Mi3 Audio Edition
A weekly wrap of the “must-know” developments in Marketing, Media, Agency and Technology for leaders and emerging leaders in the industry. Veteran industry journalist and Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks each week with guest marketers who are in the know on what matters at the nexus of marketing, agencies, media and technology. Powered mostly by Human Intelligence (HI).
S1 E381 · Mon, March 31, 2025
Bench strength: How Freedom Furniture, Wesfarmers Health, REA Group CMOs are keeping the crazy pace on team capability and next for the Australian Marketing Institute’s skills assessment and capability program
Host: Nadia Cameron, Editor - Marketing | Associate Publisher Amid all the hype, excitement and trepidation around digital, marketing automation, data utilisation and now AI coming into marketing, is the very real need to build team capability and empowerment to actually use the tools effectively – and in a way that delivers business outcomes. As Infosys global CMO, Sumit Virmani, told Mi3 recently: “As AI is a very new technology, it can be a big challenge for teams at large to embrace because they don’t know how to do it. Educating them in the process of embracing AI, on the tools, and actually making investments in your team to get them the comfort to experiment, is the responsibility of a marketing leadership team.” But it’s not just tech changing the shape of marketing execution. New channels and connectivity to customer – as well as higher expectations of said customer – are demanding marketers build a diverse range of brand, people and specialist skill sets. Then there’s the relentless scrutiny of marketing effectiveness and budgets requiring ever stronger commercial nous. Mi3 and the AMI’s Marketing & Customer Benchmarks FY2023 Outlook report last June of 105 Chief Marketing, Customer and Growth Officers highlighted the changes they’re preparing for – team structures and shifting KPI’s among them, with customer lifetime value metrics surging for many. All this makes it imperative marketing teams run continuous learning and capability development loops. Two CMOs striving for this are Freedom Furniture’s Jason Piggott and Wesfarmers Health’s Corrina Brazel. Quick to jump into the Australian Marketing Institute’s new skills assessment tool, 12 months after the launch of its Competency Framework, both see a need for more formalised learning programs that don’t just cover new specialist skills, but can also improve core marketing knowledge across their teams. While the AMI’s Competency Framework provides those foundations and learning structures, the assessment tool is about having productive, proactive conversations with teams while also holding up a mirror to your own strengths and weaknesses, both say. Per AMI CEO, Bronwyn Heys: “Modern marketers need to be bench ready. They need to be ready for anything – for the market, for the consumer.” No less keen to pursue learning rigour is REA Group, whose GM of audience and marketing, Sarah Myers, says has a “very feedback hungry culture” and commitment to deep, specialist skills. A one-size-fits-all program, however, hasn’t been the right option, nor has a pure marketing strain to capability development. Instead, the company has been building out an internal university that recognises certain skills as important across the business. Tune into this latest Mi3 podcast episode as we unpack the pros and cons of skills assessment, specialist versus generalist capability building, and how marketing leaders encourage continuous learning
S1 E380 · Thu, March 27, 2025
‘Time to harvest’: SCA chief John Kelly on LiSTNR’s rise to payback machine, ‘insatiable’ demand, and an opportunity that Meta and co. have missed
SCA has spent four years building its uber-app LiSTNR from idea to the fulcrum of its audio business. It’s got 2.25m logged-in users, knows their postcodes – handy ahead of the federal election – what they listen to and what they might want to hear next. Kelly says acquisition is no longer core focus – “we’ve got the base we wanted to get” – and SCA is moving to kill churn, now at a record low. “We’re approaching 70 per cent retention per month,” says Kelly. “For every percentage point of reduction in churn, we are seeing about a half million dollar increase in revenues on platform on an annual basis.” Personalisation and discovery are powering those churn reductions while boosting time spent listening, per Kelly. Next he sees massive opportunity in regional markets to take that further – for SCA, its advertisers and other radio businesses. Kelly points to a streaming deal it struck with Victoria broadcaster ACE Radio as a template for a triple win. Bringing the broadcaster’s streams into LiSTNR, says Kelly, gave ACE an incremental revenue stream while boosting inventory and audiences for SCA. “They've seen about a 30 per cent increase in their audience levels listening on LiSTNR,” per Kelly. “And with the introduction of ACE, we’ve seen about a 20 per cent increase in monthly listening on our platform, which is pretty incredible.” Plus, SCA is driving those new audiences into its other programs and podcasts, meaning bigger numbers to sell, at higher CPMs. “We'll be speaking to other broadcasters, and particularly the regional network groups, to see if we can provide that service to them,” says Kelly. “We are the largest regional audio business in Australia. 73 per cent of the regional audience comes through either SCA-owned or represented – stations like ACE – so we've got great scale. We haven't yet tapped into that regional audience in a meaningful way. But that's the next opportunity for LiSTNR. Plus, regional consumption levels per user outpace their metro counterparts – and Kelly thinks they are a chink in the global platforms’ armour. “The big digital companies, the Metas, haven't played in that regional space. So our ability to work with major blue chip companies to actually access those particular customers – the appetite is insatiable. We can't get enough inventory from those regional markets, which is why the ACE partnership has been so successful. There's a huge opportunity.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E379 · Mon, March 24, 2025
‘Clients in on it, boatloads of cash, complex, opaque corporate structures’: Principal media arbitrage trading spreads to TV, out of home, audio as holdco’s, retail media pile in; ex-IPG, GroupM, Omnicom execs on fixes
Host: Paul McIntyre | Executive Editor Media agency holding company CEOs are openly acknowledging the importance of arbitrage-based principal trading to their business models – and it’s spreading rapidly out of digital display into TV, audio, digital out of home, connected TVs and beyond. Former UM Global Chief Media Officer Joshua Lowcock, who left the IPG-owned media agency network last year to head up media at US group Quad, is bleak on the distorting market effects of holding companies buying media for themselves and on-selling to advertiser clients with handsome mark-ups - often in ‘bundled’ products which blend a small quota of quality inventory with the tonnage more in low value, low quality ad placements. “Both agencies and clients have built themselves a prison that they can't get out of,” says Lowcock. And agencies resisting principal models are increasingly disadvantaged – they risk being dragged into “financial engineering” too. Per Lowcock, “somewhere in the myriad of complexity of a holding company, I can tell you it's occurring and a large armoured vehicle with boatloads of cash is pulling up somewhere and unloading it into a holding company … well, it's probably more electronically transferred.” Should anyone care that agencies are finding ways to make money that procurement-driven clients are in effect incentivising by refusing to pay fees for service – especially if the media bought and on-sold arguably does the job? “It's not doing the job because clients are not getting the media that they should be getting to drive the ultimate business performance,” Lowcock argues. "They’re getting the media that drives the agency's bottom line,” per Lowcock. He describes it as a nutritionist advising a diet of “junk food”, with clients at risk of morbid obesity. Indy shop Media by Mother, headed by former GroupM exec Dave Gaines, says he doesn’t do principal media deals or arbitrage but “it’s surprisingly hard to get people to align on business success outcomes” versus the short-term allure of trading off not paying media agency fees for the hidden costs in mark-ups and tech and data fees typically wrapped into principal media agreements. Moreover, Gaines says retail media is making the situation worse with retailers becoming media owners and seeking their own preferential deals. While traditional media owners complain about principal media trading eating their margin and agency mark-ups making them appear expensive, Gaines says the truth is, “a lot of the big TV networks don't like to have to deal directly with clients. They're happy to offload a lot of this media inventory because then they haven't got to worry about selling it”. Either way, few owners will complain publicly for fear of retribution, i.e. being cut out of group spend, per Nick Manning, non-executive chairman of Media Marketing Compliance and adviser to peak US advertiser body the ANA. Manning sees principal medi
S1 E378 · Thu, March 20, 2025
‘Size the opportunity, then seize it’: Flight Centre global CMO prepares for category expansion, revenue take-off via owned media-publisher pivot
Four years ago, Flight Centre’s global CMO Megan Henderson was tasked with leading a sweeping restructure of Flight Centre’s worldwide marketing operation – centralising five teams into one while overhauling its martech stack and contracts and simultaneously finding efficiencies and growth. Daunting. But Henderson knew that Fight Centre’s 60 million annual unique online visitors, broad customer comms channels yielding rich first party data plus circa 400 physical stores could help drive the business into fresh territory – adjacent travel market services beyond flights – while generating revenue via owned media packaged and sold to new and existing brand partners. Enter owned media valuations specialist, Sonder, which dived deep to benchmark and calculate the value of each and all of Flight Centres channels and assets – and highlight where it could go next as an owned media network. Now Henderson aims to make Flight Centre a global case study in how customers, data, physical and digital footprint combine to drive growth, revenue, profit and cross-funnel, cross-category expansion – while landing new paying partners. It’s now rolling out screens across all stores to boost brand building capability and link it through to first party data-powered conversion. “Having Sonder shine a light on what we could be doing with our digital screens has really fast-tracked the process for us to make sure that our stores have a minimum of two digital screens that I can use for brand advertising with all kinds of partners,” says Henderson. She’s now ensuring partners think of Flight Centre “as a mass market retailer with millions of customers online and in store… and see that as an opportunity that they can't get with a standard media buying mix.” Sonder co-founder, Jonathan Hopkins, says that’s the key takeout for businesses currently leaving money on the table by overlooking their owned media channels and assets: “There is vast opportunity out there. If you have a website, store network, an email program with a sizeable customer base, then you're more than halfway there to building an owned media proposition to leverage through your own marketing and with brand partners,” says Hopkins. “It’s all about seizing the opportunity.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Thu, March 13, 2025
‘Reach alone no longer works’: Why News Australia fired up engagement debate and how Tubi video streaming rights will shake-up BVOD with audience intent signals to sell more Subways
Mi3’s most read story of 2024 came via an Oxford University marketing scientist’s peer-reviewed paper underlining precisely why not all reach is equal. Based off analysis of 1,000-plus campaigns and a million customer journeys via Kantar and Wavemaker, the data shows optimising for reach alone rarely tallies with business growth. In fact, in almost all cases, per Saïd Business School Associate Professor Felipe Thomaz, it delivers “really mediocre outcomes”. That’s the collective market failure News Australia aims to address – at least the start of it, with ‘Engaged Reach’, which counters the current industry bias for chasing fleeting user volumes for shallow scale. News Australia’s Lou Barrett, Dean La Rosa and Jess Gilby unpack how it’s already working for Mars Petcare, Chemist Warehouse, Inspiring Vacations and Subway, the latter a benchmark win for the publisher in QSR after Subway’s CMO said News Australia’s custom-built, integrated program outplayed the big tech platforms and landed the entire Subway initiative. The “all assets” rollout rapidly notched 3 per cent sales growth after a single campaign for Subway. The trio also underline why News Australia’s partnership with free streaming service Tubi – Barrett aims to rapidly double its monthly audience towards 3 million – means it can map buyer intent signals from the content audiences are reading to the shows they are watching. Plus tell advertisers where their best targets can be found around the clock, what they are interested in and how to engage them to maximise results. News Australia feeds circa 2.5 billion monthly intent signals into its CDP, enabling marketers to target audiences across 7,000 segments, using AI to hit sweet spots that might not be immediately obvious, per La Rosa. “It will forecast, it will understand the size, the scale, the relevance.” As Gilby underlines: “Everyone's got data, but it's about how you use it, how you apply it, and how you can be creative with it … We’re going from efficiently reaching audiences to effectively engaging them.” Somewhere in Oxford, a professor will be nodding in agreement. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mon, March 10, 2025
The CMO Awards Podcast Ep 1: Former CMOs of Westfield, Audi, Kimberly-Clark reveal relentless financial scrutiny, growth intent and risk factors driving exec and board expectations of marketing
Welcome to the first in our CMO Awards podcast series, powered by Mi3. This limited-episode series dives into the key topics and issues making up how marketing as a function, and its leaders, contribute to growth. To do this, we’re engaging in a select number of conversations with industry luminaries, CMO Awards judges, former CMO50 winners, current and former marketing and customer leaders and more as we lead into, then recognise the winners of our inaugural CMO Awards on 7 May. This podcast is brought to you by platinum CMO Awards 2025 sponsor, Adobe. Kicking us off to talk about how marketing elevates its stature in the eyes of the CEO and board are three of this year’s CMO Awards judges: Former Westfield CMO and non-exec board director, John Batistich; former Audi chief marketing and customer officer and now non-exec director, Nikki Warburton; and executive and board recruitment partner and one-time Kimberly Clark CMO, Michele Phillips. All three have the unique ability to see it from both sides: As former marketers plying the trade, and now as non-executive board directors or in board and CEO-level recruitment. Channel and audience fragmentation, too much data, relentless transformation across organisations, dour economic conditions, ever-more pressure to prove marketing’s worth, too much efficiency while trying to find more effectiveness and ever-higher demands for technology competence – these are just a few of the things CMOs are navigating. For many, it can feel like they don’t have enough control of what’s happening to their function while they look to execute their craft with excellence. And admitting something was less than a success feels like certain doom. View it from the other side, however, and you get a rather different picture of what marketing needs to do to win respect. CEOs and Boards are needing to do more with less to find profitable growth, investor and financial markets are relentless, and business, cyber and market risk factors have multiplied. These execs want marketing leaders who can make hard and strategic choices, and judge them as much on what they choose to do as much as what they say no to. All while telling a realistic but progressive story of customer and market engagement. This series is hosted by Nadia Cameron, associate publisher and editor of marketing at Mi3, plus program leader for the CMO Awards. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E375 · Thu, March 06, 2025
‘The accountability for creativity stops with me’: Suncorp’s brand-CX chief Mim Haysom dukes it with Sir John Hegarty and Val Morgan Cinema’s Guy Burbidge on attention, entertainment, culture and marketing’s creative conundrum
Mim Haysom’s world-beating, Cannes-winning One House initiative at Suncorp in 2022 was a big bold bet on innovative, mould-breaking marketing that Suncorp’s executive leadership and board only saw days before a documentary on the initiative was set to broadcast on Nine. “The first time the board saw One House, I took them into the auditorium and played them the 26-minute documentary three nights before it was going live on Channel Nine,” says Suncorp’s Executive GM, Brand & Customer Experience. “The accountability for creativity stops with me … I set myself up that way from the get-go.” Haysom is also the person who tells the CFO she needs incremental money for performance media – and not to siphon it out of brand. “Insurance search terms [at peak cost of living crunch] were 50 per cent up year on year. They are about 35 per cent up now. With that there is opportunity to pump more money into search to capture demand. So, I've absolutely been doing that,” she says. “But what I've been doing is writing business cases to say … we don’t touch brand … because if you haven't got that awareness, consideration, if you're not building trust in your brand – especially in insurance – then people won't convert in the lower levels anyway.” Legendary adman Sir John Hegarty couldn’t agree more. “The trouble is we live in a bubble called commerce, and the people out there don't – they live in a world called ‘engage me, entertain me’,” he says. It’s a challenge Val Morgan Cinema’s Guy Burbidge has been wrestling with for cinema. There’s an "awful lot more measurement conversations” which Burbidge says is a "good thing ... but it’s an increasingly binary conversation about reach and cost and not the power of a [media] platform and creativity. “We've gone down too much science, arguably, with too many ones and zeros and cost and reach and algorithms. The next piece of work for us is talking to the creative community to understand how do you take advantage of those cultural moments created by movies and cinema as they come up.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E374 · Thu, February 27, 2025
Two second rule: System1 and JCDecaux effectiveness research shows 70% of Out-of-Home ads fail, the brands nailing it – and seven easy fixes
A world first creative benchmarking study from System1 and JCDecaux has run stacks of Australian Out-of-Home ads through its globally-renowned effectiveness scoring system and drawn a stark conclusion: 70 per cent of outdoor ads fail to move the needle. Andrew Tindall, SVP – Global Partnerships at System1, goes even further: “No-one understands how Out-of-Home works,” he says, particularly the critical need to land the brand within two seconds. At face value, not a wholly positive headline for the medium. But System1 has come up with a formula that, its data strongly suggests, massively improves effectiveness. It’s not rocket science. For example, just placing your logo at the top of an Out-of-Home ad increases brand recognition four times versus a logo parked at the bottom. Likewise be consistent – entertaining and never boring – and keep messaging simple and positive to get much higher brand lift, and ultimately, sales. On that front, Tindall says there is a false divide between brand and performance campaigns: The long, i.e. brand, always drives the short, i.e. performance. The research with JCDecaux, “allows us to add a lot more nuance to what is a very non-nuanced industry” and underlines why brand and demand “need to be brought back a little bit closer together”. Brands nailing Out-of-Home effectiveness locally include Compare the Market with its Meerkats, Uber Eats with the Wiggles and Simon Cowell, Specsavers and Ocean Spray, per Tindall. Sephora’s latest campaign, he says, is one of the highest scoring Out-of-Home ads System1 has ever tested. The bottom line? “The single standout thing for me in this research is it confirms that creative is the make and break of how effective a campaign can be.” Tindall, plus JCDecaux’s Cris Smart and Scott Jenkins, unpack the research’s key findings – and the seven simple steps to massively boost Out-of-Home effectiveness. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E373 · Mon, February 24, 2025
CDP Payoffs and Pitfalls: Australian brands are slashing customer acquisition costs, gaining behavioural insights, and getting ready for AI in their customer data tech but the devil hits in implementation
Host: Andrew Birmingham, Editor - CX | Martech | Ecom Two years after a Mi3 published a comprehensive analysis of the customer data market in Australia, we revisited many of the brands we spoke with to assess their progress and measure their return. Companies that have persevered are realising strong returns and extending beyond their early use cases. But it has often been a hard road to hoe. There are integration and organisational challenges to overcome - and unexpected problems such as bill shock from unanticipated quarterly charges that can run into tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. As to the market, it’s more competitive than ever with the number of CDP vendors active in Australia rising significantly even though the volume of tenders has largely held the line, according to industry insiders. That means competition is heating up. There are three macro trends – the rise of composable CDPs - we’ll explain that later - and greater CIO control over data infrastructure amid a backdrop of three-year software renewals rolling over and the need to accurately assess ROI for a technology that is often hard to assign direct value against. Rich McFarland from Compare Club, Courtney Gerrits from the University of Tasmania, and Cam Strachan from Southern Cross Austereo dive deeply into the detail, discussing their experience with their own CDP implementations, describing the tangible benefits gained, such as improved customer acquisition costs, enhanced communication strategies, and increased operational efficiencies…there’s a few lessons they learned along the way to boot too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E372 · Thu, February 20, 2025
SCA backs hyper-local radio, earlier ad integration to beat rival’s $200m metro talent transplant, rides anti-global, anti-algo new wave
Rival radio networks are transplanting big talent from Sydney and trying to make it work in Melbourne. SCA Chief Content Officer, Dave Cameron, is taking the opposite strategy. Local talent that “speaks the language of the city” and gets the “fabric” of its suburbs is particularly crucial for breakfast audiences, he says. Plus, as platforms and content globalise, localism becomes a competitive advantage: “Anti-globalism will pay dividends for us … otherwise we’re playing the same game as everyone else.” Hence SCA launching six new shows, pairing fresh local talent with station “juggernauts” while focusing harder on radio’s core heartlands – like Western Sydney, where massive audiences and engagement are found. “That is where the bulk of radio listening, the bulk of audience data and surveys, is happening,” per Cameron. “It's not happening in Bondi.” SCA is laser-focused on growing audiences and revenues without blowing holes in the budget that could later prove problematic. Content economics are underpinned by sharpened appetite for advertiser integration – with those commercial discussions happening upfront and early. “We’ve never been more commercially savvy around that,” says Cameron. Seeking new audiences via greener talent and formats could risk dislocating “rusted-on” loyalists, Cameron acknowledges. “But we believe in the combinations we’ve put together,” he says. “If you're not investing in fresh thinking, talent and voices, your industry may become irrelevant.” Plus, there’s growing evidence to suggest a younger set is discovering the analogue dial – either through nostalgia, or as a reaction to algorithmic overreach. The next year will test SCA’s strategy, but Cameron’s confident audiences will hold and then grow. The alternative is to keep hoping the world doesn’t change, or emulate the metro lift and shift being attempted by rivals. Can that transplant strategy pay off, given time to bed-in? “That’s a $200 million question,” says Cameron. SCA is staking out a different numbers game. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E371 · Mon, February 03, 2025
'Marketers are buying this’: Pitfalls and ‘lies’ to avoid on junk user data, clean room matching, MMM, incrementality tests - and B2B tech: Melbourne Business School Associate Professor Nico Neumann
Nico Neumann is deep in the weeds on digital marketing attribution, market mix modelling [MMM] and incrementality testing – likewise the dangers of narrow audience targeting and junk user data - the latter a $20bn market in the US alone. The Melbourne Business School Associate Professor in 2019 published research proving that closing your eyes and randomly selecting male or female audience targets was more accurate than the data brokers and DSPs many advertisers buy from. Neumann claims a senior data broker admitted to him privately that they knew their data was crap, “but who cares? Marketers are buying this”. (Like Arielle Garcia, UM’s former US privacy lead who last year told Mi3 she had accessed her data profile from multiple third party brokers with laughable results, Neumann has downloaded his own, “and it’s hilarious”. You should do the same - we’ve got a URL in our Mi3 feature to test your profile segments). Neumann batted away claims his B2C audience studies were too broad and challenged widely held assumptions that niche segments and B2B were where precision targeting of online users actually works. Last year he ran tests with IT giant HP - a paper is coming - that sharply contests most B2B marketing plans and particularly so for tech sector practitioners. “No matter what we used, it was either equal to random targeting, or even worse,” says Neumann. First party data is better, per Neumann, but there are caveats, particularly around clean rooms and matches that can be bogus. He advises marketers to upload made up email addresses and see what they get back - hashed user 'match rates’ may not be what they seem. His advice: stick with the first and second party data you can trust, but even then, don’t assume targeting will deliver better bang for buck. “I would even take a step back and ask, do you need to target that narrowly? There are very few cases where it makes sense … Why do you even need to exclude people and increase the cost, instead of just letting the content or message do that?” Neumann sees the explosion of market mix modelling and measurement approaches as “a good thing”. But there are market rumblings that the big platforms pushing MMMs risk skewing towards inherent model biases. Either way, Neumann’s working on a project to compare how all the main MMMs hitting the market actually perform. He urges marketers to question all models – and his advice for those emerging from business schools is the same as for seasoned CMOs: Hone fundamentals that will last a lifetime; don’t overspecialise in trends and fads. “Ask hard questions – and just test stuff yourself.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E370 · Mon, January 20, 2025
Flywheels over funnels, intimacy, ‘low martech’ and influence over mass ‘shotgun’ reach: Four Pillars cofounder on repeating the trick globally under Kirin-owned Lion
Four Pillars Gin is now four times the size of the entire Australian premium gin category when it started in 2013. Much of the category’s explosive growth is down to three cofounders having a crack, while seeing off the cops, who thought they were making meth. Now under Lion’s ownership, itself part of Japanese drinks giant Kirin, two of the founders – ex-Olympian Cameron Mackenzie and PR man Stuart Gregor – have “gracefully” exited. But the third founding partner, former global strategy boss at IPG’s Jack Morton Worldwide, Matt Jones, is still in. He thinks Australia deserves a global spirits business spearheaded by botanical alchemy, experience, craft, influence and intimacy over mass “shotgun messaging”. Jones is also a reluctant martech convert, valuing old school customer experience and its intangibles over measuring clicks and other marketing metrics. He likewise places far greater value on flywheels than marketing funnels. While the direct-to-consumer growth hacking playbook that fuelled start-ups a decade ago is now a relic of its time, Jones thinks many of the Four Pillars lessons and tricks are repeatable today for those that distil the fundamentals. But there are some key differences. Here’s his take on what made the business succeed and where Four Pillars – and Lion’s expanding spirits business – goes next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E369 · Mon, December 09, 2024
The fractional CMO explosion: Why the emerging exec gig economy is giving experienced marketing leaders freedom to leverage their craft without political and organisational angst
When experienced B2B marketer and former agency planner Taz Bareham decided to take on the title of 'Fractional CMO' three years ago, there were a handful of people on LinkedIn using the moniker. Fast forward to today, and the supply pipeline has grown to thousands, even outpacing solidly growing demand for these forms of executives. Why? Better work / life balance, avoiding burnout, a desire to stick with the craft of marketing instead of moving into non-exec or CEO roles, plus more opportunity to try another category and industry are just some of the reasons experienced marketers are being lured in. “I get back to go to back to the joy of being a CMO versus sinking under the pressure of being a CMO,” Bareham says. There are plenty of reasons for why businesses are turning to this emerging executive gig economy too. Cost efficiency is inevitably one, and Deloitte has noted companies can save up to 50 per cent by getting in fractional execs over full-time equivalents [FTE]. It’s also a way for scale-ups to access marketing and other senior leadership talent they otherwise couldn’t afford, and have the helping hand of specialist or generalist expertise they don’t have on the existing team. “In that tech space, where I focus, words like profitability and runway are now back in vogue after 10 years of kind of being in the wilderness,” says Zac King, founder of The Fractional Exec Community. “The ability to pick up a senior exec or senior marketer who's been there, done that, got the scars to prove it, and to do it in a really flexible and targeted way just makes sense.” Then there’s the flexibility – fractional execs can be a liquid workforce, something to turn on and off, to help build or support strategy and teams as an organisation matures, operationalise capability, go-to-market expertise and get to commercial impact quicker. It’s certainly how US-based founding partner of CMO Syndicate, Shayne de La Force, and his army of 21 CMOs across six countries operate. And in marketing specifically, complexity and breadth of remit can make it incredibly difficult to find a CMO who can do all you need. It’s why Tumbleturn launched its fractional CMO service in 2024. “What we found is the remit so broad, you have either very strong, strategic CMO, or generally, more often than not, a strong operational CMO,” says partner, Anthony Gregorio. “But rarely do you find that unicorn who is very comfortable playing in both spaces.” In this episode, hosted by Mi3’s Nadia Cameron, we take a deep dive into the real-life experience of being a fractional exec, what it means for the wider marketing fraternity, and how dominant fractional executive workforces will become. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E368 · Thu, November 28, 2024
Faster decisions that move profit needle, quantifying loyalty programs' dollar value: Where Optus and Michael Hill go next with MMM
The upside of market mix modelling (MMM) is it “certainly helps with credibility,” when proving marketing’s return on investment, per Optus consumer marketing boss Cam Luby. The downside is that it spits out a shedload of data. Hence Mutinex combining its real-time MMM platform with an AI-powered co-pilot called Hendren to hep marketers more easily interrogate and interpret the data with prompts – and shortcuts next best actions. Optus’ marketing team is already putting it to work. “The MMM gives us the opportunity to understand something we previously couldn’t; Hendren gives us the ability to understand that faster and make decisions quicker. It puts the data we have to better use,” says Luby. “It facilitates a really valuable discussion about the outputs that we should expect from marketing and puts it in terms that matters to the business. Our finance team … they're not really that interested in buying media. They're interested in the outcome for the business.” Using Mutinex’s MMM has enabled Optus’ marketing team to prove hypotheses and adjust channel allocation as a result, “and that's yielded increases for us,” says Luby. Michael Hill CMO, Jo Feeney, is about to plug in the Mutinex platform and will use the first model as a “performance review ... to make sure that every dollar we're spending is being spent in the right place, and it's actually paying back”. Plus, she aims to demonstrate that generating retail sales requires a little more than lower funnel performance tactics and offers. Likewise “myth busting” some misconceptions that may be held by management, such as “no-one watches TV anymore”. More broadly, Feeney wants to prove marketing’s P&L contribution over any perception of marketing as a cost centre. After that, Feeney’s keen to prove the value of Michael Hill’s rapidly growing loyalty scheme – now at 2.5m members – and the dollar value of its owned channels versus paid media. “I've got some early data, but to be able to put that through a model like this as well would be amazing.” Mutinex’s Will Marks says “repointing” Mutinex’s GrowthOS engine to do exactly that is top priority for 2025, alongside “supercharging our forecasting and optimisation capability so that we can help marketers get to different scenarios faster and easier” – and with deeper granularity on what’s really going on within channels. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E367 · Mon, November 25, 2024
Maurice Blackburn flags Australian publisher class action against Google for alleged bid rigging, Meta collusion; $8bn Canadian publisher lawsuit paves way
Australian law firm Maurice Blackburn is investigating a publisher class action against Google in a strikingly similar $8 billion lawsuit already underway in Canada – led by a tiny regional community publishing boss, Lisa Sygutek, who won’t be cowed. “Find your inner warrior, sign-up, go for it,” she urges Australian media owners. Miranda Nagy, the lawyer leading the Australian class action investigation, likewise calls on publishers large and small to join the proposed action. She’s aiming to secure “best possible” retrospective compensation. Maurice Blackburn has come to the same conclusion as the US Department of Justice, various European regulators, and a dozen US state attorneys general. They allege Google manipulated and gamed publishers and brands for years with secret deals and projects – some in collusion with Meta – that actively sought to disadvantage them while entrenching Google’s market dominance – taking billions of dollars away from publishers and fleecing advertisers in the process by charging far more than was either necessary or officially disclosed. The alleged ruses include things like ‘project Bernanke’, in which Google was essentially able to “to take a bigger spread between publishers and advertisers, which means both publishers are getting less money and advertisers are paying more,” according to Adil Abdulla, the lawyer leading the Canadian legal effort through Sotos Class Actions. Then there was ‘Jedi Blue’, in which Google is accused of colluding with Facebook to kill the free market publishers and the broader ad market had tried to build through header bidding, while ensuring Facebook got an ad auction advantage in return. Jason Kint, CEO of US peak publisher body Digital Content Next, says Jedi Blue’s impacts “are still playing out” and forecasts “a bloodbath of lawsuits being filed”. He thinks the Trump administration will go just as hard with “eight to 10 different code name projects” to go after. While many US publishers, advertisers and agencies had been “captured” by Google, Kint reckons that “halo is starting to come off”. He urges marketers and the supply chain locally to likewise reject being strong-armed. For publishers, Future Media founder Ricky Sutton echoes that call: “This is the first window in 20 years where we've got a chance to take back some of the things that we've lost. What we do is too valuable to be lost to one commercial company with a 25 year run in the sunlight.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E366 · Mon, November 11, 2024
B2B’s hard new playbook: Don’t bet everything on chasing marketing qualified leads – most buyers call you and have already made their choice when they do
The B2B world is a market where you don't call customers, customers call you - although it’s the opposite of widespread B2B marketing assumptions and practice today. A B2B awakening is underway as business marketers see increasing evidence that an under-investment in B2B brand work leads to a sea of sameness and mediocre results among buyers – across most industry sectors, many feel there is little supplier differentiation, limiting the likelihood you’ll receive that all-important first call. But if the phone does ring from a buyer, the latest round of research across Asia Pacific says you’re overwhelmingly likely to land the deal, irrespective of the sales teams prowess. Sameness leads to nothingness and a B2B marketing strategy that prioritises marketing qualified leads (MQLs) over all else comes with serious limitations, according to this week’s guests. Instead, the brand signals you send out “need to align with how modern customers research and purchase, particularly in complex B2B environments where decision making often involves multiple stakeholders,” says Sophie Neate, Global Head of Digital Marketing & Content for industrial giant ABB. When making the case internally for change, however, don’t underestimate the support from sales teams, says Lara Barnet, the Head of Marketing in Australia for the global technology-managed service provider Logicalis. “Sellers face that problem more than anyone else,” she says. “They’re on the front line, they're the ones picking up the phone and talking to customers. They face this all the time.” The broader growth in influence of buying committees necessarily lessens the influence of a single C-Suite decision maker, and that influence wanes further as the size of the buying committee scales along with the value of the opportunity. An MQL led approach also fails to recognise that customers, not sellers, control the product research agenda and most of those are invisible until they choose to turn public. By then, says the boss of B2B agency Green Hat, Stuart Jaffray, it’s likely too late - they have mostly made their decision. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E365 · Thu, November 07, 2024
LiSTNR Adtech Hub pushes digital audio network to break even a year early as agencies, brands pile-in; new APIs, ANZ spend data, retargeting and Scope3 CO2 mapping next
SCA in March launched three big tech bets for its LiSTNR master app – a customer data platform (CDP), customer-specific data matching clean rooms and dynamic creative optimisation. The bets are paying off and SCA is no longer reliant on third party data sources. Execs say the platform and its 2.1m logged-in users already command over 40 per cent of all digital audio ad dollars, helping SCA’s $50m investment reach breakeven a year ahead of schedule. LiSTNR is now moving into the next phase of audience matching, granular targeting and attribution via its own first party data and ANZ spend data. Its first API-connection based on fuel price changes went so well – landing multiple briefs within weeks – that LiSTNR’s launching 20 more across five categories including finance, property, travel, weather and utilities. “Whatever the agency or brands want to work on, we're able to activate those APIs quite quickly,” per LiSTNR commercial boss Oliver Newton. It’s also launching ‘mood targeting’, i.e. contextual ads for brands based on what audiences are listening to, as well as audio retargeting. Next year LiSTNR will also be able to tell brands the carbon impact of their campaigns across SCA’s assets thanks to a partnership with emissions mapping platform, Scope3. Newton reckons CO2 measurement credentials will be table stakes as advertisers move into negotiation mode for 2025 – especially for larger firms newly mandated to report emissions data, of which advertising and marketing is an eye-wateringly large chunk. The advertiser adoption curve is steepening. In June, 20 per cent of LiSTNR campaigns made use of the Adtech Hub. By September that had jumped to 33 per cent. Next year LiSTNR aims for 45-50 per cent, according to head of SCAiQ Abi Wallis. She says brands are buying-in because they can target people based on where they are, what they are doing, and which brands they are buying. They can suppress existing customers and target only new potential customers based on their listening and spending habits, or likewise upsell and cross-sell to their existing customers, with sharper smarts and context, tailored dynamic creative, and with the spend and audience data enabling “a real world view of the impact” and ROI. LiSTNR’s new capabilities put it on a par with the big tech platforms, per Wallis and Newton, if not beyond – and the opportunity to harness the Adtech Hub is not limited to big brands. “Agency or direct … It’s there to be utilised by anyone looking to access digital audio,” says Newton. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E364 · Thu, October 31, 2024
Active attention for longer: Out of home study goes global as MRC moves on attention metrics, signalling programmatic surge, challenger brand boost
A decade after launching viewability metrics, the Media Ratings Council is moving to standardise attention metrics globally. That means buying media based on attention metrics will scale faster. But a world first out of home study into attention by QMS and Amplified Intelligence is already going global – and the findings for brands are huge. In short, out of home completely flips ratios around average active attention rates, with 85 per cent of sites studied getting at least 2.5 seconds – the baseline for memory encoding that grows brands. Some sites and formats get much more, and the rate of attention decay is slower than other media. The results have the likes of Suncorp and OMD media executives pumped, suggests QMS Chief Strategy Officer Christian Zavecz. He thinks all out of home players will benefit as a result, especially those ramping up programmatic trading of assets. That’s because the study, which mapped 1.3 million people passing large and small format outdoor ads, also finds that active attention (people looking directly at the ad) and passive attention (where the ad is in people’s peripheral vision) can be predicted by site, which means planners and buyers can reliably trade on it. Amplified Intelligence CEO, Dr Karen Nelson-Field, says the study will likely lead challenger brands to rethink out of home, because greater active attention does heavier lifting in terms of brand building, where smaller brands are traditionally disadvantaged by larger rivals whose codes and distinctive assets are already embedded in people’s brains. Bus shelters, per the study, are a particularly good bet, notching “about 7.4 seconds of active attention and about 14 seconds of passive,” per Nelson-Field. But getting the attention is only the first critical step. To drive sales, the creative and branding must cut through. “Anyone that tells you that attention and outcomes are linearly related is lying,” says Nelson-Field. “It’s the combination of the two: Media drives the opportunity for creative; creative takes it and gets the sale.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E363 · Thu, October 24, 2024
TikTok-Tracksuit data: 60% brand awareness triples conversion; 37% awareness is sweet spot for DTCs, start-ups
TikTok marketing science chief Rory Dolan says performance media costs are soaring while conversions flatline. He has the data to prove it. After mapping TikTok platform activity with Tracksuit’s brand tracking data, Dolan has one key message – invest in brand to boost conversion and beat biddable auction inflation: “Advertisers with 60 per cent-plus awareness have a 2.86 times increase in their baseline conversion rate versus advertisers that are 20 per cent below,” he says, rendering brand versus performance arguments redundant, if not suicidal. Full funnel execution is king, says Dolan, because building future demand means easier, cheaper conversions at scale: “Brand is fundamentally a performance tactic.” Tracksuit co-founder James Hurman literally wrote the book on that principle. He penned Future Demand after one of his own DTC businesses, initially hockey-sticking via Facebook ads, experienced the performance media ‘Easter Island Effect’. Acquisition dried up, performance costs spiralled, the economics tanked. Without priming new customers, “brands use all of their resources, then they have nothing left, and then they die”, warns Hurman. The idea that brand campaigns have to be broad, multichannel and expensive is a myth, says TikTok’s Dolan. “Brand can be built by targeting subgroups of your target audience consistently over time. So this can actually be achieved with small amounts of investment.” The awareness sweet spot for small brands, per the research, is 37 per cent. “We see very strong business impacts as a result of that early on.” Even “big performance-focused advertisers” are hitting the same growth ceiling “which is very expensive to bypass by performance [spend]”, says Dolan. “These are businesses that maybe three years ago wouldn't have touched brand [investment] because of the inability to track their short-term ROI. They're now seeing the impact of that.” Dolan says TikTok’s research underlines that increasing performance spend will not build brand – but brand spend will boost both brand and performance outcomes. For those facing hard budget choices and sceptical CFOs, Dolan suggests leaving performance media to bots and spending more time and money on brand: “That seems to be the big sweet spot at the moment – automating the performance and focusing on driving these multipliers.” But first, get brand tracking sorted. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E362 · Mon, October 21, 2024
Writing for bots: Conversational commerce ‘explosion’ set to trigger up to $200bn in global brand content contracts – Deloitte Digital
Six months ago conversational commerce wasn’t really on the radar of Deloitte Digital’s National Partner Lead Leon Doyle. Now Doyle is reorganising his entire content team around it – and believes it’s coming at the $200bn content industry like a freight train. AI-powered chatbots and the speed at which all major platforms are developing and deploying, particularly on messaging apps, are accelerating – ultimately they’re heading to full-funnel capabilities where in travel, for example, discovery to purchase is completed in a single conversational thread. Doyle says brands must prepare for far more content governance to clear “content debt” fast. I.e. start writing not only for humans, but commerce-enabling AI applications which will ingest forgotten, incorrect, outdated or even misleading corporate information and content lurking in digital corners that the bots will otherwise scrape to build their customer responses from. That means restructuring content architecture and taxonomies and focusing on “conversation design, not just content design”, says Doyle “This is what my team are doing. They're thinking about AI conversation strategy … rather than design just for one platform, they're actually thinking about how they structure content in modules for conversations across multiple modes - website, app, chat.” While Doyle cites a handful of brands including Commbank and Qantas aiming for early mover advantage locally, Deloitte Digital's Global Marketing and Commerce Lead, Nick Garrett, says conversational commerce is “exploding in every market”. He thinks the impact on content economics is seismic – with everything that existed pre-AI at risk of obsolescence. “If $200 billion is moving into play …. no client, no organisation, could not be looking at this at a forensic level.” As Doyle puts it: “If you're not thinking actively about your content debt, your content supply chain, start right now. Because the machines are here, they're learning from your content, and we need to be good teachers to them.” What does it mean for the broader content supply chain? Disruption for all but absolute tier one providers, per Garrett. “If your bread and butter was making [content at] scale and you’re dependent on bums and seats, a little bit of automation and a bit of offshore, you’re probably staring into a pretty uncomfortable place right now.” For pretty much everyone on the brand-side, it means content creation is moving into a risk management business. Doyle’s advice for CX’s next big overhaul? Keep it “simple, human and trustworthy”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E361 · Mon, October 14, 2024
‘Really mediocre outcomes’: Oxford Uni professor says Byron Sharp and Ehrenberg-Bass’ marketing science rules no longer hold – 1,000 campaigns, 1 million customer journeys as evidence
Associate Professor Felipe Thomaz, of University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, suggests Professor Byron Sharp’s best known book, How Brands Grow, is a misnomer – it’s actually about how big brands keep big marketshare, not how they got there. He also says it’s based on flaws within Andrew Ehrenberg’s earlier work, primarily static markets and a requirement not to differentiate. Thomaz suggests that’s why big FMCG firms adhering to those rules were caught napping by more nimble differentiated start-ups. Reach “sufficiency”, or optimising media for reach, no longer works, he suggests, because all reach is not equal – and reach alone doesn’t deliver business outcomes. “There is a missing dimension,” per Thomaz. He’s out to prove it with a peer-reviewed paper that analyses 1,000 campaigns and a million customer journeys via Kantar and WPP. The upshot? “None of it holds … I'm seeing that 1 per cent of campaigns are actually getting exceptional money, while the vast majority are choosing to get some really mediocre outcomes.” That’s partly because audience reach doesn’t account for their ability to be influenced - and different media, different categories and consumer types have varying degrees of impact in different moments. Reach, he says, is proving a misleading media proxy for business impact - the variances of consumer receptivity to switching is different by category. Personal care, for instance, has less consumer preparedness to trial alternatives once they’ve established their preference - they’re harder to “manipulate”, Thomas posits, but some media channel characteristics stand a better chance. TV versus influencers in lower funnel strategies will likely surprise many. Which has knock-on impacts on channel effectiveness and weighting. Thomaz says that’s good news for media owners – if they can stop selling on impressions and start selling on functionality. “For some categories, there might be a premium they can charge.” The need to reach all potential buyers in the category, he says, “has not changed in the least … Reach is important, and you still need that scale. However, you also need [to optimise to] the business outcome. But he still thinks it’s “really bad to waste your money on people who will never buy you”. In short: “If you're managing your company's marketing on simplistic and reductive laws, you might want to revisit those, because you're leaving money on the table or leaving yourself open to very simple counter-plays. It's dangerous.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E360 · Tue, October 08, 2024
Enforcement mode: Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind takes aim at widespread pixel data spillage, loyalty, data enrichment, broking and geolocation targeting under existing laws
Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind was “surprised” – read underwhelmed – by the first tranche of Privacy Act legislation laid before parliament last month. But she says the hard stuff is still coming after the election, which means businesses now diverting budgets away from compliance to other activities may regret it, especially as the regulator has sharper teeth. Kind says firms are failing under the current Privacy Act – and they are in the regulator’s crosshairs. Tracking pixels are under serious scrutiny across the piste, as are companies using data beyond what it was collected for and potentially passing it to third parties. In that vein, Kind has “existing concerns” about loyalty programs, customer data enrichment businesses and data broking: “It's something I'd like to look at again under the current framework,” she says, suggesting those operators “make sure that they're watertight”. Likewise firms targeting via geolocation: “We’re looking at a case at the moment … We have some real concerns about how it's being used.” Lookalikes, customer audiences, hashed emails and data clean rooms appear to be in the clear. But under the next wave of reforms “the changing definition of personal information could certainly have an impact,” she says, though for now it’s not clear-cut. In the meantime, Kind says there are four areas for businesses to laser in on – including small firms who will no longer be exempt from regulation. First, “know what data you hold and who you’re giving it to.” Second, “make sure you've got a retention and destruction regime in place – anything that’s old, you don’t need to hold it any more.” Next, get into the weeds on contracts with third party service providers and be sure to have a data breach response plan in place. “It's an area of vulnerability we're seeing a lot at the moment,” says Kind. In short: “Don't take your foot off the gas, because we're looking to take a more enforcement-based approach to regulation in the interim.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E359 · Mon, September 30, 2024
‘There’s a lot of junk’: Top VC firm Luma Partners’ Terry Kawaja says adtech ‘refuses to grow up’, did ‘a terrible job’ on privacy, backs ad activists to force a clean-up and says a Google ad break-up is ‘good for everyone’
Part One : Seven companies now account for a third of the total value of the US S&P 500 – and the bulk of their collective trillions in market value happens to come from marketers and advertising. It’s a crazy number, but Terry Kawaja, the fast talking banker, considered by some the ‘godfather’ of adtech start-up investment, says another wave of advertising and marketing related tech spin offs are incoming that’s making him a little more bullish than the cooling of the past 18 months. Kawaja’s New York firm Luma Partners is behind the Lumascape spaghetti maps that try to make sense of the sprawling, connected pipes of the adtech industry. Kawaja thinks consolidation has to happen for the industry to shake the cowboys – “the environment is highly fragmented and that allows people to hide,” he says. That’s code for nefarious market behaviour which undermines adtech’s credibility - and Kawaja argues a clean digital ad system is more important now than ever if open web players are to compete with big tech, especially as he sees retail media quickly eating a third of open web ad dollars. But there’s little sign of that consolidation right now and Kawaja admits adtech is still notoriously opportunistic and has played a starring role in the creation of some of the problems the market is struggling to address with junk digital data, fake people and opaque trading practices that nobody seems able to solve. Regardless, Kawaja says another wave of tech investment is coming and for good measure and says Google’s pervasive global advertising trading system being broken up would have huge financial upside for Alphabet shareholders – and the industry at large. The US Department of Justice has been landing punches over the past three weeks in its current US Federal District Court adtech "monopoly” trial against Google. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E358 · Thu, September 26, 2024
Paramount global and local sales chiefs on converged trading, blended CPMs and why allowing streaming subscribers to opt into ad tiers is optimal
Paramount went early on both converged trading and a streaming ad tier in the US. Now it’s doing likewise in Australia and Lee Sears, Paramount’s international ad sales chief, thinks both plays will pay off for the media and entertainment conglomerate, its advertisers and crucially – viewers. Unlike some rivals, Paramount didn’t push subscribers automatically onto the streaming ad tier. Sears says it didn’t need to, because “we have a huge audience elsewhere, so don’t have to be reliant on just the SVOD ad tier”. He suggests forcing ads onto subscribers that signed up for an ad free service wouldn’t be right. Either way, the strategy appears to be paying off. Locally, sales chief Rod Prosser won’t divulge numbers, though analysts Telsyte estimate Paramount SVOD subscribers at 1.8m, with sign-ups outstripping its competitive set. Prosser said the reality is much higher than the Telsyte estimate and, confirmed “We are still the fastest growing [SVOD]”. Moreover, Sears suggests Paramount’s subscribers are actually using the service amid some “wild” numbers being touted in market, per OMG investment chief Kristiaan Kroon, “because it's not an add-on to something else, or it's not a byproduct of a bill that you're paying elsewhere within your household”. On converged trading across BVOD, SVOD, AVOD and FAST (linear TV’s set to follow locally in H2 next year), Sears says the approach is now driving a “major” chunk of revenue in the US and other global markets. He anticipates Australia will follow that playbook: “It is now part of everything we do … Converged trading, connecting everything together, is how we lead with our conversation. I think that’s the way everybody will try to lead conversations in the future, unless you only have a one-dimensional play.” Part of the converged approach is a “blended CPM”, i.e. a bundled price that factors in the different channels the ads run across. Prosser said how that pricing works has been the biggest question from agencies in recent weeks, alongside bringing linear TV into the converged mix. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E357 · Mon, September 23, 2024
‘Don’t waste millions training LLMs for marketing and commerce, tap autonomous AI agents like Gucci, Saks, Wiley, Fisher & Paykel’ – Salesforce global CMO on AI’s ‘third wave’
Salesforce reckons it’s the end of the DIY AI era – and global CMO Ariel Kelman is tasked with addressing what his CEO, Marc Benioff said last week is Salesforce's biggest marketing challenge: convincing global markets to think less about Open AI, Microsoft copilots and other generative AI companies that require businesses to custom-bake the tech into their organisations to make it work – and more about the deployment of low code, no code, autonomous AI agents that can be built and tested and live within weeks, if not days. The difference is that Salesforce is pointing these agents directly at existing customer systems and data, rather than brands spending “literally tens of millions of dollars with cloud providers to train these models” from scratch. “There are lots of use cases where you do need to train and fine-tune your models. But absolutely not sales, service, marketing and commerce – the models are smart enough that they can go and grab information,” says Kelman. “It can just scale the work that our customers have already done.” It’s working for the likes of Saks, Gucci and Wiley – and some local firms like Fisher & Paykel and Queensland University of Technology are now likewise plugged into what Benioff reckons is “AI’s third wave”. Kelman says AI agents “blur the lines” between sales, service and marketing functionality – and coming next is a variant for sales lead development, where the agent will develop the leads until they are warm enough for a human to take over. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E356 · Thu, September 19, 2024
Virgin Velocity measured incrementality across media channels, proved TV+BVOD+OOH deliver more uplift, launched first brand push, saw member growth trend soar 35%
