t say much.”

Strickland says her team’s aim is to publish the cover story everyone is talking about on a Saturday - at the kids footy game that morning or at a dinner party that night. “We’re looking for the issues and people Australians are fascinated by, and to catch them just before everyone else registers that they’re interested in them.”

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Expansion of the 52 Properties and the Style Edit

At the other end of the spectrum, Good Weekend has in recent years extended its 31-year old 52 Weekends Away annual issue into two other 52 properties, 52 Dream Destinations and 52 Top Wineries. Where 52 Weekends Away is about national travel - Strickland expanded it a few years ago from covering mostly NSW and Victoria getaways to include every state and territory - 52 Dream Destinations is international. 52 Top Wineries, meanwhile, is a co-production with Huon Hooke’s wine website The Real Review.

These special annual issues have proven popular with state tourism bodies and automotive advertisers, who have done gatefolds, reversebacks, mini-magazines and false covers to capitalise on the fact that these issues tend to sit on coffee tables and in magazine racks for longer.

Another innovation has been Style Edit, a quarterly issue started last year that includes more lifestyle, fashion and design content, “but done in that Good Weekend way - with intelligence and rigour and, as always, beautiful writing”. 

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And so while Tom Hanks’ character in News of the World may seem quaint, our shared passion for exploring what’s happening around us and why - and more than ever, for getting the real story - is very much a 21st century thing.

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Rethink Ink

Check out how NRMA unlocked the power of Good Weekend in our latest Rethink Ink creative showcase 

Explore

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Meet the AFR Magazine’s Editor, Matt Drummond

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The Australian Financial Review is the country’s most read premium business masthead, growing its readership to 3.5 million across print and digital, according to Total News readership figures released by Roy Morgan this week. The AFR Magazine’s editor, Matthew Drummond talks about the power of print and how the AFR is providing brands with a powerful proposition to reach the new generation of high net worth and influential readers.

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When The Australian Financial Review celebrated its 70th anniversary, it called on the AFR Magazine crew to produce a special magazine called “The Platinum 70th”. Adorning the cover for the magazine was one of the biggest scalps editor Matthew Drummond has so far collected: Apple CEO Tim Cook. Apple is at regular intervals the single most valuable company in the world. It’s also very much a tech company. What fascinated Drummond was how invested Cook became with being on the cover of the print product.

“People want to be on the cover of a magazine. The access to people you get, if you can say they’re going to be on a magazine cover, is really hard to beat,” Drummond said. “Even though they’re a tech company, they know that print means quality. Print has impact. It was a reminder of the power of print magazines to create cultural moments that people pay attention to.”

With arguably one the of the most envious gigs in journalism, Drummond came to the role of editor of  AFR Magazine, like so many before him, via an unusual route. Originally a lawyer, Drummond started off logically enough as a court reporter at a time when Richard Pratt was being tried for anti-competitive behaviour. Then came a stint in banking and finance before taking on the prize role of European correspondent for the Fin based in Paris. Upon his return he took up the reins of the AFR Weekend before settling into his current role as editor of AFR Magazine.

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All Killer, No Filler

Moving from a daily newsroom through a weekly newspaper to a monthly magazine represented not only a change of pace for Drummond, but an entirely different approach to his work.

“Because you’re working on a magazine that’s got very limited space, the strategy is always ‘all killer, no filler’. You have to say no to a lot of ideas before you hit a yes. Consequently, you’re not working towards a monthly deadline, you’re working three or four months out."

“You’re trying to think of what’s going to be the cover story in three months’ time. A newspaper reflects what’s going on that day, whereas a magazine must reflect a curated vision of the world and things that we've decided to put together for readers,” he says.

Rapturously Wrapped In Luxury

You need only take a walk down any high street in Australia’s CBDs and well-heeled suburbs to know the luxury sector is booming. Sydney’s Castlereagh Street, for instance, has queues snaking around corners outside of Hermes, Cartier, Tiffany’s and more as people patiently wait for their turn to be taken inside and parted from their hard-earned cash in exchange for the latest spectacular offerings. Matched only in their refinement by the eye-watering retail prices.

The lack of overseas travel has also been luxury’s gain, as a more generally positive outlook has loosened wallets, purses and pay pass codes as we emerge from two years of fear and uncertainty.

