The cross-title partnership deal will run from 5th November – 21st December and will target eBay’s three key audiences with relevant content: men aged 25-44, women aged 35-54 and families with children under 18 living at home.
MediaCom developed the reactive strategy to drive salience and highlight eBay’s position in the market as a cultural barometer. eBay has the ability to reflect shopping trends across the UK and MediaCom, alongside News UK, was able to bring this to life via their brands.
The campaign involves creating and distributing reactive ad copy in print and in line with the day’s news agenda across The Sun and The Times. The bespoke content will react to key moments in the run up to Christmas and will run across the news pages of both titles as well as the Fabulous Daily section of The Sun and the technology and sport sections of The Times. Reactive digital ads and social posts will also be created to run across thetimes.co.uk, thesun.co.uk, Dream Team, talkSPORT and Virgin Radio.
The content strategy will be informed by eBay’s own customer insight and sales data, alongside audience insight from News Corp’s social media intelligence platform Storyful, and eCommerce data from Skimlinks.
David Dumville, Head of Solutions at The Bridge Studio, News UK, said: “This exclusive partnership demonstrates how our insight, data and creativity can come together to create a relatable, diverse campaign. It will help bring eBay into the heart of the conversation around Christmas and allow its customers to celebrate the quirks, the nuances, and the little truisms that make our festivities truly unique.”
Rosie Hanley, Head of Brand Marketing at eBay, said: “Christmas is the most important date in our marketing calendar, so it is vital that we make the most of our advertising spend to build relevance and trust in our brand this festive season. News UK has helped us to access our target audience in an engaging way and cut through with relevant, engaging content. We’re looking forward to working with them on this unique partnership.”
Charlotte Mullan, Business Director at MediaCom, said: “Data, insight and consumer truths are key to delivering this reactive partnership with News UK. Audiences’ shopping habits and conversation drivers learnt through Storyful enable us to create truly relevant and relatable content for eBay. In addition, commercial alignment to the daily news agenda on a consistent basis will ensure eBay is positioned alongside trending news stories, building on the relevance and trust that is newsbrands heartland.”