Before launching its first-ever brand campaign, Virgin Velocity had to convince finance and commercial teams that investing in brand would drive long-term demand, re-engage its 10m members – and ultimately power growth. So it tapped Beatgrid, the same cross-media measurement platform used by Virgin Australia when relaunching its airline brand. Beatgrid’s audience measurement system uses a passive, single source panel – via an opt-in mobile phone-based app – that uses subtle audio pitch shifts to the ad creative to determine which channel the audience was exposed to. That means it can detect if an ad has been seen and how many times per user across different screens and channels – with total recall because it’s not relying on humans to remember what they saw, when and how accurately. It also enables an accurate read on cross-channel incremental reach. For Velocity’s GM of Member Engagement, Emma King, demonstrating the panel’s robustness via control groups meant she could prove incrementality and unlock the media budget. It’s also given Velocity and their media partner PHD, a sharper insight on which channels deliver the highest growth per campaign and cumulatively across campaigns – and where the best balance of effectiveness and efficiency lies. Beatgrid’s data also threw up some surprises. “In one example, we saw total TV drive a lift of 11 points. And when we tease out the impact of BVOD, we can see it drives an incremental result of three points above TV,” says PHD Head of Research, Lillian Zrim – counter to the narrative of declining audiences and effectiveness. Velocity’s King says Beatgrid’s data also enabled her to justify investing in other brand channels. “We saw television work really well with out-of-home to drive incremental KPI results. If you have a lot of overlap in reach, sometimes you’re thinking - maybe we don’t need to cover both; then you see results like this that say [if someone’s exposed to both channels], they’re going to get a much higher lift.” While King and Zrim acknowledge that nothing happens in a vacuum, “In April, our CEO confirmed that member growth trend was 35 per cent above the growth trend the previous year,” says King. “So that's an example of the kind of commercial impact that these kinds of campaigns can have.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E355 · Mon, September 16, 2024
Kincoppal girls’ only high school principal: ‘Social media the most damaging influence I’ve ever seen’, backs 16 age limit but ex-Facebook ANZ boss warns of fallout as brands stay silent
The proposed ban on social media for teens has polarised industry and academia with warnings aplenty it could backfire. Ex-Facebook ANZ MD Liam Walsh argues rather than a ban, dumbing down the algorithms, forcing algorithmic transparency through regulation or removing them altogether – could actually be the solution if fears of the effects of algorithmically-generated dopamine addiction and attention-hogging dark patterns on teenage mental health are the primary problem.“If we took that out, how many problems do we have with social?” he says. Walsh warns society has no structures in place to deal with fallout that could land in nine months’ time when the Albanese government proposes a new age limit on social media use. “If you take away kids’ whole network, how they commune with others, that’s kind of a big deal.” Walsh doubts teens will “suddenly start hanging out in the park and helping old ladies paint the fence.”Erica Thomas, Principal at private girls school Kincoppal in Sydney's Rose Bay, agrees teenagers will “seek other things” to fill the void “and that is one concern” but warns there is no time to wait for a protracted legal battle with tech giants in attempts to curtail or open up the algorithms. She sees daily, first-hand, how badly action is required. Across a 30-year career in education, she says social media is “the most damaging influence I have ever seen”.Concentration levels are plummeting with teachers struggling to find a fix, girls are being conditioned to perfectionism from a young age, boys exposed to increasingly extreme violence, toxic influencers and highly sexualised images and bots of girls and young women – and in the last five years, “it’s got worse”.Brands have long championed ESG and purpose. But they’ve been strangely silent on the proposed ban. Katie Palmer-Rose, a social media marketer who has worked with the likes of L'Oreal, PepsiCo and Aldi and now runs influence agency Kindred, thinks many are waiting to see how it plays out. But she says they face a “moment in time where they tend to think very differently about how they show up in social media, how they build communities and connectedness in a digital world that doesn't live in social media,”Production company Finch’s Rob Galluzzo and Greg Attwells fully expect legal challenges from tech platforms – who they claim have told staff to “stonewall” 36 Months, the campaign they founded with Nova’s Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli to push for a social media ban for under 16s. Dumbing down algorithms won’t cut it, says Attwells. Keeping regulation about health, not tech, and moving fast is key, they suggest – with more backer brands about to be announced. The next phase is designing the massive educational and societal infrastructure required to fill the looming gap. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E354 · Mon, September 09, 2024
Streaming services have peaked as 2025 ad take set to surge to $200m; Amazon Prime, Kayo, Binge lead local market with ‘sophisticated’ human sales teams but too many streamers to support with ads - Omnicom, Telsyte
The latest analysis of SVOD growth rates from tech and telco analyst Telsyte proves one thing: fear of streaming services losing subscribers by pivoting to ads is overblown: They’re growing – though some more than others. MD Foad Fadaghi says ads, plus AI personalisation, integration and format innovation, will power the next growth cycle but streaming growth has peaked. Omnicom investment chief Kristiaan Kroon suggests Stan, Nine’s ad-free SVOD holdout, should heed that lesson because Nine has something globals like Netflix and others do not: “A really sophisticated, at scale, sales infrastructure, which means they could make really good money from an ad tier.” There’s more competition incoming from HBO and Disney. But Kroon reiterates that the best sales wins because unlike the US and UK, Australia’s premium end of town doesn’t operate on fully automated systems and open exchanges. “They are still very much handheld markets.” Who’s winning right now? “Amazon Prime and then Binge and Kayo. Why? They have come to market with scale, both have sales teams, both have sophisticated data infrastructure,” per Kroon. He thinks streamer ad tiers will eclipse his earlier predictions of $75-$100m take in 2024 with Amazon, Kayo and Binge taking most of the pie. Next year, he thinks SVOD ad tiers could beat $200m, but there’s debate about how big ad-streamers like Amazon and Netflix actually are. Fadaghi suggests 80 per cent Telstye’s estimated 4.8m Amazon Prime subscribers could technically receive ads. Kroon puts the active Prime user base around 2-2.5m, broadly on a par with Nine and Seven. There’s also an effectiveness debate, with data from Adgile suggesting streamers can’t yet match TV’s results. Kroon says the MMM-effectiveness-ROI debate has become “very finger pointy in recent months”, but agrees there’s a gap to close. Ultimately, he thinks local content integration could prove decisive in determining winners and losers – and for some of the globals, Australia may prove too small. “I don't see how we can support that many BVOD, SVOD [players] – and we haven't really even talked about YouTube and the amount of ads that are served on CTV now,” says Kroon. “There's only going to be a certain number that can be supported.” Fadaghi predicts the streamers will triple in size to 10m subscribers in the next four years, “with more than a third on ad tiers.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E353 · Tue, September 03, 2024
Peak ecom? Investment banker turned ecom entrepreneur says social, search ad rates, customer aqcuisition now unviable for ecom pureplay, DTC profits without retail media
For anyone in ecom or performance marketing, this podcast is a must listen. Forget ROI and ROAS, think unit economics, says former investment banker (her last big deal was the Myer float) turned entrepreneur Carla Penn-Kahn. She was early into ecom and left Credit Suisse to launch four of her own –Kitchenware Australia, A Gift Worth Giving, Everten and Buy My Thing. But she sold her last venture last year when she realised it had hit peak profitability. With performance ad prices doubling in four years, and Amazon reaching full speed, the unit economics weren’t going to get any better. Penn-Kahn thinks direct-to-consumer trailblazers have likewise lost their mojo – and their moats – and face the same dilemma, because they can no longer sustainably scale through advertising and VCs are sharpening their bottom line focus as much as the top. Meanwhile, Amazon has just signed an exclusive deal with Australia Post to deliver on weekends. “I can’t see other brands like Myer and DJs getting Aus Post to do the same for them … which 100 per cent gives Amazon an edge in this market over Australian businesses.” Hence she’s cool on the outlook for many, but particularly the likes of The Iconic, Temple and Webster, Adore Beauty and Australian marketplaces like Woolworths-owned Catch, which last week put a $96m dent in Wesfarmers’ balance sheet. Loyalty programs and retail media offers a lifeline for some, per Penn-Kahn, but most DTC brands don’t have the latter option. But Amazon might not have it all it’s own way. She suggests Microsoft might be gearing up to buy Shopify (which in Australia lays claim to controlling 25 per cent of all ecom transactions). If it happens “they will own the space”, suggests Penn-Kahn. “You will be advertising on Bing through the Shopify network as an ecom brand and leveraging Microsoft's AI to build your website, build the content. It could be a full ecosystem roll up if it happens. It's very possible.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E352 · Mon, August 26, 2024
Synthetic customers meet synthetic CMOs (and CFOs): Evidenza clones Sharp, Ritson, Binet & Field to build annual marketing plans in minutes; Mars, EY sign-up
The effectiveness “revolution” is colliding with the AI-spawned efficiency uprising and it’s leaping the early consensus AI use cases in marketing around automating personalised content and communications. So much so Mark Ritson choked on his Wellfleet oysters when Jon Lombardo and Peter Weinberg told him they were leaving top jobs at the LinkedIn-backed thinktank, the B2B Institute. Then they told him why. Ritson promptly joined their venture, along with what Weinberg calls “the advisory board to end all advisory boards”. Thus the synthetically-enhanced AI marketing outfit Evidenza was born. The founders argue their new piece of “synthetic customer” tech, which starts with creating AI copies of target customers, can create an annual marketing strategy, category entry points, messaging and positioning at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research and in a fraction of the time it takes for a marketing team to do the same. They claim it completes major research projects in minutes – and have proven their digitally synthetic customers match real customer responses it took some of the world’s biggest brands long cycles to gather. “It can imitate essentially anyone by gathering and synthesizing massive amounts of data,” per Weinberg, including almost impossible-to-reach professionals, like airline chiefs, or the bosses of mining companies. Which is exactly what Evidenza did in a head-to-head test with EY Americas CMO Toni Clayton-Hine’s actual survey data – and “reached 95 per cent of the same conclusions,” per Weinberg. EY “has been a fantastic client ever since.” But as well as synthesizing customers, the system also synthesizes marketing strategy and science: Imagine on one side a synthetic combination of Mark Ritson, Professor Byron Sharp teamed with ad effectiveness maestros Peter Field and Les Binet. Then on the other side, hundreds of synthetic CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, CIOs, CMOs and each of those functions linked to the nuances of different industries and categories. Put them all into an AI blender, and you get what Lombardo and Weinberg think is an efficiency revolution in marketing fused with the effectiveness revolution from the marketing academics. The upshot for marketers? “A finance-friendly marketing plan that used to take months now takes maybe minutes, but more likely, a day,” per Weinberg. According to Lombardo that’s good news even for traditional market researchers. “Everyone is going to get better. Average is over.” So what’s left for the humans? The synthetic duo say the smart stuff - experience, strategic frameworks and brand and category nuance, for instance - that makes the machines do better. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E351 · Thu, August 22, 2024
MMM masterclass: Bupa’s open book on business data feeding Atomic 212° a benchmark for agency-client transparency and trust
Marketing mix modelling (MMM) only works if brands grant their agencies access to critical business data – and many don’t in a perplexing and decades-long challenge. But equally, agencies can be guilty of slowing media pricing and audience data into their client MMM models, rounding out the two-way data conundrum. It’s ironic given all the talk of partnerships and outcome-based incentives, per Mutinex APAC CEO, Mat Baxter. Bupa and Atomic 212°, says Baxter, are standout examples of genuine client-agency transparency – and it’s powering not just “marginal gain theory” in which lots of small, incremental components are optimised to drive growth, but hard, 28 per cent ROI gains in specific incidences. Bupa plugged into the platform in 2022 and performance lead Angas Hill says without a free flow of business data to Atomic 212° – sales, revenue, pricing and competitiveness data included - “there's not much point in standing up an MMM model.” Bupa does and now the CFO sees the MMM outputs as “the most trusted source we have in terms of attribution and forecasting”. Bupa uses those monthly ROI insights to shape the quarterly media plan – with Atomic 212° already plugged-in across what’s working and what’s not at a business level. “It’s just speeding up that whole process,” says Hill. “We are seeing long-term growth in our effectiveness for what is essentially flat media budgets.” Plus, he says, on-off testing via MMM, e.g. testing one region and channel against another, “is where we are seeing much more drastic changes.” Atomic 212°’s Tom Sheppard underlines broader benefits from using MMM outputs to inform trading strategy: “If we understand what the ROI is, we can negotiate. If [as a result] we can decrease that cost base of certain channels, all of a sudden we can automatically improve the return that the client is getting,” per Sheppard. “The MMM is fantastic at telling us what's worked in the past and to give us the next best decision,” he adds. Now he says Atomic 212° and Bupa are adding new inputs and channels “to get even better signals – so as a result, everyone wins.” Next step is making automatic media transaction feeds via API the norm, per Baxter. “That is the future of where we are going.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E350 · Mon, August 19, 2024
Sir Martin Sorrell: UM’s ex-privacy boss Arielle Garcia ‘is right’ (partly) on $700bn online data ‘garbage'; Personalisation Netflix-style the future; AI, big tech will crunch intermediaries in three years and why regulators won’t tame them
Part Two: After last week's instalment with S4 Capital's founder and former WPP boss, Sir Martin Sorrell – in which he explained why the market cap of his next generation marketing services firm had plummeted from £5 billion to £300 million in the past three years – he's back for part two. We cover the consolidation of the $700 billion global digital ad market down to a handful of global tech media players. Is that dangerous for brands and the broader marketing supply chain? Maybe, but Sir Martin thinks they're only going to get bigger. Plus, we go deeper into AI and mass personalisation – Netflix style – along with the dodgy, inaccurate, but thriving online user data trade that was revealed a month or so ago by UM's former chief privacy officer, Arielle Garcia (which is now Mi3’s top podcast and story so far this year). For the record, Sorrell agrees with Garcia: “Garbage in, garbage out ... There are some murky parts of the market, but that's our role to expose that, not to be a part of it.” Either way, he thinks the platforms will only get closer to marketers at the expense of intermediaries – and there is little agencies can do to stop it. Plus, he says OpenAI chief Sam Altman, who reckons AI will displace 95 per cent of advertising jobs, is “directionally right”. The timeframe? “Three years,” per Sorrell. “It’s going to be uncomfortable.” Conversely, Sorrell says the big platforms won’t be shrinking any time soon. On a GDP basis, “these are countries, they are not companies anymore.” He thinks that means regulation, unless co-ordinated globally, is ultimately powerless. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E349 · Thu, August 15, 2024
Last click flaws ‘wasting 35 cents on marketing dollar’, search, display massively overvalued – while social and video an enormous opportunity: Analytic Partners and Meta on how to fix it.
Most attribution analysis by digital marketing and analytics teams is too narrow to base marketing investment decisions on – and it’s leading to a chronic over-investment in paid search and under-investment in digital video according to Analytic Partners. The firm conducted a major study to unravel the gaps between digital attribution reporting for brands and market mix modelling – and there's a big difference between the two. Analytic Partners MD, Paul Sinkinson said on average, 59 per cent of the data is missing, and it can be “as high as 80 per cent”, yet attribution models mask this, because they pick up “the clicky stuff”, i.e. last click – but miss swathes of what’s happening in between, particularly within-app activity. Privacy changes and iOS-driven signal loss mean the gaps are getting bigger, making it much harder to run even a half-decent attribution model, which “is driving you to allocate activity to the wrong channels, purely because of how much data is missing,” says Sinkinson. “And it's the unequalness of those losses that then made us really concerned.” Social, the study found, is massively under-represented in those attribution models, which try to cram everything into a seven or 30-day window, favouring short-term hits above all else. Per Sinkinson: “Display – 364 per cent overvalued in an attribution model. Search – 336 per cent overvalued in an attribution model. Social – 44 per cent under measured in terms of the ROI and an attribution model. Video – 30 per cent underrepresented from an ROI perspective. So that means that we're starting to put our money into the wrong channels.” The upshot – which applies globally – is that “35 cents is wasted from every dollar invested, because you’re allocating on siloed metrics.” Those findings landed with Meta, which commissioned Analytic Partners to produce a white paper on the key research findings – and the platform’s ANZ marketing science lead, Carl McLean, says there are “very real implications” for marketing spend, especially in a soft market. How big is the problem? “It’s widespread,” per McLean. “A lot of the time it’s because there is a sense that there isn’t a better alternative.” There is – it just requires a bit more work. But the rewards are massive. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E348 · Mon, August 12, 2024
Sir Martin Sorrell on the $9bn valuation wipeout of his new-world holdco S4Capital – and why Publicis, Omnicom, Havas are ‘premier league’ players; Dentsu, WPP, IPG in ‘second division’.
Part One: It's been three years since Sir Martin Sorrell was last on the Mi3 podcast - he declared then a mea culpa of sorts that he didn't - and couldn't - transform WPP, the giant marketing services holding company he founded in the 1970s, fast enough because it was listed. At the time (2021), Sir Martin’s next generation digital holding company, S4Capital, was firing with a market cap of circa £5 billion (AUD $9.6bn), just three years after a street fight with WPP’s board saw him exit and start the new business. He was bleak on the future of his old British firm at the time along with WPP’s French and US-based global holding company rivals. But since then, S4Capital’s market cap has plunged more than 90 per cent to £300 million (AUD $582m) as the tech sector, representing upwards of 45 per cent of S4’s revenues, slashed their own marketing budgets globally. But there’s more to it – the basics actually, like pricing S4Capital’s business services appropriately to clients. Sir Martin almost acknowledges some rookie errors at S4 in managing the business, which operates as .Monks today globally in-market across technology and content. Aside from his typically robust macro views, Sir Martin also appears to have developed a new and begrudging respect in building S4Capital for businesses that can break down business silos - and lashings of enthusiasm to hire people “who are sharers”, he says. “If ever I was to write a book, which I will never do, about our business, clients and agencies, I would say the biggest impediment is the political structure, or the structure of the companies - they are organised basically into silos,” he told Mi3 last week during a visit to Australia. “Good people tend to put their arms around things. There are exceptional people who are good, who are sharers. Those are the jewels…find good people who are good by definition, but also who share, and we do have them inside our company, but to be frank there are not as many as there should be.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E347 · Mon, August 05, 2024
Market TV perceptions wayward: Ex-Seven CMO Mel Hopkins still backs TV, aligns with Nine CMO Liana Dubois warning marketers of 'dangerous swing' to platforms and dashboards over ROI
Six weeks ago Mel Hopkins was rolled out of Seven amid a clinical round of cuts that added further fuel to the narrative that TV is in trouble as audiences bleed and revenue follows suit. But Hopkins, who as Optus CMO dumped the lion’s share of her media budget into Meta and Google, remains convinced TV is undervalued and undersold, says BVOD metrics and reporting are as good as anything the platforms can provide, and that the global streamers are likewise racing to “manage out cost”. Revenue challenges should therefore not be conflated with audiences, which Hopkins and Nine CMO Liana Dubois insist remain healthy – Dubois said TV reached 24.2m Australians last month. While media buyers last year said 2022 had marked “the biggest audience decline in the history of TV” and correctly forecast a 10 per cent revenue hit for linear TV as a result, Dubois said industry needs to get its terminology straight – literally – because TV delivered over the internet can still be linear TV. However it is delivered and consumed, “television today is reaching the same amount of people that it did 10 years ago,” per Dubois – and those numbers “are holding”. She warns marketers pulling out of TV for digital platforms and their dashboards are “dangerously” risking marketing effectiveness and should instead look beyond the shallow metrics – and narrative – they are being fed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E346 · Mon, July 29, 2024
B2B marketing fundamentals challenged: Bain-B2B Institute study consigns traditional lead gen, KPIs, metrics to bin as ‘hidden buyers’ missed, trillions lost
$18 trillion’s worth of B2B transactions take place annually. But “40-60 per cent of deals get stalled”, says B2B Institute founder Jann Martin Schwarz, because B2B marketers are focusing on the wrong things and the wrong people. They are missing the “hidden buyers” that don’t show up in individual-focused lead gen and those buyers – procurement, finance, legals, IT security, the c-suite – don’t care about features. They just care about managing risk. They make group decisions (earlier than B2B marketers realise) based on compromise and the “least worst” option. On average, they represent half of decision-making heft, and they get to veto who gets the contract. That’s one of the key insights from a major global study conducted with Bain across 500-plus enterprise B2B buyers. Across the study, “at every stage, familiarity and trust in a brand or vendor's reputation was the casting vote,” says B2B Institute EMEA and LatAm marketing lead Mimi Turner. Which means brand influences hidden buyers disproportionately, because it’s effectively “deal risk insurance”, per Schwarz. The study effectively quantifies why nobody ever got fired for buying IBM and underlines why B2B’s brand and performance teams need to align much more closely to hone brand messaging to hit hidden buyers – and stop focusing on leads and individuals. They argue the findings all but obliterate the model on which B2B marketing is founded – and requires a wholesale rethink of lead gen, measurement and strategy. Changing models means graft and pain, especially for the “rank and file KPI’d on reductionist metrics” acknowledges Schwarz. But if adopted, even moving the needle by 1 per cent will unlock $180bn of annual B2B deal-making upside – and early movers will get the biggest hit. Schwarz is willing to “stake my reputation” on brands that flip their models to reach hidden buyers will see “an immediate spike in activity” and “close deals faster”. A prospect, he says, no CEO or CFO will ever decline. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E345 · Mon, July 08, 2024
From CMO to seven boards: Former Westfield, PepsiCo exec John Batistich's view on marketing from the top, why ageism hits marketers, not finance and talking customer over brand counters marketing’s cost centre perception
Former PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, Interbrand and Westfield [now Scentre Group] marketer John Batistich transitioned to company board roles ahead of most – he’s now a non-executive director (NED) and advisor to seven boards, including the listed buy now pay later firm Zip Co, Muffin Break Bakeries and Jamaica Blue Cafes’ parent company FoodCo, Melbourne unicorn Moose Toys and Sydney-founded fashion label Ksubi International. Batistich has a helicopter view of what boards want from marketing functions, where the gaps remain – and crucially, what marketing can do to close them. In short, “become the expert on customer” because marketing is still seen as a cost centre; focus on “brilliant basics”, build better partnerships, and start working on capability models, because marketing’s capability gap is widening and Batistich sees major skills deficiencies – especially around personalisation for lifetime value. The range of his advisory roles also gives Batistich a broader economic worldview than most. He sees a cocktail of uncertainty facing brands over the next months – some of the firms he works with are already re-engineering supply chains in the likely event of a Trump victory and incoming tariffs. But he sees opportunity for some: Cosmetics, pharmacy and beauty are powering and are likely to be those investing harder in FY25. Marketplaces, department stores and fashion are feeling sustained pressure from more efficient, demand-led global platforms like Temu and Shein plus the pullback of financially-crunched younger generations that used to be marketing’s Holy Grail – but now appear less prized than wealthy retirees. Batistich also warns on AI – “both a significant threat to humanity, but also a huge productivity opportunity”. He’s the board member of a firm harnessing conversational design AI for the latter. Either way, it’s another rapidly developing field now crossing deep into marketer-customer remits – and boards are clamouring for intel. Amid all the short-term pressure, Batistich urges marketers to think longer–term. “Unlike the US election, ageism is alive and well in marketing,” he says. “You do need to have a plan, because that reality is going to hit you in the face on an idle Tuesday in your early 50s, when the organisation is seeking a succession plan or change.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E344 · Tue, July 02, 2024
Mi3 launches FY2025 Marketing & Customer Benchmarks - 105 companies, $3bn in marketing spend: Three-speed marketing emerges; customer KPI’s surge, c-suite cred rises, what next for agencies and AI’s early use cases
A deep, senior marketer study and report by Mi3, The Australian Marketing Institute (AMI), Qualtrics and Tumbleturn finds hard evidence across 105 top marketers responsible for $3bn-plus of budgets of an emergent three-speed marketing economy and upended KPIs and priorities. There are big question marks in key sectors such as retail around the effectiveness of personalisation efforts: Just 15 per cent think their CX is performing, though telcos are confident they’re smashing it. There’s also a major swing to performance media as CMOs seek instant results. The good news is that after decades of being perceived as the colouring-in department, 83 per cent of marketers say that has now shifted, with boards and CEOs perceiving marketing as a critical growth driver – though B2B marketers are far less certain. Problem is, marketer remits are exploding and the FY 25 Marketing & Customer Benchmarks report, polling top marketers across all B2C and B2B sectors, finds the majority feeling ill-equipped to tackle what’s rapidly coming at them. Plus they now have heightened responsibility for customer – with customer lifetime value or CLV eclipsing all other KPIs across the sample as a future indicator – thrust upon them. But CMOs, customer chiefs and marketing directors across the piste are trying to offload duties to free-up bandwidth. Getting lead agencies to manage the partner roster – with an average of 10 agencies per brand across the survey – alongside consolidation is a rising trend, as is hybrid in-housing. Large brands meanwhile forecast project work will eclipse retainer arrangements, with even small brands suggesting it will be at least half of their requirements. Then there’s the question of AI and just how marketers are using it. Content creation and productivity – which comes with positive and negative connotations for headcount – top the pile. AMI’s Bronwyn Heys, Tumbleturn’s Jen Davidson, Qualtrics’ Ivana Sekanic and Akcelo’s Aden Hepburn unpack the findings and implications for marketers, agencies and the broader supply chain heading into FY25 and beyond. Download the report – here – to accompany the nuanced expert view. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E343 · Thu, June 27, 2024
Pressure cooker: Ecom harder, more expensive, marketers cut martech, brand spend and pile into performance, if not smart strategies in place you could pay more for less in FY25 – Simon Ryan
RyanCap CEO Simon Ryan says 50 per cent of clients are “shifting a lot more money into search, digital and online video” as they scramble for immediate results and short-term sales going into FY25. Stubbornly high interest rates and crunched consumers mean major brand spending is likely off the cards for the foreseeable. “Any marketer going into a C-suite or a boardroom and pushing a big brand campaign in what is a harder market would be very gutsy,” per Ryan. “Brand is absolutely crucial. However, what is working now is an absolute customer focus.” Problem is, marketers, especially those in ecom, are under pressure to do more with less – but actually are getting less for more, especially in search as Shein, Temu and others drive up ad prices. “You’re seeing bid prices go up,” says Ryan. “When you've got overseas competitors coming into the Australian market, that means that you're either going to be outbid or you've got to outbid them … It's going to be a real challenge for some people”. Meanwhile ecom’s maturity means growth rates are coming down fast, creating a “pressure cooker” for marketers – and they are paring back martech spend as a result, seeking immediate wins over expensive longer-term builds. But RyanCap, after a cash plus equity deal with Paris-headquartered, UK private equity-backed Labelium, does have money to spend – and Ryan’s hunting acquisitions. Content and creative shops could be first off the blocks – maybe. “If you look at the growth channels, and you look at where clients are spending money, that will give you a view as to how we will accelerate our strategy.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E342 · Mon, June 24, 2024
The pro-consumer privacy lobby speaks - and why the Federal Government listens on privacy reform clampdowns for cleanrooms, hashed emails, geolocation, loyalty data trading and new definitions of personal information
There’s little contention today that the pro-consumer privacy lobby is winning the war over industry on privacy reform - they’re informed on industry techniques, loaded with compelling consumer research and aligned entirely on the need for a clampdown on the collection and use of an individual’s online data trail. Former NSW Deputy Privacy Commissioner and Salinger Privacy boss Anna Johnston and Choice Consumer Data Advocate, Kate Bower unpack what and why they expect a series of hard, industry-challenging privacy reforms to land in parliament next month - that’s less than six weeks away. Just how deeply the $25bn-plus marketing supply chain and tens of thousands of practitioners will be impacted will become clear as the reforms are tabled in Federal Parliament. Johnston and Bower think the updated Act will go harder than anywhere in the world. Hashed emails will be classified as personal information. Trading of geolocation data will be out. Trading of loyalty scheme data – the stuff that powers retail media and a vast targeting-attribution industry – will require companies to prove they have lawful consent to do so and they won’t be able to deny services to those that say no. But consent, says Johnston, is a very fragile thing – and companies might actually be best off concentrating on one of the legislation’s central tenets: Fair and reasonable use of data. In other words, says Choice’s Bower, does what you are doing with customer’s data pass “the privacy pub test?” If it does, meeting a very high consent threshold doesn’t apply. Right now, most are badly flunking the test. Johnston has a checklist for brands that likely have a 12-month compliance window to get houses in order. But ultimately, she says $50m fines are now in play and that “some product lines and business processes will have to stop … and frankly, that is the point of the reforms.” Cleanrooms, she suggests, may come under intense scrutiny. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E341 · Mon, June 17, 2024
Ex-UM privacy chief lifts lid: Google has ‘captured’ trade associations and holdcos, personalisation-precision a ‘fallacy’ based on ‘garbage’ data reaching 'fake people'
Just how accurate is the user data being traded by advertisers, agencies and data firms in the $700bn global digital advertising system? The former Chief Privacy Officer of UM in the US, Arielle Garcia, is exasperated - it’s garbage she says and to prove it Garcia recently accessed her profile from an ad tech vendor and found she was in “500 different audience segments across seven different data brokers, and what I saw was just a bunch of contradictory, useless, garbage data.” I.e. she was both a man and a woman, worked in food service, agriculture, a defense contractor, an engineer and was simultaneously below the poverty threshold and classified as high income. “They're selling this garbage data back and forth to one another,” she says, allowing for a host of data “premiums” to be applied by various intermediaries in the process of executing digital advertising campaigns. “Marketers have been tricked into believing that precision and personalisation equals performance,” she says. "There's so much that's wrong with that, and the inaccuracy of the data is only one piece of that fallacy.” Meanwhile, she says big agency groups have lost their way. “It’s not just principle media models (aka arbitrage) that are problematic, but the fact most of them are incentivised to hit targets by the likes of Google and it distorts the market - “it's literally about their objectivity,” she says. Agencies are not the only ones. “Google has captured the trade associations … they buy their way into every room.” If trade associations are saying “nothing to see here … of course that’s going to lull marketers into a false sense of security,” she says. Garcia argues Google’s manoeuvres with PMax – it’s AI-powered “just trust us” media placement product for it’s owned media assets like YouTube – “gives Google the ability to opaquely use their black box algorithms to move money wherever they want”, which could prove handy ahead of impending antitrust trials. Meanwhile, AI Overviews in search will “massacre traffic” for publishers. She says publishers must stop forcing people to log in and refocus on quality. For marketers, Garcia urges a “reorientation around people” and “prioritising quality over the illusion of precision.” How? “Demand transparency … there cannot be a market for black box products”, she says. Plus hold agencies accountable. “No one messes with the client that audits.” For everybody else in industry, Garcia has one ask – work out if YouTube is “covertly tracking people.” How? “Let's find out what X-Goog-Visitor-Id is.” Nobody seems to know. But that may change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E340 · Tue, June 11, 2024
Reclaiming kids from algorithms: Hyundai signs up to '36 Months' campaign, raising legal age to 16 for social media access - Nova’s Wippa and Finch’s Galluzzo urge more brands to walk purpose talk in likely hot election issue
Hyundai is the first brand - with some bravery - to have signed on to the 36 Months campaign to lift the minimum age for social media accounts from 13 to 16, launched by Nova Radio’s Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli and Rob Galluzzo, the boss of production company Finch. 36 months is the time a teen will reclaim from social media between 13 and 16 years. Galluzzo is “100 per cent certain” more brands will follow Hyundai to help create and fund the programs that rebuild a physical social network for teens that isn’t manipulated by the anxiety-inducing algorithms that have made young teenagers the product. Which creates the perfect platform for brands to walk all the talk about ‘purpose’ and ‘showing up in the right way’. “A brand can go to its board, and ask ‘how do we want to show up for these kids, these families, the community?’ If they don't have an answer to that, they probably need to have a pretty big discussion about what they stand for as companies,” per Galluzzo. As of last Friday, Wippa and Galluzzo had landed 90,000 signatures, more than enough to have the petition head to Canberra. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has already endorsed the campaign, stating “what we want is our youngest Australians spending more time outside, playing sport, engaging with each other in a normal way, and less time online”. State and territory premiers have also backed the move – and Wippa thinks the upcoming election creates an opportunity for legislation sooner rather than later. “There’s some easy votes to be picked up from parents if you made this an election promise,” he says. Now 36 Months is building out three crucial pillars to use the time reclaimed from the platforms to better prepare young Australians for physical and digital life ahead. Here’s Wippa and Galluzzo on where next, and how brands can help repair the fractured civics they have inadvertently funded. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E339 · Mon, June 03, 2024
‘Angry religious fights’: Salesforce global President and CMO Ariel Kelman on re-engineering attribution from last touch to ‘deep learning’ model; why B2B market will follow and an AI-powered rebound is coming
A year ago Ariel Kelman boomeranged back to Salesforce after a decade helming global marketing for the likes of Amazon Web Services and Oracle. As global President and CMO of the $200bn+ customer tech giant, he’s wasted little time shaking things up – and Kelman’s view that Salesforce had “lost our focus on sales pipeline and on marketing really being a vehicle for driving business results” now appears prescient. Last week Salesforce’s stock price crashed circa 20 per cent after missing revenue guidance for the first time in decades. Ironically, most analysts still have a ‘buy rating’ on the stock – citing a “very healthy” pipeline and backing its new AI tools to power renewed growth. Kelman has driven a forensic effort unpacking marketing’s contribution to sales – from a brand investment perspective and more tactical, performance-based campaigns. He’s also reset KPIs and marketing metrics and re-engineered the firm’s attribution model – not for the fainthearted, given “you can provoke very angry religious fights” amongst attribution’s fractured tribes. Either way, Salesforce has ditched last touch for a “deep learning” model that blends and weights sales’ and marketing’s contribution to pipeline growth and revenue. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E338 · Thu, May 30, 2024
Out of home will be ‘20% programmatic within two years’, as ecom, retail, food, entertainment target brand and performance – but buying on CPMs alone misguided
A year ago programmatic sales were just 2 per cent of QMS’ business. By the year-end, says Head of Programmatic, Laura Wall, it will be double digits. She says the market is starting to move, and latest SMI data, with pDOOH up 100 per cent in Q1, underlines that trend. Kinesso’s Chief Media Activations Officer, Michael Whiteside, thinks even that rise is “undercooked”. He sees programmatic out of home – or pDOOH – making up 20 per cent of the market within two years. That’s partly because advertisers are seeking increased efficiency and trying to stretch budgets; partly because programmatic buying brings in a new cohort of advertisers that might have been priced out of traditional out of home; and partly because pDOOH delivers both brand and demand. But Whiteside thinks there needs to be a better understanding of the value that programmatic out of home brings. CPMs, he says, are not the only factor – and advertisers with weak attribution models cannot correctly value the flexibility and targeting afforded by pDOOH – especially if they are comparing it to other programmatic media. Understanding out of home’s nuance from a planning and buying perspective remains imperative – and it cannot be lumped in with broader programmatic channels. Hence QMS’ teams selling on a “total out of home basis”. Creating sales silos, says Wall, played out badly in publishing’s early programmatic days. Either way, some of Essencemediacom’s early adopter clients are now pushing 100 per cent of OOH budgets into programmatic, says Group Director Katherine ‘KP’ Pochroj, who suggests “remnant inventory … is simply not a thing any more”. Entertainment and ecom brands, she says, are making major gains from mapping stores and high value audiences through mobile data – and are able to directly attribute sales increases to their programmatic buys. But better measurement, says Pochroj, is required to keep pDOOH’s momentum moving. Kinesso’s Whiteside thinks the launch of MOVE 2.0 will provide sharper answers – and “highlight the value of each panel”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E337 · Mon, May 27, 2024
A little alarming’: ACCC net widens in latest data products and services report to breaches, fines, enforcement and consumer ‘harm’ beyond privacy reform – ID hashing, location data, clean rooms face more pressure
It’s not sexy but like AI, it’s going to affect your job – and your company. Another salvo in the fast approaching privacy regime set for tabling in parliament in August was fired last week by the ACCC around how personal information is collected and used by data firms – Experian, Nielsen, Publicis-owned Epsilon and Woolworths-owned Quantium were among those flagged by the competition regulator last week in its eighth interim report as part of the multi year Digital Platforms Inquiry. And to be blunt, any professional working in ecom, marketing, customer experience, digital advertising and data and analytics is going to have a rude shock for what they can do now versus what is likely in a year or perhaps a bit longer. But UNSW Business School’s Professor of Practice, Peter Leonard, says last week’s release by the ACCC of its Data Products and Services interim report makes “every firm in this economy a data firm.” And in the short-term, that’s not good news for most companies because their data readiness and maturity is not matched by the “fundamental change” which will force everyone to “rethink their understanding” of what even defines personal information” according to ADMA’s Director of Legal and Advocacy, Sarla Fernando. Leonard and Fernando are joined by Capital Brief’s Legal and Regulatory Affairs Correspondent, Laurel Henning and Civic Data’s founder, Chris Brinkworth. And for a tantalising teaser, Future Media’s Ricky Sutton lays out the changes Google is making to its search engine which is already seeing organic referral traffic to publishers abroad drop 40 per cent – brands, he says, are facing similar declines. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E336 · Thu, May 23, 2024
Advertisers Opt for News Corp Australia’s Budget-Matching Test to Demonstrate Outcomes Impact of Intent Connect Over Cookies
News Corp’s first party tech build is now at point where the publisher will match spend from customers using its new platform and run it in parallel with a standard cookie-based approach to prove it delivers much bigger reach and more sales. Via a “privacy compliant” approach using its first party data and data matching via the likes of Google, LiveRamp, Adobe, InfoSum and AdFixus alongside its more commerce-focused websites, News can find buyers who are ready to buy specific products. Hence calling the new stack Intent Connect. Director of Commercial Data, Video & Product, Paul Blackburn, says one “large supermarket” – flip a coin – has increased spend “3,000 per cent” after trialling Intent Connect. GM of Digital Revenue , Mark Brownie, cites tests with “a major insurance company” that used News’ “self-learning, self-optimising segments” to boost acquisition by 199 per cent versus cookies. “We’re not talking about vanity media metrics, we’re talking about hard sales,” per Blackburn. Plus, log-level attribution benchmarking, says National Head of Digital, Jess Gilby, “shows 197 per cent increase in reported reach, which is huge, and 10 per cent higher conversion rates - and we're just getting started”. Those reach gains are because News’ can now measure across browsers that have already killed off cookies – basically the other half of the internet. Meanwhile, offsite targeting is growing rapidly after News launched vertical video products – AKA shorts – basically the same formats as social media, which means buyers can use the same ads across both social and News’ sites to extend reach without having to do everything twice. Buyers are buying in. “Our total video stream number is around the 4 billion mark – and 3 billion of those are happening outside of our owned and operated environments,” says Brownie. Plus, it’s going hyper local – using the log-ins from 100 local mastheads to enable stores to “upload lists of their outlets and automatically generated audiences based on that data,“ says Brownie. “That's really powerful from a pure addressability standpoint, but it also tells a retailer a tonne of stuff about their existing or future customers in those areas, and the nuances between the different locations.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E335 · Mon, May 20, 2024
'Focused completely on the wrong thing’: B2B marketing set for a ‘renaissance' if marketers, sales teams decouple from individual lead ‘obsession' to the buyer groups who influence a company purchase
In most B2B businesses lead generation, or individual qualified "lead gen” more accurately, is at the core of business marketing - certainly for the tech sector. The merits of focusing on groups of buyers influential in a large corporate purchase over an individual executive is not new, but what is has a veteranB2B marketing analyst warning that almost every sector in B2B is still “focused on completely the wrong thing”. And the required shift that Kerry Cunningham, a former Forrester Principal Analyst now at US-based 6Sense, says is needed from B2B marketers has the backing of the Global VP and Head of Marketing at engineering giant ABB, Jo Woo, who agrees “traditional lead metrics are outdated”. B2B marketers must ditch their “obsession with counting leads”, she says, justas sales teams too must rethink their approach. For Andrew Haussegger, CEO at specialist B2B agency Green Hat, part of the fix is to “free the content”. That is, stop putting content behind a gate in order to capture leads – because brands need to influence a much broader set of people much earlier. Here’s the conversation that puts the hard data on lead generation. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E334 · Thu, May 16, 2024
CommBank, Westpac, Suncorp, McDonald’s and KFC show market how to crack women’s sport sponsorship as audiences climb, engagement outpoints men’s
The likes of CommBank, Westpac, Suncorp, McDonald’s and KFC are showing the rest of the market how to do women’s sports beyond just slapping on a logo – and it’s paying off in spades, according to GroupM Chief Investment Officer Mel Hey and Foxtel Media Head of Sport NSW, Caitlin O’Meara. But while existing men’s code sponsors are migrating spend into women’s sport, the broader market remains behind the curve – despite significant growth in both female and male audiences. According to O’Meara, audience numbers for AFL W and NRL W last year climbed 28 per cent and 43 per cent respectively when measured via Kantar versus OzTam’s panel (which “probably wasn’t a true representation,” per O’Meara). The average audience for NRL W is now 55,000 she adds, with the higher audience figure helping women’s codes attract greater sponsor funding as a result. Interestingly, consumption of the women’s codes on Foxtel is more linear than streamed – up to 60 per cent linear versus an average of 25 per cent in men’s sport. “There is still a big opportunity for more brands to get involved,” says O’Meara, especially as the women’s codes are adding more rounds each season. She says it’s still a relatively low-cost entry point for brands increasingly keen to be part of cultural moments that sport provides – and bring those stories to life, from the top teams down to the grass roots, building mutual brand, code and audience growth along the way. For brands now weighing up women’s sport sponsorship, Hey says they could do worse than lift the templates built by the likes of CommBank, Westpac and Suncorp. “They have to make sure they're showing up with authenticity and going beyond just taking a sponsorship and a logo. They should be looking at how they can actually integrate and grow the sport and the players within the sport beyond just the game.” Hey sees a shift now underway as brands aim for new growth opportunities outside more “cluttered” environments – and suggests women’s sport is one of the safer bets amid current market flux. “From a pure numbers perspective, sport actually provides consistency and reach. It's actually the one area, whether you’re talking linear or streaming, that provides a consistent and engaged audience.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E333 · Mon, May 13, 2024
Chartered Accountants, AFL, Menulog, recruiters back Australian Marketing Institute’s push for all marketing industry execs to pursue Certified Practising Marketer status; Mi3 alliance announced, professional development points earned for reading content
This conversation is about getting marketers, agencies, media and tech to become more like chartered accountants – in a good way. That is, have letters after their name that mark them out to employers, peers and recruiters as the most horizontally skilled and relevant in the business – and be required to continue learning every year to keep them. Which is precisely why Mi3 and the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) have partnered. Log-in and read Mi3’s articles and earn continuous professional development (CPD) points that count towards retaining the AMI’s Certified Practising Marketer (CPM) status. CPMs need 100 points every year to keep their status. So get reading. But first, listen to why chartered status, continuous learning and breadth of skills are critical for marketers and those in the supply chain that want to a) remain relevant and b) progress to the top and beyond. Menulog CMO Simon Cheng is using the AMI framework of 25 competencies to create “horizontal” marketers. “Don’t be afraid to swim in other lanes, and become best mates with the CFO” is his advice to marketers – and amass financial acumen much earlier in your career. For AFL marketing boss, Anthony Voyage, harnessing the framework is all about “marketing fitness” and gaining incremental advantage through it. Chelsea Wymer knows exactly the value of chartered status – because she’s CMO at Chartered Accounts Australia and New Zealand, which accredits 136,000 chartered accountants. Her advice? “Take control of your own learning” – and sign up with the AMI: “It really does tell the organisations we work for that we're more than just ‘the colouring in department’; that we're experts with serious tech and digital skills – and commercial acumen.” AMI CEO Bronwyn Heys says businesses need “bench-ready talent” if they are to promote from within – which requires more horizontal and “more adaptable” talent given accelerating flux. Hence developing the AMI’s 25 competencies with counterparts in the UK, Europe and the US. But she says there is one constant: “If you do not have commercial acumen as a marketer, you are going to fail.” AMI Board Chair Andrew Thornton says recruiters are exasperated at the lack of “broader, non-marketing expertise” in those applying for CMO roles. “It is really hindering where they are going,” he suggests. If recruiters are telling you what’s closing off your job options… it’s probably worth listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E332 · Thu, May 09, 2024
LiSTNR tech stack unlocks smarter behavioural targeting, new lookalikes and re-fires lapsed buyers and its data matching capabilities for brands
‘Virtual professor’ Mark Ritson says advertisers should be allocating circa 11 per cent of media budgets to total audio. Problem is, the market’s not buying Ritson’s line. Audio’s dollar share is sitting just over half of that and static, despite broadcast audiences increasing 6 per cent since Covid and time spent on total audio surging 49 per cent. SCA thinks media planners may be behind the curve – and aims to change that by hammering home both the audience growth message and the fact it now has the tech firepower and user data to compete with the likes of Meta, Amazon and Google on performance-led conversion. Via audio platform LiSTNR, approaching 2 million logged-in users, SCA is armed with personalisation smarts and first party data matching via data cleanrooms that enable highly efficient and effective audience targeting via dynamic creative messaging. That means it can deliver both sharper behavioural and contextual targeting as well as broadcast reach – and some major QSR and cosmetics brands are piling in for a deeper read on where key audiences are, and what they are consuming. But you need to cover both bases, per National Head of Audio Sales Luke Minto, because SCA uses the tech stack in its own marketing efforts – and watched conversion plummet 30 per cent when broad reach was wound down for targeted performance alone. While advertisers need a deeper understanding of what audio can now deliver, Head of Digital Ad Product and Operations, Kim Loasby, says her key message to advertisers is “you don’t have to be an expert.” SCA will walk buyers though the layers. Loasby says SCA has just done that for a certain mattress brand – where buyers are in market every five years at best. By ingesting the brand’s data, SCA found its high value customers “significantly over-indexed in listening to Abbie Chatfield … So then we could definitively say ‘people who are lookalikes to your highest value customers are likely to be entertained by this piece of content’.” It worked. “They immediately pushed some more data.” Other brands, she says, are using SCA’s new data capabilities and dynamic creative optimisation to re-engage lapsed buyers while suppressing others – making the budget go further. “So we are seeing our ad tech pay dividends for brands already.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E331 · Mon, May 06, 2024
CX disconnect: Banks, carmakers, telcos failing to join customer dots, ‘gaming’ NPS, measuring wrong outcomes, undermining martech investments – but uni’s nailing it
The stampede by companies into CX, with massive associated investments into martech, specialists teams and organisational overhauls, is having little impact on customer experience scores – and big banks, telcos, and car brands are at best benchmarked as average, despite investing billions collectively. CSBA Managing Director, Paul van Veenendaal, has seven years of CX performance data from 12,000 annual assessments across 200 Australian firms and it’s a sobering read for those firms heralding their commitment to connecting up and improving the experience across all customer contact points. In short, all that tech investment is simply not hooked up to customer contact centres – and NPS scores, which many leadership teams have linked to performance and bonuses, are “being gamed”, he warns, for better but hollow CX benchmarks. No big brands feature in the top 10 of CSBA’s CX rankings, and only one, a superannuation company, makes the top 20. Chatbots aren’t up to scratch yet, says van Veenendaal, and companies have “pretty much parked” speech analytics. Meanwhile despite heavy investment in digital transformation, call centre volumes have not declined over the last seven years – and those call centres are focused on the wrong outcomes and metrics, he says. Hence underwhelming CX scores across CSBA’s rankings. But some sectors are nailing it: Universities and colleges, utility companies and local authorities – the latter at least partially due to the policies of a one-time adman and former Victorian Premier. Here’s where van Veenendaal thinks it’s all going wrong – and how to fix it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E330 · Thu, May 02, 2024
Tourism NT rewires media strategy with partner Atomic 212°, overhauls martech in bid to see off rivals piling into still spending, but anxious, over 50s
Tourism NT has always scored its biggest wins targeting the over 50s. Problem is, every other brand has twigged they’re the only one still spending. Cutting through is harder because other tourism bodies are going large on media to carve out their own slice. Plus, it’s already tricky for tourism operators to differentiate. Atomic 212°’s Asier Carazo plays a game of “hide the logo” with Tourism NT’s team every time he visits Darwin, showing other tourism body ads without their branding, and usually catches them out. “I can’t deny that we all get tripped occasionally,” admits Tourism NT marketing boss Tony Quarmby. “Unless you have the Opera House in your shot or Uluru … then it's really only the cityscapes that are going to make any difference. And to most consumers, a city is a city.” Problem is, most of the over 50s have “done” Uluru – so how to convince them that the NT is more than the iconic rock? At the same time, over 50s mindsets have shifted. They are far more safety conscious than even two years ago, says Quarmby, more anxious and more price focused – and that flux is ongoing. So Tourism NT needs to hit consumers with relevant, personalised content that speaks to those shifting mindsets, calms consumer nerves and gets them spending. Meanwhile, for the under 50s market, Quarmby needs to sell the NT as an experience and adventure that rivals overseas travel – without the expense of leaving the country. Hence Tourism NT going through a massive media, martech and process overhaul. At the heart sits a customer data platform, or CDP, to enable deeper understanding of key demo mindsets and more effective “real-time” personalised comms. Plus, it should help media budgets go further – i.e. by supressing ads to less relevant prospects, “and making sure we are seeking new people,” per Atomic’s Ashleigh Carter. Quarmby expects the new stack and approach to “make a big difference” in about six months time. In the meantime, he’s backing Atomic to deliver best bang for buck with smarter tactical campaigns to keep visitors incoming. He cites NT’s hijacking of the Adelaide AFL Gather Round last month, reaching millions with Uluru-themed billboards and then retargeting them with discount vouchers – delivering “370 per cent plus in ROI” – as the kind of approach it needs to take. Atomic’s Carazo thinks brands need to embrace the current chaotic environment and accept having to work harder on media campaigns to move the needle. “More craft, more high-touch media activity is definitely going to pay off,” he says. “Set and forget” won’t cut it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E329 · Mon, April 29, 2024
Privacy and regulatory update: Banks, retailers, brands, loyalty operators, publishers face ‘substantial’ tightening on CX data, martech, adtech use as consumer groups wedge business lobby in Canberra on privacy review’s 'personal information'
There’s so much happening on the regulatory front it’s dizzying, so Mi3 called in the experts for an update - and it’s proven rather revealing: Despite intensive lobbying from loyalty scheme operators and beyond, Australia’s sweeping privacy law overhaul remains on course to land this year – with massive implications for just about every business. “It's now clear that we will see a substantial broadening of what is regulated as personal information,” according to Data Synergies Principal, Peter Leonard. “That will include use of online tracking codes and techniques such as fingerprinting, which enable the targeting of individual consumers – and I think we will see that regulation encompassing not only online targeted advertising, but also targeting of content.” Which gives publishers something to ponder – especially those making major martech investments, says Civic Data’s Chris Brinkworth. Across all sectors, Brinkworth warns companies are leaking data on a wholesale basis “in a way that contravenes current Australian Privacy Principles let alone future Australian Privacy Principles”. The broadening of personal information definitions will also govern use of CX data within martech stacks, effectively limiting what banks and retailers, for example, can do with customer data unless they can explain it to “someone of below average intelligence,” per Leonard - and provided it passes a test of ‘fair and reasonable’ use. If not, prepare to fall foul of the Privacy Act, face class action lawsuits and massive fines. The Feds, warns Leonard, are getting firmer on their position, and industry is not being heard “at the same level that privacy advocates and a number of the consumer organisations are being heard in Canberra”. Meanwhile, the ACCC’s probe of data brokers is expected back from Treasury as early as this week, with fallout likely for Australia’s marketing supply chain. “We’re all talking about Meta and Google hoovering up data, but I think the biggest operator in terms of data brokerage in Australia is Woolworths’ Quantium,” per Laurel Henning, Legal and Regulatory Affairs Correspondent at Capital Brief. But across the pond, Google now faces genuinely existential challenges, says Future Media’s Ricky Sutton, as the US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission “have both said that what they're seeking is a breakup of Google. So there are big changes ahead.” Governments, he says, have decided enough is enough, big tech is about to cop it – and the impacts will market-wide. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E328 · Mon, April 22, 2024
