News UK today announces the launch of Nucleus, its new first-party data platform.  Nucleus will enable advertisers to reach News UK’s 36.5m digital readers, listeners and viewers using rich data and contextual insight across its brands’ audiences including The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, Virgin Radio, Talk Sport and Times Radio.

Nucleus will offer advertisers access to one of the largest, known UK audiences based on true first-party data, enabling them to target campaigns at scale to a valuable set of consumers.  By leveraging News UK’s first-party data relationships, advertisers can better reach and understand their audiences in a more privacy compliant, futureproof and accurate way.

Nucleus uses a combination of rich, first-party demographic data alongside unique declared and contextual targeting information, letting brands target their advertising based on traditional user metrics as well as innovative insight such as preference, opinion and emotions.

Unique to Nucleus, the ability to target consumers based on emotional context can increase advertising consumption by up to 45% by understanding the emotional resonance of the content around which it sits.

Nucleus will also be leveraged internally at News UK to help drive personalised reader offers, better understand reader engagement with editorial content, develop new advertising products and drive increased subscriptions.

Ben Walmsley, Commercial Director, Publishing at News UK, said: “Nucleus is the next step in an ambitious programme of development for new advertiser tools at News UK.  It shifts our approach to one based purely on first-party data, augmented by our own contextual targeting capabilities.  First-party data gives brands greater targeting accuracy, ensures that they remain privacy compliant and future proofs their activities in a rapidly changing market.

“Alongside the scale of our first-party audiences across our world-class portfolio of brands, Nucleus lets advertisers reach and understand their consumers better than ever before using both traditional demographic insight as well as rich contextual understanding around areas such as emotions. Nucleus will now form a part of all partnership briefs, ensuring campaigns are tailored to our audience's preferences, opinions and emotional resonance.

“The power of emotion as a targeting mechanism is becoming ever more important.  Emotions drive actions and the rich storytelling approach across the News UK portfolio of brands inspires emotions in a way that no other media format can.”