News UK and illuma partner to boost contextual accuracy for targeting and brand safety

The illuma team is delighted to announce a ground-breaking new partnership with News UK, marking a significant advancement in the accuracy of contextual tagging and brand safety.

News UK has launched a new tool, Nucleus Narr(ai)te, which applies illuma’s AI, enhanced by human intelligence, to its world-class journalism, in order to deliver a new level of accuracy and efficiency for advertisers.

Using illuma’s AI, Narr(ai)te is able to deep-read News UK content, understanding brand voice and the subtleties and nuances of the copy, and create publisher-specific classifications, influencing how the content is tagged at scale. 

Improved accuracy for ad targeting

Early validation testing has shown a subsequent +10% average increase in segment accuracy,with notable improvements observed in verticals such as:

• ‘Beauty & Skincare’ +25% (The Sun)

• ‘Tech’ +11% (The Sun)

• ‘Travel’ +12% (The Sun)

• ‘Sport’ +20% (The Times)

• ‘Autos’ +16% (The Times)

• ‘Retail’ +13% (The Times)

These core improvements allow advertisers to capitalise on highly relevant content where as-yet undiscovered audiences are actively engaging.

Improved accuracy for brand safety
With enhanced tagging accuracy, Nucleus Narr(ai)te also mitigates unfair ad blocking, unlocking more of News UK’s premium content for advertising. This means advertisers can reach highly engaged audiences with greater precision, maximising campaign impact while maintaining the highest levels of brand safety at all times.

Proof of concept testing has shown an average +16% increase in brand-safe inventory available for ad targeting across the News UK portfolio.

Charlie Celino, Head of Strategic Development, News UK, said: “This latest extension to the Nucleus suite of products uses cutting-edge AI to answer a core problem for publishers – how to accurately and efficiently tag content for advertisers at scale.  Working with illuma we can now offer agencies and brands more precisely categorised tagging, enabling more effective contextual targeting and greater brand safety.

“What’s important for us as a publisher is that the more nuanced understanding that Narr(ai)te offers means that we can open up large areas of content that might traditionally been wrongly labelled as brand unsafe. This enables advertisers to access more highly-engaged audiences via our trusted, quality journalism. Narr(ai)te is a significant development for the industry and wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work, determination and cross collaboration between teams at both News UK and illuma.”

Peter Mason, CEO and co-founder, illuma: “Our collaboration with News UK demonstrates that superior publisher-led standards of contextual accuracy significantly enhance audience relevance for ad campaigns, improving the user experience. This highly nuanced categorisation also opens up more premium, brand-safe inventory, creating scale and opportunity for advertisers and facilitating the flow of revenues into quality journalism.” 

Richard Reeves, managing director of AOP, said: “This partnership between News UK and illuma is a brilliant example of collaborative action being the most powerful tool for tackling industry challenges. Brand safety is an ongoing issue, one with complex nuances, but this market solution demonstrates an enhanced approach to contextual tagging practices; a way to truly understand content – benefiting all parties and driving a healthy digital media ecosystem. At AOP, we’re always looking for new and better ways to move the industry forward and are pleased to champion initiatives like this.” 

For more information about Nucleus and to explore how it can benefit your advertising strategy, please visit https://www.news.co.uk/nucleus 
To explore illuma’s targeting and brand safety tools for publishers, please visit https://weareilluma.com/for-publishers/