Following a competitive pitch, Pets at Home’s media agency, Carat UK, successfully secured exclusive sponsorship of all Heart Drive shows for the pet retailer.

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This includes shows hosted by presenters including JK & Kelly Brook, Vicky Pattison, and Rich Clarke.

The move will also see Pets at Home access Global’s comprehensive portfolio, utilising audio, outdoor and presenters.

Pets at Home, Marketing Director, Madeline Shaw, said: “We know just how much joy pets bring to people’s lives – none more so than at the end of a busy working day. We are delighted to be keeping the nation company every weekday afternoon, showcasing our incredible expertise and range of products and services.

“The Heart Drive audience is closely aligned to our core customer, so it’s the perfect platform for us to demonstrate how Pets at Home can support every pet and every pet owner. We can’t wait to inspire the millions of listeners that tune in each afternoon.”

Global, Commercial Partnerships Director Jenni Lees, added: “Heart’s Drive network has the perfect audience for Pets at Home. We know that 72% of listeners have a pet, and one in three plan to get one in the next year.

“Additionally, Pets at Home shares Heart’s feel-good spirit and I know that the content we’re creating together will help our presenters turn up even more of the feel good right across the UK.”

The news comes as the media and entertainment group recently announced a 10-year partnership to upgrade payphones in the UK and launch more digital hubs for local communities.

In a move to provide better connectivity and hyper-local advertising to over 200 towns and cities, the agreement will see Global convert up to 2,000 conventional BT payphones and kiosks into brand new Street Hubs over a 10-year period from next year.

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He will join Global in Q1 2025, with an exact start to be confirmed in due course, succeeding Stephen Miron, who announced last week he was stepping down as Group Chief Executive after 16 years at the helm to become Global’s Chairman.

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Commenting on his departure, Miron said: “After 16 years as Group CEO at Global it’s time to hand over the baton to someone who can help take the company to the next level. I can’t think of anyone better or more suited for this role than Simon.”

Pitts joins from Global from STV, where he has been CEO since 2018.

Before this, he spent 17 years at ITV where he was on the executive board for seven years and held a variety of roles including Director of Strategy & Transformation and Managing Director of Online, Pay TV, Interactive & Technology.

Pitts said: “I’m delighted to be joining Global, a company I admire and whose brands I’ve been a fan of for a long time. It is unique in the market to have such a diversified portfolio, with digital, audio and outdoor combined with some of the best-loved radio stations in the UK, bringing with it an incredible connection to its audiences”.

Global, Founder & Executive President, Ashley Tabor-King CBE added: “I’m delighted to announce and welcome Simon Pitts as Global’s new Group CEO from Q1 next year. Simon joins Global with an incredible track record of leadership, growth, and transformation.

“At STV he has led a hugely successful transformation, diversifying revenues and business operations to now include a high-growth streaming service and leading studios group alongside a traditional linear broadcast business, all of which is a testament to his leadership skills, and importantly for Global, Simon’s experience of working within a similar business to ours.”

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Entertainment group Global has announced the launch of its new podcast, The Sports Agents, starring TV presenters Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

The move follows on from the success of its previous The News Agents podcast, which has surpassed over 70 million downloads.

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The new podcast will provide an insider’s perspective on the biggest stories in sport, alongside exclusive interviews from the most anticipated events in the calendar including the men’s Euro 2024, the Six Nations, the Wimbledon Championships and the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

Global Chief Branding and Content Officer, James Rea, said: “With an amazing year of sport ahead of us, this is the perfect time to launch The Sports Agents. Gabby and Mark are first-class broadcasters who will bring a wonderful mix of insight, expert knowledge and a healthy dose of humour.”

Logan added: “Having spent decades in sports journalism I’m looking forward to telling the stories behind the sports. Joining up with Mark, and Global, to launch The Sports Agents on Global Player, is the perfect place to dive into the world of sport — and what’s really going on.”

Chapman concluded: “Often so many of the most interesting stories in sport happen off the pitch, court and track, and it’s brilliant that The Sports Agents will be the best place for us to share the stories behind the action with listeners.”

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Consumers listening to Global radio stations on their Amazon Alexa-powered smart speakers can use voice commands to interact directly with the ad and buy the ‘Berocca Boost’ energy supplement.

The audio ad, developed alongside Say It Now and A Million Ads, asks listeners to ‘Open Berocca Boost’ by verbally requesting more information or requesting that a purchase is made.