Retail media meets ‘mobility media’: Uber ads global chief says Australia powering as Uber Ride brand ads drive hard sales via Uber Eats app – but funnel collapse pushes ‘brand-formance’ trend to the fore - and 3% CTRs don’t come cheap
Uber’s ads business is starting to scale and its New York-based boss Michael Akkerman says Australia – one of its best performing markets, with a rapidly growing sales operation – will see the next wave of new formats first. He’s touting retail media meets “mobility media” and a collapsed funnel “brand-formance” model - brand and performance marketing in a single execution. A younger, richer set exposed to an Uber Ride brand ad is driving hard sales via Uber Eats with verified "closed loop” attribution. Akkerman was in Sydney last week wooing “hundreds” of agency execs and rattling off big numbers. Coke’s gamified ads in the ride business got a tonne of new customers and orders via Eats. Absolute Vodka got a 28 per cent sales increase, HSBC likewise a major uplift – and they are coming back for more. Akkerman says the delineation of brand and performance is a false construct. The purpose of brand is ultimately to drive longer-term sales, but put a call to action – a performance element on a brand ad – and a percentage of people will immediately go and buy. People don’t think ‘brand versus demand’, he says, only marketers. But Akkerman reckons that is shifting rapidly in a fast fulfilment world. Just don’t ask Uber for “cheap eyeballs” and rock-bottom rates: “We can seek affordability … but to me it is about return on ad spend.” Whether procurement departments agree remains to be seen. But Akkerman suggests advertisers get what they pay for. He’s claiming Uber ads deliver much higher click through rates, circa 3 per cent versus the “0.000x per cent” brands would be “lucky” to get on other platforms, and is fraud free, because “bots don’t hail cars”. Meanwhile it’s privacy compliant – because everyone has signed up and linked their credit cards. Plus advertisers are connected with “actual humans, not digital representations.” Hence why Uber’s bullish on hitting a billion dollar ad business very soon – if it hasn’t already. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E327 · Thu, April 18, 2024
Cognitive overload puts marketing effectiveness in free-fall: Influence – not influencers – emerging as marketers’ antidote but industry assumptions require total flip
Marketing effectiveness is getting worse. Dan Krigstein, Director of think tank The Growth Distillery and Ogilvy Chief Strategy Officer and Innovation Lead, Toby Harrison, have spent the last six months working out why – and building a framework they are now bringing to market in a bid to reverse the effectiveness slump. Their findings literally flip industry-wide assumptions on their head – and expose deep misunderstanding on the power of influence (not influencers) in decision-making. If you take nothing else out of this podcast, it’s that our brains are overloaded, the signals that help us make decisions are missing and “active cynicism” is the baseline. “A world of doubt creates a chasm which influence can fill,” says Harrison. But most brands are missing that trick, mistakenly thinking that consumers trust brands and their message. We don’t. We trust those with whom we have affinity – our influences – much more. For that reason, as Harrison puts it: “People down the pub are doing a way better job in merchandising brands than any of us have been.” Crucially, say Krigstein and Harrison, the assumption that optimal effectiveness is achieved by hitting people in their restive, least-distracted state is entirely wrong. Hit us when our brains are most stressed, they suggest. “If you can take an affinity-lead message at a time where cognitive load is highest, it's actually most potent,” per Krigstein. But don’t hit people with more information. “The Midas touch in this is to remove the difficulty that already exists and give a simple, easy, definitive processing answer – because we cannot rationalise this stuff anymore,” says Harrison. “There has never been a richer or better opportunity for brands to actually start providing the type of influence that people are seeking to help them make the decisions that they need to. And that is a tremendously exciting opportunity.” Welcome to the world of real influence. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E326 · Mon, April 15, 2024
'Media ecologist' Jack Myers: No humans for 80% of media planning, buying by 2030; creative-media forced back together, brand-publisher clean rooms surge, programmatic and retailer media hit new turbulence before ‘rebirth’ of ad business
Five years ago media ecologist Jack Myers made a prediction in the second ever edition of Mi3: By 2025 media would be largely automated and almost totally AI-informed and just a quarter of sales would remain with people and ideas. It happened faster than even he thought. Now Myers predicts that within 12-18 months max, most media planning will be entirely machine-led. By 2030, he reckons “80 per cent or more of all media planning and buying will be done without human intervention or without the necessity of humans”, with major implications for jobs. Meanwhile, AI is already being turned in on itself to spotlight where the money is being wasted amid a “programmatic backlash”. The “machines are actually checking on machines,” says Myers, “increasingly, humans are out of the mix.” He forecasts an incoming wave of consolidation across major media companies and a “collapse of the programmatic marketplace”. For agencies, “the re-emergence of consolidated agencies”, i.e. creative and media back together, “is the big story of 2025-26”. Myers thinks generative AI will force that toothpaste back into the tube. “So I believe in 2024-25, we're going to see massive consolidation, massive contraction, and then in 2025, 26, 27 a rebirth of the advertising business.” But 2025, he warns, will be tough, with a “reasonably massive cutback in spending as marketers work out what is working, and what is not”. Plus Myers – who likewise called out retail media’s impact early – sees a “can of worms” for the sector as journalists and analysts uncover instances of arbitrage of non-retail inventory within some retail media networks. He also has reservations on the surge by media owners into data clean rooms – Disney alone is operating 100-plus – “Who is cleaning the data? Who is validating that it is clean?” Meanwhile, Myers thinks Accenture’s “quiet” ascendance to become a top tier digital media buyer likewise warrants greater scrutiny. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E325 · Mon, April 08, 2024
‘Not a paint by numbers solution’: David Droga joins Accenture Song’s global tech-creative posse to build NRMA Insurance’s ambition for a ‘world leading’ customer experience model; one brand team, one global tech-creative firm to run it all
IAG Chief Customer & Marketing Officer Michelle Klein returned to Australia last May after more than a decade abroad and embarked on arguably one of the most ambitious – and interesting - corporate customer experience transformation programs in this market for a long time. Such was the complexity and need for top tech and creative talent across every customer touchpoint for NRMA Insurance – think digital channels, apps and websites, retail customers, communities large and small, mass and personalised communications and customer acquisition and retention – that Klein opted for one external partner to work on everything with her team. It’s what Accenture Song’s ANZ boss Mark Green says is a ‘lighthouse project’ globally for the firm – backed up by New York-based Global CEO David Droga and Creative Chairman Nick Law. Droga says his firm has spent the past decade bringing global tech and creative capabilities together and he says NRMA Insurance will be an international proof point on why end-to-end CX programs need more creative thinking and execution, not just an off-the-shelf tech template, particularly as AI continues its march into commerce and society. “Like all these new technologies, it sets new horizons where everyone gets so excited about what the technology allows us to do that we put aside our creativity for a bit of awe in what that technology allows. Then when we realise that everybody can do exactly the same thing with that technology, everyone's like, ‘oh, we need to innovate with that, where's the tech, where's the creativity?’” Klein agrees the killer combo is tech with creativity and innovation, done differently. Some of the new program will be ready for the Paris Olympics in July when NRMA Insurance will make much of heading into its 100th year. But like her broader mantra on reinventing CX across every touchpoint for NRMA Insurance, the Olympics will do likewise. “It's not just linear TV, this is a fully integrated…program,” she says. “What I love about this partnership with Nine is that it will reach almost the entire population in a way that they've thought through every channel, every touch point.” So here’s how Klein, Droga, Law and Green see the grand plan unfolding and how they’re measuring success. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E324 · Thu, April 04, 2024
‘30-40% more efficient than paid media’: Mastercard’s top APAC marketer on owned media’s revenue power; Sonder predicts banks about to show retail media how it’s done
Julie Nestor was one of the earliest Australian marketers to leverage owned media at scale, first at Optus and American Express and now – via Hilton Hotels and eBay – at Mastercard. The APAC marketing chief says owned media helped Optus get beyond mobile and into broader media and communications – and moved the needle for Amex, both in bringing on more merchant partners and driving customer loyalty, retention and spend through personalised offers. Now she says it is “by far” Mastercard’s most efficient channel via the ‘Priceless’ platform, with priceless.com both monetised and serving as the engine room for Mastercard and its main business partners – i.e. the big banks and their customers. Hence the firm continuing to invest heavily in owned media – everything from offsetting paid investment into its Australian Open partnership to building gaming platforms for banks and fintechs in Asia, to helping Ukrainian refugees find homes. But while owned media strategies today are increasingly sophisticated, the fundamentals remain the same as at Optus 20 years ago – which back then leveraged analogue customer bills to cross-sell. “Be where your customers are and where you are going to get most attention,” says Nestor. Likewise, understanding the value of owned channels is key. Nestor worked with specialist owned media consultancy Sonder at Amex and again at Mastercard. Quantifying “real dollar figures” with “measurable numbers” both internally and externally to partners, she says, is critical in maximising leverage and underlining “how marketing supports a business to grow revenue”. Sonder ran an owned media valuation audit for Mastercard across 10 markets, benchmarking metrics such as “click-throughs, time on site, sell-through” against “our $10 billion rate pool, which gives us a single source of truth” for owned asset value, per co-founder Angus Frazer. Having worked with the likes of ANZ, Amex and Mastercard, Sonder’s Jonathan Hopkins thinks the finance sector is about to show the retail media sector just how powerful owned media can be – given its “unparalleled data” and massive footprint. “It’s the tip of the iceberg,” says Hopkins. “They are already way ahead of other companies.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E323 · Mon, March 25, 2024
Next wave: Everything marketers need to know about the streaming-TV-online video shake-out – audience forecasts, advertising shifts, where next: Ampere Analysis
Marketers and media companies had just about got to grips with audience fragmentation brought about by social media and online video. Now the next big wave is coming fast from global streamers piling into TV’s heartland with ad plays because their subscriber growth has maxed out. They’re targeting the young with localised reality shows, comedy and romantic dramas, and the old with documentaries and crime while taking aim at live TV’s biggest bastion by bidding for sports rights. That hasn’t always worked out for the likes of Amazon, which has pulled back from Premier League rights acquisition in the UK. But it has Disney and Fox Sports worried enough to try to get a combined sports platform off the ground in the US and over regulatory hurdles. Ampere Analysis veteran analyst Guy Bisson thinks similar collaboration from broadcasters locally may be required – and could be good for audiences. Across the piste, Bisson breaks down where audiences are going, how much time they are spending on each channel, and where the money’s headed – with Australia ahead of the global tipping point on streaming versus TV consumption, but not yet in terms of TV-video ad dollar reallocation. For broadcasters, the push by Amazon, Netflix and others into ads kills the old TV versus online video debate and removes the moat around ad-funded quality long form video. “It's no longer about ‘should I do TV, or should I do online?’ It's, ‘I can do everything I can do on TV on streaming’, says Bisson. He thinks broadcasters can compete on reach, targeting and content but need to accelerate streaming-first pivots to regain and retain audiences that definitely want free streamed TV versus the new pay TV – and strategically steal what they can. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E322 · Mon, March 18, 2024
Meta v media: Bosses from News Corp, Nine Publishing, Private Media, Capital Brief and ex-Coalition Minister Paul Fletcher unpack what’s next on Meta pulling news feeds - and Facebook and Instagram entirely - from Australia
Meta’s News Media Bargaining Code rug-pull lit up the media sector and has government, regulatory and lobbyist wheels spinning – some would say belatedly, given all the warning signals. Circa $70m in publisher cash - some argue it could be $100m - from Meta will no longer be on the table later this year, leaving Google the only game in town for a newsmedia sector already seriously pressured. Smaller publishers fear Meta pulling news from its feeds in Australia – as it did when Canada attempted to strong-arm the social media giant into paying news publishers – will lead to potentially existential audience and revenue hits. And there could bewidespread carnage if the Federal Treasurer ‘designates’ Meta, as is probable, forcing the tech giant into an independent arbitration process which by law means it will have to pay what thearbitrator rules between one of two fixed bids from Meta and media companies. Many argue Meta’s concerns for Australian designation means it will set international precedent for other countries to hunt billions more for newsmedia and lead to a full-scale exit of Facebook and Instagram in Australia rather than pay and trigger a costly global movement. Here’s everything you need to know on a delicate power game in which a sovereign government can't blink against a global tech giant, leaving Meta few options but to exit Australia entirely if it chooses to break Australian law and not pay. The world’s eyes are back on Australia - for bloodsport and money. And that’s before the podcast panel gets to AI and IP rights and remuneration. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E321 · Thu, March 14, 2024
Domino’s, Asahi see executive leaders buy-in to better decision-making; now moving Mutinex MMM beyond media’s P&L impact into business planning
Domino’s and Asahi are both using Mutinex’s GrowthOS platform to make very different media investment decisions, faster, in a fluid market. Both have buy-in across the business after unlocking the impact of media investment on sales. Both are now taking the platform beyond media and into decisions around seasonality, pricing and planning. “It’s not just a marketing tool, it’s a finance tool, ultimately supporting you how to maximise your investment across the portfolio,” says Jemma Downey, Group GM of Commercial Excellence at Asahi. “We definitely have an intention of looking at how we can ingest the data from our trade promotion and our trade optimisation tools to look at price elasticity.” Asahi has been using the GrowthOS platform for four years. Over that time it has “significantly changed” its channel allocation, per Downey, with the ROI data accelerating its shift from TV to digital video while answering questions around the effectiveness of social channels. “Social delivers the highest ROI on average across the board,” she says. Asahi is now also “far more fluid” with its investment approach. Domino’s Group Digital Strategy Manager, Blake Rand, likewise has executive buy-in with the pizza giant also using the platform beyond media and into pricing decisions. In terms of media channel allocation, GrowthOS has also thrown up some interesting insight – like the power of old-school flyers through letterboxes. Easy to see as “antiquated”, says Rand, “but we're still seeing a really high commercial impact from that investment”. Both Rand and Downey are moving towards predictive media budget and channel allocation. Mutinex CEO Henry Innis thinks that development will further underline the platform’s credentials – because brands can save Mutinex’s forecasts. “Anybody in the business of predictive analytics who doesn’t give you the functionality to save those predictions so you can hold them to account,” per Innis, “is probably lying about how predictive their model is.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E320 · Thu, March 07, 2024
SCA cuts acquisition costs 60%, targets performance ad dollars by doing the same for advertisers with data matching clean room play
People spend “roughly a third of their time, or four hours a day, listening to audio, yet only 6 per cent of ad revenues are coming towards the medium,” says SCA Chief Commercial Officer Seb Rennie. The network is betting on a data-powered push for performance ad dollars to change that with today’s launch of LiSTNR’s AdTech Hub. SCA has made huge gains – slashing cost of acquisition 60 per cent for its LiSTNR app – after embedding a CDP and overhauling its data capability. Now it’s aiming to do the same for advertisers with a new data clean room play that means advertisers can match their own first party data with SCA’s – alongside new dynamic creative optimisation and contextual targeting capability, says Executive Head, LiSTNR commercial, Olly Newton. As a result, SCA can both build brand and drive conversion via tactical performance campaigns – and Rennie thinks a market-wide shift of budgets towards the latter may last beyond the current economic crunch. Either way, says Newton, “we’ve got a total solution.” The key is making it easy for advertisers to use. Hence SCA bucking the Big Tech trend of self-serve and ‘headcount rationalisation’ – instead creating a managed service to help advertisers navigate its new tools. Last month SCA “road-tested” the new data matching capability via Australia’s major ad holding groups. “There’s huge appetite,” says Newton. “And it’s really just the beginning.” Meanwhile, SCA has bullish forecasts for its own business as well as the broader industry. Per latest IAB data, Australia’s digital ad revenue growth was a subdued 3.7 per cent in 2023. Digital audio was up 20.6 per cent – and per 38.4 per cent growth in the December quarter, accelerating hard. “Momentum is building,” says Rennie. Now SCA has some sharper targeting tools to convert it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E319 · Mon, March 04, 2024
‘Half the impact comes from creative’: System1 customer chief Jon Evans on how to sell-in emotional ad investment to cold, rational CEOs, CFOs – the CMOs nailing it, and why channel mix obsession will waste brands’ biggest investments
Future of TV Advertising international keynote Jon Evans is Chief Customer Officer at marketing effectiveness data firm System1 – and one of the world’s top marketing podcasters. He's on a mission to help marketers hold the line and sell-in emotional, creative campaign investment to rational, hard-nosed exec teams by better predicting its P&L impacts. While the media industry obsesses on the medium – optimising channel mix, ROI, CPMs, the value equation of the channel – fully half of the business outcome depends on the creative, i.e. the message, per System1’s analysis of 100,000 campaigns. But that message is getting lost says Evans. He wants to help CMOs avoid getting fired by arming them – and the C-suite – with the data to better predict how their ads and massive media investments will perform over the long term. Which just might counteract the accelerating rush to performance channels, with Coke the latest, as marketers seek any kind of validation in the face of exploding remits and intensifying short-term pressure. Plus, he has a toolkit for brand marketers and agencies that unpacks how to build mental availability, cut through and more predictable business results on which to base their media buys. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E318 · Thu, February 29, 2024
prDOOH power: Lion toasts 18% revenue gains, sells 100,000 more Guinness pints via prDOOH push; JCDecaux maps huge growth, but agencies lagging
Guinness (part of the Lion portfolio), UM, Vistar, Kinesso, and Thinkerbell have just landed Australia's first ever Programmatic Campaign of the Year award after a smart, highly targeted Out-of-Home push delivered 100,000 extra pints sold. The trick? Targeting blokes near pubs stocking the dark elixir when the weather turned cold – with only 2,000 of those pints as QR code freebies. After toasting 18 per cent revenue uplift as a result – and 15 per cent pub footfall boost, a “super happy” Lion is lining up more prDOOH, per UM’s Mark Ryan. But it wasn’t initially convinced. While it wrapped in day-parting, weather and location data, plus dynamic creative via specialist DSP Vistar, IAB chief Gai Le Roy said Guinness won the award because the campaign was “strategy-led”, solving a business problem rather than showboating with “a fancy new toy”. Plus, “it had the magic of doing brand work and performance work” while driving a strong commercial return – not always the case with sampling. JCDecaux launched the award to get brands and buyers up to speed on prDOOH as it plots a massive programmatic growth curve, per National Programmatic Director, Brad Palmer. He’s aiming to hit 10 per cent of DOOH this year, pointing to markets like Germany, targeting 50 per cent of total Out-of-Home revenues by 2032. As to where prDOOH can end up, especially as cookies crumble and privacy laws tighten, “there’s a wild ride ahead for prDOOH” per Palmer. “But we need the market to collaborate a bit further,” not least agencies. Le Roy, Palmer and Vistar’s Winston Stening unpack where prDOOH’s heading next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E317 · Mon, February 26, 2024
Marketers ‘prefer arbitrage’ as Publicis, Omnicom power ahead of holdco posse; Dentsu ‘shrinking pains’ persist as dividing lines sharpen on agency network brands versus integrated offers, IT services and data M&A: Madison and Wall’s Brian Wieser
When it comes to principal-based media trading, AKA arbitrage, “we can argue about the pros and cons but collectively [marketers] are saying that they kind of accept, if not sometimes prefer, that model,” says Madison and Wall founder and one-time WPP global business intelligence chief Brian Wieser. It’s no coincidence that two of the “most aggressive” proponents of buying ad inventory from media owners and on-selling it to clients with handsome markups saw their respective media businesses notch double-digit growth in 2023. Publicis and Omnicom also have the most bullish growth forecasts for 2024. Yet their broader business strategies and models are almost polar opposites and Wieser sees a structural fault line widening across the major holdcos – unified businesses that sideline individual agency brands like Publicis and Dentsu versus the traditional multi-brand model at WPP, IPG and Omnicom. Both can work, says Wieser, but he thinks those with fewer silos are “more likely to thrive” and suggests very few marketers still care about conflict, one of the original reasons for holdcos running lots of similar agencies. Dentsu is tracking closer to Publicis on agency brand consolidation but the Japanese firm hasn’t executued like the French. One positive for Dentsu, per Wieser, is “it’s hard to imagine it getting any worse”. Regardless of the model, he sees a single key differentiator in determining holdco winners and losers as IT services firms streak ahead and the big platforms use generative AI to eat further into agency turf: Investment ambition, or lack thereof. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E316 · Mon, February 19, 2024
L’Oreal, Unilever, Diageo, Kellogg’s, Gucci, Mondelez and Ford pump ad budgets; Google, Amazon, Meta cut theirs and grow - Brian Wieser on resurgent performance spend sidestepping TV
Some media companies are feeling the heat on what they describe as a tightening advertising market, particularly linear TV. But there's a very different story coming out of investor briefings in recent weeks at some of the world's biggest brands. Many brands are increasing their advertising and promotion and much bigger overall marketing budgets. Some of these listed CFOs and CEOs apparently agree with marketing’s brand building champions – at least at face value. L'Oreal's overall advertising and promotion budgets, for example, pumped 11 per cent in 2023. Its global CEO told investors the company had seen “spectacular productivity increases of up to 10 to 15 per cent” for L'Oreal brands that have trialled its proprietary AI tool called a BetIQ to measure and improve L'Oreal's advertising and promotion investments. It’s aiming to roll the tool out across 60 per cent of ad investments globally by the year-end. L'Oreal is no outlier. Unilever, Diageo, Kellogg’s, Gucci, Mondelez, Ford and big insurance companies all told investors they're upping advertising and marketing budgets. Ironically, the main sector hacking ad spend is tech, the very platforms hauling in circa 60 per cent of that global budget growth. Unpacking the apparent disconnect is Brian Wieser, a long-time US-based equities analyst who founded Maddison and Wall, on the listed marketing services holdcos such as WPP, Omnicom, Publicis and IPG, and an avid watcher of listed brand owners and what their CEOs and CFOs say about their marketing investments. We’ve made this podcast a two-parter. The first takes on big brands and what’s happening with their ad and marketing budgets. Part two dives into media and the holdcos – where two of the big five are doing better than most for one key reason. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E315 · Mon, February 12, 2024
Crunch overcooked? APAC marketing chief says no slowdown as Uber plots grocery surge, ads business ramps up with attention, Carshare bids to cull 1m cars by 2029 – and why flipping ‘crazy’ performance for brand pays
At one point “the performance marketing [team’s] main KPI was actually how much investment they could deploy,” says Uber APAC marketing boss Andy Morley. “The mandate was spend, spend, spend … It was getting crazy.” But then they realised it wasn’t actually working. Then they flipped hard to brand – well above Binet & Field’s 60:40 heuristic – and powered to delivery market leader. Today Morley says both Uber’s rideshare and food business has seen no slowdown despite squeezed wallets. Now it’s driving into grocery and beyond with another brand-powered push: “Pianos delivered in one hour” are the CEO’s mandate. For its rides business, removing 1 million of Australia’s second cars within five years is the target and Morley says growth – and consumer behaviour change – is rapidly underway. Uber’s moves into trains, planes and buses in the UK could signal the shape of things to come. Meanwhile Uber’s ads business is starting to motor. Drinks and entertainment advertisers in particular are tapping people on the way to bars and on their way home. Morley thinks a shift to attention over increasingly challenged reach and frequency metrics will shape both Uber’s own spend – and the media dollars it seeks from advertisers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E314 · Mon, February 05, 2024
Lessons from Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty: Unilever marketers forgot product in ‘purpose' mission; ESG the new corporate ‘Voldemort’ but employee, stakeholder strategies a ‘massive opportunity’ for marketing influence in c-suite: Institute for Real Growth
It’s not often Suncorp’s CMO Mim Haysom is mentioned in the same conversation as Leonardo da Vinci but the latter’s rare ability to combine creative and analytical thinking is what 50 Australian CMOs working with WPP were briefed on recently as the next frontier for business growth and their own professional cred and advancement. Indeed, Marc de Swaan Arons, a former Unilever marketer who co-founded the non-profit Institute for Real Growth [IRG] - backed globally by Google, Meta, WPP and Tata Consulting - says there’s a ‘massive opportunity’ for marketers to increase influence and impact with executive leadership colleagues via ‘humanised growth'. How? In this instance, it’s by customer-minded marketing bosses offering their strategy and insights nous to help build out divisional and all-of-company stakeholder-employee management blueprints and programs. It may seem fanciful and foreign to already stretched marketing remits but a new global study by IRG across 450 CEOs, CFOs, CMOs and HR leads suggests the notion would be welcomed by company leaders and seen as a credibility enhancer for marketers - if they don’t turn it into a land grab on colleagues. Suncorp’s Haysom and Piedmont Healthcare’s CMO Douwe Bergsma (US) are already front-running the trend, says de Swaan Arons, who also injects some cool pragmatism into the ESG, DE&I and purpose programs often championed by marketing teams. He cites the raging success and subsequent reality check for marketers working on Dove’s acclaimed Campaign for Real Beauty rollout in 2004 - within two years of that launch, it was in trouble. Purpose had usurped product development. Here’s more from de Swaan Arons and the Institute for Real Growth’s new study. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E313 · Mon, January 29, 2024
‘The whole supply chain is locked into a sense of omerta’: Why marketers, procurement, agencies, ad techs and publishers fear derailing programmatic ‘gravy chain’ – where 36 cents on every ad dollar is ‘optimistic’
The ANA’s latest transparency report looks ugly for agencies, the ad tech supply chain, marketers and their procurement departments. Probably why its findings – just 36 cents on the programmatic dollar stand a chance of being seen by audiences – have been met with deafening silence. None of the big agency holdcos have piped up, while Google, The Trade Desk, Pubmatic and other major adtech players didn’t allow the ANA into their systems. Not even P&G played ball. Nick Manning, who co-authored the ANA’s scoping brief, says even 36 cents in every ad dollar landing with publishers is optimistic – because the investigation used sophisticated advertisers like Mondelez, Shell, Kimberly Clark, Dell and HP for the probe – and because it doesn’t factor-in things like agency commissions. And the ANA calculations are based off feeble viewability metrics. “We are talking about a massive global marketplace and it is out of control,” says Manning. Problem is, “nobody wants to derail the gravy train … Enormous sums of money have been made by the large digital platforms, by the ad tech community, by agencies. They've all been part of this gold rush.” But the report differs from myriad predecessors because it spells out exactly how advertisers can regain control. Marketers, says Manning, have to lock everybody in a room, forget about what has happened in the past, and hold “a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’”. Then they need to sweep their programmatic supply chain, strip out the dud components, including most of publishing’s long tail, and structure contracts accordingly – including with agencies, who “by virtue of tolerating this, are absolutely negligent in terms of their role”, he suggests. “But without that will and intent, you might as well not bother starting.” Here’s what’s going wrong in the $88bn marketplace, and for those with appetite, how to fix it… Before the open web money gets rechanneled from publishers to walled gardens and retail media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E312 · Mon, January 22, 2024
Brand acrobatics: Adobe wrestles with ‘category awareness’ for CX, plots brand-demand offensive; B2B CMOs pump 2024 budgets as CFOs greenlight creative spend – MYOB, Canva, MailChimp nailing it
It’s taken a couple of years, but the LinkedIn-backed B2B Institute’s mission to flip business-to-business marketing’s focus from performance to brand building – encapsulated by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute penned 95:5 rule – is starting to land, crucially in the boardroom and exec leadership echelons. LinkedIn’s polling of B2B CMOs and CFOs suggests most are planning to spend more on brand this year and are beginning to grasp that rational, product-focused messaging doesn’t cut it. The likes of MYOB, Canva and MailChimp are setting the creative standard, reckons LinkedIn’s Global VP of Customer Science and B2B Institute Global Head, Melissa Furze. But there’s still a long way to go, as Adobe’s APAC and Japan VP of Digital Experience Marketing, Duncan Egan will attest. Adobe, he admits, is challenged with building brand awareness – or more accurately, category awareness - when it comes to being known as a CX company versus its Photoshop legacy. He’s hoping to change that with a full-funnel push – and convince the sales-focused, short-termists that brand both fuels demand and ultimately speeds conversion. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E311 · Mon, December 04, 2023
Marketing’s capability crunch: ANZ, Deloitte, Destination NSW marketing chiefs back Australian Marketing Institute bid to mirror Chartered Accountants, CPAs for industry-wide professional certification, credibility, status
Marketing remits are expanding faster than most professions but unlike accounting or engineering, it remains splintered and without common professional capabilities, standards and accreditation. Indeed, marketing, agency, media and customer tech professionals across the entire customer and marketing supply chain risk career irrelevance because they're simultaneously losing sight of marketing's fundamentals – like strategy and commercial nous – and the diverse new capabilities they need to join-up marketing and customer functions to drive business growth. Senior marketers at ANZ, Deloitte and Destination New South Wales are trying to bridge that gap. But even the likes of ANZ’s Kate Young, who launched a major upskilling program for the bank’s 300-plus marketers in 2019, says the pace of change means a refresh is already required and the program – and ANZ’s marketers – must operate in a two-speed environment: Core capabilities for today plus anticipating what’s coming down the track as personalisation shifts to “anticipation”, plus rapid advances in automation and generative AI. Destination NSW Marking GM Kathryn Illy is upskilling her team away from pure ROI-focused performance marketing to better understand what makes people want to visit NSW in the first place. As well as putting skills programs in place she’s hiring from ad agencies – and says the numbers show it’s working. Deloitte CMO Rochelle Tognetti is upskilling her 270 marketing staff around commercial acumen and the collapsing walls between client and employer brand, along with organisational capabilities and governance. All three marketing bosses are backing the Australian Marketing Institute’s re-fuelled drive to future-proof marketing’s skill set across 25 essential competencies. AMI CEO Bronwyn Powell says accreditation, in the same way that accountants and engineers achieve chartered status, gives marketers a far broader appreciation of business fundamentals while mapping a path to the c-suite. Perhaps worryingly for the top end of town, Powell thinks younger marketers are hungrier to upskill than mid and senior-level pros. She’s urging the entire market – agency and media bosses included – to identify skills gaps, personal and team-wide, and join the AMI’s push to plug them along with a revamped path for professional credentials which peak at an AMI Certified Practicing Marketer and AMI Fellow. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E310 · Mon, November 27, 2023
Owned media v retail media: Commbank, ANZ, Telstra invest in owned channels as sector’s commercial value increases 10% to $4.3bn; Financial services up 19% as non-retail brands eye upside
Owned media in Australia – brands’ own websites, email, apps, instore and social assets – now has $4.3bn in commercial potential. It could reach $5bn in as little as 12 months as brands, eyeing the growth of retail media, start to realise the value of their own media channels. Valuation firm Sonder has just released its annual Owned Media Market Report & Rankings for the '24 financial year and it again contextualises the retail media boom - retailers might be making all the noise around retailer media networks but they represent just one-third of the commercial value that brands across any sector can derive from their own media channels. Mike Connaghan, MD of News Corp’s Commercial Content division, says his business is booming as the likes of Coles, Bunnings, Officeworks, David Jones and Chemist Warehouse make media revenue from suppliers and use it to fund their own paid marketing efforts as well as turn a healthy margin. Owned media specialist Sonder is seeing the same thing. The likes of ANZ have reorganised operations to put owned channels first – and co-founder Angus Frazer thinks more will follow, especially as pressure on marketing budgets intensifies. Sonder has run the rule over Australia’s owned media sector and drops some well-informed hints at numbers on which brands and businesses might be coming to market next. In retail media, Sonder says the ones to watch are Bunnings, Accent Group, JB-Hi-Fi, Mecca and Kmart. In grocery and liquor it’s First Choice and Vintage Cellars, while in finance its Visa and Mastercard. Sonder co-founder Jonathan Hopkins says the broader market is now “at a tipping point” as brands realise they can better engage, upsell and cross-sell to existing customers, and use the income from selling or trading space with their suppliers to fund acquisition bucket filling. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E309 · Thu, November 23, 2023
Jaguar Land Rover notches 200 per cent audience uplift through new OOH performance reporting: QMS lifts TV playbook with audience guarantees, make-goods; OMG piles in
Jaguar Land Rover spotted an opportunity earlier this year in the lead up to Sydney's Vivid festival, where circa 3 million people show up for 23 days of live shows, music and forums. The carmaker needed to build awareness fast for the new Land Rover Defender and part of the brief included large out-of-home formats. Given the expected surge in people on the streets of Sydney's CBD, Jaguar Land Rover’s just appointed media agency, Resolution Digital, part of Omnicom Media Group (OMG), thought a fast revamp of the brief to include street furniture and screens in the City of Sydney network run by QMS would be a smart move. It proved right and OMG’s head of trading, John Lynch, says the post-campaign audience analysis for Defender saw traffic uplift around CBD sites increase in some cases by more than 200 per cent. Yet the out-of-home industry’s audience currency, MOVE, could not quantify what the opportunity was or how big the upside could be. Which is where QMS’ new audience initiative, using mobility data down to specific sites and screens, came into its own. QMS has broken early from its out-of-home competitors to develop analysis capability for its screen network, which both sets site-level audience benchmarks and then guarantees those audiences will be delivered. Right now, no other out-of-home company delivers that level of reporting or guarantees. But Chief Strategy Officer, Christian Zavecz, says they must if the sector is to improve credibility and maintain high growth rates. In his parlance out-of-home has to move from measuring assets to measuring audiences, with Zavecz arguing that if out-of-home wants to be treated like one of the last big broadcast audience reach channels, it has to behave like one. QMS calls it ‘Performance Plus’ and the single biggest buyer of out-of-home in the country, OMG’s John Lynch, says it’s delivering. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E308 · Mon, November 20, 2023
Master brand plan: Arnott’s CMO Jenni Dill, Publicis Groupe CEO MikeRebelo on how Arnott’s lifted 10% sales growth across entire portfolio via market mix modelling, media benchmarking, creative testing, going large on TV – and won Ad Council’s Grand Effie
Arnott’s last month landed the Advertising Council’s Grand Effie after launching a master brand campaign that CMO Jenni Dill says delivered “10 per cent sales growth in dollar terms and three quarters of a share point growth” across the portfolio. It also helped put Arnott’s ahead of the three-year growth plan she’d had to present to the board 13 days after joining from McDonald’s. “Phenomenal” results, says Publicis Groupe CEO Michael Rebelo, given the effort it takes to move FMCG “super brands” like Tim Tams even a quarter of a per cent. And just the kind of hard business results Arnott’s private equity owners KKR need to see from marketing. Dill says KKR is happy to keep investing in growth, hence her signing up for the job, provided she’s not coming to them with soft metrics. So after working on new product sets, including healthier and gluten free ranges, and before approaching the hard, rational board with plans for a big, emotional TV-led push, she doubled down on pre-testing, market mix modelling and media benchmarking to show exactly where the growth opportunities lay. Backing secured, Dill went out with a fully integrated campaign tapping Arnott’s Australian heritage and biscuity ‘moments that matter’ that has since delivered in spades. Despite interest rate hikes hitting consumers hard, she predicts the brand investment will act as a moat and keep delivering well into 2024. Now Dill and Rebelo have their eyes on one, maybe two more Effies for next year, to make up for the one they’re convinced they should have had last year. Here’s how they landed the most coveted annual award for the serious end of town – and their take on how current market sentiment will play out across the piste into 2024. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E307 · Thu, November 16, 2023
Measuring BVOD, TV and YouTube and footfall in one hit: Kmart, Kinesso and UM think Beatgrid may have cracked cross-media measurement
Figuring out where potential customers are in the hectic media system and not waste budgets reaching them across disparate channels is driving marketers and media agencies to experiment with some interesting alternatives in cross-media audience measurement. Kmart, its agency UM and IPG tech stablemate Kinesso, think they have landed on a winner – Beatgrid’s automatic content recognition phone-based panel. Beatgrid counts the likes of Amazon, Google, P&G, Unilever and Virgin as clients. The firm’s tech measures TV, digital video, audio and even out of home audiences, as well as in-store footfall. Plus its panel of paid-up and consented humans is doing away with the guesswork of brand uplift studies. Which is why Kinesso Digital Strategy Director, Charlie Allatt, convinced UM’s Group Director for Kmart, Adam Russell, to trial the tech. By making “inaudible pitch shifts” to creative across different screen types, “the system can unwind whether people are being exposed in a particular channel,” says Allatt. For Kmart, the two launched the trial across linear TV, BVOD and YouTube – which siloed measurement systems can’t do in one hit. Then they ran the numbers against Google’s DV360 DSP for YouTube ads, and against OzTam’s data for linear TV and BVOD. “Both channels tilted very, very closely to the Beatgrid numbers,” says Russell. Plus, using Beatgrid’s location data, they could map the ads served to Kmart’s in-store footfall. “We could see the difference of people who, within a two-week span, had seen an ad and then gone on into a Kmart store versus people who haven't seen an ad,” says Allatt. “We could directly measure that uplift in real time, specifically broken down for each channel.” Kmart must “demonstrate every day that we are [reaching customers] really efficiently, ensuring every dollar we invest is performing,” says GM of Marketing Rennie Freer. The Beatgrid trial, “was a great opportunity to do that,” she says, “because if we're saving dollars here, if what we're doing is really delivering the efficacy we need, we can reinvest in new channels.” As cookies disappear and privacy laws tighten, Beatgrid’s founder Daniel Tjondronegoro and Australia GM Cameron Curtis think single-source panels are about to have a major renaissance. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E306 · Mon, November 13, 2023
Last supper: Outgoing creative chief at Accenture Song and The Monkeys Scott Nowell on culturally infiltrating Accenture, failed beer fridge bans, pulling a reverse takeover of Saatchis and why Accenture Song is ‘outperforming’ the consulting growth curve
Many predicted The Monkeys would be “roadkill” when Accenture in 2017 paid $63m for Australia’s hottest ad agency, its creative culture steamrollered by the immaculately polished heads of the consulting world. Instead, says creative chief Scott Nowell, who last week departed the agency he co-founded, The Monkeys began a cultural infiltration mission. Six years on, the broader Accenture Song creative-customer model has turned heads in the broader Accenture business – because it’s largely outperforming. That’s not to say there weren’t some awkward early moments. “A request that we lock our beer fridges until 5 p.m. went down very badly,” says Nowell, a diktat that lasted roughly six hours. Ultimately, in a firm with hundreds of thousands of employees and monolithic process rigidity, you have to learn to work the system, he acknowledges. He admits moving from a nimble business to a hierarchical consulting giant can take some getting used to: “You’ve just got to ask a lot of people if you can do something or not.” Either way, after some mutual “bum sniffing” the “more closed” corporate and “more open” advertising packs began to run together – and start building products and solutions that go well beyond advertising. That’s changed the capability The Monkeys now seeks, with “creatives who have that interest in broader business solutions” first order. Whether Nowell climbs back into the saddle, time will tell. But for now he’s smelling the roses after 17 years building a business that won everything going, rejected an offer to reverse takeover Saatchi & Saatchi locally, came close to forming a “pan-Pacific micro network” with Goodby Silverstein and tried – and failed – to revive ice cream brand, Homer Hudson, which it co-owned. His advice to anyone starting their own agency today? “Start smarter … get an accountant … try and balance your life.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E305 · Thu, November 09, 2023
‘It’s given us a lot of credibility within the business to keep pushing’: Samsung Australia’s Carl Bunn on using MMM to prove what’s working – and win over sceptics
The problem with Samsung’s previous market mix models was they were too slow, says Carl Bunn, Head of Data and Solutions at Samsung Australia. By the time results came back in, “we’d moved on,” says Bunn. Part of that was on Samsung: Consistency of data is key, says Bunn, and lack of it scuppered much prospect of MMM agility. But having done the “single source of truth” hard yards and plugged into Mutinex’s platform, the marketing teams are now getting more “credibility” within the organisation. They know in near-real time “what’s working and what’s not” in terms of media investment – and that’s getting more departments onside within Samsung. “It’s proven what we thought should be happening is actually happening,” says Bunn. “We can put data and numbers behind what we’ve been saying … and that gives you a lot of credibility in the business to keep pushing.” Samsung’s agency team at CHEP wasn’t initially convinced. The prospect of yet another data source telling everybody what’s ‘working’ was met with some scepticism, says strategy chief Lilian Sor. Until they all started using it. Samsung and CHEP last month landed gold at the Effies, Australia’s ad effectiveness awards, with its use of media mix modelling to prove results cited prominently by judges. CHEP was also named Australia’s most effective agency overall. So something’s working. Mutinex boss Henry Innis has only one ask: That everyone steps talking about market mix modelling and instead focuses on ‘market mix decisioning’. “If the industry moves away from the drudgery of legacy MMM models and towards the effectiveness of better market mix decisions, we'll have a more effective and respected industry,” says Innis. “By the time we're done at Mutinex, I would hope that no marketer in the world is seen as a cost centre.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E304 · Mon, November 06, 2023
GroupM’s global boss Christian Juhl, ANZ CEO Aimee Buchanan on Netflix ads, linear TV’s end game and why measurement sits at the heart of all marketer conundrums
GroupM global boss Christian Juhl says rival holdcos may now regret spending “billions of dollars on cookie-based solutions or personally identifiable information” as privacy moves dead centre in regulatory affairs.. Some, he says, “are going to be sitting on a razor’s edge about whether they are going to be compliant ... it will definitely have ramifications for the industry.” In the meantime, he says a key challenge facing marketers across every facet of their business, and fundamentally “how they justify these massive budgets to their CEOs” comes down to measurement. But building post-privacy metrics and proxies, per Juhl, is probably the most “dynamic” – read challenging – part of his business. GroupM is building its own econometric or “full funnel” models for brands because, says ANZ CEO Aimee Buchanan, market mix models focused on shorter-term campaign metrics no longer cut it. Meanwhile, both Juhl and Buchanan have been pushing hard on carbon-based trading. Culling low performing, high emitting inventory is the easiest first step, says Buchanan, followed by stripping out digital weight from creative assets. But both bosses are less aggressive than previous statements around moving ad dollars based on emissions. Likewise, no hard mandates on getting staff back in the office beyond “probably more than we are right now,” per Juhl with hybrid flex built-in. For now, three days is a rule of thumb. Plus, Juhl is unsure how long brands will “pay more for less” on linear TV – and the world’s biggest media buyer thinks the world’s biggest streaming service, Netflix, has an opportunity to start integrating brands. Netflix’s Microsoft-powered ads launch may have underwhelmed, but Juhl sees “wide open” space ahead. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E304 · Thu, November 02, 2023
Ecom’s boom meets reality check: Focus on CX, efficiency and making money kicks-in hard as Amazon ramps up, puts pure-plays under existential pressure
Ecom’s runaway train has hit the buffers. Now brands must sweat massive investments made over Covid much harder, grappling simultaneously with how to drive profitable growth without harming customer experience. Expect a wholesale to push into loyalty and retail media, per Accenture Song MD and ANZ Commerce Lead Peter Davias. Meanwhile, he thinks Amazon may finally present the threat that everyone feared a decade ago, with headwinds for Kogan and Catch potential auguries. Which means more aggressive competition is coming for everyone, just as consumers are tightening their belts, necessitating a laser-like focus on efficiency and de-risking fulfilment supply chains while fuelling a shift to cost-saving ‘headless’ tech stacks. L'Oréal has piled into ecom, launching nine direct-to-consumer sites since 2019. After that surge, the focus is squarely on “sustainable, profitable growth”, per Chief Digital and Marketing Officer, Georgia Hack, while using its new CDP to dive into “personalisation at scale” and push harder into social commerce to plot new growth. News Corp Australia is aiming for a slice of that action by priming consumers with content-driven headless commerce – which allows stores to effectively set up a store within its pages – and affiliate links, per News Corp Australia eCommerce Director, Adam Kron. Meanwhile Accenture Song’s Managing Director and Technology Lead, Josh Lamont, says the convergence of marketing, customer, digital and commerce functions is what’s driving both the rise of the Chief Customer Officer and the push by the big commerce technology platform players to move end-to-end, including into marketing. He thinks consulting firms will need to similarly converge marketing, sales, service, ecom and digital product teams – a step Accenture Song is now taking. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E303 · Mon, October 30, 2023
‘It’s sharpened me up as a marketer’: Telstra CMO Brent Smart bids to link CX and rising NPS for non-believers, flip performance and brand investment ratios and systemise marketing team creativity, attention and MMM
While Telstra’s massive CX overhaul has powered net promoter scores through the roof – with NPS linked directly to executive bonuses – CMO Brent Smart says that’s only half the job. To grow, Telstra needs to go harder on brand to woo those that don’t even know about its sweeping digital overhaul, including aggrieved former customers. As such Telstra’s 80:20 performance to brand investment ratios won’t stay that way, but Smart says competing with the likes of JB HiFi and Harvey Norman plus rival telcos in the monthly acquisition battle royale “has really sharpened me up as a marketer.” Smart thinks too many firms are failing to properly link brand communications through to CX and performance, using the same off the shelf tools and “luggage matching” instead of truly being fit for platform. Meanwhile, he’s testing performance channels to gauge if they are delivering incremental growth versus sales that would have happened anyway – and similar tests at IAG threw up some interesting results. Plus, Smart and Telstra are diving deeper into market mix modelling while building out a framework across the marketing function to “systemise and quantify” great creative work “without strangling it”. The latter is lifted from AB InBev’s award winning template. The former an attempt to demonstrate how marketing investment is delivering ROI and contributing to the bottom line. Between the two “I’d be lying if I said we could predict the impact of better creative,” per Smart. But in terms of media planning, he’s going all out for attention. “That definitely does change your channel choices,” says Smart – and there are winners and losers. Smart also fires back crisply at those suggesting Telstra’s new brand ad is lacking in branding. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E302 · Thu, October 26, 2023
4 billion streams and counting: News Corp Australia piles into vertical video, siphons audiences back from social, ties to commerce, bids to own mid-funnel between BVOD and social video
News Corp Australia had more than 4 billion short form video views last financial year across its own assets and social feeds and it’s changing the way the Murdoch empire delivers content. Vertical video is the big play as audiences and advertisers pile in. Even boss Michael Miller is getting in on the act. Now News has launched a master plan – dubbed News Shorts – to siphon those social audiences off the likes of TikTok (1.2bn of those streams), back to its owned assets and into its commerce engines. Director of Commercial Data, Video and Product, Paul Blackburn thinks it can get to 800m on-platform vertical video streams within the next 12 months, feeding its shoppable ad units and packaging a mid-funnel intent play. Per Blackburn: “The trajectory we’re on suggests that’s extremely doable.” Head of Ad Product and Strategy Ryan Hedditch says the vertical video play, sitting between BVOD and the top of the funnel and social at the bottom, presents “a big opportunity for planners to think differently about how they can capture and convert intent in the mid-funnel and push that through to conversion.” Travel brands in particular are already taking that approach, with one advertiser notching 75 per cent uplift in sales form response rates using vertical video and News Corp Australia’s data. Crucially, conversion – i.e. shopping – happens on platform, AKA headless commerce. “It essentially means the brand or the retailer can set up a store within our content,” says Blackburn. He thinks brands and buyers are beginning to wake up to what’s been presented to them on a plate. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E301 · Mon, October 23, 2023
Mi3 goes all-in on AI-powered Fast News and CustomerX launches; Capgemini, Coles 360, Salesforce, ThinkNewsBrands back initiatives - and unpack the market challenges coming...fast
This week’s podcast is a bit different. We’re unpacking two big new plays from Mi3: our first sector specific newsletter edition, CustomerX; and a daily generative AI-powered Fast News edition, where the machines, overseen by Mi3 editors, will crunch and distil the daily PR firehose of people moves, key announcements, account changes and campaign launches across marketing, tech, media, agencies and consulting. Coles 360 and Capgemini are launch partners on CustomerX; Salesforce and ThinkNewsBrands are backing Fast News. On CustomerX, Mi3’s Andrew Birmingham outlines the massive CX challenges facing brands. “They believe they can discern the intent of one buyer out of a billion in a millisecond … and they are striving not just to identify customers, but also to really better understand them. But the reality is many are going backwards,” says Birmingham, despite blowing vast sums on martech. CustomerX will dive deep into the weeds of CX, CRM and personalisation to gauge where customer transformation is headed next – and spotlight those successfully navigating rapidly shifting turf. Blackmores, Country Road, Village Roadshow and Compass Group make up issue one. Meanwhile, generative AI is upending industries. But it also promises massive efficiency. Which is why Mi3 is meeting the inevitable head-on with Fast News: It means editors can remain focused on hard, shoe leather stories while the machines crunch transactional news faster. ThinkNewsBrands GM Vanessa Lyons unpacks why she’s backing the model, while Salesforce’s Leandro Perez outlines the watchouts – and massive gains – generative AI now presents for marketers as the cloud giant goes all-in - the challenges and opportunities spawned by generative AI for Mi3 and B2B publishing more broadly are precisely the same as those facing the core industry sectors Mi3 covers for marketers and marketing’s supply chain. For CustomerX, which launched yesterday, Coles 360 GM Paul Brooks hints at where the retail media player is headed next year – off network and closing the attribution loop; Capgemini marketing chief Tracy Gawthorne on why McDonald’s and Ikea are killing it in CX and loyalty. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E300 · Thu, October 19, 2023
BMW marketing boss flips strategy ahead of ‘overnight’ electric vehicle surge; Atomic 212 plans ‘single-minded big brand job’ to outpace ‘bi-polar’ auto rivals, reel-in Tesla
The Australian market has lagged on electric vehicles. But that’s changing fast says BMW’s top marketer Alex McLean, with EV sales this year making up 10 per cent of the total market after notching 300 per cent YoY growth. Next year BMW will have 14 EV variants in Australia – and the market shake-up means the Ultimate Driving Machine must flip its marketing strategy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E299 · Mon, October 16, 2023
‘Do we have to do this?’ Lego’s Troy Taylor and Initiative’s Chris Colter on letting go of ‘safe’ brand management to jump into Nitro Circus – double digit growth and MFA Grand Prix follows
Lego prides itself on being safe. Nothing wrong with safe, says ANZ Vice President and GM Troy Taylor, a safe-handed 21-year company veteran who’s presided over 16 consecutive years of growth. So he baulked when Initiative came up with a plan to partner with Nitro Circus to put the boosters on its new Lego City Stuntz range. He started to sweat. “My first thought was Mother energy drinks. Women in bikinis. Concerned mums in the stands waiting for kids to fall off motorbikes …. This sounds a bit risqué for a Danish brand … Do we have to do this?” per Taylor. “I was the resistor.” But sometimes, he says, “You just have to let go.” So he did – and Lego’s partnership with Nitro Circus delivered in spades, going global in the process. The upshot? Double-digit sales boost, massive jumps in desire and awareness – and a connection with an audience it hadn’t previously been reaching. Plus, it won the MFA’s 2023 Grand Prix. Lego’s Taylor and Initiative strategy & product chief Chris Colter unpack the process, the “cool currency” challenges in marketing to kids via their parents, why Lego Masters shows no signs of slowing, and the importance of sidestepping ‘care washing’ – even when you care more than most. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E298 · Thu, October 12, 2023
Scentre Group, Westfield partners with businesses for growth as brands and retailers tap shopping’s experience boom – plus three spending megatrends with major Christmas implications.