Drummond says AFR Magazine pioneered coverage of the luxury industry as a business in the same way any other business sector is covered. “It’s key to how the AFR Magazine works. We use the smarts inside the AFR newsroom to look at the business angles inside sectors that are more commonly seen from a lifestyle, arts or cultural perspective.”

In part, this approach grew out of the treatment of the restaurant industry as a business.  An understanding of what’s going on in restaurants is similar to looking at art galleries and how their business model is evolving.

“We started looking at the luxury sector as a business model that could be studied, and fashion as a business as well. And we’ve been doing that for decades,” Drummond said.

As luxury has experienced its own locked-down renaissance, there’s a newfound confidence and optimism in media around luxury as well. New titles are emerging, and on the back of luxury product advertising they are increasing the number of issues  per year.

“It seems that the shakeout that happened in print advertising when COVID hit the brakes on a lot of CMOs’ spends is well and truly over. There’s a new landscape with new players coming into the luxury magazine sector,” says Drummond.

But of all the magazines that work with luxury advertisers, the AFR Magazine was one of very few that kept to its advertising and publishing schedule. “We did not skip a single issue, which speaks to the strength of AFR Magazine in terms of its advertising, and also the fact that we see it as being not just an advertising play. It is a core part of the reader experience of the Financial Review.”

Multi-Platform

Subscribers Are Drivers

The overarching mantra of the past few decades has been print’s decline at the hands of digital. Perversely, digital is now informing what’s printed and driving its growth. Harnessing a digital-first strategy, AFR Magazine now finesses its content in the magazine around trends deduced from digital readership.

For instance, the November issue of AFR Magazine is now purely themed around the Young Rich List following the success, both in terms of subscriber interest and advertising, of the Rich List issue published in June.

“Focusing on digital readership is helping us better understand the value of lifestyle content. We’ve found that the more likely a subscriber habitually reads lifestyle content on www.afr.com, the less likely they churn. That’s the reason we increasingly push lifestyle content to our readers, through newsletters and in key spots on the homepage,” Drummond explains.

There’s an enormous opportunity for brands to reach a growing audience via the AFR, in both print and digital. In Nine’s full-year results, digital subscription revenue was more than $100 million. This was up 20 per cent year-on-year. All three mastheads (The Sydney Morning Herald, The AFR and The Age) grew very strongly, but the AFR grew at the fastest rate.

“We’re hitting new heights in our subscription base. Subscriptions for the AFR are consistently selling at a rate that’s 50 per cent higher than pre-pandemic. And it hasn’t come at the expense of print. We know from readership data that the print audience has remained steady, and for our premium magazine and weekly insert it’s growing,” says Drummond.

“One of the very happy consequences of our increased digital audience is that it’s lifting print. AFR Magazine, in print, has a readership of 452,000.* That’s up a whopping 80 per cent year-on-year. Our audience is now over four times larger than our nearest competitor. Life & Leisure’s readership has grown by a similar amount to 460,000**.

“This reflects our digital-first strategy. Digital-first has a surprising benefit – it can increase print. Almost everything in AFR Magazine and Life & Leisure is published on afr.com before the print titles are published, and each article promotes the on-sale date of the magazine or supplement. We use digital content from the magazine to market the printed magazine, thereby connecting the larger and growing digital subscriber base with our print products. The more people who subscribe to us digitally, the more people who look out for us in print – provided we have compelling content.

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Growth in print readership has brought investment in new titles, including a new travel supplement within AFR Magazine. Meanwhile Life & Leisure, the weekly lifestyle insert, is about to produce its fifth gloss edition.

A Match Made In Heaven For Brands

Within the luxury sector, now more than ever, there’s an emphasis on showing leadership through high-impact and innovative executions in print and digital.

“We see increased appetite in brands wanting media firsts that show new ways to advertise, via print. This might be using distinctive paper stock, it might be through special gloss executions of wrapping the paper. It’s getting a tangible experience of luxury, of something special, something unique, through print,” says Drummond.

“That led us to create the Luxury Collection Bespoke Suite that enables us to offer a wide range of innovative print executions. We’ve done die-cut belly bands on the newspaper, VR experiences, gatefolds that align with themed issues of AFR Magazine. Print is about as tactile as media comes and we’re in the business of working with brands to create innovative, sensory moments that make their brand aspirations tangible, something you can feel.”