“We are always looking for new ways to capture our consumers’ imagination and engage with our brands. With eCommerce proliferating and voice commerce a rapidly emerging channel, we looked to audio as increasingly effective, especially when everyone is spending so much time at home,” said Vicky Keenan, Marketing Director at Bayer Consumer Health.

“This ambitious activation for Berocca required a hugely collaborative effort from the all of the marketing and agency teams: Say It Now, MediaCom, MullenLowe London & SSP3 and A Million Ads to deliver. It’s exciting to be the first FMCG brand to embrace this innovation and to set the tone for tomorrow’s radio advertising.”

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Each of the charities will introduce separate radio advertising campaigns that can be responded to directly via Alexa-enabled devices through voice commands. The audio ads will run specifically on devices that support a voice assistant, and people are able to find out more about the charity or donate straight away – should their voice assistant be linked directly to a payment service – using verbal instruction.

Say It Now was able to create the donation channel for the charities after it secured funding from Innovate UK, a non-departmental innovation agency that is funded by grant-in-aid from the UK government.

“The pandemic has accelerated existing trends, paving the way for voice technology which is versatile, contactless and increasingly part of daily life,” said Charlie Cadbury, CEO and Co-founder of Say It Now. “The Innovate UK funding enables us to use our voice experience and work alongside our media partner DAX to develop ‘tech for good’ as charities look for new ways to generate income in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.  The aim is to demonstrate that ‘voice giving’ is a viable donation channel both now and for the future.”

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MTV UK is entering the podcast space through a partnership with Global, whose digital ad exchange, DAX, will become the advertising sales and distribution partner for MTV’s first ever UK podcast series. MTV plans to produce five podcast series based around some of its most popular programmes, including ‘Celebrity Ex on the Beach’ and ‘Geordie Shore’.

Each of the series will be distributed across the world’s biggest podcast streaming services including Global Player, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and TuneIn, through DAX’s content management platform. In addition, the partnership creates podcast advertising and sponsorship opportunities for brands and offers advertisers access to DAX’s suite of targeting and measurement tools.

Each podcast series will contain a minimum of 12 episodes and will be conversational in style, covering different themes throughout the series. ‘Celebrity Ex on the Beach: The Podcast’ is the first to launch, with the initial episode now available for listeners to access following the show’s linear premiere earlier this week on MTV UK. Further episodes will be made available on a weekly basis, and the remaining four podcast series will launch during the course of 2020.

Global will promote the new podcasts to MTV’s target 16-34 audience on-air and online, across its commercial radio brands, Heart and Capital, which reach 9.8m and 8.1m weekly listeners respectively.

In addition, ads will feature on the Global Player app, where listeners can easily access all Global’s radio brands, podcasts and curated playlists. Meanwhile, MTV will support the podcasts across its linear channels, social platforms and on MTV.co.uk.

A number of recognisable reality TV faces will participate in the podcasts, with Callum Best, Ashley McKenzie, Ellie Brown and Michael Griffiths already confirmed to guest star on ‘Celebrity Ex on the Beach: The Podcast’. Further details on talent and content will be announced in due course.

“We’re always looking for new ways to reach audiences and with the growing popularity of podcasts, it’s a natural move to build out some of our biggest and best-loved MTV titles for an audio format.” said Arran Tindall, CCO, EVP, commercial & content distribution at ViacomCBS Networks International. “By partnering with Global, through their digital ad exchange DAX, we’re able to tap into their international network of audio publisher brands and advanced advertising capabilities in this space, enabling us to reach listeners across the globe, on all relevant platforms.

Ollie Deane, director of commercial digital at Global, added: “This latest move into audio from MTV will not only be welcomed by podcast and TV fans but brands and advertisers too. Podcasts create context for brands to connect with hard-to-reach audiences, one-to-one. With demand for spoken word content at an all-time high, MTV’s first steps into podcasts represent an exciting proposition for advertisers. Using Global’s reach on-air, online and through DAX, we’re looking forward to working in partnership with MTV to make their slate of new podcasts a huge success.”

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The move gives advertisers the ability to buy digital outdoor campaigns through demand side platforms (DSPs), as they are already able to do with other programmatic media such as audio and video. DSP launch partners include The Trade Desk, Vistar Media, Mediamath and Hivestack, with more to be announced in the coming months.

As part of the launch, DAX will rebrand from the Digital Audio Exchange to the Digital Ad Exchange, to flag the fact that advertisers can buy both digital audio and digital outdoor together.

The launch will bring together Global’s significant outdoor portfolio alongside its radio and entertainment business and will give advertisers access to Global’s digital outdoor and digital audio inventory, in one programmatic platform. Advertisers can integrate their programmatic audio and outdoor buying in areas such as location targeting.