Scentre Group’s Westfield destinations across Australia and New Zealand are seeing an increase of online pure-play retailers moving into retail and pop-up spaces as customer visitation grows. In the first half of this year, customer visitations increased to 314 million, that’s 9.8 per cent more than the same period in 2022.* Just don’t call them shopping centres. They are destinations, where people go to be entertained and Moore sees his competition not only rival retail destinations, but Netflix, theme parks or anywhere people choose to spend their time. Rebel Sport is tapping that rich vein: with a uniquely designed retail presence with direct access to the basketball court housed within Melbourne’s Westfield Knox, and Rebel’s sales are powering. Moore says brands – including e-com pure-players – are heading into Westfield destinations, with 450 new businesses incoming this year alone*. Plus, the 3.5m strong Westfield membership programme and overhauled analytics are delivering sharper intel. Don’t think spots, dots and audiences says Moore, think “need-states mindsets and customers”. And don’t think bricks versus clicks: “it’s just commerce”. Brands need to do both better – especially now: Latest research from insights firm Nature shows swathes of shoppers cutting back in at least one key category over the last 12 months. If they find cheaper brands that are just as good, that risks a cross-category snowball effect. Which means brands must work harder to keep them – but not with discounts, according to Nature’s Lizi Pritchard. As Christmas looms large, Pritchard unpacks three consumer spending megatrends that brands and retailers need to get across, fast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E297 · Mon, October 09, 2023
Letting the marketing effectiveness rulebook do the talking: Tourism Australia CMO Susan Coghill and Mark Ritson on why Say G’Day’s success has silenced doubters – and will keep rolling for years
The naysayers scoffed when Tourism Australia made a CGI Kangaroo and 1984’s Say G’Day tagline the main roll of a $125m tax-funded bet to bring the world back to Australia after three years of fire and plague. One year on, those “doofuses” are eating their words, per Mark Ritson, as the kangaroo eliminates misattribution, boosts consideration, delivers travellers in droves, primes high spending tourists to plan trips for next year and beyond, and remains at the very top end of System1’s effectiveness league table. Funnily enough, say Ritson and Tourism Australia CMO, Susan Coghill, following the marketing effectiveness playbook actually works – and the armchair critics were never the intended target. While Tourism Australia is now heading into a statutory review of its creative agency roster, don’t expect much to change platform-wise – which means more budget to keep hammering the message home, building brand and delivering demand. Ritson reckons it could run for 20 years without wearing out. Coghill’s planning for at least four. Here’s how Coghill did her homework, sold it in to stakeholders, went to market and how it’s tracking – and why, per Ritson, 20-30 per cent of marketers will never make the top grade because they cannot get comfortable with imperfect marketing datasets. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E296 · Tue, October 03, 2023
‘Binet & Field, Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp applied’: Cummins & Partners chief backs Mutinex deal to beat Audi’s famed econometrics prowess, charge brands less, earn more with new model; prove creative’s business impact
Cummins&Partners CEO Michael McConville returned home to Australia last year after five years at the helm of adam&eveDDB, home of effectiveness guru Les Binet – and where he was steeped in econometric modelling with the likes of John Lewis and Volkswagen. One marketer within the Volkswagen Audi Group, Benjamin Braun, nailed econometrics to the point that he could “forecast within 32 units [i.e. cars] what their campaign spend was going to get them in terms of sales”, per McConville. He’s aiming to go one better, probably with clients like Jeep and McCain although he won’t say just yet, after inking an exclusive creative agency deal with Mutinex for econometric modelling in real time. “We'll be looking to beat Audi,” says McConville. “This is a step ahead of what I’d been using in the past by a long way … This is the beginning of an industry repositioning. This is a form of applied marketing science … and agencies won't have excuses anymore to not put this sort of thing forward to clients.” Plus, he’s using it to change Cummins&Partners fee structures: less upfront, more of the client business upside later. “Creativity won't be talked about as a big bet anymore,” reckons McConville. “It's a sure thing.” And that, he says, will make marketing a growth centre once again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E295 · Mon, September 25, 2023
‘ESG is facing its GDPR moment’: From 1 Jan European regulations will ‘change the game’ on global sustainability reporting – lawsuits, jail time have C-suite ‘freaking out’, marketing reined-in
Spreadsheets are not going to save the planet. The threat of jail time might. “The world is facing enormous challenges, the clock is ticking, we are in an emergency,” says Ari Alexander, VP and GM, Salesforce Net Zero Cloud. Yet most businesses are all over the place when it comes to their environmental data. That makes it calculating where they are at nigh impossible, “let alone where they are going.” But regulators in the US and Europe are mobilising to make environmental reporting data as robust as financial data – and new standards will have profound implications for businesses globally. They can no longer hide, says Alexander, and the regulation is moving away from product-based carbon footprinting to enterprise-wide. As a result, marketers are already pulling back from green claims, with CPG giant Unilever being sued in Europe, per Alexander. He thinks it’s just the tip of the iceberg. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E294 · Thu, September 21, 2023
Work from home changed out of home audiences… for good: How Stan, luxury and lifestyle advertisers are cleaning up in Sydney as a result – QMS has the data to prove it
QMS landed the City of Sydney deal – one of the biggest contracts in Australian advertising history – in June 2020. Then Covid changed commuter patterns seemingly forever. Work from home initially left outdoor media companies sweating, not least QMS’s private equity owners Quadrant, given the scale of outlay required to build an entirely new City of Sydney network. But total audiences are now back to 2019 levels, out of home is powering and major advertisers reckon the shake-up is working in their favour. Stan CMO, Diana Ilinkovski, says the firm is getting a broader leisure-commuter mix within the 2.6m weekly sets of city eyeballs, enabling it to drive subscriber growth despite consumer belt tightening. Plus, the network’s digital flexibility means it can be far more agile in its messaging, targeting and creative optimisation. Bigger, brighter screens, per Ilinkovski, also boost cut-through – and QMS now has the in-day data to prove when, where and who those ads are hitting. Alongside lifestyle and entertainment, QMS Executive General Manager Mark Fairhurst says luxury advertisers are piling in, with the firm opening up a new batch of kiosk assets to further tap that literal rich vein. Plus its 3D screens are expanding – and Fairhurst reckons neither Sydney-siders nor advertisers will be able to miss what QMS calls ‘3DOOH’. Flight Centre is already on board, Maybelline is literally pushing product out of the screen and into the street and Ilinkovski hints Stan Sport may soon be kicking some 3D goals . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E293 · Mon, September 18, 2023
’15 versions of creative for multiple platforms is not marketing…it's just operations’: How Salesforce APAC CMO Leandro Perez’s 100-plus team is selling AI to the world - and applying it to reinvent their marketing roles and remits
After a wild week at Salesforce’s global jamboree in San Francisco, the tech giant’s full flip to generative AI was relentlessly hammered home. Like most, the heat is on APAC marketing boss Leandro Perez and his 100-plus regional marketing team to walk the talk, applying Salesforce’s new AI-powered capabilities to his own operation. Perez claims it’s working – from freeing up masses of time to iterate social posts on different platforms, to summarising Slack meetings, driving thousands of personalised iterations and interactions on its website, notching up to 80 per cent engagement rates on email campaigns – and potentially turning customer service teams into sales teams - at least partially. But Perez insists all those productivity gains won’t see teams hollowed out. “We never have enough people to do what we need to do anyway, especially if you have big visions from brand to demand.” Creating 15 versions of a social post and scheduling it “isn’t marketing” anyway, he says, “it’s just operations work. So I personally am not getting any pressure to reduce as a team.” Perez says the major B2B firms he’s speaking with all proffer similar lines. If anything, says Perez, generative AI gains mean he can ask for greater resource – because he can prove to leadership that marketing is powering through greater workloads, in turn driving sales growth. And APAC is Salesforce’s fastest growing market globally. Here’s a few insider learnings from a company selling AI to the world. And where B2B marketing is headed next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E292 · Thu, September 14, 2023
‘Decade of growth ahead for native content’ as brands move beyond ineffective repurposed ads and spreadsheets to reach 18m Australians; Luke Spano and Tim Duggan on standardising, scaling and media diversity mandates
The world “hates ads”, reckons Avid Collective boss Luke Spano. But high dwell times and engagement rates suggest they like native content. Marketers know this, but native content has been fragmented and highly manual, akin to insertion orders pre-programmatic. With little standardisation and patchy reporting metrics it couldn’t scale. While the likes of Taboola and Outbrain have hooked major publishers, they have “dirtied” native content’s reputation, per Spano. He suggests they are largely just repurposed ads. Avid Collective is bidding to fix all that. Locally, the firm has landed deals with the likes of Destination Gold Coast and ANZ-owned Cashrewards working with publishers from The Guardian and The Daily Mail through to Urban List and The Betoota Advocate as part of a 140-strong publisher network and platform that Spano claims reaches 18 million Australians, from students to boomers. It’s moving the needle for brands, says Spano, because those publishers along with Avid’s strategists create bespoke content they know will land with their audiences, not filler. Digital Publishers Alliance chair Tim Duggan spent years explaining native to marketers after founding Junkee. Avid’s platform would have cut dead time. But some of the 55 publishers in his alliance are piling in – eyeing major upside from native content over the next decade as marketers seek cost-efficient growth and greater media diversity as part of ESG mandates. Agencies are buying-in, per Spano, driving 70 per cent of spend on the platform. He’s aiming for 80-90 per cent by next year. After that Avid Collective aims to go global. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E291 · Mon, September 11, 2023
Even a shrink couldn’t fix media agencies’ narrow mindset: Why Dave Gaines ditched GroupM to build Media by Mother, takes no mark-ups on media buying – “just data entry” – KPIs staff on learning, planning Apac launch
After two decades at GroupM, Dave Gaines quit to launch Media by Mother, an offshoot of creative London hotshop Mother that he reckons may ultimately be subsumed by its progeny. A major frustration with the WPP-owned business, per Gaines, was the inability for swathes of its people to think laterally, critically and stay curious. He hired a shrink to try and fix the problem, and then tried to take a creative-agency led approach to media within WPP. Ultimately, neither worked. Now Media by Mother staff – many liberal arts grads – are KPI’d to read, listen and learn outside of their current remits to better understand the bigger picture. If they do, they get up to 15 per cent more salary. If they don’t, “there are plenty of other places they can work.” The agency doesn’t make any money from trading media, “the money flows through their pipes, not ours”, and Gaines says media buying is a misnomer: “it’s just data entry”. Meanwhile, he reckons those arguing over Recma billings rankings are bald men fighting over a comb: “If you think scale is important, you don't know how an auction works.” After hitting its five-year growth targets in two years, Media by Mother is now planning an Apac office, and a Naked 2.0 model – except with execution, which Gaines reckons was Naked’s downfall. Its precise Apac location will be determined by finding curious, T-shaped contextual operators. He reckons Australians are better at that than US peers… but it’s a low bar. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E290 · Thu, September 07, 2023
Taking retailer media up the funnel, how $305m for Olympics rights may prove cheap, why media buyers are wrong about Stan ads, and TV’s 10 per cent audience boost
Media buyers this week applauded Nine’s retailer media launch – but wanted more detail. They always do. Sales chief Michael Stephenson and CMO Liana Dubois unpack it here, alongside Nine’s bid to take the fight to Meta, Google and TikTok with a self-serve AI-powered ad platform aimed squarely at Australia’s 2.5 million small businesses currently spending $1.5bn a year on “less efficient” social video. For big advertisers, Nine is bringing all its data, reach and assets to bear as it fires the starter pistol on a decade-long Olympics run, with new ‘9Tribes’ or segments being created from 20 million signed in users and new ways to match. Dubois is backing the games to drive major audience growth – and help convert light and lapsed viewers to heavy long-term users. Either way, she says Australia’s population will be at 30m by 2032, which means TV, and every other media channel, has 3.5m more eyeballs to aim for – and user experience will determine winners. Media buyers at Nine’s Upfront also warned the network is making a “big mistake” by not following the likes of Netflix and Foxtel into SVOD advertising. Stephenson insists they are wrong. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E289 · Mon, September 04, 2023
Tabcorp customer chief Jenni Barnett stems digital haemorrhage to snappier rivals; bins bad media deals, restructures teams, now gunning for 10x conversion via ‘personalisation to context’
Since leaving Telstra to take on a wide-ranging c-suite role at Tabcorp – spanning product, data and data science, customer experience and personalisation, brand, marketing and sponsorship with revenue responsibility – Chief Customer Officer Jenni Barnett has hit the turf running. The betting firm was haemorrhaging customers to digitally-savvier, free-spending rivals like Sportsbet and Ladbrokes. One year in, she’s stemmed the flow after launching a new app and migrating nearly a million customers within months to make the Spring Racing Carnival, driving ten updates since and KPI-ing the whole firm on digital revenue share. Customer experience is the key battleground per Barnett – and she’s front-running regulation and pulling Tabcorp out of daytime TV. To reel-in rivals she’s undertaken a sweeping overhaul of the marketing, digital, data and product teams and their capabilities – and pushed talent to develop quickly. Game on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E288 · Mon, August 28, 2023
Retail media goes upmarket: David Jones CMO targets auto, travel, lifestyle brands in premium tilt, touts 5.4m high-end shoppers across stores, online and open web as crunch-resistant customers keep spending
David Jones’ new retail media business wants brand budgets – both from the suppliers it already works with as well as wooing marketers across travel, automotive and lifestyle. CMO James Holloman is backing shopper data from 5.4 million premium David Jones customers – and the ability to hyper-target them across DJs stores and digital assets as well as across the open web – in a plan to woo marketers to spend with its new Amplify media unit. Years in the making, Holloman needed to convince powerful merchandising teams to cede control of how they strike deals with suppliers while building a tech stack from scratch and centralising control of its sprawling assets. Now the marketing-run Amplify has its own P&L and great management expectations. Jonathan Hopkins, whose firm Sonder helped value DJ’s assets and develop the media business, says the average department store retailer in Australia could make $34m annually from media. But that’s the average, and DJs is top-end, with 55m annual store visits and 110m hits to its website. It’s loyalty data-powered offsite media revenue could be significant but Holloman’s not putting a figure out there, and shies away from any suggestion it’s a ‘Cartology for premium shoppers’. “It’s early days,” he says. “But we’ve got ambitious targets.” Here’s how Australia’s oldest retailer got into the newest, fastest-growing media game in town – and where it’s headed next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E287 · Mon, August 21, 2023
Lessons from billion dollar Barbenheimer: Brands to rethink IP marketing, merch as Hoyts, Val Morgan bosses say marketers scrambling for ‘next ten Barbies’ - Kia, AAMI, Chemist Warehouse win big
The experts at Hoyts and Val Morgan didn’t see it coming quite as it did. Hoyts CEO Damian Keogh says he was “laughed out of the room” for suggesting Barbie would take $35m at the Australian box office. It will do double that – meaning Margot Robbie’s not the only one in the pink. Kia, AAMi, Chemist Warehouse, Modibodi and Nintendo aside, marketers are kicking themselves for being equally blind to the opportunity. Now Val Morgan’s phone is ringing hot with advertisers “asking what are our next ten Barbies”, per MD Guy Burbidge. He and Keogh have a good idea what they are. They think the lesson for brands is to think earlier and smarter about IP marketing. Meanwhile, Barbenheimer has brought lapsed cinema audiences back to screens – 15 per cent hadn’t been for a year, per Hoyts 2.5 million member loyalty data – auguring well for a year in which the box office is powering back to the billion dollar mark. Plus, says Burbidge, cinema’s investment in attention data is having a “significant” revenue impact as marketers seek mass cultural alternatives to sport. Here’s the next big screen bets they think marketers should be laying over the next 12 months. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E286 · Mon, August 14, 2023
‘Monumental gains’: SCA chief marketer Nikki Clarkson on how broadcaster bet the farm building new customer platform from zip to 1.5m users, collapsed exec silos and forced new marketing skills beyond brand comms
Just about every B2C business is trying to build superglue stickiness into their user platforms. Nimble start-ups, at least prior to the big VC squeeze, were the poster children, leaving big legacy firms foundering in their wake. But SCA’s pivot to uber app Listnr is a standout exception, reinventing its digital audience business and building a new brand from scratch – pretty much all in-house. Launched mid-Covid in a bid to see off local incursion from the likes of Apple, Spotify and iHeart, Listnr has already powered past 1.5m signed-up users. Now SCA is using the logged-in data – alongside a new martech stack and digitally upskilled marketing department – to move the needle across acquisition, retention and engagement, while giving advertisers sharper incentive to spend. CMO Nikki Clarkson said the pivot required the entire business to suspend traditional thinking – from finance, sales, marketing, content, distribution, research and tech – without dropping the ball on its day-to-day game. Then the business had to go through a major systems overhaul while learning the language of tech and customer experience. But she says the pay-off and ROI is already landing, with marketing alone making “monumental gains” by aligning sharper digital tools with brand-building assets. Her takeout for those planning mass audience transformations? Go broad or go home. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E285 · Mon, August 07, 2023
Lion’s ex-CMO, now Chief Growth Officer trailblazes with company-wide IT budgets and strategy, M&A, marketing and innovation agenda; Anubha Sahasrabuddhe sets 500-day target to flip IT culture to customers
Tectonic movement is reshaping blue chip marketing with remits expanding by the day. Coles and IAG replaced the CMO role with Chief Customer officers. ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra was last month promoted to Managing Director of ANZ’s Everyday Banking business. But Lion’s latest move tops the lot for adventure. Anubha Sahasrabuddhe in February became Chief Growth Officer at the $3bn drinks firm. The former Mars global marketing chief has responsibility for marketing, M&A plus enterprise-wide transformational innovation beyond new product development. Just to make things more interesting she’s also been handed responsibility for IT and technology. Which means the CMO is now effectively CTO, CIO and CDO to boot. Lion CEO Sam Fischer, former APAC chief at Diageo, is backing Sahasrabuddhe to deliver. She’s given herself and her team 500 days to move the needle and reengineer the company’s culture, including IT, entirely around the customer. “If we can't demonstrate sufficient progress, then we can't justify our existence,” says Sahasrabuddhe. “The days are ticking.” This podcast is as wide-ranging as the remit. Tuck in. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E284 · Mon, July 31, 2023
'We’re going all in’: SXSW’s biggest tribes are brands, marketing, tech as Sydney gig aims for Southern hemisphere creative, innovation super event; Seven plots biggest overhaul of Upfronts format in decades with full-week SxSW program
Uber launched at South by Southwest, as did Twitter, Pinterest and Foursquare. Billie Eilish was discovered as an unsigned 14-year old. Mumford and Sons first made their name at the creative-tech-culture jamboree in Austin, Texas. In three months time the world will learn whether the powerhouse event can replicate itself outside of the Lone Star State. SXSW Sydney MD, Colin Daniels, is backing Sin City to deliver – with the likes of futurist Amy Webb, Coachella co-founder Paul Tollet and Slack co-founder Cal Henderson joining “titans of every industry” across tech and innovation, music, games and screens. He says every one of its 70 featured speakers would likely be the keynote at any other event. No wonder circa 500 brands are keen to get involved – which is one of the reasons Seven West Media is going large, partnering with SXSW Sydney and planning to spring a very different kind of upfront during the week-long festival. Chief Revenue Officer, Kurt Burnette, said getting the investment over the line was a “difficult conversation”, but he’s backing the play to position the network at the heart of the creative-tech nexus and change perceptions. CMO Mel Hopkins will have a big hand in shaping what that looks like. No pressure then. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E283 · Mon, July 24, 2023
Cookies again? Google’s global hegemony measuring 100m-plus websites faltering amid corporate governance concerns in privacy, data ownership; Brands, tech, advisors weigh-in on measurement meltdown
Tightening privacy regimes around the world are forcing Google to change the way it tracks and measures web traffic across the majority of the globe’s estimated 100m sites on the open web. That’s forced Google’s Universal Analytics to be swapped out with an entirely new product knowns as GA4. The problem is it’s a mess for most. And it's a likely marker for what’s to come in Australia - companies in Europe, and even the US, are pulling out of Google'snear-ubiquitous [and once free] analytics platform as marketers fumble with new tools, unable to quickly pull key reports, historical comparisons and insights. Many are raging against the big Google data-swiping machine as European regulators enforcing stricter rules on how people’s data is used, stored and transferred and dishing out big fines over GDPR breaches. Some of the big questions hovering over Google’s new analytics products include whether they’re fully privacy compliant, particularly if Google is feeding its vast global advertising business via sample data carved out from website owner data, most of whom are only now discovering they don’t own or often see all their real audience behaviour. In France, about 80 per cent have reviewed their analytics, per Piano’s global analytics chief Marie Fenner, and “about 60 per cent” have switched". That scenario may soon repeat in Australia as data privacy rules are beefed-up. Scentre Group performance marketing lead Jason Elk thinks the shake-up threatens Google’s analytics dominance and by proxy its broader business. Matomo CRO Dion Blair, agrees. “Right now, unlike any time in the past 15 years, we're seeing the choice [businesses are making for analytics] is potentially not the big behemoth.” With Google shutting off Universal Analytics a few weeks ago, here’s what marketers locally and globally are likely to face. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E282 · Mon, July 17, 2023
‘No hallucinations’: NAB, Tabcorp, Accenture Song on 'applied AI’ - less ‘possible', more ‘pragmatic’ use cases first; NAB flags AI creative surge for 500m personalised messages but brands warned on mindless messaging, CX usurping media for brand building
NAB CMO Suzana Ristevski is a touch emphatic after just completing a three-year, $45m grinding overhaul of the bank's marketing technology systems that has seen 95 per cent of the tools used by the marketing team switched out - a Pega decisioning engine and Tealium's customer data platform are among the new line-up. Now NAB is ready for the AI stuff. Ristevski acknowledges “inflicting a lot of pain” on the bank’s marketing team in the tech transformation and there’s more to come but "more exciting" as NAB works to embed machine learning and generative AI to deliver personalisation at scale that isn’t just “sending out rubbish”. She’s already sent out 10x more comms, now circling at 500m. But the bank is acutely aware of the risks posed by AI – and the strategy goes all the way up to the top. Tabcorp is onto its third in-house generative AI program and the creation of a centralised unit, Next Labs, to experiment - the problem with the other two was that they lied, or suffered “hallucinations”, per Chief Data & Analytics Officer Amy Shi-Nash. But Tabcorp can’t risk plugging into things like ChatGPT. The Monkeys and Accenture Song ANZ boss Mark Green, meanwhile, is back from Cannes where the AI banter was redlining on a "moral crisis" crisis for creativity, not dissimilar to the previous metaverse hype cycle. Green’s not worried. He reckons he’s slipped Accenture Song Global Creative Chair Nick Law an idea “that’s as good as any we’ve ever created” with generative AI at its core - and he says the client briefs are coming in from all angles. New York-based Law thinks there are new AI risks which will undermine the fascination and effectiveness of personalisation - namely, tonnes of mediocre messaging that will be created under the guise of 'right person, right time', unleashing a sea of sameness. NAB's Ristevski agrees. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E281 · Mon, July 03, 2023
Penfolds-Treasury Wines lauds creative, media together for its in-house agency Splash, now going global: one year old, 20 people, 400 projects, same marketing budget but doing more, better, faster – mostly
When Elsa Beaumont was tapped last year by Treasury Wines Estate – home of the mighty Penfolds – the former exec at global hot shops like Mother and Big Spaceship, and her colleague Ben Oliver, who’s running Treasury’s internal media unit at Splash, were worried. Could they beat all the warnings that come from agencies when brands try to go in-house with capabilities all previously outsourced: talent is hard to attract and keep stimulated, burnout is a high risk and any cost benefits would be shortlived. Burnout risk turned out to be true but the talent, quality and volume of work is rocking, they say – and now Splash is preparing for a global rollout across Treasury Wines’ international markets. The upside is faster turnarounds, tighter links with marketing teams and better output than what was possible by just using agencies. And in the case of media, Oliver is chasing down transparent digital media buys and practices that he never quite got in life before Splash. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E280 · Thu, June 29, 2023
ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra: ‘There’s only so far you can go with paid media’ – why ANZ is investing heavily in its owned media assets; 85 million impacts a month across ANZ channels triggered a ‘mindset shift’ for marketing team
After ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra commissioned owned media specialists Sonder to conduct a valuation and audit of the media assets the bank owned and managed, her big discovery was that circa 85 million impacts a month, mostly from ANZ customers, were under leveraged by the business. Now ANZ’s marketing team think first about their owned channels before developing paid media briefs. New content hubs coupled with ANZ’s two year investment overhauling its tech and personalisation capabilities, for example, has seen “up to a tripling of conversion rates”, says Mehra. Sonder Co-Founder Jonathan Hopkins says ANZ also has a big upside in acquiring new customers from its owned media assets, not just better cross-selling of products to existing customers."ANZ have screens outward facing in most branches around the country - in some cases they can also do customer acquisition." See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E279 · Mon, June 26, 2023
Return of the Chief Customer Officer – the CMO’s new boss: Coles, IAG latest blue chips on board with broader remits and revenues; Inghams, MyCar, Hipages log their progress
Coles and IAG have joined the march to install Chief Customer Officers into roles that were either previously at least partly the domain of CMOs or now have marketing as a reporting line. But what does a CCO do? Is it job title semantics or is the mission sweep broader? And where does this new executive species come from? Three Chief Customer Officers from Inghams Group, Hipages and MyCar, the overhauled Kmart Tyre & Auto, breakdown their agenda and why their firms opted for the role – and in Inghams case, why everything starts with “balancing the bird”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E278 · Mon, June 19, 2023
Standout brand, agency media work unveiled in MFA Awards: Lego, NRMA, Defence Force, Mars, Suncorp, Dell, Netflix, Campari lead shortlist; Initiative, EssenceMediacom, OMD top agency haul
The Media Federation of Australia unveiled a hot shortlist of the brands and agencies delivering the best work and business impact in media for 2023, with Lego, NRMA, Campari’s Aperol, Netflix and Suncorp among those leading the finalists tally. About 30 advertisers and 20 agencies made the cut of finalists with three marketers among the judging line-up for the 2023 MFA Awards joining Mi3 to unpack why some entries got their likes - and laments. Arnott’s CMO, Jenni Dill, Unilever’s Director of Digital Marketing, Media and Commerce, Sarah Sorrenson and Deakin Business School’s Adjunct Professor and former CMO at Coles and Tourism Australia, Lisa Ronson, reveal their collective observations and scorecards (well some of them) on the standard of work in the past year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E277 · Thu, June 15, 2023
Digital burnout, ad blindness and sick of brands talking purpose: The 5 million Australians marketers risk alienating – and how to make them share your Out-of-Home campaigns
Gen Z makes up 20 per cent of Australia’s population. There are more than five million of them – and they want very different things from brands. Purpose won’t cut it. They want action, locally and globally – and they are sick of nobody listening to them, per Chris Sanderson and Martin Raymond, founders of The Future Laboratory. They are also – aged between 11 and 26 – already wary of digital burnout. They’ve been bombarded with digital content their whole lives. Which means many are blind to the ads they’ve not already blocked. But not Out-of-Home: Out-of-Home is “so important for them [and to reach them] because Gen Z don’t see it as an intrusion,” per Sanderson. “They see it as a logical, seamless connection with their world of brand.” They are also making their purchase decisions in very different ways to previous generations – the pyramid and related funnel are now “circular”, reckons Raymond, with profound impacts for brands. Plus they say its time to stop “sneering” at the notion of crowd-sourcing aspects of ad campaigns – or at least getting far broader inputs, particularly when marketing on billboards, because Gen Z is all about community, collaboration, and commitment: “It guarantees the sharing of the campaign,” says Raymond. Off the back of a deep dive commissioned by JCDecaux, the two unpack what brands need to know about marketing to Gen Z. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E276 · Tue, June 13, 2023
Strange days: Two speed consumer economy messing with markets, marketers - value lines surge as does ‘premiumisation’ – Commbank iQ, Roy Morgan, AH Beard CEO Tony Pearson unpack what next and safest marketer bets
Mattresses selling for circa $3,000 are not typically a signal for how consumer spending is bending historical patterns but Tony Pearson, CEO at mattress maker AH Beard, is seeing two distinct consumer groups going in opposite directions. Sales of his premium lines in the $2-3,000 tier are holding strong just as his cheaper lines - from $600 - fell off a cliff in April. Meanwhile, mattress sales to hotels are soaring as even the cash-strapped masses keep spending on holidays and experiences – first hand evidence of the consumer spending divide mapped by Commbank-Quantium analysis of 7 million bank accounts playing out. But Pearson saw it all coming, because that’s exactly what Roy Morgan’s segmental database of NEOs, or ‘new economic order’ consumers, said would happen. Ross Honeywill helped pioneer the typology – the quarter of the population that earns more, and critically spends more. He says the NEOs are currently keeping Australia out of recession and with latest rate rises yet to hit home, Honeywill says brands must have a premiumisation strategy that targets NEOs, or risk pain. CommbankIQ innovation and analytics chief Wade Tubman agrees: Marketers without “stratified” or multi-layered brand strategies “might be starting to feel the walls are closing in.” Following clothing and household goods, Tubman says insurance extras and telco are next as pinched consumers wring out every last dollar to spend on experiences, which he suggests are becoming “the new essentials”. The good thing for marketers is that comms to NEOs deliver double duty, per Honeywill, tapping the aspirational but squeezed masses as well as those with money still to burn. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E275 · Mon, June 05, 2023
‘No personal data’: Chasing audience scale, ad exchanges, big tech targeting is publisher folly as media trust plummets, says Scire’s Chris Janz, Guardian’s Dan Stinton; No-tracking, contextual ads next growth wave
If Nine’s former publishing boss Chris Janz and The Guardian’s Managing Director Dan Stinton are right, there’s a storm brewing for the media establishment as frustration rises among the business, tech and innovation elite – and even the broader public – over what and how mastheads and journalists produce content. Chris Janz did the “deal of a career” when brokering the 2017 ‘unholy’ alliance with Google to sell Fairfax’s premium ads and audiences programmatically, reportedly for guaranteed annual revenues north of $40m. Now Janz has flipped entirely with VC-backed media challenger Scire: He says Scire won’t collect any personal data at all and thinks those relying on Facebook and Google for traffic, while trying to compete on data and tracking – areas in which News Corp, Nine and others have invested heavily – “are playing someone else’s game” and have already lost. The future of mastheads, he says, is all about trust and serving smaller, smarter segments with content they will, in some way, pay for. Either way, privacy regime changes will soon disrupt tracking-based ad-funded business models – and Scire isn’t going to do traditional advertising at all, per Janz. Outgoing Guardian Australia MD, Dan Stinton agrees on trust, contextual targeting and the push away from open exchange “direct response” advertising. The Guardian has slashed its reliance on open ad exchanges from half to a tenth of its ad business in five years under Stinton – reader contributions now make up more than half of revenues but ads are still growing at a fast clip. Stinton and Janz unleash on the new challenges facing the media establishment and the full force of AI scrape and lifts that are about to hit. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E274 · Thu, June 01, 2023
The future of total TV: Voz, the cross-network ‘BVOD Project’, Unilever’s 20 per cent reach gains and converged trading implications for marketers, agencies and TV networks
With Voz in market and the TV networks seemingly moving forward with a BVOD marketplace, agencies and broadcasters have renewed impetus to converge TV trading and buying and flick legacy systems. But ditching decades of behaviour is never easy. Perhaps the best example is what has been dubbed the Unilever trial, where the FMCG giant, agency PHD and Seven West Media used early Voz data to boost reach by 20 per cent while cutting audience duplication to four per cent by combining linear and BVOD. Alex Tansley, Head of Converged Audience Trading at Seven and PHD investment chief Joanna Barnes were key architects of that trial. They unpack what converged TV trading will look like in the next 12 months – and what that means for marketers, media agencies, TV networks and perhaps ultimately the pure-play streaming platforms now entering the advertising game. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E273 · Mon, May 29, 2023
From streaming boom to busted economics: Sony Pictures’ Stephen Basil-Jones and Hoyts’ Damian Keogh on the Hollywood studio streaming shakeout that has them all running back to cinema
During Covid, the big Hollywood studios played hardball with cinemas – rushing to take-on Netflix and Prime, feeding their own direct streaming plays, shortening releases windows, or cutting them out altogether. Sony was the streaming holdout. ‘We’re either going to look like the smartest person in the room, or the dumbest,” Sony Pictures local boss Stephen Basil-Jones told Hoyts CEO Damian Keogh. But facing spiralling losses on their streaming businesses, stars and directors in revolt and booming box offices, Basil-Jones says the studios have universally changed their tune. “They’re saying ‘We’re back, baby! We need you!’ Sony Pictures has avoided the dunce cap and Basil-Jones forecasts a “shake-out” and consolidation ahead for the streamers. Keogh thinks the studios will go back to making episodic series for their platforms – while channelling investment into A-grade films for cinema and increasing flexibility on release windows to maximise returns. It's a tale of content economics and consumer behaviour that runs almost diametrically to the ecom boom – and Keogh and Basil-Jones see another leg to come. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E272 · Thu, May 25, 2023
IAG’s Zara Curtis on why NRMA flicked footy and rugby sponsorship, put the money into cricket and cinema – and drove massive brand gains
NRMA’s data crunching suggested the brand would get more bang for buck by putting some of its sports marketing budget into entertainment. So it pulled out of The Broncos, unwound its Collingwood sponsorship and, flipping from a local club to national strategy, “made the biggest bet we’ve ever made on Cricket Australia,” per IAG Acting CMO, Zara Curtis. She recycled the remainder into cinema, last year “owning the top ten films” via Val Morgan category exclusivity, and using cinema first on the plan to launch longer-form versions of its ads, before pushing out shorter cuts to TV. Wise move, says Matt Sandwell at research firm The Owl Insights, because in a fragmented media landscape, “water cooler moments” are rare beasts. Per the firm’s research, sport is still the number one cultural connector and memory encoder. But it’s expensive and crowded. Cinema is number two – and can deliver better bang for buck. Esports, he says, are another cost-effective bet, along with live theatre, but don’t deliver at scale. Curtis says NRMA’s tracking proved the theory: “We saw 50 per cent more efficiency in driving a brand uplift across recognition and brand cut through recognition tracking at 55 per cent, branding at 84 per cent, and cut through at 46 per cent.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E271 · Mon, May 22, 2023
Double duty dilemma: Can a search or social ad build brand and drive sales now? Media execs, reformed growth hackers and ad effectiveness maestros duke it out – as ESOV critics have their say
Debate on whether brand campaigns can drive short term sales performance and vice versa – aka ‘double duty’ – is running as hot as the budget knives pressed to the CFO’s whetstone. News Corp’s Pippa Leary says market-wide short-termism is fuelling demand for performance ads to drive immediate results but double duty works – results for Moet has LVMH marketers popping their corks. Brand strategist James Hurman says brand campaigns can drive short-term sales, but that trying to make one ad to do both is “way harder” than just making two ads, so why try? Either way, using the same metrics for brand building and short-term sales “is like judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree,” per Hurman, “it’s always going to be a shit fish”. Rob Brittain says marketers only have themselves to blame: Few can articulate the difference between the two – nor why long and short need to work together – to CFOs under pressure for short-term sales. Meanwhile, he says marketers are getting the basics of ESOV wrong, ending up closer to double jeopardy than “difficult” to achieve double duty by wasting money on low attention channels. But partially reformed growth hacker turned growth advisor to companies up to $100m in revenues, John James, thinks ESOV is a flawed concept based on touting the benefits of being “the loudest person in the room” by those who “want to sell more advertising media to clients”. He also throws a jab or two at Ehrenberg-Bass ‘how brands grow’ thinking. Brittain can’t let either go unanswered. This one gets politely punchy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E270 · Thu, May 18, 2023
How AI is hitting paid search, content strategies; where prices are headed; why Google is changing its LTV tune; and why interpreting media mix modelling requires human intelligence
Search and SEO is facing major disruption – with implications for brands across both performance media and mid-to-upper funnel content marketing. Google is countering the threat from Bing and ChatGPT with Magi, set to soft launch later this month. Billed as a “hyper-personalisation engine”, it will change how search works and the way content on websites needs to be written and structured, per Stephen Downward, Head of SEO at Atomic 212°. That’s on top of Google algorithm changes that call time on the days of 500 word blogs and average content. The key to ranking and traffic is now all about EAT: Expertise, Authority, and Trust – plus Google has added another E: Experience, which is why News Corp, alongside Atomic, created a vast trove of articles via masthead financial journalists to feed its new comparison site and take on Finder, says Downward. Within paid search, prices will continue to climb, per Atomic Head of Performance Media Sascha Bonomally, which is why Google’s new rhetoric is around amortising the cost of its upfront click to lifetime value. Either way, Bonomally thinks advertisers now optimising clicks to products with best margin are making a mistake. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E269 · Mon, May 15, 2023
Arnott’s sees double digit growth after private equity ownership and marketing overhaul; CMO Jenni Dill on bucking downturn, linking brand to P&L and landing a ‘Fellowship' spot with elite Marketing Academy-McKinsey CMO program
Three years ago Jenni Dill put a multiyear strategy plan to Arnott’s to management and board. The former McDonald’s CMO had been in the CMO gig at Arnott’s for 13 days. But Dill had just completed The Marketing Academy’s Fellowship course, which she says provided the clarity and confidence to speak business, not marketing – and to deliver a growth agenda at pace. It’s paying off. Despite the biggest spending squeeze in a generation, Arnott’s brands are powering. Tim Tams, Shapes and Vita-Weats sales are up double digits as Australians cut out restaurants but keep buying branded snacks and staples, resisting the siren call of supermarket’s own brands. Dill puts it down to brand re-investment after a decade of underspend, enabling her to link marketing spend directly to the P&L. She was also one of the first Australians to complete The Marketing Academy Fellowship program run by McKinsey that is launching in APAC this year for 20 elite CMOs - 10 Australian marketers could land in that group who want to be the next CFO, CEO or board member. Dill, along with Lisa Gilbert, CMO of the $20bn IBM managed services spinout Kyndryl, unpack what’s required and what the best of the best – today’s ‘super CMOs’ – will get in return. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E268 · Mon, May 08, 2023
