• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, November 22, 2024

Western Union launched a new media business earlier this month to offer advertisers a link to diverse multicultural audiences. Western Union Media Network, the new business, can connect advertisers to more than 150 million consumers across North America and Europe. 

Data attributes define audiences. "Think about multicultural authenticity and the ability to identify different profiles of our customers, but it's not just opening an unfiltered spam ad experience," says Chris Hammer, senior vice president, global digital product and commerce innovation at Western Union. "It's all about knowing what's interesting to our customers through the profiles of our customers."

Hammer says Western Union only allows brands to advertise that have specific helpful offerings to target ads to its customer base, many of whom do not have a lot of discretionary spending. 

This advanced targeting option gives brands a unique channel to personalize customer experiences and engagement through data and access to first-person transactional data and insights, multichannel digital engagement across websites, its mobile app, and a network of digital out-of-home (DOOH) screens.

Advertisers using the DOOH screens can post messages across multitudes of neighborhoods and communities in supermarkets, restaurants, check cashiers, convenience stores, banks, accounting services, and more

When asked what types of media networks Western Union's most identifies with, Hammer points to PayPal or Chase because they support financial services. Western Union's customers have more of a financial services relationship with the company.

Transparency is what makes Western Union work well with consumers. Knowing the nuances of multicultural audiences supports the services.

"We have a clear understanding of who is sending money, and where to send money to," he says. "In many cases that's sending money home to their country of origin."

Hammer says the company has been building out the network for about a year, but just made it officially available to all advertisers after it felt comfortable with the four components that make up the network work well -- from email to apps, to website, and DOOH. Screens finally went into retail locations to support the network from grocery stores to convenience stores. 

Western Union Media Network also began working with PubMatic earlier this year, testing the ability to expand its partnership with PubMatic as it took media off of its website and apps into other media. 

The company will use PubMatic's offsite media solutions, applying insights from 115 million annual consumer money transfer transactions in the U.S. across PubMatic's premium inventory.