LIBER8 & Mantis partner to launch the UK’s first curated digital marketplace for women’s sport

The new partnership enables brands to access a highly curated marketplace of women’s sports content programmatically, at scale, across a huge network of premium publishers.

Mantis, the leading provider of brand safety and contextual advertising solutions, has announced a strategic partnership with LIBER8, a specialist digital women’s sports content and media company, to help power LIBER8 Curate, the UK’s first digital women’s sports content marketplace. Leveraging Mantis’ superior AI-driven contextual targeting technology, this collaboration will transform how brands engage with women’s sports audiences, offering precise targeting and premium content curation at scale.

Women’s sport is undeniably gaining momentum, with 39% of Gen-Z actively watching and 83% of brands planning to increase their investments. Additionally, positive sentiment towards brands supporting women’s sport is 1.4x times higher than for those investing in men’s sport.

Despite this growth, a critical gap currently exists in the digital media landscape. Coverage of women’s sports is highly fragmented across numerous digital publishers, and the lack of tagging complicates programmatic buying and targeting for brands.

LIBER8 Curate powered by Mantis addresses these challenges, by offering one point of access for brands to reach women’s sports fans at scale with granular precision. Mantis’ advanced AI technology better understands the nuances of content, enabling ads to be delivered in more contextually relevant locations. This helps to drive better results for brands in a privacy-focussed and cookie-less way.

Kim Parker, LIBER8 Founder commented: “As women’s sport continues to evolve, we are committed to looking at innovative ways in which we can help brands invest and accelerate the growth of this vertical. All the data points to women’s sport being a hugely influential platform for brands to connect with this new type of sports audience and in LIBER8 Curate we are pioneering a platform to connect with these audiences.” 

Benjamin Pheloung, Mantis General Manager commented: “Women’s sports represent a growing and passionate audience and brands are starting to take notice –  83% of Fortune 500 companies are planning to increase their spending in this area. Through our collaboration with Liber8, we’re providing brands with the tools they need to connect with this audience in a meaningful and brand-safe way. We are thrilled to be partnering with Liber8 on this first-of-its-kind initiative.” said Ben Pheloung, General Manager at Mantis.

About Liber8

Liber8 exists to grow women’s sport in media by providing intelligent, tech-driven content and commercial solutions. The platform empowers brands and agencies to support women’s sports at any stage of their journey, offering unparalleled access to curated women’s sports content and a new, highly engaged sports demographic.

About Mantis

Mantis is a leading brand safety and contextual advertising solutions provider for publishers and advertisers. Launched by Reach in 2019, the Mantis suite of solutions create an efficient, more transparent advertising ecosystem for publishers, brands, and audiences. Mantis’ suite of AI-powered tools – including Brand Safety, Contextual Targeting, Recommender, and Natural Language AI – provide market-leading solutions in today’s complex digital landscape. Built by a publisher to help publishers, agencies, and advertisers, Mantis is the most powerful and precise solution for creating a better advertising experience for all.