Why Mel Hopkins left Optus for Seven CMO gig: Not putting 'lipstick on a pig’; Big transformation plan looms – sharpening marketing, hitching it to the P&L – and her take on the Optus cyber attack
Mel Hopkins says she hasn’t gone to Seven “to put lipstick on a pig”. The former Optus CMO says CEO James Warburton wants “total transformation” – and not just across ratings – so she’s hatched a four-point plan. Hopkins has also committed to linking Seven’s marketing activity and investment directly to earnings and the P&L “in real time”. Anything less, she says, “and I am failing to do my job”. That means growing both the brand and its equity as well the number of eyeballs tuning in as a destination – fast. Hopkins thinks Seven, particularly Seven Plus, can outpoint the streamers and reckons their ad-funded tiers may fizzle out as Covid-driven growth wanes. But just as Hopkins is finding media an entirely different world to telco – it’s way more complex than she realised – she says Seven’s media-focused marketing team must also “sharpen up” when it comes to “strategic marketing and advanced digital marketing”. Plus, Hopkins opens up on the Optus data hack, not sleeping for five weeks, but why living through the experience, in all probability, will pay off. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E267 · Mon, May 01, 2023
Brand equity blow-up: Ritson-backed Tracksuit eyes $8bn brand tracking market, Ipsos, Kantar, Nielsen disruption by linking brand equity directly to P&L; inks Mutinex deal
Here’s how two firms in different parts of the supply chain are upending legacy marketing practices. Tracksuit, a two year-old New Zealand-based brand tracking platform has slashed the cost, turnaround time, cred, and the role of brand – historically considered fluffy by the business community. The rapidly growing start-up has caught the eye of VC Blackbird, with Mark Ritson and Ascential, the firm behind Warc and Cannes Lions, also investors. Now it’s bidding to carve out a major slice of a market dominated by big global research firms like Ipsos, Kantar and Nielsen – and has just inked a partnership with fellow SaaS disruptor Mutinex. The two aim to align the in-market perceptions of a brand directly to the P&L while doubling the $4bn addressable brand tracking market. Crucially, the hardcore VC types are piling in not just as investors, but for their early stage startup investments to actually harness the tech to grow faster and more sustainably as growth hacking bites the dust and startups flip to brand investment that, amid far more sober money markets, must be quantified in hard financial terms. Tracksuit co-founder Connor Archbold and Mutinex CEO Henry Innis join Paul McIntyre on the mics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E266 · Mon, April 17, 2023
How an ex-P&G US marketer ditched cohorts, personas and restrictive segmentation, blended Ehrenberg-Bass, Binet & Field textbooks word for word, landed biggest marketing budget in $7bn company’s history – and all KPIs are powering
It’s not often Australian and New Zealanders can teach the giant US market a thing or two but hear this one out: If you're one of those hard-nosed types who think all this marketing science and advertising effectiveness stuff is too rubbery – ESOV, mental availability, investing in brand to drive long-term demand over short-term sales – here’s some contrarian proof that might just change your mind. It’s a textbook case from a CMO who took a giant leap and deployed a whole suite of marketing's new and established thinking in one strategic gulp, rolling it out across a $7bn US healthcare brand and sweeping away pretty much everything that had gone before. It worked, massively. All growth KPIs for Douwe Bergsma, CMO of Georgia-based healthcare firm Piedmont, are busting upwards and the CEO handed him the biggest marketing budget in the company’s history to do it. Here’s how Bergsma, a former P&G marketer and current ANA board member, along with NZ-based brand and start-up strategist James Hurman, hatched a plan to do everything by the marketing science and effectiveness handbooks, sold it into the leadership team, brought every single one of its agencies into 20 marketing effectiveness briefings – and literally ended up with a runaway best seller. It’s the story of a Dutchman and a Kiwi taking Australian and UK marketing science to the US, and winning big. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E265 · Mon, April 03, 2023
‘The race is on’: Volvo boss Stephen Connor on why going all electric by 2026 will double sales, protect revenue – but poses tricky challenge for marketing, even with a bigger budget
Volvo Car Australia boss Stephen Connor has hit the accelerator on the carmaker’s plan to ditch combustion engines. He’s going all-in on electric vehicles (EVs) by 2026 – faster than any of its global markets. Volvo has deep sustainability commitments, pledging to become climate neutral across its supply chain by 2040. But Connor’s gone for first mover advantage for profit just as much as purpose, because by 2030 “every manufacturer in Australia will be standing on the mountain beating their chests about EVs”. By then, the market will be awash with technologically advanced electric cars. Hence Connor thinks brand will become the key differentiator – and he’s backing Marketing Director Julie Hutchinson to ensure Volvo builds a greater share of mind. "The race is already on," she says, with EV ad spend tripling last year. But the sprint to all-electric cars means major change ahead for dealers and retail operations (Volvo is about to launch a direct-to-consumer play) while a rapid rollout of new electric models requires new business models – including subscriptions – to scoop a new cohort of younger buyers. Here’s the plan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E264 · Thu, March 30, 2023
Yahoo’s new team, new mission: Yahoo Australia execs unpack the global restructure and the “why and what” of a new, simplified game plan
There’s been just a little happening inside the $8 billion Yahoo business globally - and in Australia. The digital content and advertising business announced last month it would reduce its total workforce by 20 per cent but global CEO Jim Lanzone told Axios recently the layoffs were not about financial challenges. Rather it was an important strategic change. No longer is Yahoo pushing a “unified tech stack” to compete with Google or Meta. “We really had to take a hard look at the business and make the big decision to refocus and prioritise where we really succeed the most,” says John McNerney, Yahoo’s new Managing Director for Australia and Southeast Asia. “It was nothing to do with financial challenges or troubles in the advertising market but really instead about a strategic restructuring and refocus globally for long term success. We were trying to be the masters of everything, building a unified tech platform with DSPs and SSPs to compete against Google and Meta but we realised change was needed.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E263 · Mon, March 27, 2023
'Ethical personalisation’: How a leading CX, martech convert at Norths Collective is (finally) proving ROI on tech stack investment, not just campaigns; engagement rates rocketing over global norms; Lion hungry to tap its member app and loyalty program
Ask any marketer with CX and martech in their remit to prove the return on those investments and it can get a little awkward. But CFOs are increasingly asking the same question. Here’s a full and frank download from a marketer doing exactly that: assessing ROI on its customer experience strategy - on and offline - after going all in on Salesforce, just before the pandemic hit. Rob Lopez, GM of CX, Brand and Innovation at Norths Collective – which operates eight venues and clubs and two fitness centres across Sydney – has embarked on "Project ROI" to quantify its contribution to profit. Lopez already knows the transformation is working: engagement rates are through the roof thanks to what he calls “ethical personalisation” and the firm is able to attribute comms output to member action, digitally at least. Now it is digitising memberships to better understand offline – or in-venue – activity. The kind of insights it is delivering to the likes of Lion has the drinks giant smacking its lips to get inside the new app. Meanwhile, smarter data and analytics capability means Norths is de-risking its next phase of growth – because it knows the dollar value existing members can bring to new venues “before we even open the door”. Lopez has five tips for marketers embarking – or rethinking – their digital transformation strategies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E262 · Thu, March 23, 2023
Three speed economy and ESG pressure: Top business editors on what rate rises and a $20k mortgage hit mean for consumer spending, retail and brand purpose
Australia will escape a recession this year but not a downturn, per Sky News Business editor, Ross Greenwood. But the impact of rate rises means the average mortgage payer is now $20k out of pocket. If fewer people move home, fewer white goods and consumer electronics get bought – creating a negative cycle and something of a two-speed economy as the squeezed middle and lower income households cut back. But the third of Australians with no mortgage cash in the bank are still spending, and luxury is booming as a result. Meanwhile, Western Australia is as ever forging its own path and younger consumers still spending, creating a three-speed national economy. But Buy Now Pay Later buttons “are taking a hammering” in WA, warns The West Australian's Business Editor Sarah Jane Tasker. “That raises some concerns about when the pay later kicks in”. Across the economy, the Federal Treasurer is talking up ‘values-based capitalism’, which will chime with brands putting purpose at their core. AFR economics editor John Kehoe thinks that trend is here to stay – though may be scuppered in the short-term should economic headwinds strengthen and cost hikes outweigh good intent. “But for the now, in the foreseeable future, people want governments and businesses involved in these sort of social and ESG causes.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E261 · Mon, March 20, 2023
Dream flight: How Virgin’s decimated marketing team launched an automated creative campaign with 80,000 'full funnel' ad variants, lifted revenues 30% but...brands will cede more control to Google, Meta under new privacy regime
The killer combination of Covid and voluntary administration decimated Virgin Australia’s marketing team to a handful but under its new private equity owners, Bain Capital, Virgin’s head of paid media, Ben Will, finally got to deploy a massively scaled and personalised programmatic ad campaign that he had been dreaming about for years – but it nearly cracked the Virgin team and its media and dynamic creative partners at PHD and Adylic in the process. It took months after launch to fine tune but they survived, ultimately lifted revenues 30% and won the MFA’s top award for real-time marketing for their efforts. But Will is worried new privacy laws will hand much of the control he currently has to "test and learn" to the walled gardens like Google and Meta, where their unknown tools and AI do all the optimisation without any visibility for advertisers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E260 · Mon, March 13, 2023
Halve digital ad emissions in 12 months by culling adtech, binning outstream ads, swapping viewability for attention metrics and flicking junk ad inventory, says Scope 3’s Brian O’Kelley: Suncorp, NAB and AMI ask the curly questions
There’s an easy way to cut carbon emissions from digital advertising. Stop buying “crap” ads that “no human sees”, ditch “gamed” viewability metrics and instead buy on attention, never buy another outstream video ad, and cull the bloated programmatic supply chain, per Brian O’Kelley. The CEO of Scope 3, a global emissions measurement firm focusing on decarbonising digital media and advertising, knows how much waste lurks within that supply chain – the sprawling Lumascape – because he was in deep and early, founding AppNexus, which ultimately sold to ATT&T for $1.7bn. Even “turning off five to seven per cent of inventory gets you a 29 or 30 per cent reduction in carbon,” says O’Kelley. Publishers feeling the heat to decarbonise – GroupM and Mediabrands are talking about money moving next year – needn’t fear. He reckons they will see more cents in the ad dollar as the bad actors get punted. Marketers will also stop wasting billions of ad dollars while saving millions of tonnes of carbon. But marketers have to lead, because everyone else will follow the money. Suncorp CMO Mim Haysom, NAB Head of Marketing Planning & Performance, Tom Dobson, and Australian Marketing Institute CEO, Bronwyn Powell join Mi3 on the mics to ask the pointy questions on where next – and how fast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E259 · Mon, March 06, 2023
‘Dark bars, A-list investors’: McKinsey, Virgin, Contiki, now me&u – how Australia’s top tech female leader Katrina Barry is chasing $250bn in global consumer spend, crunching bar and pub business models with more tech, less humans and much happier, higher-spending customers
Katrina Barry is Deloitte Tech's Fast 50 female leadership winner for 2022 and CEO of the globally ambitious Australian restaurant and pubs ordering app me&u, backed by a Hollywood style list of Australian names including Merrivale’s Justin Hemmes, Rockpool's Neil Perry, Uber Australia co-founder Mike Abbott and former Google ANZ and current Domain boss Jason Pellegrino. She's about a year into the role – me&u already controls about 70 per cent of large format hospitality venues in Australia and is now going global. Barry argues the little round device on bar and food tables is actually about business transformation, customer experience and, for venues, at least 30 per cent more orders if patrons don't have to wait for a negroni or a kale infused pheasant at the counter - or for a host. Hence, many venues are now creating dark bars as one tactic to improve customer experience and sales. Here’s why a little bit of tech in a pub or restaurant is transforming the economics of the hospitality sector - and customer happiness. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E258 · Thu, March 02, 2023
SCA pushes back on media agencies driving carbon agenda, eyes bigger slice of TV budgets for audio as inflation rises, reach tails off – and FMCG advertisers are getting the message
Southern Cross Austereo Chief Sales Officer Brian Gallagher has some contrarian views on the big push from agency groups to have media owners meet ESG and carbon neutral benchmarks as part of their annual ad deal negotiations. He also argues media buyers might be a little lost in the haze of numbers when audio platforms like Spotify bundle overall podcast audience numbers, which include SCA shows that Spotify can't commercialise. Gallagher says there's widespread misconception that they can. On the flip side, SCA Head of Ad Product, Jonathan Mandel are buoyed by the continuing surge of digital audio listening. At a market level, 9.4 million people are tuning in every week into the digital channel – the same number as broadcaster BVOD audiences. Mandel says there are major reach gains to be had for advertisers that take a slice of TV budgets: “If you're investing into a BVOD campaign, the studies we have developed show that if you put 15 per cent of that budget into digital audio, you can increase your reach and the overall reach curve by an additional 40 per cent.” Gallagher says the message is landing: “We've got FMCG advertisers onboard that have never advertised on radio before. I’m talking seven-figure commitments.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E257 · Mon, February 27, 2023
Stack wars – a new hope: Nine’s first Group CMO Liana Dubois says Nine consolidating martech, restructuring marketing in bid for growth, but budget ‘safe’; relishes competitive clash with former Optus turned Seven CMO Mel Hopkins
After five years of mergers and acquisitions, Nine’s first Group CMO Liana Dubois has hinted at an incoming major brand offensive as the former boss of the media group’s Powered division says the network will walk the talk on creativity. Seven months into the role, Dubois says Nine has de-siloed its marketing operation and the next surgical intervention is a major review of its disparate tech stack. While Nine’s latest results suggest cost efficiency is the name of the game across the business, Dubois says CEO Mike Sneesby is a "big believer in marketing-led growth". Perhaps her budget is safe for now. Either way, she says Nine has plenty of scale to harness across its vast owned assets, though how Australia’s data-privacy overhaul ultimately crimps those plans remains to be seen. Meanwhile, with former Optus CMO Mel Hopkins now Dubois’ opposite number at Seven, a new competitive tension is brewing as the networks battle shifting audience consumption and buyers holding out to see which way the chips fall. Dubois says it will be good for the category. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E256 · Thu, February 23, 2023
‘If you have to cut marketing spend, cut what’s not working’: Youi and PointsBet marketers plug into AI-powered brand equity model to link marketing investment directly to revenue
Two pointy questions everyone is asking: Is the economic crunch going to flip marketing plans and budgets this year? And what impact will budget cuts or a shift to performance marketing have on revenues and the P&L? Hard questions to answer. But Youi CMO Angela Greenwood and PointsBet digital strategy chief Calvin Cain are armed with better data not just to shield budgets from the axe – but to identify which cuts will have least revenue impact. Mutinex CEO Henry Innis says the SaaS platform’s brand equity product – which can quantify “brand equity, preference, salience, consideration metrics and output that to revenue” – goes one step further as rate rises start to bite. Cain says PointsBet is plugging in: “In wagering, marketing is one of the single largest P&L line items”, says Cain, and what can’t be linked to sales is usually first against the wall. Youi’s Greenwood says brand building and predictability of what it will return is “critical” as consumer spending, and price sensitivity, tightens. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E255 · Mon, February 20, 2023
Thinking outside the retailer media box: How Mars Petcare turned Amazon deliveries into a reach play, boosted Whiskas ecom sales 70 per cent, flipped search declines
Here’s an award-winning tale of how Amazon and Whiskas reinvented the ecom giant's cardboard delivery boxes as media – and a play centre for cats – in a bid to woo younger cat owners away from upstart challenger brands nibbling away at market share. They turned every medium and large size Amazon delivery box for two months (“low hundreds of thousands”) into branded cat castles, offices and… rollercoasters. They also wrapped in targeted ads across Amazon’s ad network, plus a branded DTC storefront. It worked, sending sales soaring 70 per cent, with afterburners for the rest of the year while flipping branded search declines into reverse. But there’s more meat in this can: Whiskas will this year launch a major brand overhaul designed to woo the under 45s amid a share war Mars Petcare Portfolio Marketing Director, Camille Shepherd, says has are distinct parallels with craft beer. She’s joined on the mics by EssenceMediacom’s Sophie Price and Michelle O’Brien. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E254 · Mon, February 13, 2023
‘I’ve never made a client cry’: Deloitte Digital Global CEO Sam Roddick’s mission with ex-ad agency boss Nick Garrett to copy Apple’s creativity, design and engineering for digital restructuring programs – and why the ‘majority’ still fail
During a recent high-level pitch to the CEO of a leading but unnamed global consumer packaged goods firm hunting 25 per cent growth in a mature category, “the eyes lit up” at the combined code, creative and culture components being proposed by the “cold, hard analytical” consulting firm Deloitte Digital, as Global CEO Sam Roddick recounts. The pitch involved a top Deloitte Digital team unveiling the blueprint for a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) business unit to deliver on the CEO’s ambitious growth remit. Roddick hopes it’s a benchmark project in-the-making as his firm accelerates to “mimic” Apple-like design and creative capabilities with engineering and systems prowess. The new ‘X’ factor for Deloitte Digital though is the nod to creativity and the business contribution it makes as a “value multiplier” for its industrial-grade customers. Part of Roddick’s global plan to help institutionalise creative thinking in the $16bn firm involves a former BBDO ad agency network CEO in Australia and New Zealand, Nick Garrett. But can the “cold, hard, analytical” firm really pull this one off? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E253 · Mon, February 06, 2023
‘Meteoric rise’: How tradie platform Hipages halved paid search and customer acquisition costs after brand investment; next a review of Nine’s The Block, upswing for content marketing, click rate optimisation, tech stack overhaul and…impress investors
Hipages Chief Customer Officer Stuart Tucker and VP of Marketing Nick Ellery say growing an online marketplace requires an entirely new suite of marketing and media capabilities to create and match demand and supply between households needing a tradesperson and tradies needing work - and it’s loaded with tension. They’ve got to build a B2C and B2B brand simultaneously and mange short-term demand volumes for two completely different customer sets in real time down to postcode level. That means more sophisticated data feeds to inform fast direct response media channel tactics like paid search when plumbers need work in Melbourne’s Hawthorn next week or household demand for sparkies in Sydney’s Hornsby is surging today. They’re quickly mastering brand and performance levers together and now adding to the “mid-funnel” with content. Here’s what Hipages is doing next after a three-year “transformational” investment building its brand that has slashed the reliance on paid search for new customers - although it remains a leading tactical strategy for the business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E252 · Mon, January 30, 2023
From CFO to Chief Customer Officer: How a Wesfarmers exec handbraked finance career to become mycar’s CCO, dumped and relaunched a new brand and end-to-end CX remap – using a reinvented creative agency for CX and media
A former Wesfarmers CFO, of all people, led the cull of the Kmart Tyre & Auto brand after 50 years in market but took on the challenge to rebuild as mycar's Chief Customer Officer, tasking a creative agency, TBWA, with full service CX, media and brand transformation. It worked: sales are up 23 per cent, at least since 2020. Now under Adele Coswello mycar is positioning for another major transition – electric vehicles – while bidding to steal share from free-spending pure-play rivals such as Bob Jane T-Marts and Ultra Tune. It's dropped a retail, up-sell focus and gone all out for 'people first’ and building pop-up stores next to shopping centres, putting vans on the road to deliver mobile services, while putting tech into its garages that give customers a stream of their cars' vital signs – and what's being done to keep them healthy. Meanwhile TBWA chief Paul Bradbury says moving into CX and media and taking on the consulting giants is the shape of things to come. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E251 · Mon, January 23, 2023
Mexican standoff: Out-Of-Home sector hits agency slow lane on take-up for neuro impact versus attention metrics; Avenue C’s Pia Coyle implores buyers and sellers to get over pricing fear paralysis
Attention measurement has captured much of the ad industry’s focus in the past two years just as the out-of-home industry body, OMA, was well into its roadmap to apply a “Neuro Impact Factor” to thousands of individual digital and static screens. Neuro-Insight, the firm behind the measurement system, has among the most robust, academically peer-reviewed advertising science worldwide – initially developed by Professor Richard Silberstein and neuroscientists at Swinburne University’s Brain Sciences Institute to understand brain behaviour among ADD and ADHD children. Despite the science – real advertising science as its proponents argue – media agencies are dragging the chain on take-up, certainly versus emerging and scaled attention metrics. But here’s why the industry needs both and what should happen next according to Avenue C’s Pia Coyle, Neuro-Insight’s Peter Pynta and the OMA’s Grant Guesdon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E250 · Thu, December 15, 2022
Re-engineering out of home: How The Guardian’s brand push drove JCDecaux to open its network to editors and set a global standard; where carbon-conscious brands are moving their ad dollars and why online pureplays are switching channels
Three months ago, The Guardian launched its first Australian brand campaign in a bid for double-digit audience increases – and ploughed its entire budget into one media partner. JCDecaux won the brief because it could deliver scale and the tech capability to enable real-time API feeds direct from the Guardian’s editors without any human intervention. But critically, because JCDecaux is also aligned on environmental, social and corporate governance, or ESG. Now both The Guardian and JCDecaux say they are winning significant new business on the back of green credentials, while the campaign is starting to move the needle. Meanwhile, the tech development work to deliver the year-long brand push has set a template for JCDecaux to lift and deploy globally. JCDecaux Chief Marketer, Essie Wake, and The Guardian Director of Growth, Jocelin Abbey, unpack the story behind the headlines on the billboards – and the strong parallels with the shift in strategy from pureplay online retailers to out of home formats. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E249 · Thu, December 01, 2022
The war on brand, the death of hyper-targeting and why marketers need to market to finance or see budgets slashed – B2B Institute, NAB and Mindshare on key trends for 2023 and beyond
Personalisation is possibly “the worst idea we have come across in digital marketing,” per B2B Institute’s John Lombardo – even Amazon can’t do it properly. “Find the biggest things that matter to the biggest group of buyers – that's the real commercial opportunity,” per Lombardo. He thinks 1:1 personalisation ultimately leads to a surveillance state. The downturn-induced swing back to performance over brand is another big mistake. “It’s survival, I get it … But you can't just keep on adding up the short-terms and expect some sort of long-term strategy.” Former performance purist, Maria Grivas, now CEO at Mindshare, thinks performance marketers are much maligned – and are targeting longer-term growth as well as immediate gains. The problem is that CFOs demand demonstrable growth metrics. That means marketing to finance, per Lombardo, should be the “most urgent” CMO 2023 agenda item, “otherwise we get our budgets cut”. Elly Bloom, Executive Marketing, Business & Private Banking at NAB, is doing just that, using market mix modelling (MMM) to demonstrate which investments are generating returns in hard business terms – and where to spend next. “It’s been invaluable”, says Bloom. Lombardo doubts econometric models can accurately prove where marketing is moving the needle – but thinks even demonstrating attempted due diligence to CFOs via MMM serves its purpose. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E248 · Mon, November 28, 2022
‘Tortuous transformation’: From Suncorp to News Corp – how former CMO Mark Reinke reinvented to lead consumer media and crack 1 million subscribers; new growth from ‘throwing out old media rules’ with AI, tech stacks, UX and a paying younger, restless set
The intense heat and conjecture coming on the subscription models of Netflix, Stan, Paramount+, Disney+ and beyond may, ironically, not cut so deep for battle-weary publishers if they keep moving fast with new bundled products, content, AI and UX. That’s Mark Reinke’s view, who moved from financial services to the media industry in 2019 and admits plunging into a baptism of fire – publishing is tough, News Corp to many even tougher. Under Reinke, News Corp has launched subscription puzzles, mindfulness and wagering sites, its first podcast series - crime - with Apple that is casting for a global subscription audience and a younger version of The Australian – The Oz - which looks more like Instagram and has attracted 500,000 younger readers since launching six months ago. News Corp’s Australian experience is matching – ahead in some areas – what is underway globally among publishers according to Tim Rowell, APAC boss of subscription platform Piano, which counts 3,000 media titles worldwide using its tech. Rowell says editors and journalists have seen many of their assumptions challenged about how audiences consume and behave with content – the old newspaper lifestyle sections are returning as new gold in rebundled digital subscription packs – and there are big lessons for brands, their advertising plans and content marketing investments. Heads-up: move faster, experiment more, repackage content, use AI to find smaller but lucrative emerging audiences and blow up assumptions. New rules are playing out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E247 · Mon, November 28, 2022
QMS’s ‘world first’ outdoor attention pilot How Amplified Intelligence measures
QMS has carried out a world first outdoor attention pilot with Amplified Intelligence, aiming to train Artificial Intelligence to recognise audiences – not dogs – viewing assets like street furniture. After a feasibility study with Amplified Intelligence CEO Karen Nelson-Field last year, her team put cameras around assets to track gaze, recognise faces and even “pose estimation” to measure humans as opposed to cars, prams and dogs. “It is literally world first in this space,” says Nelson-Field. Outdoor attention is not necessarily fleeting – think people waiting for a bus. The aim, QMS’s Chief Strategy Officer Christian Zavecz says, is to understand outdoor assets and share that data with the industry. “It’s not about us versus them,” he says. “We've always had a major focus of moving from just eyeballs to influence and understanding what drives better results for our clients. It just made a lot of sense.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E246 · Thu, November 24, 2022
‘Hundreds of millions of dollars will move quickly’: Foxtel Media’s Frain, Razorfish’s Tonelli and Tubi’s Fitch on AVOD’s next battlegrounds of frequency capping, measurement and personalisation
Australia’s AVOD wars are heating up. Foxtel Media boss Mark Frain reckons “tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars” will move in the next 12-18 months. User experience will win, making ad loads and frequency capping a key battleground. Razorfish boss Jason Tonelli warns that presents a new problem for publishers: As users hop from one service to the other, how will BVOD and AVOD players collectively manage frequency capping? “That will be the next frontier”. Brands are hungry to test the waters, adds Tonelli, with early adopters lenient on measurement. But down the track, measurement will need to be robust. “Is it OzTam or not? That is a debate we have to have.” Foxtel’s Frain says sitting outside of OzTam hasn’t stopped Foxtel writing revenue on Kayo. Ultimately, per Tyler Fitch, head of Advanced TV & Partnerships at Tubi – which has amassed 50m AVOD subscribers – breadth of content, personalisation and UX will determine winners from losers. He thinks the former SVOD purists that once “scoffed” ad ad-funded models have some hard lessons ahead. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E245 · Mon, November 21, 2022
Moving the needle: NAB brand chief on how the bank ‘held the line’ in the face of anti-vaxxer ‘keyboard warriors’, turned their rage into brand and business growth – as JAB helped drive Australia out of lockdown
At the height of anti-vaxxer revolt, with protest boiling out on the streets, NAB decided to nail its colours to the flag and launch a pro-vaccine campaign – changing its name to JAB seven days after signing off the brief. A bold move for a risk-averse ASX-listed bank and NAB was bracing for blowback from “keyboard warriors”. Within hours, it arrived in spades. But the bank “held the line”, per NAB Head of Group Brand Faycal Ben Abdellaziz – and the stream of vitriol actually helped propel NAB JAB to go viral. What’s more, anti-vaxxers vowing to close accounts were largely all talk. Instead, NAB gained thousands of customers, while engagement rates and brand reputation metrics shot to multiyear highs, and played a role in Australia reopening weeks ahead of schedule. With a downturn likely, Ben Abdellaziz suggests JAB’s legacy is bravery and that the bank won’t let “an extremely vocal minority” water down its approach to bold work. NAB, he says, won’t be pulling back on brand spend either, whatever the economy throws up next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E243 · Mon, November 14, 2022
‘We’re definitely seeing a pullback’: Pure-play online retailers squeezed as Covid bubble pops, digital ad costs ‘go through roof’, shoppers head back to stores; Alquemie-Mosaic chair plans physical stores for Surf Stich, tech stack overhaul to cross-sell General Pants, Lego, Noni B
Richard Facioni, chair of retail groups Alquemie and Mosaic Brands – with upwards of 1,000 stores and brands including Surf Stitch, General Pants, Lego Stores, Ginger & Smart, Noni B and Rivers – thinks ecom pure players may be in trouble. Shoppers have swung back to physical stores just as digital customer acquisition costs “are going through the roof”. If marketers turn off the taps, sales evaporate, which could spell danger for the likes of The Iconic and Adore Beauty. Versus last year, “we’re definitely seeing a pullback in online,” he says, with some brands back as much as 30 per cent. Meanwhile, retailers that stocked up to head off crunched supply chains may find themselves scrambling to offload in January as a “definite slowdown” bites. Facioni hates the word ‘omnichannel’, but says it’s the future of profitable retail – hence lining up a physical presence for $50m acquisition Surf Stich, currently an online pure-player. Fresh back from Dreamforce, Facioni’s helping steer both group’s commerce and ERP stacks, with a customer data platform likely to follow. He also predicts social commerce will be the next revenue frontier. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E242 · Thu, November 10, 2022
Shoppable video ‘flying off the shelves’: Early results from News Corp-Moet & Chandon test campaign – 10%+ purchase intent, 38%+ unaided brand uplift
News Corp’s new shoppable video format, which lets audiences buy without leaving the content, has been “flying off the shelves” across alcohol, beauty and consumer electronics, News’ data, video and product director Paul Blackburn says – and the trial with Moet & Chandon hasn’t even finished. “We have 14 other clients in flight, post-Moet,” he said, “and there’s a huge pipeline of other clients looking.” The format is part of News’ reengineering effort to unlock what McKinsey describes as ‘commerce media’ or ‘content media’ – a $50bn incremental goldmine buried within media companies. “We’ve always been really good at upper funnel, we’re really good – we’ve always been an amazing billboard,” News’ MD for Client Product Pippa Leary says. “Now we’re going to become a billboard and a shopfront.” The trial with Moet, with Kantar testing, has found a 10 per cent plus rise in purchase intent and a 38 per cent unaided brand awareness uplift. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E241 · Mon, November 07, 2022
The ‘anti-consultancy’: OMD CEOs prove naysayers wrong, set new direction with behavioural science, UX, CX first of ten new products in push to break agency mould – say rivals still conflicted on tech
When Aimee Buchanan jumped ship to archrival GroupM, the knives were out for OMD’s joint CEOs Laura Nice and Sian Whitnall. “The only way is down,” per one nameless exec. One year on, they’ve so far proved the doubters wrong, retaining Coles and landing the consolidated NSW Government account, where a new behavioural science unit helped nudge the business over the line. By 2025, they’re aiming to launch ten similar new products in a push to break the media agency mould, with CX and UX top of the agenda. Unlike some rivals, they’re uninterested in going toe-to-toe with the big consultants eating market share, while suggesting rivals remain conflicted on tech recommendations now driving a big chunk of their cash. They think a very different leadership style to the previous regime is now paying off, and have even accepted the so-called ‘twats’ model – staff mostly in Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – is working. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E240 · Thu, November 03, 2022
Sonic weapons: Why Menulog is crushing Uber Eats and Doordash but nothing compares to Bunnings: SCA and Neuro-Insight on how to crush the competition through audio branding
The results are in: Bunnings’ 25-year-old bluesy melody is the country’s most effective audio brand, per Southern Cross Austereo’s 2022 Audio Logo Index. It “might as well be the national anthem”, SCA’s Matt Dickson says. But Menulog has raced up the ladder and is now second in the minds of 4,000 people surveyed. In a super competitive set against the likes of Uber Eats and Doordash, Menulog, using Katy Perry and Snoop Dog, has formed strong memory structures in consumers with audio. “We don't have the same amount of dollars or funding as some of the bigger competitors, so we're constantly trying to get that cut through, get that stand out,” Menulog’s Fiona Bateman says. “It’s a jungle out there,” Neuro-Insights’ Peter Pynta says. “If you strengthen your network… you can also, at the same time, simultaneously be weakening the competition's strength.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E239 · Mon, October 31, 2022
Telstra shakeup: Former CMO Jeremy Nicholas and new marketing boss Brent Smart chart their handover, debate creativity versus CX in brand building as Smart softens stance on ‘vanilla’ martech
Telstra’s top marketer Jeremy Smart has moved on to run the telco’s digital sales and service operations, handing the CMO baton last month to former IAG marketing boss Brent Smart. Both are still working side by side at Telstra. The remits of digital, CX, ecom and marketing are increasingly intertwined - Nicholas now has responsibility for the 80 per cent of Telstra’s customer sales and service engagements which start online. Nicholas says he was partly lured to the role because brands are “defined increasingly by their customer experience and increasingly that’s a digital experience.” On the flipside, Brent Smart in 2019 was one of the few marketers who publicly called out the tech platforms which power blue chip customer experience deployments by saying marketing technology, or martech, was quickly turning vanilla. His position is softening. Here’s the full lowdown from two execs with among the biggest marketing and digital CX remits in the country. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E238 · Thu, October 27, 2022
Big Tech pain is publisher gain: Briefs ‘absolutely flowing in’ at News Corp as unified, granular user data play delivers, social platform effectiveness falters
As massive economic headwinds and Apple’s app tracking privacy push bear down on social platforms like Meta’s Facebook, the likes of News Corp Australia – long under pressure from Big Tech’s data smarts and audience scale – are positioning as full funnel alternatives. And it’s working. News reckons its News Connect data platform can target audiences on a granular level based on their interests and reading habits across retail, FMCG, travel, auto, and more. “You name it, we can find intenders in those categories,” says News’ GM of Client Product and Strategy Suzie Cardwell. Upper funnel ads drove a 55 per cent in-store boost for one furniture brand, while an auto manufacturer saw double the dealership visits for those exposed to ads on News’ platforms compared to those who weren’t. Per Cardwell: “The briefs are absolutely flowing in.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E237 · Mon, October 24, 2022
Beyond retailer media: $3.9bn ‘owned’ media wave coming – telcos, banks, service stations, travel and utilities undercooked; Power shift from merchandise to marketing
Cartology has made the early running and noise in the bustling supermarket media category but ‘owned' media – that is, all media and audience assets controlled by a brand – is at least three times the size of the grocery and liquor sector. And ‘retail aggregators’ (think Officeworks, BigW, Myer and JB Hi-Fi) is nearly 20 per cent bigger than the grocery sector, according to Sonder via a new report, hot off the press. The firm calculates Australia’s owned media potential stands at $3.9bn – and 80-90 per cent margins have CEOs and CFOs licking their lips. That could alter the balance of power between marketing, sales and merchandise, and potentially change the dynamics between paid, owned and earned investment. Founding partners Jonathan Hopkins and Angus Frazer run the rule over five standout categories – grocery and liquor, aggregated retail, telco, petrol and convenience, and finance – which players may be next to market (hint, anyone with a loyalty programme) and the implications for Australian media market dynamics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E236 · Thu, October 20, 2022
Last click strikes back: Bupa, Pet Circle marketers say inflation, cost cuts will push CMOs, brands down funnel – so brace for search-social price spikes, but here’s how to protect budgets
Last click attribution is back. Tightening wallets, soaring inflation and a VC focus on profitability over growth is prompting a return to the metric, which Pet Circle CMO Jon Wild reckons is the least bad of a range of “horribly flawed” attribution options. Pet Circle has 800,000 active customers and revenues in the hundreds of millions. “For far too long, I think our industry has been peddling reach and frequency and brand consideration,” Wild says. “These metrics are very hard to put in a spreadsheet.” And they don’t satisfy the C-suite when staring at one of the biggest lines in a P&L. Bupa’s performance chief, Clea Baker, says prices are due to jump in search and social – but she’s investing in media mix solutions to protect brand spend on the increasingly rocky road ahead. Atomic212’s James Dixon and Rory Heffernan outline how marketers can start sandbagging against rising waters of cost cuts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E235 · Mon, October 17, 2022
Confessions of Marketing Academy alumni: KFC, BWS, Edelman and Broadsheet execs open up on their emotional, electrifying and raw takes on the program and why it works when others don’t
It’s not a normal forensic look at marketing sciences, agency structures or CMO tactics this week – instead we speak to four alumni of The Marketing Academy’s exclusive scholarship program. Only 30 people get accepted into the course each year and, without exception, all of them rave about it being electrifying, transformative, emotional and raw. But why? BWS’ An Le, KFC’s Warren Mo, Edelman’s Fern Canning-Brook and former Broadsheet director Skye Rugless detail how they changed before and after completing the program, what super chickens can teach about leading and why quiet leadership can be a big strength. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E234 · Thu, October 13, 2022
Why Paramount upended the ratings calendar, what billion-dollar global FAST channel play Pluto brings to market – and how advertisers can shift product and gain reach
Free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels are going to keep viewers in Paramount’s ecosystem watching for longer, the network has bet via its upfront last week, unveiling a wave of new partnerships, products, shows and – crucially – a longer content slate. While competitors roll out male-skewed audiences over summer, Paramount will run The Bachelors, following The Challenge in December. “It’s tactical – moving here when they go there,” EVP and Chief Content Officer Beverley McGarvey says. She’s eyeing early wins and a bigger share of budgets. With PlutoTV’s extra channels through 10 Play, advertisers – especially those embedded in shows – will see incremental reach as key viewers keep watching. And as well as a tonne more inventory around dedicated channels – MasterChef and Survivor channels for example, pulling in series from around the world – Paramount’s going back to the future, as those channels will be curated in a bid to keep audiences glued to the channel, and therefore the commercials. There’s also e-commerce through Twitter, viewers choosing their own ads, automated content recognition through Samba TV and dynamic ads. Sales chief Rod Prosser now has more wares to sell, and expects “big take up”. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E233 · Mon, October 10, 2022
After James Packer stoush, journo-turned Nine publishing boss James Chessell takes aim at rivals for running scared; plots news-lifestyle diversification play. Can a journo change his spots?