Brands more than ever need to tell their story. Since people couldn’t go into stores through lockdowns, luxury houses needed to find new ways to immerse customers in their brand.

“We’re seeing heightened demand for immersive advertorials on afr.com. These ‘immersives’ have proven popular with brands who traditionally would rely on being mentioned in editorial, but they want to reaffirm those stories with advertorials that provide the space to properly cover their heritage, their values, their innovations.

“We also now offer a sponsored mono-brand photo-shoot in Life & Leisure. Because the AFR is such a premium platform, brands have more confidence that even a digital advertorial execution will suit their brand requirements around how they are positioned.

Digital

“AFR Magazine has also minted its first non-fungible token, the cover of the Young Rich issue. For this year’s Young Rich issue, our researchers have included wealth held in cryptocurrencies for the first time, and we have a cryptocurrency entrepreneur on our cover. To mark this occasion, we figured we should turn that cover into an NFT which we auctioned off to raise money for The Smith Family. It sold for $77,450. It’s another illustration of how print can be turned into very distinctive, eye-catching digital assets.

“We see a strong pipeline of interest in gatefold covers for AFR Magazine too. We’ve done our first sponsored fashion shoot, which is an invitation-only opportunity we offer to key partners.”

And so print’s future, when done right, is looking quite bright. To that point, AFR Magazine’s average subscribers are younger than the rest of Nine’s newspaper subscribers: late twenty-somethings working in banking and finance, professional services or some other business enterprise.

“They see people reading the Fin and they know that’s the daily habit of successful people, and they want to be successful too,” says Drummond.

Because of their aspiring outlook, aspirational content is what these younger readers most seek out online, which informs Drummond and his team to make an entirely customised print experience for their emerging audience. A virtuous circle indeed.

*AFR Magazine - Roy Morgan Research; people 14+ for the 12 months ending September 2021
**Life & Leisure - emma conducted by Ipsos MediaCT; people 14+ for the 12 months ending December 2020

Find out how your brand can leverage the power of Nine's publishing assets to drive business outcomes: Request more information

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Expanding Nine’s people-based marketing offering – Nine to offer Audience Match integrated with Salesforce

Last year Nine announced a market-leading partnership with Adobe called Audience Match. Nine plans to integrate this product with Salesforce, writes Nick Young, Nine’s Director of Sales – Digital and Publishing.

At last year’s Nine Upfront we announced a major step into empowering people-based marketing across our digital properties.

Nine announced a new partnership which allows marketers and brands to unlock Nine’s ecosystem of more than 11 million signed-in users on 9Now.

Today Nine can announce that in an Australian first, its Audience Match product will integrate with Salesforce. 

By early 2022 we will integrate with Salesforce, giving clients the ability to match and activate their customer data to our 14 million signed-in users and put the power of people-based marketing to work across Nine’s digital ecosystem, including the market-leading 9Now BVOD service.

It will enable advertisers using any Salesforce Cloud with Salesforce CDP and the Salesforce Nine App to match their first-party consumer audiences against our ecosystem of signed-in users, including the ability to target them on the largest screen in the house – the connected television.

The partnership builds on Nine’s market-leading onboarding capabilities activated over the last 12 months, which have involved significant deals with key players such as Adobe and also LiveRamp, and ensures that regardless of the marketing technology provider a brand uses, it can utilise Nine’s Audience Match solution to onboard audiences to Nine.

We’ll have more to say on this in the coming months, but for the moment we are excited that regardless of what platform a brand is on in 2022, we’ll be able to help them with a seamless, safe and privacy-compliant solution allowing them to activate their audiences across all of Nine’s digital properties.

Identity-based targeting opportunities that tap into the Martech already embedded in your businesses: it doesn’t get better than that. 

Nick Young is Nine’s Director of Sales – Digital and Publishing

Australia’s Leading Publisher

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Nine’s Publishing division

Nine’s Publishing division includes metro media - The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, newspaper inserted magazines such as Sunday Life, Good Weekend, and Traveller and Nine’s other Digital Publishing titles including Pedestrian Group, DRIVE and nine.com.au.

