Shorts (and sauce) are hot at News Corp Australia, advertiser self-service maybe less so, according to reports from the media giant.

News’ client product managing director Pippa Leary has hailed the “amazing innovation” of an upcoming digital product launch which leverages the popularity of short-form video.

“The shift to shorts is here, reaffirming research from Meta on the vibrant short form ecosystem,” says News ad product and strategy head Ryan Hedditch in a Linkedin post.

“At News Corp Australia, we’re equally obsessed with short form content with the launch of Shorts across our news and lifestyle publications. We can’t wait to bring this to the advertising market very soon!”

Illustrations show the use of Shorts in news and food contexts.

Food is playing an increasingly important part in News’ product mix with a page in metro dailies this week devoted to ‘delicious’-branded sauces, available at Woolworths supermarkets. At the time of writing, two flavours were on special at half price, and a third was out of stock.

Elsewhere, rival Nine Entertainment’s Australian Financial Review said this week that News had confirmed the closure of its Veeta project, which was being developed with the help of Accenture to provide a platform for small and medium businesses to buy advertising across its publications. Sam Buckingham-Jones quoted “internal sources” that “at least $20 million" had been spent, a figure strongly denied by News. Ending the Veeta project was a strategic decision reflecting how rapidly the SME advertising market evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic, “making it a less attractive concept,” a spokesman said.