Journalists have long hated advertising and sales. Now Nine has a battle-hardened journo responsible for the P&L of its publishing division, perhaps the first hack to be entrusted with news media fortunes since John Hartigan chaired News Corp and John Alexander left the old Fairfax for the Packer camp. Chessell having already triggered James Packer in recent weeks, carefully espouses his views on News Corp’s corporate and editorial agenda, but jabs The Guardian for running “scared” of taking on risky, investigative stories. But can the one-time business journalist and masthead editor continue the renaissance of a sector once seen by many as flogging a dead horse? Chessell’s backing editorial integrity and trust to drive advertiser and subscription growth within news while plotting diversification into new turf, admitting Covid audience gains will likely drop off. Now straddling church and state, he agrees media sales is a “knife fight in a phone box”, but says Michael Stephenson and publishing sales chief Jo Clasby are killing it. Chessell knows financial markets gobbledygook inside out even if he’s not yet so savvy on ad market, adtech and marketing lingo. Here’s his plan. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E232 · Thu, October 06, 2022
Colgate-Palmolive CMO, Rip Curl CMO on new model loyalty, moving the needle with values-based growth, Destination NSW consumer marketing boss on $44bn demand-supply crunch
Forget demographics and traditional consumer segments, smart marketers are looking at how customers choose brands based on values – both lofty and personal, VMLY&R’s Ali Tilling reckons. For Rip Curl, it’s a community that loves surfing – CMO Michael Scott once arrived at an empty meeting room because almost everyone was out on the waves. He’s building “the largest and most engaged surfing community in the world” – it’s not a “transactional” loyalty program, but a membership. It’s sustainability for Colgate-Palmolive CMO Anthony Crewes, who is pushing past 80 per cent recyclable toothpaste tubes of the 50 million sold each year. The challenge now is getting consumers to actually recycle them. Destination NSW’s Kathryn Illy says new experiences are critical to the travel industry, once worth $44 billion to the state – now half that but bouncing back. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E231 · Mon, October 03, 2022
Conquering creative: Deloitte Digital Australian boss Esan Tabrizi on how marketers missed digital amid brand, advertising focus; 1,400-strong team; CX, personalisation lessons and the push for creativity
Agency executives have long dismissed the big consulting firms’ attempts to embrace creativity and creative services for their end-to-end professional services offerings, but Deloitte Digital is hard to ignore. It has 1,400 people across its operation, encompassing tech, customer experience, strategy, product, growth and more, and it has now arguably conquered creative – topping Campaign Brief’s The Work list earlier this year. Head of Deloitte Digital Australia Esan Tabrizi says advertising is not his team’s end game, but rather being a full-service provider of customer outcomes – which may include advertising – are his focus. But creativity and creative thinking is now at the top of Deloitte Digital's agenda. In this conversation, Tabrizi also unpacks how marketers missed the boat on tech over the past decade, leading to the rise of Chief Digital, Chief Customer and Chief Growth Officers. But the next generation of gun CMOs, he says, will be much more tech savvy, and won’t get caught up in the tech stack wars. And perhaps most interestingly, current CMOs can learn from government on CX and personalisation - who would have thought? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E230 · Mon, September 26, 2022
Salesforce and LinkedIn global brand chiefs doubleheader: Culling content by 30 per cent, ‘preparing a funeral for last click’, holding brand spend amid turmoil, raiding B2C talent – and why it’s better to be like Disney than Adobe or Microsoft
Salesforce has culled its content output by circa 30 per cent – and is seeing major results. It’s waging war on vanity metrics – and “preparing a funeral” for last click and last touch attribution, per EVP Global Brand Marketing Colin Fleming. The firm has just wrapped up Dreamforce, the annual global pilgrimage where users flock to be evangelised by the high priests of B2B. Circa 40,000 people flooded San Francisco last week, paying US$2,000 a pop to attend what is morphing into the Disneyland of business branding and product. Fleming makes no apologies for lifting B2C’s playbook, stating he’d rather borrow from Disney than rivals like Adobe, Microsoft and SAP. He and LinkedIn global VP, Marketing Solutions, Jim Habig say they plan further B2C talent raids in a bid to lift B2B beyond spreadsheets and rational arguments – and say brand investment is helping to win the creative talent war. Meanwhile Habig is also set to overhaul account-based marketing – or ABM – by linking up with one of the world’s most successful restaurateurs, Will Guidara. Both are adamant that they will not slash brand investment amid market turmoil. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E229 · Wed, September 21, 2022
‘Preparing for a big crunch’: Chair of iSelect, Endota Brodie Arnhold on fuzzy marketing investments, low accountability impacting CMO boardroom credibility, and why MROI is crucial through macroeconomic challenges
In the boardroom, the marketers’ numbers are likely the least trusted, Brodie Arnhold, Chair of iSelect, Endota, says. Why? It was a “cost line without the accountability”. In his experience, adding up the sales, PR, and marketing figures, “the company should have been about eight times the size it really was. That always left with this kind of funny feeling of mistrust,” he says. Hence, he’s invested in Mutiny, an Australian company shaking up how marketers use econometrics, with AI and cloud processing, to demonstrate return on investment. “Whoever can prove their budget’s worth is going to be the one who keeps it in a recessionary environment,” co-founder Henry Innis says. Marketers can turn procurement enemies into allies with the right data, TrinityP3’s Darren Woolley says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E228 · Mon, September 19, 2022
Woolies, Suncorp, Woolmark, Bayer follow Hollywood's default to AI, automated virtual production and 'hybrid' in-housing, offshoring boom as brand content volumes surge 20x in five years
The revolution in content and production that is sweeping through Hollywood studios and streaming services is hitting marketing, and the surging content volumes that brands need to create for multiple channels and screens is up at least 2,000 per cent in the past five years, Richard Glasson, global CEO of WPP's booming production group, Hogarth, estimates. As marketer budgets come under increasing pressure globally, Hogarth is betting big on artificial intelligence, automated content and virtual production, tipping Woolworths, Woolmark, Suncorp and Bayer as winners among their stable of clients. Glasson says virtual production cuts costs – he wouldn’t say by how much – and will rapidly become “the default way of producing work” in both Hollywood and advertising, as CMOs manage content demands across more channels to reach an increasingly fragmented consumer base. How does a marketer begin to think about the metaverse or Web3 with no extra budget, for example? A mix of smart creatives, automation, offshoring and “modular” production is a solution, Hogarth Australia's CEO Justin Ricketts says. A recent campaign creating a blazing inferno and New York apartment in a single day in a Melbourne studio shows how it’s done. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E227 · Thu, September 15, 2022
Full funnel, targeted OOH: City of Sydney network pushes activation and brand via 30 advertiser verticals powered by transaction and location data – but QMS needs buyers to change approach
3D out of home advertising, pop up events and experiences, and ‘treasure hunt’-style, interactive campaigns across multiple screens are a few of the ideas QMS is hoping to bring to its new City of Sydney furniture network. With Sydney weekly audience numbers back to 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels, the QMS’s QMS' GM – City of Sydney Jemma Enright and Chief Customer Officer Mark Fairhurst say the screens are full funnel marketing assets: If used well, they can build awareness and consideration via brand investment and trigger a purchase or action at the bottom. But that requires a shift in out of home buying approaches. There are 30 packs – an FMCG pack, alcohol pack and movie-goers pack, for example – and a bank of Nielsen, transaction and location data. They are looking to tie-up a big chunk of budget commitment upfront – and early demand suggests the network is not short of suitors. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E225 · Thu, September 08, 2022
The consumer mindset is ‘what can I cut out of the budget?’’: Entertainment, travel, food budgets face crunch – GroupM CEO Aimee Buchanan, PCA CMO Claire Williams and Macquarie professor Jana Bowden on planning for soaring interest rates
What happens when you put a marketing and consumer behaviour professor on the mics with a Chief Marketing Officer and the boss of a large media buying group to work out what might happen to media audiences and buyer behaviour as we tumble out of Covid and stumble into an economic downturn? The consumer mindset is inflationary, confidence is down, and wallets are likely to shrink considerably. There has been “revenge spending in spades” within entertainment, travel and food – but that may be about to grind to a halt. GroupM ANZ CEO Aimee Buchanan, Premium Content Alliance CMO Claire Williams and Jana Bowden, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour at Macquarie University, unpack the outlook for marketers, media owners and agencies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E224 · Mon, September 05, 2022
CMOs at Kia, Nestlé, Tourism Australia and CMC Markets debate if ex-agency marketers do it differently, or better – and why
Those that have crossed the agency-brand divide – in either direction – say agencies can be a little narrow in their understanding of marketing’s full business remit but more often than not, agency experience delivers sharper and faster results. Kia marketing boss Dean Norbiato was “getting stale” before taking a pay-cut to head agency-side. But it brought fresh perspective to move the needle when going back brand-side with the carmaker. Tourism Australia CMO Susan Coghill started out handing agency briefs to Steve Jobs, and preparing to duck flying smoothies. She prefers to hire agency people for their dynamism and creative thinking. Nestle’s Anneliese Douglass thinks agencies tend to be braver than corporates, but taking ownership of P&L is a heavy responsibility. CMC Markets APAC marketing boss Liam Loan-Lack, a former lawyer, thinks the marketing world should follow legal precedent and drop the brand-agency division altogether. His advice to agency execs mulling the switch? Accept that the best and boldest ideas are often trumped by those easiest to sell internally – and forget about having more control. “It’s not easier, and if anything there is less control.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E223 · Tue, August 30, 2022
Crazy crypto: Why Nine’s Pedestrian Group is going counter-trend to launch blockchain, Web3 site for younger set amid crypto crash – 20% are already invested but main media coverage too binary
In the midst of a cryptocurrency crash, Nine-owned Pedestrian Group, which has one of the largest 18-35 year-old audiences in the country, has launched its blockchain, Web3 and crypto publication, The Chainsaw. Pedestrian knows 20 per cent of its readers are already invested in crypto or non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and has trawled the globe for its launch team, some from deep in the blockchain underground. The Chainsaw will cover the business and culture of Web3 – and Pedestrian CEO Matt Rowley says there’s ample advertiser opportunity. Financial and tech brands are circling. There’s also potential for the ‘holy grail’ of publishing – integrated microtransactions and commerce, as well as high value subscriptions. For the moment, Head of Editorial Sam Howard, back from Silicon Valley, is set on building The Chainsaw’s readership and community. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E222 · Mon, August 22, 2022
Commbank, Salesforce, ServiceNow CMOs: Talent crunch turning as layoffs rise; Budgets and brand building hold for now; B2B sector hunts B2C marketers with future skills pitch
What do Australia’s top marketers with B2B remits see ahead? Commbank’s Jo Boundy, Salesforce’s Leandro Perez and ServiceNow’s Caroline Raj debate how the talent crunch may be set to flip, why B2B marketing has the data and analytics skills B2C marketers want and how they’re resisting more demand generation activity as the economy slows - for now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E221 · Mon, August 15, 2022
‘Two million customer journeys a day': McDonald's Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown on surging 1.6m loyalty members, plant-based meat trials, consumer spending volatility and flipping his career from global agency brands
McDonald's’ Chief Customer Officer Chris Brown is less than two years into his first brand-side role after leading DDB New York and IPG’s R/GA and already he says his scope and understanding of marketing, customer and business impact have broadened dramatically. He took one of the country’s biggest marketing roles in late 2020 and has overseen a successful loyalty program launch and a new brand platform focusing on value, while maintaining the Australian business’s reputation as a global innovator – it created the McCafe brand back in 1993 and was the first market to do salads . Brown is working hard to shield Maccas from growing economic volatility, hoping to convince the two million-odd Aussie customers who walk through the doors of a franchise each day that it is a valued part of their lives, whatever else may be happening. Improving tech, new products and appealing to ‘flexitarians’ are on the agenda. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E220 · Thu, August 11, 2022
Measuring attention without eyeballs: Commercial radio bids to benchmark audio attention via panels, surveys, memory – and make it tradeable
Australia’s commercial radio players are diving into the advertising attention economy, building an in-depth study to understand attention levels in audio that, until now, have been lacking while audio visual media – TV and video – stole a lead. But how do you measure attention without eyeballs? “We get asked every single day how audio fits in,” Amplified Intelligence CEO Karen Nelson-Field says. Nelson-Field and Southern Cross Austereo’s Sales Insights lead Abi Wallis explain the research, due to land in October, which they say will lead audio being added into the attention planning and buying mix. The ultimate aim is tradeable audio attention. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E219 · Mon, August 08, 2022
Danny Bass: Dentsu’s media future, consulting shift, business transformation; Australia unattractive to overseas talent, industry must look elsewhere; Net zero or ad effectiveness debate; ‘Aggressive’, tight media market in H2 2022, 2023
It’s been a big few months for Danny Bass. The former Mediabrands, GroupM and News Corp exec resigned from Snap to focus on his Berry Hill Farm property, which then flooded – multiple times. Now, he’s joined Dentsu as CEO of Dentsu Media. Dentsu isn’t the beast it once was, having taken a turn towards tech and consulting services in the past few years. Bass unpacks the advantages and challenges facing the group, which is “and always will be” a media company, while exploring agency culture, remote working, talent shortages, the net zero push and the future of holdcos. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E218 · Mon, August 01, 2022
No Covid re-run: Social market researchers on consumer mood say 70% tightening belts; young men stressed, midlife crisis at 30 – but 24% free-spending so category discounts not required; plus ‘lipstick effect’ at play
Social market researchers think the deepening cost of living crisis will play out very differently to Covid. But there are parallels with previous bust cycles. The “lipstick effect” comes into play, and certain categories – homeware, the everyday luxury of branded goods – will probably hold up. But home renovations could end up consisting of nicer taps than a whole bathroom suite. While the young, pensioners and the squeezed middle are talking about cutting back, a quarter of the population are comfortable, can play the system and will keep spending – and brands and retailers shouldn’t think about discounting to that cohort. For the broader population, brands and retailers need to communicate price hikes honestly and effectively – or lose community trust earned during Covid, fast. SCA’s Jasmine Beech, Roy Morgan’s Michele Levine and qualitative consumer researcher Neer Korn unpack what’s coming own the track – as far as anyone can tell. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E217 · Mon, July 25, 2022
Marketing's $400bn bottom line: Brand Finance chief on Woolies, NRMA surge, Milo losing ‘iconic’ status; marketers turning to brand valuations to woo CFO, boost budgets – but still left out of M&A brand value, future cashflow conversations
Nestle’s Milo brand is in danger of losing its status as an iconic brand in Australia, Brand Finance Managing Director Mark Crowe says, unpacking the leaders and laggards in the latest Top 100 most valuable brand rankings, where 66 brands rose and 22 fell. But brand value and strength are more than just 'soft metric' leaderboards – they’re being leveraged in hard financial terms by CFOs and CEOs in M&A negotiations and Crowe thinks marketers should be brought into those deals much earlier. A case in point, he says, is that analysts hungry for future cashflow indicators are driving demand for brand valuations. Meanwhile agencies and marketers have woken up to the fact they can demonstrate their direct impact on a brand by measuring the change over time – a major factor in NRMA landing the 2021 Grand Effie. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E216 · Mon, July 18, 2022
ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra: ‘Taking a demotion the best thing I’ve ever done’, how to bridge tech-brand skills gap to stay ahead; martech shake-up paying off, personalisation powering conversions
Ten years into a data-analytics career, ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra pulled a u-turn and took a demotion to learn brand marketing from the ground up. She says it’s the smartest move she ever made, with marketers in narrow swim-lanes at risk of obsolescence. Mehra says ANZ’s push to bridge the skills gap within its own four walls via self-built Brand Academy and Marketing Masters programmes have shielded it from increasingly attritional talent wars while future-proofing the business – and she has a few tips for those wondering how to get ahead in marketing. Meanwhile, the bank’s martech stack overhaul and bid for personalisation at scale is starting to move the needle, with conversion rates heading north, and ‘nudge theory’ doubling saving rates. With economic headwinds incoming, Mehra expects pressure to pull different levers. But she thinks budgets, for now, are safe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E215 · Mon, July 11, 2022
Everything is awesome: Aussie expat Nicole Taylor on leading LEGO’s 400-strong in-house agency, global agency partner review, content factory booming, indies delivering best ideas
Aussie expat Nicole Taylor jumped ship from managing international creative firms to lead LEGO’s in-house agency, which has 400 people around the world, a content factory, and powerful creative, digital and production capabilities. Now, she’s leading a review of the company’s agency roster – and is very positive about the strengths of indies. “I love the fact that they're not thinking of a P&L outcome,” she says. They just want the best thinking and ideas. LEGO is flying, posting record profits and sales in 2021 and outstripping major rivals Mattel and Hasbro. Taylor, who started in Sydney AGENCIES in the late 90s, says in-housing can work wonders – speed is key, and businesses are starting to recognise the benefit of having creativity close by. Creatives are now in high demand among corporates, who see financial incentives to different thinking. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E214 · Mon, July 04, 2022
Toyota’s ‘humility’ problem and big fix: An Australian brand makeover expands across 17 Asian markets to tackle next gen perceptions that rivals are snappier, louder, more innovative on mobility’s future
Australia is Toyota country and holds similar clout and market dominance across 17 key markets in Asia. But there were looming clouds on the horizon that Toyota’s APAC execs could see would pose a near-future challenge for the region’s leading carmaker. Toyota’s “humility” around innovation and the future of mobility risked being too conservative and out-voiced by more aggressive, louder rivals attempting to own these new greenfield areas - and Toyota knew its next generation customers were being lured. Here’s how Toyota’s APAC VP of Sales and Marketing, Jerome Louis, and an Australian firm, Houston, mapped and delivered a four-year program to unify, for the first time, 17 highly-autonomous countries, all with their own market positionings, brand strategies, taglines and imagery, with a sweeping and unified overhaul of Toyota’s brand positioning and architecture. It’s an instructive case study in not having a fixed plan at the get-go but letting each of the markets discover and create a new positioning and suite of brand assets together – “Move your world”. Here’s how it happened. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E213 · Thu, June 30, 2022
Retailers using DOOH as targeted catalogue, Woolworths, Coles, Myer piling in – QMS on wider City of Sydney launch, 100% ad verification guarantee, digital v static debate
Digital out of home screens are the new retail catalogue, as the likes of Woolworths, Coles, Myer and JB HiFi place specific offers and sales depending on the weather, temperature and location. “It's basically a really flexible, tailored, measurable, targeted, third party guaranteed position,” QMS CEO John O’Neill says. Dan Murphy’s, for example, targets red wine messages for cold weather, white wine for hot and champagne for celebrations. “They do a really good job,” he adds. In the digital v static debate, O’Neill says digital reigns – it is the butterfly to static’s caterpillar. There’s a 63 per cent higher neuro impact factor with digital, QMS’ Chief Strategy Officer Christian Zavecz says. The OOH industry has agreed to verify 60 per cent of campaigns per hour, but QMS, two months from opening its City of Sydney contract to new clients, is staking its credentials on a 100 per cent guarantee. “We’ve gone out on a limb,” O’Neill says. “We think it’s really important.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E212 · Mon, June 27, 2022
Cannes unplugged: Suncorp’s Mim Haysom, Yahoo’s Rachel Page, Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier and LinkedIn’s Matt Tindale on incoming headwinds, rebalancing ‘techification’, Ryan Reynolds and the push for 'pragmatic purpose'
Cannes unplugged: Suncorp’s Mim Haysom, Yahoo’s Rachel Page, Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier and LinkedIn’s Matt Tindale on incoming headwinds, rebalancing ‘techification’, Ryan Reynolds and the push for 'pragmatic purpose' See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E211 · Thu, June 23, 2022
Harrods built a media business that paid for its entire marketing function – other retailers, telcos, convenience, petrol chains next
In 2003, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al-Fayed, tasked Guy Cheston with building a media business for the department store. By 2015, the luxury store’s media worked so well it paid for everything else. “Initially, this media sales or the owned media division was really just a little tiny element of the trade marketing team,” he says. “Harrods had set up its own in-house media division, which was funding the entire marketing function of the store.” It went from £1m to £22m in a bit over a decade, and then went skyward. Not every brand is Harrods, but those that nail owned media can make serious cash. First step: Valuing what’s available.Jonathan Hopkins, Founding Partner of owned media consultancy Sonder, says the reaction tends to be: “‘Wow, I didn't realise we were sitting on a $150 million worth of own media’… Once it's given that dollar amount and valuation, it changes the way that the business views the channels,” he says. “When you’re talking about profit margins of 80 to 90 per cent, CEOs and CFOs are going to stand up and take notice.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E210 · Mon, June 20, 2022
Google rockets to top slot in ‘experimentation’ tech in Australia as A/B testing morphs beyond digital media, ad campaigns: Coles, Deloitte Digital unpack the e-comm, digital next wave
Election and fundraising strategists for former US President Barack Obama accidentally invented the now booming “experimentation” industry which takes the ubiquitous A/B testing concept to new levels – and business is going large. Personalisation has got too much attention and corporate investment at the expense of experimentation, say Deloitte Digital Partner Nima Yassini and Coles’ Fallyn Lowe, Product Manager for Growth and Optimisation. They outline what’s next, including Google’s rapid rise to the top in experimentation software ahead of Adobe and Optimizely. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E209 · Mon, June 13, 2022
Cannes conundrum: Why ESOV isn’t working: Peter Field, Karen Nelson-Field and Orlando Wood warn the ad industry faces a triple jeopardy threat as effectiveness rulebook ripped up
Three leading global authorities on advertising effectiveness are worried enough about the efficacy of advertising and the impact it has on business results that they have joined forces to present new data and observations in Cannes next week on why a triple jeopardy threat is a clear and present danger to the global industry. They go so far as to call for an overhaul in how advertising award shows like Cannes reward what is deemed the world’s best work. Advertising effectiveness supremo Peter Field, attention economy pioneer Karen Nelson-Field and creativity maestro Orlando Wood warn that ad effectiveness, ESOV and mental availability created by advertising for a brand is crumbling. The ESOV principle – spending more than rivals to gain extra share of voice relative to market share to outplace competitor sales – no longer applies. Get the lowdown before it is presented to a global audience in Cannes next week. The trio argue there is a fix. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E208 · Mon, June 06, 2022
How Suncorp, Leo Burnett flipped an advertising brief to a long-range marketing investment in a (real) street of climate change-ready homes, influenced national policy and drove a 38% lift in enquiries, surge in brand consideration
Marketing is a dirty word for some – look no further than the ‘Scotty from Marketing’ jab. But Suncorp has spent three years building, quite literally, a powerful response to that. Its One House campaign last year and recent Resilience Road activation are entirely marketing-funded and led research projects that are changing the way Queenslanders build disaster-proof homes. And what’s more, the campaign is flowing through to Suncorp’s bottom line, driving a 38 per cent rise in enquiries and more than 100,000, four-minute-long website reads. As CMO Mim Haysom and Leo Burnett Chief Customer Officer Amanda Wheeler explain, there’s more to come. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E207 · Thu, June 02, 2022
Out of home creative in Australia ‘lagging’: Nike, Twitter, Jetstar flying as QR code, animation, anamorphic screen tech lands, blurring digital, social, PR, outdoor lines
When done well, OOH smashes it. Local brands have been lagging, but the smart ones are learning from the likes of Nike, driving a “creative revolution” in digital out of home, reckons Neil Ackland, oOh!media’s Chief Content, Marketing and Creative Officer. While tech like QR codes, 3D animation, location data and anamorphic screens can drive huge results, “There’s a difference between what is available that creatives can use and then what’s actually coming through the pipeline,” he says. Jetstar ran a QR code-based campaign in Melbourne and reached 6 million people with press coverage. Nike and Twitter are trying innovating creative – then sharing the campaigns on social to drive more engagement. Ackland says oOh! has launched a creative department, Poly, to reverse the lag. “We have to show brands through action how to deliver great out of home creative,” he says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E206 · Mon, May 30, 2022
WPP global CMO Laurent Ezekiel, ANZ lead Rose Herceg on bringing other networks into $4bn ‘open source’ Coke account, peak complexity, consolidation end game – and proving Sorrell wrong
Brands and agency holdcos are restructuring for efficiency. But WPP says it’s done with post-Sorrell surgery and out the other side, proving the former CEO wrong in the process. Its “open source” integrated set-up landed the $4bn global Coca Cola account and means other rival agencies and non-WPP partners can tap into WPP’s platform for Coke. It could prove a template for consolidation plays to come, per global CMO Laurent Ezekiel. WPP ANZ’s Rose Herceg is equally bullish on the holdco’s growth prospects after overhauling leadership and smashing an unwieldy list of business units into nine networks; she says both staff and clients are “loving” a story simple enough to articulate. Ezekiel meanwhile reckons the marketing industry is past “peak complexity”… until the “untapped” metaverse arrives. But he’s unapologetic for the daunting privacy challenges industry faces, and shrugs off concerns around Big Tech’s dominance, given the growth he suggests the platforms are driving. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E205 · Thu, May 26, 2022
B2B talent ‘hunger games’ as brands in-house analytics, tech, digital upskilling to cover shortfall, raiding B2C guns and ‘boomerangs’ as business-consumer marketing lines blur
It’s the “hunger games” out there in the B2B talent wars. Software firm ServiceNow’s solution? In-house training. It’s the best way to get good analytics people, Head of Marketing Caroline Raj says. “Everybody is dipping into everybody’s pool at the moment,” she says. It has been a tough two years. Of the 140,000 marketing and advertising people in Australia, 20,000 have moved jobs in the past 20 months, per LinkedIn’s Prue Cox. Agency churn has increased by 50 per cent in the past year – off a high base. Average marketing tenure is now a mere 1.4 years. “That’s quite terrifying,” Telstra’s Kelly Tyson says. She’s not seeing that at the telco, which works hard on culture, but the talent pool is tight. The market for B2B savvy, IT and tech-literate marketers is running hot. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E204 · Mon, May 23, 2022
Seven pizzas a second: Domino’s CMO Adam Ballesty on brand building in scaled QSR, breakneck pace in creativity and campaigns, baking purpose into pizza, taking fight to Maccas and KFC, acquisition trumping retention, and why owning drivers will win delivery app battle
Adam Ballesty spent most of his career building big brands at spirits business Diageo only to join retail-focused Domino’s in mid-2021, steering a team of 60 through the tail end of a global pandemic. The sector's pace is mind-boggling, he admits. Food aggregators like Uber Eats and Menulog account for the majority of Domino’s orders and were non-existent three years ago. The likes of McDonalds and KFC are powerful competition and are driving culture. Ballesty’s new agency team are hoping to take the QSR battle royale directly to them, while baking purpose as a key ingredient in the company. In the meantime, he's fielding calls from franchisees asking for the TV ad schedule so they can prepare for the inevitable demand spike. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E203 · Thu, May 19, 2022
‘We can recognise 16m individuals’: News Corp claims united CDP, 13 data partners, high match rates compete with Big Tech, commerce integrations ahead
News Corp has reached the level of Big Tech, Client Product MD Pippa Leary says, uniting its famously independent business units – publishing, Foxtel and REA Group – to create a pool of 16-million audience IDs. A consumer could watch Kayo, browse News.com.au, look at property on RealEstate.com.au, and News Corp can link them all, Leary says. The “arms race” of just having big numbers is over. “Claiming a big number is one thing, but actually, if you don't have a lot of daily active users and you do not have high match rates, it's actually quite meaningless,” she says. Using 13 data partners, including crucial IDs and location data from Near, News reckons it can achieve high match rates with brands and – in stark contrast to Big Tech – share more of those insights with brands. “All of [those IDs] have consent attached to them to be shared and to be matched,” Suzie Cardwell, GM Client Product and Strategy, says. News is now pushing hard for one click transactions within content, including video. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E202 · Mon, May 16, 2022
Growth hacked: Old tricks new again as ‘growth hacking’ fails, tech yields plummet, start-ups build brand to compete - Canva going big on billboards
Growth hacking was once a favourite term of the Silicon Valley crowd instead of marketing, fuelling the meteoric rise of early tech pioneers like PayPal, Tesla and Amazon. But there’s a fascinating blurring going on, where once successful growth hacks are starting to falter – “failing miserably”, in the words of one-time growth hacker and services marketing advisor Jonathan James. Instead, tech companies – think Canva – are turning to out of home, television, and other traditional media. In most verticals, there’s increased competition, meaning start-ups are rediscovering the need to have a “brand”. Traditional marketing smarts and brand talent are increasingly sought-after, and what’s old is becoming new again. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E201 · Mon, May 09, 2022
Val Morgan and cinema winning attention battle; Amplified Intelligence data finds 80 per cent active attention, zero decay; Nab, OMD, Hatched, on where next; Nelson-Field on why sprint for ‘dirty’ attention CPMs risks everything
Nine last month claimed massive active attention for BVOD ads playing on mobile devices, 72 per cent for a 30-second commercial, per Amplified Intelligence’s study. But Karen Nelson-Field’s data is in for Val Morgan – and it suggests cinema blows other channels out of the water for active attention, with zero decay across the entire ad. As attention metrics pick up major attention globally, Nelson-Field is just back from a World Federation of Advertisers conference, warning marketers not to let themselves get gamed by those touting cheap, “dirty” attention CPMs while brushing off naysayers briefing against the march of attention metrics. Locally, the likes of NAB want to bring attention data into econometric modelling; agencies are already using it to reweight channel spend and show marketers that their share of voice models could be way, way off. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E200 · Mon, May 02, 2022
Shift happens: PHD Global CMO says marketers buried in reporting instead of growth generation, risk obsolescence as marketing function restructures for next wave of gaming, influencer, commerce, decisioning disruption
Chris Stephenson, global CMO of media agency Network PHD, thinks the marketing community has a weird and massive blindspot around gaming. That may be because they are buried in admin rather than doing actual marketing. Per PHD’s latest research study, 1,700 marketers around the world say their biggest time allocation is spent on reporting, not strategy, innovation and idea development. Those unable to shake off administrative shackles risk being overtaken by a marketing function overhaul now fast approaching – at least according to the group’s new book, ‘SHIFT: a Marketing Rethink’. In the short-term, it forecasts that key marketing and media roles will span influencer programmatic teams, game commerce, clean room development teams and decision scientists through to ‘layer designers’, VR world designers and ‘brain-computer interface developers’ in the mid- to long-term. Within 20 years we could see ‘quantum simulation developers’ “simulating the entire media universe” for brands. But for now, Stephenson thinks those rushing headlong into the metaverse and Web3.0 are barrelling into the trough of disappointment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E199 · Thu, April 28, 2022
‘Big difference between 1,000 Corollas and 1,000 Ferraris’: Why ThinkPremiumDigital argues platform audience reach is a poor proxy for effective attention – especially on digital video
There’s a fundamental flaw in how advertisers approach the concept of “platform audience reach”, ThinkPremiumDigital says, and the argument goes like this: advertisers care about audiences, but despite large user numbers – the audiences aren’t always paying attention. And yet, a platform’s reach often dictates a brand’s investment level. “Somebody on the platform doesn’t mean they saw an ad,” ThinkPremiumDigital General Manager Venessa Hunt says. MediaScience’s CEO Dr Duane Varan looked into this, finding it took five hours of social video to reach one minute of effective audience exposure. Conversely, it took just 12 minutes for premium video. “You cannot assume all exposures are equal,” Dr Varan says. MediaCom’s Client Partner, Lynsey Mogridge, says clients are open to this, they’re already planning on sales, not just reach or CPMs. Foxtel Media Director of Customer Engagement, Toby Dewar, says this research “talks to the old tradition, which is: context matters.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E198 · Mon, April 25, 2022
Australian marketers flatlining on data and digital capability and losing CX remit: Coles Sam McLeod, ex-Woolies X exec Willem Paling on why and what next
Skills and capabilities across digital marketing, CX, data and analytics have flatlined in Australia over the last three years according to a study of more than 200 marketers. If the data is right, brands are delusional about the skills they have versus what they need, while half the market has either been stripped of CX responsibility, or never had it to start with. Fresh from a decade in the UK, Coles GM of Brand, Digital and Design Sam McLeod thinks Australia is way behind the data-to-insight curve. Willem Paling has just left Woolies X and Cartology and says marketing must present itself as greater than the ads or promotional function if it is to regain the CX remit. Teresa Sperti, whose firm Arktic Fox is behind the Marketing State of Play study, thinks ANZ’s marketing team and Kate Young have set the standard when it comes to equipping teams with the skills now sorely required. But there’s a big chunk of the market that needs a plan, pronto. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E197 · Thu, April 21, 2022
Digital winners – how beauty giant MECCA is nailing loyalty while Coles, Woolies and Cotton On are making brand purpose pay: Salesforce VP Jo Gaines
The hottest topic in the digital market, Salesforce’s Jo Gaines reckons, is loyalty. And she has two words for brands not delivering personalisation, killer experiences, and a rewarding value exchange: ‘Watch out’. “They really expect you to know all of that,” she says. Competitors are likely circling. Beauty giant MECCA is nailing it, and there are smaller businesses emerging that are looking at partnerships to deliver similar experiences. Likewise, Gaines says, purpose-driven organisations are seeing fundamentally better returns, and the work by big corporates during disasters isn’t going unnoticed. “People are going to Woolies and Coles, they're going to Bunnings, they're relying on companies like Cotton On,” she says. “They are front and centre in the community. They are holding the community together.” These are some of the latest shopping trends in 2022. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E196 · Tue, April 12, 2022
‘No excuses’ for not having audio devices all day: SCA says dynamic ads, smart speakers, long sessions and high ‘we’re not Facebook’ iOS opt ins fuelling massive digital audio growth
Digital audio is growing at about 35 per cent year-on-year, and is now north of $150 million, Southern Cross Austereo’s Chief Sales Officer, Brian Gallagher, reckons. And as digital audio grows, so too are the learnings. For one, smart speakers make up 20 to 30 per cent of the total audience, and those people are listening for hours at a time. Two in every three dollars spent with SCA are buying direct insertions – just one third are programmatic ads. And agencies are still splitting audio and digital teams. There’s more growth ahead, Gallagher says. “At this stage of the history of the development of audio, there are absolutely no excuses for not having some form of audio product with you at every stage of your day,” he says. Jonathan Mandel, SCA’s Head of Digital Sales and Ops, says the network’s LiSTNR app has passed all expectations gaining trust and consumer opt in on Apple iOS devices. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E195 · Mon, April 11, 2022
Can Australia’s richest man, Andrew Forrest, save contextual & diverse audiences and indie media frozen out by Facebook & Google as Big Tech’s $200m pay-off silences Big Australian Media
Some have labelled as futile the “WaitingOnZuck" news freeze mounted by 40 independent Australian publishers three weeks ago to protest Facebook and Google’s dismissive and arrogant treatment of smaller, independent media publishers under the Federal Government’s globally acclaimed Media Bargaining Code legislation. But a street fight engineered by independent media, and intervention by the philanthropic foundation of billionaire Fortescue Metals founder, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, to lead a collective bargaining agreement forcing Big Tech to reverse dismissive, stalling tactics, may just have shifted the winds…and delivered blue chip brands a lesson in what to do when their audiences, and tech stack, are all but monopolised by global platforms. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E194 · Thu, April 07, 2022
Healthier returns: Contextual, location-powered pDOOH targeting healthy youth without insurance via dynamic creative moves needle for NIB, sets ‘new industry benchmark’
NIB is reinventing itself, looking to reach young types not necessarily into health insurance – rather than the 45 per cent of Australians who already have a policy. It ran 20 different messages, influenced by location, targeting gyms and supermarkets on programmatic digital out of home screens with Val Morgan Outdoor. “Rather than focusing on advertising that talks to a joining offer, it was more about who NIB is as a brand,” Marketing Manager Mitch Leman says. That meant reminders to eat healthily, walk further, or exercise longer. It took time but was worth it. With Yahoo location data, VMO’s facial analytics, postcode-level third party data, it hit a “sweet spot of programmatic”, MediaCom’s Nick Thomas says – and he didn’t even work on the campaign. Yahoo’s Andrew Gilbert, Essence’s Katie Rooney and VMO Managing Director Paul Butler unpack NIB’s campaign – and why it’s delivering healthier returns. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E193 · Mon, April 04, 2022
Nine reveals first media attention data from Prof. Karen Nelson-Field: Mobile beats Connected TV which beats broadcast for active attention; YouTube feels heat for "skip ad button" focus
The first detailed attention data from a major media group is out with Nine releasing findings of its attention study with Professor Karen Nelson-Field’s Amplified Intelligence. For a 30-second spot on linear television, the average person pays just 11 seconds of “Active Attention”, or 37 per cent of the ad. BVOD on connected TVs and mobile phones score higher on active attention but when added to “Passive Attention”, linear television vastly outperforms most of its rivals, say Nine’s Liana Dubois and Jonathan Fox. So what to do with this conundrum? Hatched Media's Head of Planning, Andrew Pascoe, who has gone all in on attention, says the opportunity is nuanced but massive. To boot, "attention CPMs", currently being used by many agency groups, are deeply troubled, the trio warn. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E192 · Mon, March 28, 2022
Mental availability, brand rejection, Binet & Field, ESOV and Ehrenberg-Bass: New B2B data shows marketers should flip the funnel sideways for business growth, B2C strategy also on the hook
Mi3’s most read story of 2021 unpacked the critical role of mental availability in business metrics, as well as its impact on ESOV , or extra share of advertising voice. Now Ehrenberg-Bass Institute Professors Byron Sharp, Jenni Romaniuk and John Dawes, the people behind ‘mental availability’, have produced a paper with the B2B Institute that should have far-reaching implications for marketing and advertising practice. From flipping the marketing funnel sideways to scotching “delusions” that retention and loyalty trump acquisition – and a new performance-enhancing twist on Binet & Field’s 60:40 brand to performance rule (it should be 95:5) – the rules unpacked in How B2B Brands Grow equally apply in B2C marketing, says co-author, Jenni Romaniuk. Jon Lombardo, Global Research Lead at The B2B Institute hopes the science emboldens brands to stop making “drab and dull” performance ads and stop worrying about offending customers. The truth, he says, is few people care about brands at all: “It’s all upside. The job is always to build mental availability.” LinkedIn’s ANZ and SEA Enterprise boss Prue Cox says the likes of Westpac and DocuSign are nailing it. Read the original 'mental availability' story here: https://www.mi-3.com.au/28-06-2021/mental-availability-critical-brand-growth-and-extra-share-voice-says-aca-report See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E191 · Mon, March 21, 2022
Cookies, cream and crackers: Arnott’s CMO Jenni Dill on retailer media, selling out of Tim Tam perfume and fixing a tired, older-skewing brand for youngsters, the decadent and the healthy
Former McDonald’s CMO Jenni Dill joined the old but iconic Arnott’s in the same role 18 months ago after US private equity firm KKR paid $3.2 billion for the business from Campbell's. Rather than stripping out costs in pursuit of rapid profit, the new owners are investing to build Arnott’s return as a contemporary Australian iconic brand. The growth plans are ambitious and, in the case of a sell-out of Tim Tam perfume, unconventional – but this year will see Dill and her team put the foot down an accelerate an all new Arnott’s. A booming retailer media sector, by the way, is promising for Arnott’s growth but Dill remains pragmatic on its potential. For now, it’s sitting at circa 10 per cent of the biscuit maker’s budget. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E190 · Mon, March 14, 2022
‘He’s well versed in current structures of power in media and marketing’: Why Henry Tajer has put millions into a new venture to upend corporate, agency strategy and planning… and the $16bn influence business
Influence, influencers, creator economy and ‘systems thinking’… Standby for some new buzzwords like people-based influence and privacy-friendly zero party data, as the global influencer market is set to top $16bn this year. But the influence industry is still unhinged, poorly managed and needs integrated measurement to help marketing teams understand business impact. And for different reasons, corporate strategy, market research and agency strategy planning are facing structural overhauls that a new venture, The Influence Group, is banking its new model on. Here’s why. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E189 · Thu, March 10, 2022
New Work Order: NAB partnerships chief, Mindshare and Foxtel Media CEOs break down post-Covid client, agency and publisher supply chain challenges, flexible working, bad industry practices, and where media goes next
No-one in the advertising supply chain is immune to the challenge of how to work in the post-Covid world. NAB’s Thomas Dobson, Mindshare’s outgoing CEO Katie Rigg Smith and Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain have had to manage this New Work Order. Is it “in the room, not Zoom”? Full flexibility? A mixture of both? Rigg Smith says the pandemic created an expectation that everyone was at their computer, working, morning till night. “You don’t build trust over email,” she says. Frain says half the workforce came back from the summer holidays exhausted from Covid isolation or illness. Likewise, remote working isn’t easy on culture. “The old adage was, ‘get in your chair and start learning the job’,” he says. “Pretty hard if you’re sitting in your living room”. NAB’s Thomas Dobson says future workplaces will come down to trust. “You underestimate how much trust is there, especially when you’re talking about millions of dollars’ worth of media investment that has to pay off.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E188 · Tue, March 08, 2022
Tip of the iceberg: Brands want to reweight media campaigns to lowest carbon publishers; Australia’s Bcorp indie agencies plan to pip holdcos with Net Zero Media calculator; Shift happening faster than publishers realise
$6.5bn fund manager Australian Ethical, ‘clean fast food’ firm Guzman y Gomez, Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s, Lion’s Stone & Wood, The Body Shop and parts of Danone are all Bcorps. They are all driving growth through commitments to social and environmental good – and are all laser-focused on the sustainability and purpose credentials of those they do business with. That includes media owners and agencies. In a few weeks, a new media carbon calculator developed by Benedictus Media sister company Net Zero Media – in beta and set to launch ahead of those being touted by the likes of GroupM – will shine a light on which publishers or media channels will deliver lowest carbon footprint per campaign. Bosses of Australia’s three certified Bcorp indie agencies, Benedictus, Alchemy One and Optimising, say those clients can then reweight spend – and may even make shorter ads – in a bid to lessen environmental impact. And they think it’s just the tip of the iceberg. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E187 · Mon, February 28, 2022
Tourism Australia CMO Susan Coghill: Search volumes up 160%; Times Square, Piccadilly Circus billboards spearhead Oz ad blitz; Local CX, unique ID trial expands to UK, Singapore for post-cookie travel crunch
With the largest social media following in the world as a tourism destination – 17 million – an international advertising blitz in the wings and the expansion offshore of a new customer experience (CX) and post-cookie ID platform trial, Tourism Australia’s CMO Susan Coghill and team have a billion dollar fight on their hands. How do you attract tourists, competing against governments the world over throwing everything at kickstarting decimated tourist economies – and travellers eschewing long-haul flights? TA has a potential head start on first party data-driven CX designed to pass muster in a post-privacy, post-cookie world but it’s got to build and convert intent first. There’s $60 billion at stake for the Australian economy, and hundreds of thousands of livelihoods in every state counting on Tourism Australia to pull every lever at its disposal. The early indications are positive. CMO Susan Coghill unpacks the early roadmap. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E186 · Thu, February 24, 2022
Seven to 10% of TV viewers aren’t watching any linear TV – but are streaming BVOD; VOZ adoption growing, but networks say many marketers still buying in silos
In the six months since VOZ launched, giving a look at unduplicated viewers on linear TV, online streaming and catch-up services, dozens of agencies and hundreds of brands have started using its data – but the networks say there’s still a way to go (and myths to be busted). Nine’s Richard Hunwick says “streaming choosers” are a new category of streaming-only viewer, which ThinkTV CEO Kim Portrate says includes the light viewer – like young people and women. Seven’s Craig Johnson says a lot of marketers are still buying TV in silos, and some agencies are using their own data, which lacks the competitive tension of the three major broadcasters keeping VOZ unbiased. There are seams of gold, too. Five of the top 15 BVOD programs last year were on demand first or exclusives like Love Island UK or Survivor South Africa, 10 ViacomCBS’s Gareth Tomlin says. ThinkTV and OzTam say TV blows YouTube out of the attention water. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E185 · Mon, February 21, 2022
GroupM boss Aimee Buchanan and Essence CEO Pat Crowley spell out where billions of brand dollars are heading next; time to walk the talk on transparency, media diversity and why publishers should prepare for carbon targets
GroupM’s new CEO Aimee Buchanan spent ten years at OMD, trading on a transparency ticket and throwing stones at the approaches taken by GroupM and other “enemy” holdcos. New Essence CEO Pat Crowley was the ultimate under-the-radar operator. As one industry observer has it, “Pat played by Covid rules before Covid existed”. But he led Ikon’s CommBank account for 17 years, and the Sydney agency for half a dozen – and says grown-up kids mean it’s time to step up to steer Essence through the turbulence of a triple whammy agency merger. The two make the perfect odd couple, eerily aligned on transparency, what’s under the trading hood, diversity and decarbonisation of media supply chains – coming soon – and executing the new operating framework for the holdco, its people and business units locally. Buchanan says she even has license to make changes at the expense of profit targets. But she’s not known for missing them. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E184 · Thu, February 17, 2022
SCA’s audio platform LiSTNR takes off: A year on from a risky plan to bundle live radio, podcasts, news and sport into a platform people must sign-in to listen, SCA’s CEO Grant Blackley and CSO Brian Gallagher reveal the data-rich numbers, challenges and success: ‘We can target Nike ads to someone who's jogging’
One year ago, SCA leapt into the unknown with a streaming platform that bundled radio, audio, podcasts, and live streaming and a signed-in audience. How has it gone? Well, every day over the past year, more than 1,300 people have signed up and signed into the LiSTNR app. CEO Grant Blackley and Chief Sales Officer Brian Gallagher say it has already smashed expectations – and the momentum is still building. There are 500,000 signed in users now, and there have been 14 million streams over the past 11 months. “We’ve got the same kind of audiences as Spotify in the ad-funded space,” says Gallagher. Monetisation always lags uptake, Blackley says, but the “J-curve” they predicted a few months ago is steepening fast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E183 · Mon, February 14, 2022
ANZ the next P&G? Why the bank has gone in-house to build 300 next gen marketers ready for AI, creativity, storytelling, tech, personalisation…and spotting AI bias in the machines
It used to be that P&G and Unilever would almost guarantee a long and possibly illustrious marketing career as the gold standard for applied marketing after university. P&G, in particular, was currency on any CV. So perhaps no surprise ANZ CMO Sweta Mehra – who joined the bank from P&G – has overseen a multi-million dollar investment to develop an in-housed capability program for 300 of her marketers. Mehra wants them match fit for an up-ended marketing world in five years, not floating in their own bubble with narrow, outdated skillsets. But building those smarts involves deep thinking about what skills are needed and ANZ’s program lead, Kate Young, says empathy, creativity and storytelling will be crucial as AI replaces campaign managers and the rest. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E182 · Thu, February 10, 2022
Why creativity, old school contextual tricks, clever segmentation, and post-cookie measurement are on the 2022 agenda for BMW’s new GM of Marketing Alex McLean and Origin Energy’s Sara Varnell
2022 is off to a rocky start: A supply chain crunch, a talent shortage, and campaign measurement challenges are just a few issues on the agenda. But BMW’s new GM for Marketing Alex McLean says it’s a great time to start – demand has never been so much higher than supply. Digital attribution is a growing challenge, Origin’s Sara Varnell says, and the big measurement companies haven’t cracked it yet, but she’s working with Atomic 212° on an AI-fuelled platform to keep track of valuable conversion data. Atomic212°’s National Managing Director, Rory Heffernan, says clients are facing targets based on historical figures that they can’t replicate. Asier Carazo and Sarah O’Leary, both from Atomic212°, say the days of annual planning are gone and brands being brave is key to success. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E181 · Mon, February 07, 2022
Fear and loathing: Women need men to get ‘casual sexism’ – but they’ve been scared off: How Australia’s agencies, media and brands are trying to re-engage disengaged blokes (if we can call them that)
Men are scared and lost in the push for gender equality – they don’t even know if it’s okay to hold the door open any more. As a result, men are disengaging from the gender quality debate, progress is stuttering and women are worried. Hence a month ahead of International Women’s Day, an alliance of Australian publishers, agencies and brands are calling on men to “be the change-makers”. Otherwise women are “just talking to themselves” as their would-be allies – men - muzzle themselves for fear of saying the wrong thing. 10 ViacomCBS sales boss Rod Prosser is on board; Impact.com CEO Adam Furness openly admits to getting things wrong in the past – costing him his job at Southern Cross Austereo – and says forty-something white men like him “are the problem” and need to become part of the solution. Now industry gender initiative, Fck The Cupcakes, wants more men – and brands – to do the right thing, and are holding the door open for blokes to enter the room. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E180 · Fri, February 04, 2022
Showing the C-suite how budget decisions impact growth: How ME Bank, Samsung and CUB marketers sharpened MROI to shift metrics, move the needle, defend spend
Quantifying marketing return on investment, or MROI, has long been hit and miss. But now marketers are using cloud-powered dynamic econometric models to show CEOs and CFOs their marketing investments are driving business results – and to spell out the declines that would occur if they were to cut marketing budgets. Meanwhile, as digital marketers’ ability to track people using cookies and online identifiers is removed by platforms and regulators, the ability to perform faster media mix modelling (MMM) is rapidly climbing the CMO agenda. Which is why Mutiny’s WarChest platform is being deployed by the likes of Samsung, Bank of Queensland Group and CUB. The brands are making more informed marketing investments as a result – and shifting how they think about customer acquisition. Bank Of Queensland Group’s Melody Townsend, Samsung’s Carl Bunn and CUB’s Megan Quinn unpack how MROI is moving the needle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E179 · Mon, January 31, 2022
High speed weapons, subs and warships: Once-secretive defence industry turns to marketing - consumer, B2B, brand, voters and government - to win lucrative contracts. What changed?