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monthly readers (print + digital)

Source: Roy Morgan Research; People 14+ for the 12 months ending March 2022

Nine's dedicated branded content team within Powered creates content that allows the client to communicate to a target audience in an authentic way. The varied offerings across digital and print fall under the umbrella of native and advertorial and can include articles, immersives and video-led content.

Native Example

Native

Native content creates an environment for a client to integrate seamlessly within the Nine brand.

The tone and style more closely aligns to the selected publication and it receives higher engagement and dwell time as a result. Minimal client integration is allowed in this product.

Advertorial

Advertorial

Advertorial is brand-focused content that builds awareness – the client's product or brand message is prominent within the copy and imagery.

The client has greater control of its message, while still reflecting the tone and style of the publication.

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High Impact Media

High impact media executions allow clients to grab the attention of our passionate audience across our publishing assets during key campaign timing.

Print Solutions

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Digital Solutions

Cross Platform Integrations

Nine's dedicated branded content team within Powered creates content that allows the client to communicate to a target audience in an authentic way. The varied offerings across digital and print fall under the umbrella of native and advertorial and can include articles, immersives and video-led content.
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Contact Us

The end of cookies: Data and advertising beyond third party cookies

The looming cookies apocalypse will see marketers seek out digital environments where users are logged in within, brand safe, premium environments.

A panel, at Nine’s Big Ideas Store, has heard that the abolition of cookie-based marketing will fundamentally change the digital landscape for many brands and marketers.

“I think there is a scenario where there is a two speed economy where you have advertisers who are signed in versus people who are anonymous,” said Ben Campbell, Nine’s Director of Advertising and Data Products referencing the value of logged in environments like 9Now or The Sydney Morning Herald.

“Advertisers will be willing to pay to those audiences they can reach and accurately identify.

“Anonymous users who can’t be tracked will attract lower prices and lower CPMs.”

For a full breakdown of the session see below:

Timecodes:
0.00 Ben Campbell presenting on the impact of the “cookie apocalypse”
15.00 Cookies the challenges and overcoming the technical challenges – why premium publishers are in unique position.
23.00 The role of digital prospecting going forward and the death of retargeting. access their data.
26.00 Attribution in a post cookies world.
36.00 Building digital cohorts and the impact on smaller publishers.
38.00 Impact on the regulatory landscape.
45.00 Impact of IOS’ tracking changes.
51.00 First party relationship – publisher and advertiser need to have direct relationship.
55.00 Changing consumer mindset towards privacy and tracking.
61.00 Digital’s two speed economy – audiences who are signed in will be more valued.

Upcoming Publishing Features May – June 22

Make an impact with Australia's best lifestyle content

Our readers are primed for indulgence – new opportunities available across Nine’s leading publishing assets!

Plan your marketing campaign with a premium publishing partnership with Nine.

With the colder months on the horizon, our readers are primed for indulgence and ready to spend. Whether it’s styling their winter wardrobe, planning a much-needed getaway, or immersing themselves in the gourmet food world, there is plenty of opportunity to wrap your brand around our upcoming special issues. 

Across Good Weekend, AFR Magazine, Sunday Life, Traveller, Life & Leisure and Good Food, there is an abundance of opportunity to engage our readers with your brand message.

LUXURY

AFR & AFR Magazine //

Rich List & Rich List Supplement

How I Made It:
Inside the Rich List Podcast

On Sale: Friday 27th May

This year marks the 40th edition of the Rich List, so crack open the champagne as we celebrate the definitive annual snapshot of Australia's richest 200 people.

This is a magazine that draws upon months of research to track the changing face of wealth in Australia - who has it and what they are doing with it. It's an issue that creates headlines around Australia and is beloved by our readers.

Featuring profiles on the most intriguing and most successful entrepreneurs, and set within AFR Magazine's sumptuous mix of fashion, design, food and travel, this is one of our biggest issues of the year. The Rich List itself will appear in a separately bound magazine.

And, With over 156K downloads to date, the AFR, How I Made It: Inside the Rich List podcast is returning for Season 2, diving deeper into the success stories of Australia’s top entrepreneurs - from the ground up. There are new integration and sponsorship opportunities to grow your brand across afr.com.au, with newsletters and more.

Source: Triton Podcast Metrics, October 2021, Downloads.

