Qantas launches data marketing business Red Planet, takes digital media buying in-house

Qantas Loyalty has today launched a data marketing business called Red Planet aiming to sign up other businesses to use data from the Frequent Flyer program in targeted digital advertising, Mumbrella can reveal.

Ominously for Qantas’ media agency ZenithOptimedia the airline says it will move the group’s digital media spend to Red Planet in the near future, with it already handling part of the spend for the group.

Led by Qantas veteran Vaughan Chandler the Red Planet team is made up of people from a media background, newly recruited to the company, and members of the Frequent Flyer analytics team who have moved across to the new business, which will also handle media buys for some clients. The new business will also handle programmatic work for clients, including the Qantas business. It is a move which Grace Liau, APAC general manager of Vivaki, which operates the agency trading desk Audience on Demand, has warned clients against, saying that advertisers need to be mindful that making the switch to could mean losing data.