The battleground for multi-billion dollar defence contracts building high-speed weapons, armoured vehicles and submarines was once a classified world. But over the past decade, something curious has happened: Defence contractors increasingly need to build brand campaigns and need to reach very public audiences to do so. Two very big and expensive projects over the past decade – the now shelved French submarines contract and the ‘future frigates’ project – illustrate the change. Former BAE Systems exec and Chandran Thinc founder Chandran Vigneswaran and Tory Shepherd, a journalist at The Guardian, explore how recent bids have lured top marketers, and leveraged social media, journalists and mainstream ads to reach the right audiences. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E178 · Mon, January 24, 2022
Iconic no more: Why former CMO Alexander Meyer left The Iconic for Canada’s oldest retailer; creativity now trumps ‘table stakes’ digital marketing for competitive advantage
Few have been as deeply involved as a marketing practitioner through the digital marketing boom of the past 20 years as Alexander Meyer, the former CMO at pureplay retailer The Iconic. But the targeting tools digital marketers have been using are fast hitting walls – think cookies and the mass harvesting of user intent signals. Data and tech are just standard tools today - the biggest business differentiator, says Meyer, is a swing back to creativity. Meyer, born in Communist East Germany before the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, has moved to Canada to take up a role at The Bay, the new digital-first retail play by The Hudson’s Bay Company. Digital “pureplays won the battle”, Meyer says, but “omni retailers will win the war”. This is the most exciting retail tech platform in the world right now, he reckons. He also says marketing can 'save the world' - but it needs radically new DNA. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E177 · Mon, November 29, 2021
How Ben Liebmann, an Australian media guy, ended up COO at Noma, the world’s best restaurant – and now has streaming platforms coming back for seconds
You probably know Noma in Copenhagen is officially the world’s best restaurant. What you probably didn't know is that its Chief Operating Officer is an Australian called Ben Liebmann, the media guy who brought the acclaimed Noma pop up restaurant to Sydney's Barangaroo six years ago with Tourism Australia. You also probably wouldn't know that Liebmann was handpicked by Elizabeth Murdoch a decade ago to create Shine 360, the commercial arm of her production business, to run rights management, sponsorship, brand integration and consumer products. Shine's Master Chef ended up becoming a $700 million beast from sponsorship deals, consumer products such as pots and pans, book sales events and the rest. At Noma, Liebmann is working with the real master chef in Noma founder René Redzepi, who is eschewing the well-worn path of licensed restaurants or Gordon Ramsay style entertainment shows. Instead, they have built a different kind of media unit, with shows now being picked-up by a global streaming giant. And it may be that Liebmann is heading back to Australia permanently to expand the business. Suffice to say Mi3 listeners are in for a veritable feast of creativity, growth and a hunger for more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E176 · Thu, November 25, 2021
B2B’s great tension: Lead gen v brand building, why tech hardware firms and DocuSign are racing to brand and Zenith’s Nickie Scriven on lifting B2B cut-through, webinar overload
There’s been a dramatic shift in B2B marketing over the past 18 months. B2B marketers have slowly clocked on that they over-invested in performance marketing tactics and hadn’t seen the long-term growth they expected. For tech hardware firms, global supply chain issues have meant they’ve had no choice but to try brand – there’s little to sell. “We’re definitely seeing this swing away from your heavy focus on that lower funnel activity,” says LinkedIn’s Prue Cox. DocuSign, a cloud-based e-signature platform, is a case in point. It boomed through Covid and has just launched a brand campaign with influencers like Boost Juice’s Janine Allis and former Nine host Jules Lund. CMO Andrea Dixon says DocuSign had to pivot from B2B to “business to everyone” – virtually overnight. Meanwhile, Zenith Media CEO Nickie Scriven reckons there’s a real opportunity for B2B firms to lift their cut-through on lead gen. “I get at least 20 (emails) a day and I just delete every single one of them,” she says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E175 · Mon, November 22, 2021
Behavioural economics? What 23 fierce auto rivals did together to make 3 million car owners do something they didn’t want to
In 2018 Australian carmakers were collectively rattled. The consumer and competition regulator, the ACCC, dropped a bombshell on the auto industry in the form of the biggest mandatory product recall ever in Australia – 4.1 million faulty and potentially deadly Takata airbags in more than 3 million vehicles had to be replaced. The problem? Car owners were apathetic and entirely disinterested. Here’s how 23 car brands joined forces to head-off hefty ACCC penalties and deployed a media strategy that got spooked automakers to a 99.9% success rate. And a happy ACCC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E174 · Thu, November 18, 2021
‘Yahoo is back’: new owners, 5m Aussie emails, a powering AR creative studio, digital publishing, DSPs, SSPs and ‘community gardens’, not walled’
Yahoo’s new owners in Apollo Funds Management are backing Yahoo to the max – and the business is bolting. One of the earliest internet platforms is an entirely different beast today but what is Yahoo? Better question: ‘What isn’t Yahoo?’ US giant Verizon sold the company to Apollo for $5 billion earlier this year and it’s been unleashed. Yahoo’s a search company, a digital publisher, a creative agency, a demand- and a sell-side platform used by at least 20 local publishers, an email service used by five million Australians, and a specialist in the emerging market of Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality (AR, VR and MR). “Yahoo is back,” Rachel Page, Yahoo’s GM of Sales, says. And while the Googles and Facebooks of the world are building soaring walls around their products, data and tech, Yahoo has taken a different approach: the community garden. Walled gardens have “some inherent challenges”, Vice President ANZ Paul Sigaloff says. “At Yahoo, it’s a very different approach. It’s about flexibility and collaboration.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E173 · Mon, November 15, 2021
NRMA brand was ‘tanking’: Why Brent Smart and The Monkeys won the 2021 Grand Effie: $300m lift in brand value after four years investing 70% of budget in brand over performance; competitors treating customers as ‘fools’
NRMA Insurance was “tanking” before IAG CMO Brent Smart returned from New York and appointed Accenture’s The Monkeys, without a pitch, in an early Australian textbook execution of Les Binet and Peter Field’s work around the business impact of investing long-term in brand. Smart went further but was unwavering from the get-go – as were The Monkeys - about returning to “HELP" in late 2017, according to a redacted entry submission to the Effies seen by Mi3. A series of brand-led campaigns, spearheaded by The Monkeys, took out the Advertising Council’s Grand Effie Award last month for returning the ailing insurance company to category-leading growth. But just how bad were things at NRMA Insurance, and how and why did they return to a 20-year-old idea? Smart and The Monkeys’ CEO Mark Green and Chief Strategy Officer Fabio Buresti get brutally honest. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E172 · Thu, November 11, 2021
Why Accenture Strategy’s Stijn De Vriendt left to lead Tightrope, RyanCap’s boutique strategy play targeting mature mid-tier and high growth scale-ups
Most Australian mid-size businesses and up in Australia have hired very smart consultants, developed new business strategies and growth plans … and then seen most or all of the work shelved. “It’s about 90 per cent opportunity, 10 per cent frustration,” says Tightrope’s Managing Director Stijn De Vriendt, the former Strategy Director at Accenture Strategy. Tightrope is RyanCap’s new boutique strategy consultancy, which has a sweet spot positioned just below the big end of consulting and strategy advisors like Bain, McKinsey, Accenture and the big four audit and consulting giants. Typically they’re too big – and perhaps too expensive - for mature mid-tier companies grappling with business transformation programs and high-growth scale-up companies needing to go to the next level but lacking the internal horsepower to get there. Tightrope is pulling the best attributes from agencies and consulting firms to target digital pureplays – aka “the disruptors” – and helping them scale, as well as legacy bricks and mortar businesses – aka “the disrupted” – to help them go digital. But instead of just writing a report and leaving, Tightrope wants to do more. “We don’t just stop at strategy,” De Vriendt says. “We want to go beyond and develop prototypes, test those with customers, and help a client get ready to actually scale.” And Tightrope says the balancing act is already working. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E171 · Mon, November 08, 2021
Advertising Hall of Fame: Sarah Barclay, Faie Davis first two Australian women inductees ever with tales of inventing Singapore Girl, blokes doing feminine hygiene, badly; Warren Brown reveals a fateful moment with Brad Pitt
Advertising legends Faie Davis and Sarah Barclay, creators of iconic ads from Yellow Pages’ “Not Happy Jan” to Singapore Airlines’ Singapore Girl have been inducted into the AWARD Advertising Hall of Fame. They’re the first two women ever to have made the list, even an agency – The Campaign Palace – was inducted before a woman made the hallowed halls. Joining them on the podium is Warren Brown, co-founder of BMF, crafter of brilliant ideas and raconteur extraordinaire – even with 20 per cent of his brain hacked out after a stroke. Here’s some fabulous tales and instructive views on the state of advertising today. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E170 · Thu, November 04, 2021
Network 10 grew Big Bash cricket by 370% in its first year, says A-Leagues will go bigger; touts ‘incredibly valuable’ ad spots in Paramount+ games
When the Big Bash League started on Network 10 in 2013, it was, well, not very big. But its audience skyrocketed by 370 per cent in the first year alone. “We know how to take a sport, bring it into the free to air landscape and grow it even bigger,” says Nick Bower, Sport Sales Director from 10 ViacomCBS. The network plans to do more of the same with the A-Leagues, and is adding the first ad slots to new streaming service Paramount+ to entice advertisers. “The only way to get access to that incredibly valuable and rich audience within that streaming service is through our football coverage,” Bower says. Ant Hearne, A-Leagues’ Chief Commercial Officer, reckons the challenge is one of conversion: There are 8 million football fans in Australia, but viewers compare the standard to the “incomparable” leagues in Europe. “The conversation has got more into what we’re not, rather than what we are,” he says – but he’s out to change all that. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E169 · Mon, November 01, 2021
De-identified data is no longer enough: Brands, publishers and media supply chain face fundamental changes as Australia’s privacy regulators go harder than GDPR; status quo upended for tracking, targeting and consent
The definition of what counts as personal information is set to change in Australia – with online identifiers even down to geolocation under review, alongside use of loyalty and credit card data – while the very definition of consumer consent is being primed for change by privacy lawmakers and enforcers. The upshot is that the fundamentals that have underpinned digital advertising’s tracking and targeting capabilities may be culled or significantly curtailed – and data privacy experts think Australia’s rules are set to be tighter than GDPR. Meanwhile, those that flout incoming law changes may find themselves open to class actions as well as regulatory punishment. Lauren Solomon, CEO of the Consumer Policy Research Centre, former deputy New South Wales Privacy Commissioner Anna Johnston, Peter Leonard, professor of practice at UNSW's Business School, and Guardian MD, Dan Stinton, unpack what’s coming down the track for Australian brands, publishers, tech platforms and the media supply chain. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E168 · Thu, October 28, 2021
Editors at The Age, The Australian, The Herald and The West Australian on where audiences have shifted post-Covid – and the rich pools advertisers should be fishing in
In the middle of a global pandemic, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age watched lifestyle content numbers boom. They dropped the quantity and boosted the quality of non-news content, embraced newsletters, and it paid off in spades. “The top of the homepage can be so grim,” Executive Editor Tory Maguire says. “But if we present [other content] properly to our audience, they’re really engaging with it.” The Australia’s editor, Michelle Gunn, saw the same. “People yearned for lifestyle content, rich storytelling, stories which took them away,” she says. “We saw a strong move towards weekends.” The West Australian saw a surge in readers, but also for its late TV show and morning radio audiences. “Some of the numbers we were seeing during live streaming of press conferences would rival traditional TV and traditional radio,” says Editor in Chief Anthony De Ceglie. All of which presents advertisers with new options now Australia is opening up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E167 · Mon, October 25, 2021
Marketing Academy CEO Sherilyn Shackell: CMOs more powerful post-pandemic but stretched to limits; agencies must stem talent blood loss to survive
Marketers have been smashed by the pandemic – but have emerged more powerful, with much bigger, broader remits, according to The Marketing Academy CEO, Sherilyn Shackell. The Academy has spoken with thousands of marketers over the last 18 months and finds greater numbers are becoming board members and CEOs. But they must now carry even greater weight under broader demands and silo-busting skillset requirements. Agencies, however, are struggling to stem severe blood loss. Leaders must step up – because their people are burnt out and disillusioned – and new blood is in short supply. Shackell sees more in-housing incoming. Both agencies and brands, she says, underestimate the need for ‘soft’ skills around leadership and staff wellbeing at their peril. “If you don't look after that stuff, you're shafted.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E166 · Thu, October 21, 2021
‘Before you thump the table and expect clients to buy engagement you need to prove it delivers better results’, says Foxtel; Westpac brand chief Jenny Melhuish agrees, but the bank is testing the water
The marketing and media world are rushing to get to market first with engagement metrics – or at least talk about them. But how is that playing out on the ground, and are brands ready? “Before you can go to market and thump the table and expect clients to buy to engagement, you need to be really clear about … the proof that engagement can deliver better results for brands,” says Foxtel Media’s Customer Engagement Director, Toby Dewar. Westpac brand, media and ad chief Jenny Melhuish says the bank is testing engagement and attention-based campaigns but agrees the metrics are yet to catch up with prevailing market sentiment. “The CPM metric is a rational one… we need to believe in the robustness of a metric, and currently, we don’t have a robust metric.” Either way, Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Anthony Gregorio says the creative is vital, whatever metrics people use: “If no-one is paying attention to your message, then it doesn’t really matter how good the media buy is.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E165 · Mon, October 18, 2021
The $200bn black hole: Marketers wasting a third of budgets by giving agencies crap briefs, don’t even know their strategy is non-existent; here’s the proof and how to fix it
Professor Mark Ritson was right all along: “90 per cent of marketers fail to brief agencies effectively, and their failures begin with a total lack of strategy.” The headline findings of the Better Briefs Project and its research spanning 1,700 marketers and agencies make for grim reading. Marketers don’t even realise their briefs are mostly duds, yet agencies are “screaming for objectives”, according to report co-creators, strategists Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies. Unless things improve, marketer tenures – and marketing and advertising’s standing within boardrooms – will continue to decline. But there are some very simple fixes. Applying them promises to repair the marketer-agency disconnect – and deliver advertising that moves the needle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E164 · Mon, October 18, 2021
Marketers ‘set up for failure’ by arbitrary growth targets and short-term budget boosts, but building a scientific model can get C-suite buy in
How a marketer’s budget is set is often doomed to fail, Pet Circle CMO Jon Wild says. Typically, it stems from a business’s growth target. “There’s an arbitrary increase to marketing spend and you’re told to go hit the target. Typically, you fall short in the first quarter, and it’s death by a thousand cuts for the remainder of the year.” That method is “set up for failure”, he says. Rather, growth should be function of the whole company – with marketing being one factor – working towards those targets. Budgets and spend is the last of eight steps detailed in a new book from Atomic212’s James Dixon and Claire Fenner on how to build an Effective Media System. “The place we want to get to is where we know for every dollar we spend on media, what we’re going to get back out,” Dixon says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E163 · Thu, October 14, 2021
10 ViacomCBS’s Upfronts preview: I’m a Celebrity, Survivor, MasterChef, the streaming shift from primetime ratings to lifetime engagement and ‘feeding the hungry beast’
10 ViacomCBS will headline its 2022 Upfronts by touting its credentials as a more diverse, full-service broadcaster with room to grow and a big hitting content slate straight out of the gates. I’m a Celebrity starts on January 3, with Survivor and MasterChef hot on its heels. After that, “you’re into that pattern of big franchises all year,” says Chief Content Officer Beverley McGarvey. “It’s about consistency, maintaining big brands, but also adding some fresh content and fresh shows.” The network is investing heavily in streaming service Paramount+, which McGarvey admits is “a hungry beast that you need to feed with lots of new shows all the time”. Key to the new 10ViacomCBS offering is its full suite: “Paramount+, 10Play, MTV, Nickelodeon… we don’t run those businesses separately,” Jarrod Villani, Chief Operating and Commercial Officer, says. “Bev and I have oversight over all of those businesses.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E162 · Mon, October 11, 2021
Apple turned-over: How Dell pulled out of price wars to go premium with a massive brand push, smashed sales and made a hero of marketing in the process
Dell tops US$94 billion in revenues, but it had been in a perpetual street fight on pricing for years and was losing margin with brand health metrics flatlining. With a new premium push it went large on brand, inviting Australia’s publishers to pitch their ideas. Around 150 publishers turned up, the response blowing away marketing boss Arjun Dueskar. Opting to go with 10ViacomCBS and MediaCom, the results have been “phenomenal” with double-digit growth continuing quarter on quarter since the start of 2020 and brand metrics rocketing. Now marketing is getting all the plaudits – and board backing to go harder on brand investment. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E161 · Thu, October 07, 2021
‘Perfect storm’ of tech, e-commerce and household savings growth means brands are about to hit pay dirt, say Coles CMO Lisa Ronson, Seven’s David Koch, Kurt Burnette
The QR code was once the daggy tech no-one wanted - but it’s now back, and even David “Kochie” Koch’s 87-year-old mother is using them. Five years of e-commerce development has been squeezed into the past 18 months, and Aussies haven’t been able to spend their money in lockdowns. “The economy is going to come out with a vengeance,” Koch, the host of Seven’s Sunrise and Pinstripe Media chair, says. People have money and they want to spend it. Forward bookings with Seven are “extraordinary”, Chief Revenue Officer Kurt Burnette says. “71 per cent of connected TV viewers use their mobile to look up related content… the time between being inspired and purchasing is shrinking,” he says. “All of these trends that are happening are making this the perfect storm.” Coles CMO Lisa Ronson says e-commerce sales have soared – and they don’t expect them to slow. Brands that aren’t ready will be left behind. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E160 · Tue, October 05, 2021
Part 2: Cheat’s guide to the ACCC’s final Digital Advertising Services report - the six recommendations unpacked
The second and final episode in our two-part series breaks down five of the six recommendations in the ACCC report to the Federal government on the Digital Advertising Services inquiry – the first recommendation was covered in Part 1 yesterday. On the mics again today for the follow up are Peter Leonard, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School, advisor at law firm Gilbert + Tobin and principal of Data Strategies; Gai Le Roy, CEO at the IAB; Dan Stinton, Managing Director at The Guardian Australia and Kristiaan Kroon, Chief Investment Officer at OMG. Buckle in because as our experts say in this two-part series, apathy won’t work for the industry this time. It's no time to ignore the regulators. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E159 · Mon, October 04, 2021
Part 1: Cheats guide to the ACCC’s final Digital Advertising Services Inquiry - everything explained for marketers, agencies, media and tech
Avoid reading another 200 page ACCC probe with this two-part series on the regulator’s final recommendations to the Federal Government from the Digital Advertising Services Inquiry. Google is squarely in the spotlight but as our panel of industry experts warn, what the ACCC is doing to Google is an early signal for broader industry. In today’s heavyweight line-up: Peter Leonard, Professor of Practice at UNSW Business School, advisor at law firm Gilbert + Tobin and Principal at Data Strategies; Dan Stinton, Managing Director at The Guardian Australia; Gai Le Roy, CEO at the IAB and Kristiaan Kroon, Chief Investment Officer at OMG. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E158 · Thu, September 30, 2021
Australian brands are behind on ESG messaging, but post-Covid TV viewing habits, and booming back catalogues, make for a fast – and sustainable – solution
Consider a few stats: The Discovery Channel, Turbo, TLC and Animal Planet are having their best ratings years – ever. Back catalogue episodes are booming: Video on-demand consumption of Friends is up 103 per cent. Fifty-six per cent of people have watched more food and cooking shows, and 70 per cent of them said they would keep watching more post-lockdowns. New viewing habits are here to stay. Brands with environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals can tap into this by targeting ads to those audiences. “If someone is going to sit down and watch an hour-long documentary on conservation, then they must be interested in that space,” Rebecca Kent, Discovery’s Senior Vice President of Transformation, says. “There’s lots of opportunity, I’m not seeing us capturing it yet.” Tim Christlieb, BBC Studios’ Director of Branded Services, says the era of a hidden sustainability web page are over. Meanwhile, when we’re all on video calls, all we can talk about is what we’re watching, Foxtel Media’s Daniella Serhan says. “We’re making it really easy for… brands to a part of that conversation.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E157 · Mon, September 27, 2021
Walking the talk: BWS’ top marketer on how going all out for local booze brands lifted sales 20%, permanently changed its marketing strategy
When Covid hit, BWS went all out to help local suppliers, which already battered by floods and bush fires, faced risk of extinction. BWS ditched its pre-Covid plan and campaign went all out for localism, launching a competition for independent brewers, distillers and winemakers to get stocked across its 1,400 stores, creating a marketing template for local suppliers to lift and getting locals to vote for the brands stores would stock. The new plan “smashed it,” according to Head of Marketing Vanessa Rowed. The retailer had been hoping for a 5 per cent sales increase, but hit 20 per cent, delivering the “highest ROI of any campaign we’ve run”, according to Carat’s Bianca Falloon. As states plot routes out of lockdown, Rowed thinks localism is here to stay. Meanwhile, she says local brands can help solve the supply chain crunch looming large over Australia’s Christmas retail – and says the Covid “sprint” has permanently changed BWS’ marketing strategy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E156 · Thu, September 23, 2021
‘I invite my CFO to creative pitches’: Pet Circle CMO John Wild says hiring analysts, using data bridges destructive divide between finance and marketing, protects budgets
John Wild, the Chief Marketing Officer for Pet Circle, invites his CFO to creative pitches and hires analysts with better data coding skills than the finance team. Why? So they can understand his job and buy into the creative messaging. “It’s incumbent on you to make [CFOs] your friend,” he says. “Make marketing look and smell very much like a financial output. Suddenly, when it comes to cutting costs, you’re not cutting costs, you’re cutting growth, you’re cutting customers, you’re cutting revenue.” Nicole McInnes, Director of Marketing at WW (formerly Weight Watchers), says she used to have “dark weeks” when she worked at eHarmony – when the time came to review media spend. “There is still a lot of misunderstanding in non-marketing executives on the effectiveness of some channels because they don’t have that data,” she says. Too many marketers don’t understand the basics of media and how to demonstrate media’s value, Atomic212’s James Dixon and Claire Fenner say. So much so, they’ve written a book – quite literally – on the topic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E155 · Mon, September 20, 2021
Attitude adjuster: IPO-bound Australian unicorn SiteMinder CMO plots growth surge as travel rebounds, but says brands, agencies have B2B marketing – and in-housing – all wrong
SiteMinder is likely the biggest Australian tech company you’ve never heard of. The $1.1billion hotel booking system unicorn is headed for an IPO – so that will likely change. But what must also shift is Australia’s attitude to B2B marketing as the boring, rational sibling to B2C, says CMO Mark Renshaw. It’s where the smart money is headed, Renshaw reckons, and can teach FMCG marketers everything they need to know about going direct-to-consumer. Meanwhile, the former Leo Burnett Chief Digital Officer says in-housing is where it’s at – and that media and marketing guns can get a far “deeper” business education sitting within brand teams than agencies. He’s bucking the holdco consolidation model and working with specialists instead, and thinks ANZ’s top talent need no longer head oversees to pick up experience with global giants; the local tech scene provides far more opportunity to drive change than taking instructions from global HQ. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E154 · Thu, September 16, 2021
David Jones launched a print mag – and it drove double-digit growth across all its digital channels. Now it’s moving more marketing budget
Most publishers are winding down print operations. David Jones is ramping up – since launching a print magazine five years ago it has seen consistent double-digit growth across each of its digital channels. “The customer is overwhelmed with choice,” David Jones Marketing Communications General Manager Georgia Hack says. So the retailer decided to curate and repurpose its existing branded content into print. “Yes, it is a printed magazine, but it also is a blog on our website. It's a pillar in our email content strategy. It's a pillar on social.” And it’s delivering. News Corp’s Managing Director of Commercial Content, Mike Connaghan, says the need for content can be draining. “All marketers face a chasm of content creation,” he said. “They need the content to fill those channels.” Naturally, News has a solution: David Jones works with its content agency Medium Rare, whose group content director Nick Smith says the secret to branded content success comes down to treating the consumer like a human being. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E153 · Mon, September 13, 2021
‘Digital is just not going to get you there’: How fintech Superhero binned the start-up playbook, went large on TV and OOH, smashed growth targets – and is only just getting started
Launched by a former stockbroker and Booktopia’s CTO, Australian fintech Superhero has ripped up the start-up playbook and powered to massive growth off the back of out of home and TV. “To create big impact and really reach scale, brand awareness and credibility, fast... digital just is not going to get you there,” says marketing lead Rachel Hopping. With CommSec and the big four banks worried, she and Hardhat’s Dan Monheit are planning the retail investment and superannuation management platform’s next major push. With 12m Australian trading virgins to target, the plan is to go large – with an IPO more than likely. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E152 · Thu, September 09, 2021
Foxtel: ‘SVOD will replace Pay TV, AVOD will replace linear TV’; Australia must prepare now for the advertising-based video streaming boom taking off in the US – because it’s about to land
Australia’s streaming market is already crowded. There are only so many people who can sign up to Netflix, Stan, Prime, Binge, Kayo and the rest. That’s before you get to affordability issues – and the audiences for advertisers have been dwindling. Enter AVOD: advertising-based video on demand, where users pay less (or nothing) to see fewer ads. “It will allow people to really target their audience in a way they’ve never been able to do before,” says Foxtel board director Mark Kaner. Foxtel Media CEO, Mark Frain, forecasts ad-supported streaming platforms will come to Australia “pretty quickly”. The future, he says, is lower ad loads – viewers won’t stomach 16 minutes per hour – but more innovation. Thirty second, 10 second, and even shorter ads are paying dividends in the US. Now the Australian market has to prepare for launch – and the return of eyeballs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E151 · Mon, September 06, 2021
‘We will recommend clients pull spend from publishers that do not decarbonise’: GroupM Global chief Christian Juhl bids to build new metrics, puts media on notice
Tasked with rewiring WPP’s media arm, GroupM Global CEO Christian Juhl is going a couple of steps further, attempting to redefine buying metrics and pressure suppliers – i.e. media companies, including Facebook and Google – to decarbonise. If media owners don’t play ball, will GroupM pull dollars? “We’ll certainly make that recommendation,” says Juhl. He thinks focusing on bigger, better global outcomes can make advertising a good place to be for agencies, brands and consumers – and the rewards will follow. Meanwhile, he says incoming ANZ boss Aimee Buchanan has pretty much carte blanche to make sure GroupM is top dog locally. Which means dethroning OMG. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E150 · Mon, August 30, 2021
‘It’s going to change how we plan digital media’: IAB unpacks Australia’s new Ipsos-powered cross media currency, urges patience from buyers, urgency from publishers, but warns size-obsessed mastheads that numbers may fluctuate
Seismic shifts are underway in cross-media audience measurement, and the IAB is preparing for looming turf wars by becoming the one ring to bind them all. It’s axed Nielsen and pulled in Ipsos – and a return to panels – ahead of the end of cookies and incoming privacy changes. The new metric is set to be in market next year, at least in basic form. But in a country where size matters more than most, there will be pain for publishers, especially tagging laggards – even IAB buyer members are telling agencies to cool their boots on what is coming, and when. Meanwhile, there’s work to do on integrating the Iris metric with total TV measurement system, VOZ, not to mention audio, out of home and the rest, while bringing engagement and attention into play. IAB’s Gai Le Roy, Seven’s Nicole Bence, PHD’s Amelia Ward and Ipsos’ Heather White unpack the fundamentals of media measurement’s future. Next year should prove interesting. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E149 · Thu, August 26, 2021
Why a ‘360 view of customers’ has been killed off by smarter, four-dimensional marketing technology and conversational AI, and why brands shouldn’t use zombie CRM systems
Shirish Shrinet gets emails sending him offers and tutorials for make-up. There’s just one problem: he’s never worn any. “This is a classic example of customer experience vs customer expectations,” says Shrinet, SAP’s Senior Director in Customer Experience and Data Management. At some stage, because he bought his wife a present, he was categorised as female somewhere behind the scenes. Artificial Intelligence is changing this. Geraldine McBride, Founder and CEO of AI firm MyWave, says retailers need to shift away from: ‘I’m going to tell you what you should be buying or thinking’. “The world is still stuck in the old paradigm of ‘but I’ve got all the data and I can just enrich it’… that isn’t going to be sufficient.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E148 · Mon, August 23, 2021
'We weren't willing to overpay for Champions League', but Optus' Clive Dickens backs football to drive customer gains - and subscription aggregation play for slice of $4bn market
Optus is backing football (the big game, not the Australian version) to keep delivering customer growth and retention, particularly amongst immigrant Australians – but VP of Product Development for TV and Content, Clive Dickens, says Nine overpaid for the Champions League. He also has a dig at the naysayers at Seven who didn’t think 7plus could be delivered in nine months – including some of his staff, who subsequently left the building. While BVOD is booming, Dickens says display advertising will continue to “hit the floor” and publishers that can make subscription revenue pay will be those left standing. Which is why Optus aims to take a slice of what it forecasts will soon be a $4bn market with an aggregation play. The former SCA and Seven digital supremo thinks SubHub will help set Optus apart from big dog Telstra and the pack of hungry mobile virtual operators trying to nip its heels. But he’s not committing to numbers just yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E147 · Thu, August 19, 2021
Something to crow about: Inghams bets the farm on data-led Out-of-Home targeting and watched its chickens take off; 30% sales boost, 72% from new buyers
Inghams literally put all of its eggs in one basket with Out-of-Home, exclusively using oOh!Media’s network of retail and street screens to launch ‘The Free Ranger’ chicken – and hit pay dirt. It was a big call. But using Quantium data to target free-range humans, it delivered a 30 per cent increase in The Free Ranger buyers – 72 per cent of whom were new to the brand. “They had not tasted it, they had not seen it, they had not heard of it. That’s the killer number,” Brandt said. “That’s extraordinary.” Bohemia CEO Brett Dawson says it’s now taking a data strategy from other channels and testing it with OOH. “And we’ve got the results… It’s real focus for effect. It’s quite new in the outdoor sector.” Bel Harper, Group Director of Product Strategy for oOh!Media, said the market is now starting to move – reporting a shift away from number of screens to proximity and volume to the store. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E146 · Mon, August 16, 2021
Lion ‘on the hunt’ for growth beyond beer, bigger ads and diversity while booting tropes into touch: Brand chief Anubha Sahasrabuddhe thirsting for change – and about to execute
Returning to Australia after 20 years offshore, former Mars, Wrigley and Coke marketer turned Lion brand chief Anubha Sahasrabuddhe thinks the beer category has lost its way. Now “Lion is on the hunt” for new growth – and it’s looking beyond beer. The plan is to ditch tired tropes and brand positions that Sahasrabuddhe thinks are no longer reflective of Australian society – and harness the diversity and personalisation that craft beer has so successfully tapped. But Sahasrabuddhe isn’t about to throw out Lion’s heritage – and she’s no woke washer, blasting cancel culture for taking the fun out of beer ads, and pretty much everything else. Ironically, she’s aiming to be more New Zealand in Lion’s bid to better represent Australia, in that the Kiwis and the likes of Colenso are “not afraid to take risks, because otherwise you just get wallpaper.” She also tips her hat to rival CUB’s “tough decisions” in prioritising Great Northern over waning brands like VB. And for putting “chicks in ads – with clothes.” This one is refreshing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E145 · Thu, August 12, 2021
How WA health insurer HBF is using digital out-of-home to grow 84 per cent YOY on the east coast – and why programmatic DOOH’s time has come
Digital out-of-home is powering massive east coast growth for WA-based health insurer HBF following a series of campaigns that include JCDecaux’s digital assets. “Our national growth is at plus 55 per cent… [but] 84 per cent increase year-on-year on the east coast,” Head of Marketing Louise Ardagh says. The programmatic out-of-home (pDOOH) sector is starting to motor, says JCDecaux ANZ CEO Steve O’Connor. The firm will make five per cent of digital revenue from programmatic this year and aims to triple that by 2023. A quarter of Australian media agencies have tried programmatic OOH this year alone – and it’s on the cusp of hockey stick growth, per the IAB. “It’s not just experimentation, it’s embedded into their plans for the next couple of years,” says IAB CEO Gai Le Roy. JCDecaux Executive GM of Revenue and Strategy Operations, Cassandra Cameron, says value and speed are key factors in moving the needle: “We’ve been able to get campaigns live in as little as two hours from briefing.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E144 · Mon, August 09, 2021
Back from the dead: Rebuilding Aussie icon Ampol after 25 years and landing with kids that have never heard of it; brand chief Jenny O’Regan, Saatchis’ Ant Gregorio, Mike Spirkovski and iProspect’s Jason Smith lift the hood
After the best part of three decades, iconic Australian brand Ampol is back from the dead with a massive relaunch across 1,900 fuel and retail stations and an emotive, unmistakably Australian campaign that’s landing with Aussies young and old. Chief Brand Officer Jenny O'Regan, Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Anthony Gregorio and National Chief Creative Officer Mike Spirkovski, plus Jason Smith, Client Partner at Ampol’s media agency iProspect, say the numbers are miles ahead of target as Australians reconnect with road trips and retro cool. O’Regan says the brand campaign is now flipping “grudge purchases” into road trip-fuelling technical product sales – for both drivers and their vehicles. Next up are alternative fuels, ‘net zero’ and electric vehicles. This one’s got plenty in the tank. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E143 · Thu, August 05, 2021
Purpose doesn’t build brands – it makes them: ME Bank and Dairy Australia on how transparency and ‘no bullshit’ drives growth, cuts risk
Brands with “purpose” in their DNA face the biggest fallout when they make a mistake: think Patagonia and Thank You. So where does that leave everyone else? New research from The Guardian finds purpose drives growth and keeps customers, and demand is climbing. The dairy industry is a major emitter – belching cows emit a shedload of methane – but it’s working to clean up what it can. Dairy Australia is taking an honest approach and targets “change-makers” in its comms – the 50 to 60 per cent of people who are socially conscious, who vote with their wallets and live their values. “The risk is greater if we do nothing and stay quiet,” says Amber Beaumont, Dairy Australia’s Communications Strategy Advisor. Mason Rook, The Guardian’s Commercial Director, says audiences can spot tokenistic gestures, so brands must walk the talk – or get called out. But ME Bank’s Head of Purpose and Customer Advocate, Scott Dare, says a no amount of purpose will cut it if the product is crap: “No-one will be interested.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E142 · Mon, August 02, 2021
Data brokers the new ad networks? Narrative CEO Nick Jordan on why black boxes can’t fix data privacy and won’t appease regulators, and why brands and publishers need to make a choice, now
When data regulators come knocking, black box solutions from data brokers won't fix the compliance issues fast coming at brands. Meanwhile, publishers must avoid a repeat of the audience data heist carried out by ad networks and early programmatic players, reckons New York-based Nick Jordan, CEO of Narrative.io. The former Adobe and Yahoo exec urges the digital ad industry to step up with technical standards for post-cookie IDs to avoid unwittingly handing over everything to walled gardens, although he thinks Google may not actually retire the cookie. Plus, how Apple's privacy push "is all bullshit"; why publishers must "build a brand around their data" to make money from it; why transparency won't work without convenience; and what businesses paralysed by the paradox of ID choice should do next (hint: it's not 'do nothing'). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E141 · Thu, July 29, 2021
40-year-old millennials now rule the procurement roost – and they are turning B2B into B2C marketing. That means if your brand is bland, you’re already dead
BETA unblockers: Millennials are turning 40. They’re now B2B marketing’s key buyers – and they are making an entirely different set of decisions. A new global study from LinkedIn’s B2B Institute says 75 per cent of Australia’s professional workforce will be millennial “BETAs” by 2025. They’re B – blurring the work/home boundaries, E – evolving rapidly, T – tech natives, and A – activists in how they purchase. Marketers have been “obsessed” with this audience, Lara Brownlow, LinkedIn Australia’s head of agency and channel sales, but now they need to change tactics. Lucie Greene, a futurist, founder of Light Years and an author of the report, says influential BETAs will only buy relevant and aspirational brands. Words wont cut it, says Cisco ANZ director of marketing Ray Kloss – and if brands don’t walk the talk, they are probably toast. Samantha Cunliffe, managing director at Merkle’s DWA Media, says B2B branding has always been “a bit beige”. “Be bold. Don’t be beige.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E140 · Mon, July 26, 2021
The reputation agenda: If trust is now the biggest driver of growth, corporate affairs has usurped marketing, plus why continued failure on purpose and ESG will set Australian brands even further back
Marketing used to be the biggest driver of sales. Today, consumer behaviour is increasingly influenced by trust – which is corporate affairs’ turf. Meanwhile, Australian firms are realising just how far behind they have slipped to US and European headquartered competitors when it comes to environmental and social governance (ESG), and the sense of purpose employees and external stakeholders now demand of brands. Change is accelerating, warn global executive search specialist Anna Whitlam, Commtract’s Vanessa Liell and Australian Pork’s Andrew ‘Billy’ Baxter. Those that fail to quickly adapt “will just miss out…. and we are already seeing that.” But Australian brands appear live to the threat: demand is soaring for comms professionals that can build relationships internally and externally – “deep specialists” that can drive reputation and integrate with marketing to deliver growth – and balance risk with reward. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E139 · Mon, July 19, 2021
ANZ CMO Sweta Mehre on media, in-housing agency services and how linking marketing to business impact is winning new bank allies
What happens when you get a top consumer goods marketer to leap from the biggest advertiser in the world, Procter & Gamble, to lead marketing at a bank? ANZ CMO Sweta Mehre joined ANZ four years ago from P&G and has driven a raft of reforms including a marketing masters program inside the organisation designed to build marketing team capabilities and deepen the understanding of how marketing contributes to commercial results. More people inside ANZ are now championing marketing and less see it purely as a cost centre. Sweta also has some views on inhousing agency services, market mix modelling and media that might surprise a few too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E138 · Thu, July 15, 2021
Going for gold: VOZ faces first test with Tokyo Olympics. Seven says advertisers cannot afford to underestimate its impact; Suncorp CMO eyes real-time results; OMG’s Horgan says it fundamentally alters planning
After years in development, the first weekly top line consolidated VOZ market reports land 22 July. On July 23, Tokyo will host the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. For 17 days, Seven says it will reach nine in 10 Australian homes. Suncorp CMO Mim Haysom spies a huge opportunity for Olympics sponsor AAMI to test the new linear and digital TV measurement service – and bespoke creative – in real time. Seven is also using Adgile Media for real time tracking. Kurt Burnette, Seven’s Chief Revenue Officer, says early data shows major advertiser gains. “We’ve seen that 18-24 adds 15 per cent incremental reach, and 25-39, 11-12 per cent. We’ve seen those good percentage numbers… there’s no set path for this.” OMG CEO Peter Horgan says it will fundamentally change the data underpinning TV planning. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E137 · Tue, July 13, 2021
Part Two: From Prime Ministers to media moguls: John Singleton’s final thoughts and tales on WPP and beyond
The bar at John Singleton Advertising, later Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, was renowned in its prime. State of Origin and Australian and West Indies Cricket teams were named in the agency watering hole but there was a strict no drinking policy by day - you’d be fired. In this final episode, Singleton and his inner circle, Russell Tate and Mike Connaghan, lift the lid on Sir Martin Sorrell and recall how landing KFC changed their fortunes more than 20 years ago. They also argue why “Australian” still has legs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E136 · Mon, July 12, 2021
Part One: John Singleton, Russell Tate and Mike Connaghan lament lost opportunities for WPP and their once $1bn advertising empire
John Singleton, the troublemaking larrikin adman who’s turning 80 this year, was all but penniless when he returned to advertising in 1985. Then he and his lieutenants, Russell Tate and Mike Connaghan ultimately built a holding company worth close to $1bn. He was “impossible to follow” in a new business pitch but with Singleton’s old group now back firmly in British control after WPP acquired and delisted WPP AUNZ, the trio reflect on what was and what could have been (with some trademark swipes along the way). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E135 · Mon, July 05, 2021
Online behavioural targeting, real time bidding a 'dirty, dirty industry': Why a new landmark European GDPR lawsuit against IAB Tech Lab over the 'world’s biggest data breach’ could hit everyone hard, Australia included, on privacy and online ads
Former adtech insider and The Irish Times innovation boss Dr Johnny Ryan gave evidence before a US Senate Judiciary Committee in 2019 about how the global digital advertising industry was blatantly breaching consumer privacy and user data protection. Ryan is now spearheading a globally significant GDPR lawsuit against the international online ad standards body, IAB Tech Lab, as the fastest way to end real time bidding and behavioural targeting, worldwide. International reform of the entire digital ad industry is at stake. Here’s what you need to know and why Ryan wants to bring down online advertising as we know it, within two years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E134 · Thu, July 01, 2021
I’m under 40, get me out of here! Younger audiences sick of SVOD and TV at home, want real world experiences, human contact and to ‘go big’
The majority of 18- to 39-year-olds watch little to no TV – but while linear TV audiences are trending down, TV advertising is booming. Guy Burbidge, Managing Director of Val Morgan, says advertisers and agencies should prepare for the bigger boom that is unfolding: Cinema. “We’re heading into the best six months of content we’ve ever had, and I can’t put enough of an emphasis on that,” he says. Adding to that, most of that age bracket are desperate to get out. Research from The Owl Insights calls them The Great Escapers, the younger audiences looking for a space beyond home and the workplace – especially if those two are one and the same. “People are wanting to make up for lost time,” Matt Sandwell from The Owl Insights says. “They’re looking to make up for it by going big.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E133 · Mon, June 28, 2021
Google’s cookie user tracking halt to help ‘performance enhancing dugs’: cookie bombing, last click attribution, bad metrics will see a nasty resurgence
Google’s move late last week to delay by two years the end of third party cookies will likely see brand owners take their foot off the gas to end their reliance on privacy-challenged tracking. But Mi3’s panel of digital experts warn ferociously against it. First party data is king. Keep going. Here’s the complete what, why and what next on Google’s surprise move from top industry digital and data players. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E132 · Mon, June 21, 2021
Sugar hits and substance: Nestlé’s new global media chief heads for Switzerland armed with data, DTC, in-housing and personalisation strategies honed in Sydney
Global CMO Aude Gandon is shaking up Nestlé’s marketing function. With change in the wind Antonia Farquhar, Head of Media, Content and Data, is swapping Sydney for Switzerland and the global media gig. She’s overseen a strategic shift in Nestle’s first party data push and launched its first retail outlets globally – and if local KitKat sales are anything to go by, Byron Sharp’s theories around mental availability are on the money. Farquhar has also honed personalisation strategies via direct-to-consumer channels and while she’s a big platforms proponent, thinks digital marketers neglect ‘legacy’ media and full funnel strategies at their peril. This year, Farquhar also launched a hybrid in-house agency; it’s fast and smart but Nestlé has no plans to take big, “polished” creative duties away from ad agencies just yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E131 · Thu, June 17, 2021
Australia’s blue chips can make 90 per cent profit margins from owned media and use it to fund growth. Should publishers be worried?
On average, a large Australian business can unlock $82m annual revenue from its owned media – physical and digital, according to Sonder. The biggest brands could theoretically book $500m. They won’t go that far, but banks, telcos, airlines and consumer packaged goods brands shouldn’t fear ‘tattooing the baby’ – putting other brands on their own, per the firm. But they must recognise the value they are giving away cheaply, or for free. “These organisations are sitting on incredibly powerful media channels, very often undervalued,” says Sonder co-founder Angus Frazer. “Websites, emails, gondola ends, in-store posters… in the connection economy, every medium matters and every medium has value.” Here’s how to unlock yours. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E130 · Tue, June 15, 2021
Life after Seven: Airtasker CEO on its new customer growth strategy and bid for global scale without big media backing
ASX-listed ‘gig economy’ platform Airtasker ramped up after selling equity to Seven West Media, “one of the best moves in our history,” says CEO Tim Fung. But that deal ended in March and now he must repeat the trick – while trying to go global – without big media budgets. Fung’s backing Airtasker Listings, its latest iteration, to drive product discovery and power customer growth. So far it’s working, and the ‘long tail’ of local services is starting to wag the dog. But while demand is “exploding”, Australia’s skills crunch is driving up prices. Fung urges Mi3 readers with skills to join the platform. Even he’s side-hustling for $500 a pop. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E129 · Thu, June 10, 2021
Why aren’t ads featuring women funny? How to be funny ha ha, avoid offence and triple engagement from women seeking an ‘antidote to perfection’
Kellogg’s Australian Marketing Director Lucie Wolstenholme has never written humour into an agency brief but says it can do wonders for audience engagement – think Yellow Pages’ ‘Not Happy, Jan’ and BigPond’s ‘Too many rabbits in China’. “It’s a fine art to use humour without falling offensive or flat,” she says. Only a fifth of ads featuring women use humour, compared to more than half of ads featuring men, according to research from Are Media. ABC Radio host and comedian Wendy Harmer reckons 25 to 35-year-old men can’t be expected to write humour well for women. “You need that lived experience and relatability,” she says. Are Media’s Jane Waterhouse says humour delivers in spades: “We found that humour was three times more engaging than standard communication.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E128 · Mon, June 07, 2021
Creamed by media agencies, only ‘small data’ can save publishers about to be pummelled by retail media…if creative agencies don’t sink everyone
Publishers are getting their backsides handed to them by agency groups because the agencies have moved almost entirely away from relationship-based decision making. They may not be leading negotiations, but the data natives are calling the shots. According to media ecologist and MediaVillage founder, Jack Myers, perhaps only “small data” that unlocks relevant insight can save media sellers – at least those smart enough to stop trying to compete with Google and Facebook. Creative agencies, he says, need to get with the programme or risk dragging legacy media down entirely. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E127 · Mon, May 31, 2021
“Mea culpa” - Sir Martin Sorrell admits he couldn’t move fast enough to reengineer WPP, but says global ad groups must go private, before it’s too late
After three years throwing jabs at erstwhile rivals, Sir Martin Sorrell finally admits he couldn’t change WPP fast enough. He says public company structures doom the holdcos to failure, hobbling their ability to change direction at the requisite speed. Meanwhile, he blasts WPP AUNZ’s attempts to effect change, suggesting the London-controlled group will remain ‘’rudderless’’ if it fails to appoint a strong parochial leader. Naturally, everyone else gets a poke too as Sorrell graces Mi3’s 100th podcast, which probably isn’t suitable for the thin skinned. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E126 · Thu, May 27, 2021
'Reach trumps morality every time': Brands talking a good game on diversity but…10 ViacomCBS on “No diversity, no commission” for TV shows
Publishers and programmers believe audiences are more purpose-driven than ever and are pushing hard to reflect greater diversity within their slates. Yet "reach trumps morality every time" when it comes to buying TV ads, according to Innocean Australia CEO Jasmin Bedir. 10 ViacomCBS National Creative Director Michael Stanford and Eureka Productions Head of Entertainment Sophia Mogford on how changing the narrative will help brands keep customers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E125 · Mon, May 24, 2021
Shift happens: Unilever global media chief predicts “seismic” impact from advertisers’ push for cross-media measurement, with Australia “following fast”
Long reluctant to fund industry metrics, advertisers are finally putting their hands in their pockets in a bid to cut out “10 per cent plus” of wasted media spend globally. They are bankrolling a single source pilot for cross-media measurement and Australia has pledged to “fast follow” the UK-US lead on what has been dubbed Project Origin. The upshot will be “seismic” according to Unilever’s VP, Global Media, Sarah Mansfield and will cause “a lot of angst in some quarters,” acknowledges the AANA’s John Broome. Change is coming and media owners, agencies and measurement providers need to get across it, fast. WFA Director of Global Media Services Matt Green and ISBA’s Project Origin Director, Richard Holtan, join Paul McIntyre on the mics. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E124 · Thu, May 20, 2021
Yes, ‘premium’ digital content is a thing: why Dentsu’s Pat Darcy and GroupM’s Claire Butterworth say groundbreaking new research is self-serving but right
Digital marketers have forever resisted the idea that premium digital content exists, due mainly to a two-decade obsession with online direct response tactics. But a groundbreaking research study shows some “premium" sites and content are 2.5x more impactful on memory for brand messages than “run of internet”. GroupM’s Claire Butterworth and Dentsu’s Patrick Darcy say ThinkPremiumDigital's data is self-serving but robust, believable and long needed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E123 · Mon, May 17, 2021
If we don’t get the balance right, people’s careers suffer and our cultures fade: Why getting home-office balance right will decide media and marketing's future
If people don’t come back to the office, culture suffers – and Australian businesses already appear to have a major culture problem, according to Professor Karl Treacher, with nine in ten workers saying they are happier at home. Workers have had a taste of flexibility and freedom – and while some are desperate to get back to the buzz of office structures, not everybody is buying-in. There’s no going back, so leaders must find a way forward, says OMD’s Amy Buchanan, The Hallway’s Jules Hall, AFL Media’s Sarah Wyse and Pedestrian Group’s Matt Rowley. All while trying to create more sustainable working patterns as the ever-present threat of burnout looms. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E122 · Thu, May 13, 2021
QMS Media breaks silence on City of Sydney street furniture blue print to rival world’s best cities
City of Sydney's street furniture network will be 70% digital and boast sustainable materials and “green roof” design features to rival Amsterdam and London as global “connected city” leaders. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E121 · Mon, May 10, 2021
‘The larger the marketer, the more subject to fraud they are’: Why advertiser complicity and complacency could be masking ad fraud’s true extent
Ad fraud is “the ultimate white collar crime” and is woefully underestimated and reported, according to NY-based digital marketer Augustine Fou. He thinks it could be more lucrative for criminals than even the international drugs racket: There is no product to move, hardly any risk of getting caught, and little punishment for the few that do. Yet marketers don’t seem to care. As advertiser peak bodies like the ANA prepare to dive back in to supply chain transparency, Fou suggests they will again get nowhere because they are asking the wrong questions. Likewise he says by focusing primarily on invalid traffic, verification firms are looking in the wrong places, cuckolding marketers as a result. Fou advises marketers to emulate the likes of P&G, Uber and Airbnb: Pause digital spending and measure not “vanity metrics”, but business impacts – if any. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E120 · Thu, May 06, 2021
RyanCap’s Simon Ryan reveals his grand 2025 plan for a digital transformation consulting, media, tech, and data powerhouse
By 2025 former Denstu ANZ CEO Simon Ryan figures two communications holding companies will be gone from the Australian market, a huge shift to “brand commerce” will be well underway - where every brand engagement with a consumer carries an opportunity to buy - and RyanCap will be aligned with either a private equity play, a public listing or another strategic equity partner. “We’ve got to be sensible and focus on what clients need and want,” he says. “Some local and international companies won’t survive the next two years.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E119 · Mon, May 03, 2021
Indie media: Advertising scale and consolidation at odds with fracturing but highly engaged audiences - who loses?