In addition, in the same way that DAX represents 238 publisher brands within the audio sector – including ITV, Sky and Telegraph Media Group – Global also announced that a group of third-party outdoor media owners will be putting inventory into DAX. Admedia, Elonex and All City Media Solutions, have already signed up as digital outdoor inventory partners on DAX.

Global first entered the outdoor advertising market in late 2018, adding 235,000 screens across its portfolio. Simultaneously, Global continues to grow commercial radio, reaching more than 25m listeners every week and achieving a social media reach of 75m monthly engagements, with its brands including Capital, Heart, Classic FM, Smooth, LBC, Radio X, Capital XTRA and Gold.

“When we entered the outdoor advertising market, we saw a sector which was full of exciting potential and also one that was in need of further investment and innovation,” said Mike Gordon, Global’s chief commercial officer. By uniting our business, Global is able to help brands harness the power of outdoor alongside other digital channels such as digital audio, helping them to create more moments that matter.

“New technology will always create challenges, but the knowledge we have acquired of the programmatic landscape through our first six years of DAX has given us a strong foundation for driving forward digital outdoor advertising. We’re looking forward to working closely with Admedia, Elonex and All City Media Solutions, as well as the outdoor specialists, to shape the next chapter in advertising.”

Pete Markey, CMO of TSB, welcomed the move, saying: “DAX is pioneering technology. The platform is ahead of the game in that no other product in the market gives us access to such a large variety of audio content. The potential to fuse audio with outdoor in a programmatic, highly targeted, way is really compelling. I think we’ll now see media come together more as the formats are planned and bought around the customer experience.”

And Gareth Jones, CMO UK at eBay, said: “DAX has always helped us to reach audiences creatively. It perfectly embodies our intent to use data to make all of our brand investments more personal – selling more through relevant recommendations in traditional programmatic brand channels and trying to be more brand accretive in our performance activity.

“Data is the glue. Prior to DAX we built one 30-second radio spot for many millions of listeners. Now we’ll have up to 65,000 different radio spots running concurrently based on our gleaned listener intent.

“It was really interesting to see Global move into Outdoor and we were anticipating a big move from them. The development of DAX into digital outdoor is an exciting innovation and we’re looking forward to seeing how it will drive forward another medium with huge potential.”

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Check out more coverage surrounding our Programmatic Lunch event and how the industry is evolving here.

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MMD Media’s ‘forecourt’ network consists of 1378 digital screens at 607 petrol stations across the Netherlands, adding to the thousands of digital screens Global already has across the nation. Global entered the Dutch outdoor market through its acquisition of Exterion Media, which was approved earlier this year, as part of a dive into the OOH market also including the acquisitions of Primesight and Outdoor Plus.

“We saw this investment as the perfect opportunity to grow our current DOOH portfolio in the Netherlands,” said Leon Taviansky, CEO of outdoor at Global. “The deal complements our current Dutch portfolio, adding 1378 digital screens in petrol stations to our assets on the National Railway and in shopping malls. MMD Media has built an impressive business which we’re excited to develop even further.”

Global officially announced the setup of its outdoor division in April this year, placing Taviansky in charge following his time as CEO of Exterion Media. This also saw the former Outdoor Plus CEO, Jonathan Lewis, named as executive director of outdoor, as well as several other bits of reshuffling.

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A survey of 215 senior and mid-level executives at leading media agencies and UK brand owners, commissioned by Global’s DAX and conducted by MTM, found that 78 per cent of advertisers say they will increase spend across music and digital radio over the next year. 75 per cent will choose to increase investment in podcasts.

The findings show that there is a growing confidence in the power of digital audio advertising. This is further highlighted by 86 per cent of ad agency executives and 66 per cent of brands now seeing digital audio as a key part of their media strategies.

The four factors identified by respondents as being the driving forces behind investment in digital audio were increased podcast listening, smart speakers and connected cars, the rise of programmatic trading, and cross-platform targeting opportunities.

“The findings in this year’s report show an extremely positive outlook for digital audio advertising, with 85 per cent of advertisers planning to invest further in digital audio over the next 12 months,” said Ollie Deane, director of commercial digital at Global. “Now, the value proposition and opportunities in digital audio are clearer, so too is the prominence of digital audio in advertisers’ media strategies. As new technologies continue to emerge and we see campaigns tailored to listeners in connected cars, cross platform attribution and improved measurement tools will be essential for driving the industry forward.”

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