Booking Deadline Supplement: Friday 8th April

Booking Deadline Mainbook: Friday 15th April

Material Deadline Supplement: Friday 22nd April

Material Deadline Mainbook: Friday 29th April

Podcast Sponsorship: Contact your Nine Representative

Fin-+-Fin-Review-Magazine

Life & Leisure //

Visionaries / New Kids on the Block

On Sale: Friday 20th & Saturday 21st May 

Who tells the story of our time? Who sets the agenda for the future? Who do we look to for change and inspiration? 
Welcome to the inaugural Visionaries issue of Life & Leisure, where we explore the leaders and innovators who have shaped the modern face of luxury.

From motoring and design to travel and food, fashion and beauty and more, this special gloss edition of The Australian Financial Review's weekly lifestyle supplement explores what it means - and what it takes - to be on the cutting-edge of luxury …. and it's not to be missed.

Booking Deadline: Friday 15th April

Material Deadline: Monday 29th April

Life & Leisure

LIFESTYLE

GOOD WEEKEND //

Food & Drinks + 52 Top Wineries

On Sale: Saturday 4th June 

In this, our annual food and drinks special, we explore the big trends in the culinary world in 2022, from the country's hottest impending restaurant opening, to the non-alcoholic drinks craze, to the incredible way technology is being used in food production.

For the second year in a row, we also team up with independent wine website The Real Review and its co-founder Huon Hooke to bring readers a definitive guide to 2022's top 52 wineries in Australia. Plus, we look at some of the best road trips nationwide. With contributions from the country's top food writers, from Neil Perry, Karen Martini and Helen Goh to Terry Durack, Jill Dupleix, Dani Valent and Paul Best.

Booking Deadline: Friday 6th May

Material Deadline: Wednesday 25th May

Good Weekend

AFR Magazine //

Culinary Issue

On Sale: Friday 24th June

From profiles on the most exciting movers and shakers in restaurants, to practical tips on how to lift your own cooking game, our annual culinary issue is one to savour. The issue features the biggest names in fine dining and fine wines. It will also include recipes from restaurants that AFR readers love, compiled and tested by Jill Dupleix.

Anyone with a passion for entertaining at home will find everything they need in AFR Magazine's 2022 Culinary issue to take their own kitchen - and dining room - to the next level. Plus, don’t miss out on 'What to drink now' from award-winning drinks expert, Max Allen, who will provide his annual rundown of the very best wines and spirits on offer.

Booking Deadline: Friday 13th May

Material Deadline: Friday 27th May

Fin Review Magazine

FASHION

GOOD WEEKEND //

Winter Style Edit (GLOSS)

On Sale: Saturday 18th June

Getting ready for red wine, cosy fires and blustery weather? So are we, and our Winter Style Edit will feature fashion for the colder months, as well as columns by style making opinion setters Marion Hume, Kellie Hush, Luke Benedictus, Karen McCartney and Frances Mocnik, to name just a few.

Booking Deadline: Friday 20th May

Material Deadline: Wednesday 8th June

Good Weekend - Winter Style

TRAVEL

Life & Leisure //

Travel Issue

On Sale: Friday 6th May & Saturday 7th May

Being Australian, and coming into winter, naturally we are all chasing the sun - dreaming of refreshed coastal escapes and getting out at sea again as soon as possible.

Find everything you need to know about planning your next adventure in this upcoming Travel Issue of Life & Leisure.

Booking Deadline: Friday 29th April

Material Deadline: Monday 2nd May

Life & Leisure - Travel Issue

TRAVELLER

Escape Winter: Islands + Beaches + Coasts Edition

On Sale: Saturday 7th May

What better time to turn our travel dreams to warmer climes one month or so before the onset of winter?

In this always popular special edition, Traveller’s writers and editors will showcase their favourite islands, beaches and coasts from both Australia and abroad along with the best ways to savour them, including aboard a cruise…

Key categories to be explored include ocean and river cruising, escorted journeys, package holidays, hotels and resorts, wellness and more.

Booking Deadline: Monday 2nd May

Material Deadline: Wednesday 4th May

Traveller - Escape Winter

Find out how your brand can leverage the power of Nine's Publishing assets to drive business outcomes: Request more information