The mega industry trend for consolidation, scale and efficiency in the $15bn Australian ad market is counter to consumers driving to niche and narrow content. Starcom CEO Nick Keenan dukes it out with three young indie media groups - backed by high-profile investors making headway in a tough market. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E118 · Mon, April 26, 2021
‘Purpose’ is polarising: Volvo unpacks killing its fossil fuel cars by 2030; The Guardian banks on ad growth targeting progressive readers; former Danone-Kraft CEO, global B Corp Ambassador Lorna Davis “staggered” by out of touch brands, marketers
Volvo is out of petrol and oil engines and about to launch vegan leather; The Guardian is banking on progressive-leaning audiences for ad growth from purpose-led brands and former Danone China and US CEO Lorna Davis predicts 50% of Big Four audit firm revenues will be from Environment and Social Governance (ESG) compliance. Here’s the fast update on brands and purpose. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E117 · Mon, April 19, 2021
‘Agencies are not banks’ warns Initiative global Chair Mat Baxter as Westpac, Arnott’s marketers link pitch problems to unclear tender briefs and process; poor engagement with procurement
“Ditch the pitch” protagonist Mat Baxter has warned agency reviews are getting worse globally, citing P&G’s extended media payment terms as a case in point. Many companies, though, “abuse the pitch process” he says. Baxter’s comments come as Australia’s peak advertiser and media agency industry bodies roll-out of a “world first” initiative to create industry-endorsed agency tender and pitching guidelines - dubbed “Project Baxter”. Arnott’s CMO Jenni Dill, Westpac’s Head of Group Brand, Advertising and Media Jenny Melhuish, non executive director and MFA board member Megan Brownlow and Mediabrands' CEO Mark Coad talk frankly about the fix - essentially, it’s on marketers to clean it up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E116 · Thu, April 15, 2021
Digital audio replicating BVOD’s early J-curve surge - audiences and revenues double
Here comes digital audio’s revenue J-curve. Just as BVOD for TV networks created new possibilities for advertisers in targeting and tracking compared to broadcast, local and national advertisers are awakening to the top, mid and lower marketing funnel options that a booming digital audio advertising market is spawning - now upwards of 5 million users. Dozens of advertisers are piling in each week with campaigns using new audio advertising options from “shake-your-phone” response ads, location-based messages and even automated audio ads carrying tailored messages based on user locations. The rich data available via digital audio consumption is also being used to inform and deliver brand campaigns. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E115 · Tue, April 13, 2021
The CMO Couch - marketers as consumers: Suncorp’s Mim Haysom, Australia Post’s Amber Collins on their personal media diet, preferred brands, favourite products and best customer experiences
Ask Amber Collins or Mim Haysom to name the best new product or service that’s won them over as a customer or consumer - not a marketer - and it’s podcasts. Ask Mim Haysom about loyalty programs and she admits she’s “a marketer’s worst nightmare”. Meanwhile Amber Collins' favourite brands include Cotton On, Kmart and Chemist Warehouse, thanks to teenagers. What do marketers choose and buy as consumers and why? It’s all here in our CMO Couch series - Part One. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E114 · Mon, March 22, 2021
Mecca Brands founder Jo Horgan on why customer experience triggered an in-store Covid boom, dropping an anti-advertising policy and her sweeping brief to Salesforce to reinvent online and offline beauty retailing
Jo Horgan, co-founder of the 100-store and online beauty juggernaut Mecca Brands opened her flagship store - and the biggest beauty retail space in the Southern Hemisphere - last November in the iconic Sydney CBD Gowings building when Covid was in full swing and CBDs were shopping wastelands. But custom is booming at pre-Covid levels and bricks and mortar is powering. Here’s how the beauty boss wants technology to reinvent the online-offline beauty game. But it’s still all about Mecca’s humans. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E113 · Tue, March 16, 2021
'It’s going to get really complicated': Marketers at The Iconic, Tourism Australia, ADMA reveal their strategies for Google’s great cookie cull
The Iconic’s CMO Alexander Meyer says the digital commerce pureplay realised two years ago its heavy reliance on two platforms - Google and Facebook - was high-risk and needed a fix. Tourism Australia’s head of digital strategy and transformation, Paul Bailey says huge learnings for Australian marketers can already be found in China for a post-cookie world and ADMA’s regulatory and advocacy lead, Sarla Fernando says the great cookie kill has delivered a lightning strike for ADMA members to understand even bigger complexity and change beyond cookies is coming from sweeping regulatory change to privacy, data and personalisation. Buckle up - this one is important. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E112 · Thu, March 11, 2021
Monash Marketing Professor: Don’t drink with Mark Ritson; don’t assume Google Search rules short-term ROI
A huge econometrics study of 60 Australian brands with $23bn in sales and $400m in media spend across GroupM’s portfolio has surprised even the heavy-hitting Marketing and Econometrics Professor at Monash University, Peter Danaher. TV advertising is renowned for driving long-term demand but Professor Danaher says an econometrics study commissioned by ThinkTV across 10 sectors – including auto, retail and banking – has challenged conventional assumptions on which media channels drive the best short-term results. TV, he says, is a runaway leader in driving incremental short-term sales volume and is “fundamental to sales demand derived from Search.” This podcast is for the sceptics. Professor Danaher clinically breaks it down. Listen-up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E111 · Mon, March 08, 2021
Attention economy surges; Facebook to create ad formats which last longer with users than two seconds
An international beta trial which benchmarks consumer attention across different media channels and screen types from Australia’s Professor Karen Nelson-Field has seen dozens of media agency networks, media owners and advertisers around the world sign up. Perhaps the biggest sign though that change is coming fast is from the UK where Facebook has all but said it now acknowledges the need for longer attention spans and advertising exposure to build brand. Here’s the update to stay with global developments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E110 · Thu, March 04, 2021
‘Shortcast’ 10-minute podcasts set to surge as tipping point for digital audio over radio 18 months off; SCA bets future on one-stop LiSTNR platform
SCA CEO Grant Blackley says Silicon Valley tech players are raving about the company’s just launched LiSTNR platform as “world-beating” - it bundles broadcast radio brands and content with livestreaming, podcasts and new music formats in a personalised, logged-in user experience. Blackley, SCA’s Chief Content Officer Dave Cameron, and Digital Audio GM, Grant Tothill predict LiSTNR will propel audience discovery of more audio genres and formats to new highs as the market doubles by 2024. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E109 · Mon, March 01, 2021
JB Hi-Fi’s ex-CMO on why he replicated a 'NEO’ consumer strategy at Jaggad as the missing link for segmentation and growth
The default position for many companies in an economic downturn is to play the discounting and fire sale card - or to deploy more performance based marketing and messaging tactics. But as this panel of social scientists, marketers and ad agency bosses discuss, there’s a lucrative segment of the population that are high-discretionary spenders called NEOs who don’t behave or buy like traditional consumers and have already triggered the start of a two-speed economic recovery. Jaggad’s Chief Customer Officer and former JB Hi-Fi CMO Scott Browning is joined by the Centre for Social Economics' Ross Honeywill, Jonathan Coles at Premium and 303MullenLowe CEO Nick Cleaver. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E108 · Mon, February 22, 2021
Overlooked: Here's the “big six" ACCC proposals which could change digital advertising, data and targeting as we know it - but no-one’s talking about them
The stoush between Big Tech and Big Media over content payments has relegated another ACCC inquiry into media agencies and adtech to an industry wasteland. But by August, the ACCC will make final its recommendations to the Federal Government and could upturn much of the data and advertising supply chain. Five leading Australian and international industry execs break down why the ACCC’s “big six” proposals matter and what it means for advertisers, tech, media and agencies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E107 · Mon, February 15, 2021
ACCC Series - Part One: Everything you need to know about the ACCC inquiry into ad agencies and ad tech but can’t be bothered reading
In this two-part series, a stellar panel of international and Australian industry leaders break down the ACCC’s Digital Advertising Services Inquiry. Although sidelined by the clash between Big Tech and Big Media over the media bargaining code, the ACCC’s “other” inquiry is loaded with potentially industry-bending implications for marketing, brands, media, tech and agencies on data, privacy and how the industry targets customers and prospects. Everything you need to know is in these two episodes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E106 · Mon, February 08, 2021
Oz ‘ripe for more in-housing’: Why Betfair marketing boss is a fan as WPP, DDB see mixed results
There's talk another wave of in-housing looms as brands seek post-Covid savings and face a “marketing content crisis". Proponents argue efficiencies will bankroll smarter digital IP inside brands - and better creative, funding agencies to do what they do best and leaving the grunt to in-house teams. Others are unconvinced that in-housing will save the "content crisis". See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E105 · Mon, February 01, 2021
Hoyts, TEG CEOs Damian Keogh and Geoff Jones eye recovery for movies, music, events
The Australian Box Office was off 67% last year; live events and concerts smashed revenues for Ticketek parent TEG by 97% early in Covid. But now both company bosses are pinning their hopes on some huge content initiatives in the second half - consumer desire to get out is the least of their worries, they say. Hoyts is even looking to diversify beyond movies as film studios flirt with shortening or pulling exclusive theatre distribution windows. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E104 · Tue, January 26, 2021
Commoditisation and ‘dark kitchens': Why Menulog CMO Simon Cheng says building brands in social channels is too hard and worries industry is stuck on ‘creative mediocrity’
Menulog is 13 years old and after a competitive onslaught is now outgrowing UberEats and Deliveroo. For a digital pureplay business, CMO Simon Cheng is doing old-world crazy stuff like investing heavily in mass market media, using scorned ‘reach and frequency’ techniques and is a huge advocate for winning the 'mental availability’ battle as food ordering aggregators face commoditisation - and then there’s the future of 'Dark Kitchens'. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E103 · Mon, December 07, 2020
The Feds are reviewing Australia’s Privacy Act - here’s what it means for marketing and media in 2021
If you have anything to do with first party data, personalisation, audience and customer segmentation or targeting, your number is up. The Federal Government in October released an issues paper on overhauling the current Privacy Act. In this podcast we teamed up with the IAB to hear from three privacy specialists on their Privacy Heaven and Hell scenarios for next year and a Q&A session with the panelists and Mi3’s Executive Editor, Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E102 · Mon, November 30, 2020
Marketing Maths v Tech and Code 101: The marketing industry not so confident on its numbers - here’s a way out
Know how to crunch the numbers on Negative Binomial Distribution? How about Excess Share of Voice (ESOV), a P&L or cashflow? A new study of Australian marketers and agencies shows most are not so confident on any of the important maths to stay with the finance team, the CEO and boards. Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw and VMLY&R’s Chief Strategy Officer Ali Tilling break down a new industry study on how marketers and agencies rate themselves and where the gaps are. Their message? Start learning to count. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E101 · Thu, November 26, 2020
How fake ads on social media and TV could help shape the future of cross channel media strategies and measurement
Australia is about to embark on a world first cross media measurement experiment that owes at least some of its DNA to fake ads created by Disney and run across its TV network and on social media. The Premium Content Alliance hopes it will help marketers truly understand how every channel impacts another – and prove that quality always delivers more powerful results. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E100 · Mon, November 23, 2020
Capgemini eyes Accenture Interactive, Deloitte Digital and agency turf with Australia’s $93m RXP takeover
The global communications holding companies have missed a prime opportunity to fast-track their digital transformation and tech credentials - instead, the French IT and consulting giant Capgemini is heading their way like Accenture Interactive and Deloitte Digital have already. RXP owns data, design and brand agency The Works, which it paid $33m for in 2018 to augment its capabilities in CX, digital transformation and the Salesforce, Microsoft and ServiceNow platforms. Capgemini CEO Olaf Pietschner and RXP CEO Ross Fielding talk what’s next after the merger. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E99 · Thu, November 19, 2020
Screen fatigue, surging brain chemicals, meaningful ads and why a more physical return to workplaces is inevitable
We know screen fatigue is real through Covid but a neuroscientist, a social researcher and OMA CEO Charmaine Moldrich say they’re having more impact than we think on people, community, industry and “purposeful” ads. Dr Fiona Kerr and Dynata regional director Marcus Pritchard join Moldrich on the case for more physical workplace interaction and why consumers might be headed for more conservatism. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E98 · Mon, November 16, 2020
Is the "connected customer" boom delivering growth? CMOs, data and innovation leads at Budget Direct, First State-Aware Super, NRMA and Lavender CX reveal the trials and tribulations
Budget Direct is the fastest growing insurer in Australia - is it product, customer experience or marketing and comms that’s driving the growth? CMO Jonathan Kerr unpacks the answer and lobs a jibe at “transformation programs” - Budget Direct has never done one. Kerr is joined by the Head of Innovation at the rebranded Aware Super, Anita Ayres, NRMA’s Digital and Data lead Harris Hutkin and Lavender CX’s Damian Sharpley who get real on the customer roadmap. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E97 · Thu, November 12, 2020
Brands and media agencies, don’t miss this podcast if you plan on staying with global developments in the emerging attention economy and what impact it’s having on traditional audience and reach metrics
Marketers and agencies are missing huge opportunities by only superficially measuring attention. But that’s about to change. A new platform and metric, attentionTRACE, is about to go live. AttentionTRACE measures attention across channels, but Story54’s Jane Waterhouse argues even before the trial data is out, one medium in particular lands messages more deeply, at least in women’s minds, than any other. Amplified Intelligence CEO, Professor Karen Nelson-Field, and UK Neuro Science CEO, Shazia Ginai explain the science. Pay attention - you’ll need to know this stuff. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E96 · Mon, November 09, 2020
Smoke and fire: WPP AUNZ boss Jens Monsees rubbishes rebellion rumours as board instigates CEO review; counters Sir Martin Sorrell on S4 Capital's ’new model'
Jens Monsees is one year into running WPP’s AUNZ operation and the market is now rife with talk of broad internal leadership unrest with how he’s transforming the business. In this conversation, Monsees addresses talk of a fallout after the abrupt departure of COO John Steadman, a board-instigated review of his performance across staff and clients and he fires back at S4 Capital’s jibes around the troubled future of holding companies. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E95 · Mon, November 02, 2020
Commbank CMO Monique Macleod weighs in on the downside of short-term marketing and what she sees next for customer personalisation, AI, media and tech
Hot off the heels of overseeing a brand refresh for the Commonwealth Bank, CMO Monique Macleod talks the art and science of marketing, customer personalisation and how her team is structuring and adapting to AI and new tech stacks - and what it now means for media and team capabilities. "Your tech is never sorted,” she says. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E94 · Mon, October 26, 2020
Penfolds v Louis Vuitton: Chief Winemaker and Global CMO reveal the bold three-year strategy to create a global Australian luxury icon - beyond a fine wine brand
Penfolds Chief Winemaker Peter Gago and global marketing boss Kristy Keyte talk through their ambitious strategy to reinvent Penfolds into an Australian global luxury icon, like Gucci, Aston Martin or Louis Vuitton. Joined by WundermunThompson CEO, Lee Leggett, this conversation is fascinating, including how Penfolds sold-out of the $200,000 release of its Ampoule edition and how they’re managing strategy, product and portfolio management, consumer behaviour, shifting direct-to-consumer and e-commerce models, long-term branding and executional complexity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E93 · Thu, October 22, 2020
ViacomCBS Market Voice: Other TV networks should be ‘terrified’ - top Australian ViacomCBS execs say the megamerger and new content and streaming assets of Network’s 10’s new US parent company will rattle local rivals
In this Market Voice podcast, ViacomCBS chief content and sales officers Beverley McGarvey and Rod Prosser lay out the streaming, content and commercial plans for the Australian group - including the launch of the new Paramount+ service and when the biggest ad-supported digital TV service in the US, Pluto TV, will arrive Down Under. Prosser also suggests advertisers frustrated by the “mess” over cricket rights may have found a silver lining. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E92 · Mon, October 19, 2020
Australian marketers are flocking to applied Behavioural Economics - Simply Energy marketing and sales boss Andrea Bernard and Hardhat’s Dan Monheit explain how - and why - it’s on-trend this year
Andrea Bernard, the head of marketing and sales at Simply Energy, ultimately part of the $60bn French energy giant, Energie, started using Behavioural Economics thinking 18 months ago - now it’s central to her strategy on everything. And Andrea isn’t alone. Behavioural Economics specialist and co-founder of Hard Hat, Dan Monheit, says there’s been a surge of interest from brands this year. Here’s why. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E91 · Mon, October 12, 2020
IPG Mediabrands exec: If regulators don’t get to grips with data, we will all end up working for Facebook and Google
Australian Joshua Lowcock is Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at UM in the US and UM’s global Brand Safety Officer. Based in New York, he’s spearheaded development of a Media Responsibility Audit of social media platforms alongside initiatives to try to make businesses see the billions they spend on advertising within the same frame as corporate social responsibility – and says it’s gaining traction “faster than even I imagined”. Now regulators need to quickly deal with data monopolies without getting distracted by sideshows. If they don't, Lowcock fears we may all soon be working for the tech platforms - because nobody else can compete. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E90 · Mon, October 05, 2020
Ex-Woolworths, Myer, Quantium customer loyalty boss takes on Ehrenberg-Bass and explains why loyalty schemes need a reboot
Even the discount-averse Apple uses Bernard Wilson’s company to move product. The one-time investment banker - who was part of a consortium which made a failed hostile bid for Qantas - lead Woolworths’ first attempt at a loyalty program, which also didn’t work. The second version did. After stints at Myer and Quantium, the new CEO of cash-back trailblazer, Cashrewards, says as brands and companies chase the Covid-fuelled e-commerce surge, loyalty programs need a rebrand and retailers and marketers need a rethink on loyalty. Cashrewards customer base is up 40% this year and he’s about to go hard on building the brand, more customers and an IPO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E89 · Mon, September 28, 2020
Content marketing overkill? Coles, IAG, Storyation on the COVID-induced surge in brands doing content and standing out through more noise
Bigger budgets are pouring into content marketing this year but IAG’s Director of Content & Customer Engagement, Zara Curtis, says there’s “a lot of bad content” being produced by brands. IAG is producing less but better quality. Curtis says she’s a “content killer” as IAG works out the art of what not to produce. Meanwhile, Coles’ Senior Content Manager Jill Tenner is doing much more in the past six months because of customer demand for inspiration. The key takeout, says Storyation’s Head of Content, Lauren Quaitance, is brands have been scrambling over the past five months to overhaul or develop new content marketing plans. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E88 · Tue, September 22, 2020
CommBank's analytics boss on how its AI-powered ‘customer engagement engine’ is changing everything
Commonwealth Bank Chief Analytics Officer Andrew McMullan studied machine learning, taught mathematics and is now leading the bank’s AI-fuelled customer strategy. The ‘math man’ and CMO Monique Macleod have been working hand in glove on what is next for Australia’s biggest bank. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E87 · Mon, September 14, 2020
Russel Howcroft, Nine Radio boss Tom Malone on media the “most ruthless” sector in Howcroft’s career, the broadcaster's talent purge, advertiser age bias and leaving PwC
Howcroft says media is the most ruthless industry, consulting the most influential but advertising the smartest. Nine Radio’s new boss Tom Malone, meanwhile, spills the beans on how Russel Howcroft left PwC to join 3AW’s breakfast slot and the complete overhaul he’s implemented at Nine Radio to skew younger and address advertiser bias against older, lucrative audiences in radio. Malone also tells a very different story around Alan Jones and his exit from radio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E86 · Mon, September 07, 2020
Former Foxtel, News Corp boss Peter Tonagh talks legacy media’s challenged future, why he’s still investing and the merits of “soft socialism” in business
Peter Tonagh knows a bit about the media sector and is part of an investment group piling into new media ventures. Big Media is consolidating while he argues future media is specialising and fragmenting. There is tension everywhere. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E85 · Mon, August 31, 2020
Why entertainment giant Vivendi wants more culture, less tech for its global agency division Havas and new Australian indie acquisition Hyland
French-owned Havas Media last week acquired Australian independent agency HYLAND with plans to plug into its vast parent company Vivendi, controlled by the French billionaire industrialist, Vincent Bollore. Vivendi owns music labels, Hollywood studios, TV networks and gaming and ticketing companies and is moving Havas to a very different position versus its bigger global marketing services rivals like WPP, Omnicom, IPG, Dentsu and Publicis. More culture, not just tech is the idea. Havas Media’s Australian team talk the HYLAND acquisition, Vivendi and a pick-up in media spending now underway for the December quarter. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E84 · Thu, August 27, 2020
TV’s old guard or digital’s new blood? Nestle talks an ‘All Screens’ video and TV strategy in a power-packed roundtable on who wins on programmatic video v converged and connected TV planning, buying and measurement
Nestle’s Head of Media, Data and Content, Antonia Farqhuar is joined by UM’s Nicole Prior, Seven’s Kurt Burnette, Hearts & Science’s Issy Dunn and Amobee’s Liam Walsh in a robust discussion on a red hot industry theme...who emerges on top in a converged and connected TV world - digital video professionals or their broadcast TV peers? The playbook has started. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E83 · Mon, August 24, 2020
Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital APAC CEO Michel de Rijk on why his boss couldn’t reinvent WPP, the arbitrage model of Xaxis and what S4 plans for Australia and Asia-Pacific
WPP’s founder Sir Martin Sorrell was ousted in 2018 and is now at the top of the $2.1bn challenger to Accenture, the big consulting firms and the global marketing services holding giants and agency networks. S4 is banking big time on tech firms like Adobe, Salesforce and Google for its growth and blending those capabilities with fast, borderless content production and digital media and business transformation. S4 APAC CEO Michel de Rijk talks frankly about more acquisitions in Australia and why the consulting and communications company models will continue to struggle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E82 · Tue, August 18, 2020
Deloitte overhauls marketing: Ex-WPP CEO, Network 10 brand boss Matt McGrath on his global CMO role; Rochelle Tognetti on being first female CMO for Australia
Australia's first female CMO is teaching meditation at the firm through COVID and pushed through a major Salesforce rollout internally in the past two months to "connect the data pipes" - Rochelle Tognetti joins Matt McGrath, the new Australian global CMO, on the radical shifts in B2B marketing, the end of physical events, virtual pitching, deploying AI marketing chat bots and what next for the global Deloitte brand. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E81 · Mon, August 17, 2020
“The myth of rationality": Why Boeing’s return to supersonic travel, FedEx and investment bankers prove B2B (and B2C) marketers need to rethink behavioural economics and psychology
Behavioural science is the trojan horse marketers need to get psychology back into business and the boardroom. Rory Sutherland, vice chairman of Ogilvy UK and a founder of its behavioural science practice, suggests B2B marketers (and B2C marketers for that matter) must explode the myth that businesses and their people only make logical decisions, or they'll keep making the same mistakes until their tenure ends. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E80 · Mon, August 10, 2020
Follow the money: Nestle, AANA, MFA, OMD, Nine and The Guardian say marketers must step up on digital ad supply chain’s black hole
Nestle's head of eStrategy, Marketing and Brand, Martin Brown, says 50% of advertiser digital budgets going to working media is "not good enough" - 70% should be the baseline. With the competition regulator digging into the digital ad supply chain and PwC finding half of digital ad dollars are eaten up before they get to publishers, marketers must get a grip on where they are spending their money. Nestlé‘s Brown - also chair of the AANA - OMD‘s Aimee Buchanan, IAB chair and Pedestrian Group‘s Matt Rowley and Guardian Australia boss Dan Stinton debate transparency, remuneration, brand safety and suggest cutting out programmatic middlemen could be key. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E79 · Tue, August 04, 2020
CEOs at world’s leading Out Of Home companies say the turnaround has started despite volatility; why WFH's a bubble and programmatic OOH to surge
They’ve arguably been the hardest hit media companies through COVID-19 but the bosses of some of the world’s leading OOH companies - with iconic sites like NY’s Times Square, London’s Piccadilly Circus and Sydney’s Glebe Island Silos in their portfolios - come out swinging on this Mi3 podcast. Existential threats from COVID-19 and changes to public mobility and WFH are overcooked, they claim. And they’ve learnt the lessons from publishing - programmatic trading is set to surge but not through intermediaries and open exchanges like Google's. They’re not so united, however, on industry-wide trading platforms to tackle Big Tech. Sound familiar? This one’s a cracker. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E78 · Mon, August 03, 2020
Data governance alert: Apple's September bombshell will hit ad market, user tracking - Adore Beauty joins a panel of adtech, martech and 'demand-gen' industry experts
A more privacy-aggressive Apple is again pressuring its big tech peers like Google and Facebook to play cleaner on gaining “informed consent” from users to be tracked. A September iOS mobile operating system update from Apple will bluntly force more disclosure on how users and their behaviour data is matched and traded across the open web, apps and minute-by-minute geo-location journeys and patterns - anything from work commutes and exercise routines to retail precincts. Industry insiders say Google will have to follow Apple to maintain regulatory optics, like it’s been forced to by Apple’s Safari browser in the pending 2022 Google Chrome “cookie apocalypse”. Complex consent and transparency headaches for brands and marketers are weeks away. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E77 · Mon, July 27, 2020
Famed ad agency network DDB’s week-old global CEO Marty O’Halloran is an Australian with grand plans to shake up the DDB world. Here’s how he’s going to do it
Within days of DDB Australia and New Zealand chairman and CEO Marty O’Halloran landing the global CEO role last week, he made a radical move to appoint a black, data-led CEO, Justin Thomas-Copeland, to the North American advertising institution. In this conversation, O’Halloran admits it’s a signal for the DDB world that he will shake things up. John Wren, the boss of DDB’s giant NY-listed parent company Omnicom, says if O’Halloran can replicate the performance of the Australian and New Zealand group internationally, they’re going to “have a great time together”. Here’s what the low-profile O'Halloran says he’s going to do. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E76 · Mon, July 20, 2020
Danny Bass from the outside: Ex-IPG Mediabrands CEO says culture requires agencies, media people back in the office for magic to happen; COVID to hurt media owners more than agencies
It won’t be music to some ears but Danny Bass has been conducting executive leadership offsites for media and agency top brass in recent weeks and he’s convinced those that can get their people back in the office, or at least physically interacting as groups beyond Zoom, will have “first mover advantage”. It’s about the industry’s culture breeding creativity, ideas and magic. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E75 · Mon, July 13, 2020
Media’s “most influential” person of the decade? Bob Hoffman is bleak, grumpy and wishes the advertising holding companies would fail for a better industry
Mark Ritson calls him one of our "truly great marketing iconoclasts". Professor Byron Sharp says “I wish I was brave enough to be this rude” and NY-based ID Comms CEO Tom Denford predicts Bob Hoffman will possibly be "the most influential person of the decade in media". Here’s Hoffman in full flight. Enjoy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E74 · Mon, July 06, 2020
Influencer marketing - cowgirls, cowboys, brands and agencies prepare for more regulatory scrutiny, cash-for-comment disclosure and measurement rigour
Cash for comment used to be - and still is - quicksand for advertisers and media companies but not so for influencer marketing, worth $87bn globally and upwards of $240m in Australia. But a new code of practice from the recently formed Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AIMCO) aims to tackle the big challenges that could thwart the credibility of mega, macro, micro and nano influencers. Big fines is but one of the incentives motivating AIMCO and the big five global communications holding companies which are backing the initiative. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E73 · Mon, June 29, 2020
IBM CMO Jodie Sangster, Volvo’s Julie Hutchinson join Deloitte economist and Rob Brittain on Australia’s ad spend black hole and why 'how we marketing has changed forever'
Deloitte partner John O’Mahony says advertising and marketing “definitely has a perception issue” amongst executive leadership while arguing marketing drives growth and shouldn’t be a cost centre. Volvo and IBM marketers respond on their strategic shifts and hurdles in moving to brand over short-term tactics. Rob Brittain, co-author with Peter Field on the Communications Council's landmark Australian advertising study, cuts through with answers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E72 · Mon, June 22, 2020
Vodafone’s former global media chief on lessons in-housing media, transparency and why programmatic is ‘ripe for regulation'
Paul Evans was one of the driving forces of Vodafone’s global in-housing of search, social and digital media but he’s still not sure the ad industry at large has solved John Wanamaker’s famed conundrum that half his advertising was wasted but he didn’t know which half. Evans was also involved in the early scoping of PwC's recent forensic dive in the UK into the programmatic supply chain - which couldn't find where a third of cost is ending up. Given the billions advertisers are spending programmatically, he thinks regulation beckons. And while in-housing programmatic is “hard work”, Evans believes Vodafone and others that have committed for the long term will only gain... and won't be U-turning any time soon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E71 · Mon, June 15, 2020
Bleak but not over - Nine-Fairfax ad deal with Google to end; Premium Content Alliance says record subs, eyeballs and cookie collapse good for local, “contextual” media v Google, Facebook duopoly
Nine’s Chief Digital and Publishing Officer Chris Janz says the once contentious ad deal Fairfax struck with Google before Nine’s takeover will now "likely mean we’ll have a different relationship with Google" as the newly formed Premium Content Alliance (PCA) of major local publishers plans another counter strike on Google and Facebook with “effectiveness research”. It will also upend the market’s current and outdated preoccupation with Nielsen audience rankings, say PCA heavies Kim Portrate, Chris Janz (Nine) and Gereurd Roberts (Seven West Media). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E70 · Thu, June 11, 2020
VB, Bunnings, Toyota top Australia’s first Audio Logo Index as smart speakers set new branding challenge
Mastercard and Intel are among the highest profile brands who have invested heavily in “sonic branding” but Procter & Gamble and a host of big names are now treating audio branding as important as visual and video identity. New York-based Veritonic and SCA tested a 400,000-panel of Australians to produce the first annual Audio Logo Index in which Bunnings, VB and Toyota were leaders. Here’s why. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E69 · Mon, June 08, 2020
Global ad effectiveness grandmaster Peter Field on Australia’s big problem with ad spend and GDP and why B2B marketers could be powering ahead of their consumer marketing peers in driving short and long-term growth through COVID
Australian marketers could be showing "signs of panic” if sobering new analysis from Peter Field and The Communications Council is right. What’s more, B2B marketers here could be powering ahead of their consumer marketing peers in reassessing short-term tactical marketing to longer term brand building to drive growth. LinkedIn’s Prue Cox joins Comms Council CEO Tony Hale and Peter Field for a conversation that captures the Australian conundrum. And a way out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E68 · Mon, June 01, 2020
'Massive reinvention, huge success': The AFL’s COVID "digital makegoods” strategy changed everything for commercial partners and content, says AFL ‘livewires’ Kylie Rogers and Sarah Wyse
After a $600m loan, standing down 85% of its staff and the competition set to restart on June 11, off-season audiences are up 50% for AFL Media as COVID forced new digital products for fans and fast-tracked a surge in women and younger audiences with more entertainment and lifestyle content. “We’re all working seven days a week but frankly we’re in great shape,” says ex-Network Ten exec and Mammamia MD, Kylie Rogers, now General Manager, Commercial, for the AFL. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E67 · Mon, May 25, 2020
Marketing cloud ‘fatigue' and ‘personalisation 2.0' - the post-COVID changes for CX, online targeting and ads run deep
Massive complexity is creating “marketing cloud fatigue”, says Gartner’s California-based senior director and analyst Ben Bloom, who joins Publicis Sapient ANZ managing director Sarah Adam-Gedge, Citi’s Head of Digital and Segments Roger Slater and Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw in Episode Two on why personalisation is a quaint bygone - even with tech. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E66 · Mon, May 18, 2020
Clemenger BBDO chair Robert Morgan: More divisions to merge or close, creative agencies to follow CHEP ‘powerhouse’ into e-comm, data
Clemenger BBDO Group executive chairman Robert Morgan has a long-held view that "you take your medicine early” in a downturn, flagging more consolidation within the group as the big creative agency brands become central hubs for creative, e-commerce, data and precision marketing. But he “absolutely won’t” be replicating WPP’s centralised production model in Australia and New Zealand for lower-cost, high velocity work. “We won’t be doing it that way,” he says. Morgan also believes there’s "no question" a shift of at least 20% of people working more flexibly out of Clemenger offices is a given. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E65 · Mon, May 11, 2020
Google's new 2022 cookie apocalypse: Why it will hit first party data and a solution from Westpac's ex-digital media and tech boss
From 2022, Google will ban the use of third party cookies within its Chrome browser, joining Apple and others in voiding the digital marketing industry's most widespread currency. That's going to break things - including new pressure on first party data. Many companies don't even know what's going to hit them but for those that want to stay in business, there's still time - just. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E64 · Mon, May 04, 2020
Wasteland of tech tools: Gartner says 80% of marketers will ditch personalisation by 2025. ‘No chance’ says Citi, WPP
Gartner’s provocative forecast that personalisation will prove an expensive wasteland of tech tools in five years has Citi’s Australian head of segments and digital, Roger Slater, fired up. Yes, a day of reckoning is coming for tech vendors and ‘fundamentally lazy’ marketers who think personalisation is a tech problem. But it’s not about the tech, Slater says. WPP’s Adam Good worries there are too many tech Ferrarris idling in the garage being used by people "trained in the tools, not marketing”. Another problem. Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw has the science. Time to listen up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E63 · Mon, April 27, 2020
Getting personal: Emerging agency leaders trade views with senior industry execs on half the industry facing emotional stress and mental health pressures; the struggle of managing fragile teams remotely and a post-COVID seachange movement in media.
WPP’s Team Red media lead on Vodafone, Emily Cook, says WFH has “humanised” client-agency relationships but Bohemia’s national planning director Mark Echo says he’s been on a more volatile emotional rollercoaster than when in the office. Wavemaker CEO Peter Vogel still heads to work daily and can’t wait to get his teams back together in the office. MFA CEO Sophie Madden, however, agrees with Mark Echo that post-COVID up to 50% of the industry will see material shifts in how they work. Want a real, no BS conversation? This one delivers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E62 · Thu, April 23, 2020
‘Market got it wrong’ - radio audiences surge as streaming, catch-up, apps, smart speakers surpass broadcast ‘commute’ listening
Southern Cross Austereo’s Brian Gallagher says the market got it all wrong on concerns COVID radio audiences would crater because of vanishing work commutes. Omnicom Media Group’s head of audio and outdoor Jo Dick agrees. SCA’s 1.2 million digital streaming and app users show the typical spikes in breakfast and drive slots have spread across the day. Now for a revolution in radio’s diary-based audience currency…Jo Dick calls for overnight radio numbers, like TV, within a year. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E61 · Mon, April 20, 2020
Trusted media? Editors at The Sydney Morning Herald and Nine News talk COVID news ad blacklists, booming audiences and subs and a swing to non-COVID content with Carat CEO Sue Squillace and Nine’s Michael Stephenson
Two leading “trusted media" news editors mix it up with Carat CEO Sue Squillace and Nine’s Chief Sales Officer Michael Stephenson on media consumption trends and what advertisers will do next. Squillace says the online shopping surge is affecting media channel allocation - to digital performance - but Carat’s strategy teams have "never been busier” planning for the mid and longer term around brand. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E60 · Wed, April 15, 2020
HiPages CCO Stuart Tucker flips from brand to performance marketing; Ex-Diageo CMO Adam Ballesty banks on COVID alcohol boom to halt
Two former blue chip corporate marketers tell a very different story now they’re at smaller, scrappier start-up ventures. Former Combank marketer Stuart Tucker says many marketing peers in large organisations are "out of touch” with mainstream Australia and need a dose of humility. Meanwhile Seedlip APAC general manager, Adam Ballesty, is scrambling to push the fast growing non-alcoholic, distilled spirits category when restaurants and bars are closed and everyone is reaching for a drink. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E59 · Mon, April 13, 2020
Coles CMO Lisa Ronson on media mix, the rise of TV and newspapers and splitting marketing for a post-COVID strategy
The Coles research and insights team is feeding the broader marketing operation daily on insights and messaging strategies coming from what Google and Facebook are capturing in search and social and what the just-overhauled creative and media agency partners are tapping from international markets that are weeks ahead of the Australian COVID-19 situation. She talks with Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E58 · Thu, April 02, 2020
Mark Ritson v Suncorp CMO Mim Haysom on marketers as “communications muppets”; Suncorp declares no COVID cuts to marketing spend
Like Telstra CMO Jeremy Nicolas two weeks ago, Suncorp’s marketing and brand boss Mim Haysom says "we haven't cut our marketing budgets and have no intention of doing that”. An 18-month effort by Haysom to convince Suncorp's leadership and board to view long-term investment in brand and marketing as a growth driver has paid off. Mark Ritson says Haysom is "a 1-in-100 marketer” as he joins up with ADMA to launch a 12-week work-from-home "Marketing Masterclass” series later this month. But…they do don the gloves for a light stoush over marketing’s obsession with communications. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E57 · Mon, March 30, 2020
Covid 19 Series Update: Hoyts CEO Damian Keogh on what next for Hollywood, media and ad market after cinema shutdown
For the first time in 111 years, Hoyts has shut its cinemas nationwide and stood down close to 3000 staff. Hoyts Chinese parent, Wanda, meanwhile has started re-opening its Chinese cinemas. Hoyts CEO Damian Keogh was supposed to be in Wuhan in January for the company’s annual conference, which was shifted to Guangzhou just days out. Here’s how Keogh sees the current crisis playing out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E56 · Wed, March 18, 2020
COVID-19 Update: Telstra CMO: 'We haven’t paused anything’ as marketing, media sectors brace for 40% contraction, preserving jobs
Telstra CMO Jeremy Nicholas joins PwC Chief Economist Jeremy Thorpe, Omnicom Media Group CEO Peter Horgan and Executive Channel Holdings CEO and Outdoor Media Association chairman Charles Parry-Okeden in a critical discussion on managing through COVID-19 in coming weeks and how it may rewire the future of industry and jobs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E55 · Mon, March 16, 2020
AusPost CMO Amber Collins on her lessons at Coles, why “lazy" marketers use social and what next
When former Coles marketing heavy Amber Collins was approached by Australia Post to take the CMO role, she immediately said ‘no thanks’. But former News Corp exec and Collins’ new boss, Nicole Sheffield, eventually got her way. Collins unpacks her media, marketing and agency lessons from Coles and where she’s headed at Australia Post. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E54 · Thu, March 12, 2020
‘Feisty' Anne Parsons on Harold Mitchell and why Out of Home can’t repeat TV’s mistakes
Anne Parsons was the only rival of media agency baron Harold Mitchell who publicly took him on when he reigned supreme. Now living in Paris, Parsons, who just exited the board of the now Quadrant private equity-owned QMS, explains why Out Of Home can’t and won’t repeat TV broadcaster apathy – and more. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E53 · Mon, March 09, 2020
The marketing black hole: Young and experienced marketers from Arnott’s, Baiada-Steggles, IAG and AANA dissect the worrying decline of capabilities among marketing professionals - it’s urgent
If engineering and science professionals - and graduates - lacked the basics like their peers currently do in marketing and communications, carnage would prevail. So what’s going on with marketers and the universities producing the next generation of leaders? Does anyone care or are we happily masquerading? Three years after graduating from Sydney University, Arnott’s assistant brand manager James Shepherd dukes it out with IAG CMO Brent Smart, Head of Marketng at the $2.5bn Baiada-Steggles group, Yash Gandhi and AANA CEO John Broome on why marketers must do better - and how. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E52 · Mon, March 09, 2020
Ex Red Rooster CEO Nick Keenan, now Starcom CEO, on client politics, martech silos and why advertising actually still works, fast
Recorded well before his appointment as Starcom Australia CEO, Nick Keenan opens up on running a quick-service restaurant for private equity owners, how a marketer-turned-CEO viewed marketing and agencies, why brand owners can be as dysfunctional as agency groups are accused of and how martech is presenting the same challenges as social and search did five years ago. Creative agencies, particularly, will be happy. Keenan thinks they’re underrated, particularly in UX and design. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E51 · Mon, March 02, 2020
The very troubled world of linear TV - why even brands are now spooked about the demise of advertising’s Golden Goose
It’s a bit late but brands the world over are realising linear TV was their Golden Goose for impact - and they don’t see a real replacement. But there is some light. Three international TV analysts talk to Mi3’s Paul McIntyre about fear, fury and fatigue - and an avalanche of ad-funded streaming services (AVOD) in the next five years. The “ads are dead” crowd may have to temper their joy - consumers are piling into hybrid ad-subscription streaming services where they pay less for taking ads. And they are. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E50 · Thu, February 27, 2020
TV faces up to ‘food fatigue’ but MasterChef EP predicts 5-10% rise for 2020
TV food shows are on the nose and agencies and advertisers are twitchy. Veteran MasterChef Executive Producer at Endemol Shine, Marty Benson, says be calm. The revamped MasterChef format with new judges and a new pace will return the show to audience growth this year. Ten’s Head of Programming, Daniel Monaghan, agrees. Here’s why. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E49 · Mon, February 24, 2020
More tech, less media: IPG Mediabrands new CEO Mark Coad and APAC boss Leigh Terry on diluting their media risk
A $2.3bn global acquisition of data firm Acxiom 18 months ago has triggered a wave of new ventures for New York-based marketing services holding group IPG - it's delivering media unit, IPGMediabrands, the chance to spread its risk and reliance on media. Kinesso, a new global marketing, advertising and data technology platform, is part of the plan. Former Omnicom veteran Mark Coad and APAC CEO Leigh Terry unveal their plans, talk Coronavirus implications for marketing and why Coad jumped ship. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E48 · Thu, February 20, 2020
Kia’s top marketer says Uber Eats kicked other brands "in the teeth” with its Australian Open sponsorship. Kia wants to match it
Kia’s GM marketing, Dean Norbiato, admits the auto company has a major "brand rejection” challenge among Australians and undercooked its two-decade backing of The Australian Open. But that’s all changing massively. Kia and Uber Eats top marketers reveal their inside thinking on the worth of broadcast sponsorships. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E47 · Mon, February 17, 2020
L’Oreal’s media director Lyndell Campher on problems with YouTube and the upside to TV, Instagram and influencers
L’Oreal completed a research project late last year that will see the Australian and New Zealand unit reweight its media investments away from YouTube to TV and Instagram in 2020, along with less ad campaigns overall. Influencer fraud remains a concern but it’s not stopping the cosmetics giant investing in social channels over celebrities although Network Ten and Hit Network’s Carrie Bickmore remains one of L’Oreal’s top influencers - and celebrities. Later this year Campher says L’Oreal plans to link influencers directly to online sales to test their mettle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E46 · Thu, February 13, 2020
It’s weird: ‘Bleak’, dystopian under 30s are flocking to the movies for escape and rare big culture moments
Wtf? The number of 14-24 year-olds heading to the box office was up 20% in Australia last year. Under 30s were up 7%. Why? Social researcher Matt Sandwell and Val Morgan’s managing director Guy Burbidge say the vast underbelly of society is feeling bleak - young and old. Fantasy, escape and a desire for disappearing “big cultural moments” are on the rise and this year’s line-up from Hollywood and beyond will fuel the desire for mass cultural connections. On the upside, “cultural imprinting” is exactly what brands want too. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E45 · Mon, February 10, 2020
Marketing and media’s troubled future: Mark Ritson, LinkedIn think tank, IPA UK’s Fran Cassidy have a solution
Short-term tactics have trapped marketers into just one ‘P’ – promotion – in marketing's “4P’s” manifesto of Price, Product, Place (distribution) and Promotion (communication). But even “Promotion" is in decline. The result is a credulous future for marketing with senior business management. In a tour de force for B2C and B2B professionals, Mark Ritson, the global director of the New York-based B2B Institute, Jann Schwarz, and IPA advisor Fran Cassidy nail what needs to happen - now. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E44 · Thu, February 06, 2020
oOh!media’s CEO Brendon Cook on why he’s exiting as the $100bn global programmatic sector circles out-of-home
oOh!media CEO Brendon Cook opens up on why he’s leaving the $700m-plus company he started as a “one man band” in 1989; what the skills and style of the new CEO will need; why the market is still missing the critical role for creative in media effectiveness and what the out-of-home industry will look like in 2021 as programmatic operatives eye-off a $100bn trading boom globally in digital screens. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E43 · Mon, February 03, 2020
Anthony Fitzgerald, Prof. Karen Nelson-Field on the media industry's ad impressions "currency crisis" and faltering advertising attention
TV industry veteran Anthony Fitzgerald joins leading international media academic Prof Karen Nelson-Field, Tumbleturn Media’s Jen Davidson and Craig Service from the globetrotting Australian TV and video data and measurement start-up, Adgile, to unpack the ad industry’s impressions crisis, why consumer attention metrics must inform price-focused impressions trading and the urgency for broadcasters to shakeup TV audience measurement to digital-like real-time audience reporting and impact. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E42 · Thu, January 30, 2020
How Xbox, Twitter reversed ‘goldfish’ attention spans in a world-first social gaming campaign
Think again if you’re convinced online communities have the attention span of a goldfish. Xbox and Twitter execs lift the lid on how complex social campaigns are booming, and how gaming consoles are advancing as hubs for streaming and media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E41 · Mon, January 27, 2020
Cheat Sheet - Part Two: Volvo, KPMG, AANA reveal world-leading marketing and media effectiveness science shaping brands for 2020
In the second of Mi3’s three-part series, execs from Volvo, KPMG, AANA and Brand Traction traverse the critical thinking and developments in the consumer attention economy and divergent analysis on how each media channel delivers attention, the rise of ESOV (Excess Share Of Voice) and the growth potential from media investment that indexes above a brand's product marketshare. In the third and final episode we wrap-up the collective thinking on consumer messaging and creative and the false economy and science of driving efficiency over effectiveness. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E40 · Mon, January 20, 2020
Cheat Sheet - Part One: Volvo, KPMG, AANA reveal world-leading marketing and media effectiveness science shaping brands for 2020
In this three part series, execs at Volvo, KPMG, AANA and Brand Traction traverse the worrying limitations of today’s marketing grads, plus critical updates every marketer needs in applied behavioural economics from BJ Fogg and Daniel Kahemann, more on Prof. Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg Bass Institute and the theme de jour of short-term results versus long-term brand building. In Part Two we dig deep into leading global effectiveness thinking in media and advertising. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E39 · Mon, December 16, 2019
ACCC Special Edition: 'Still futile” says Mark Ritson on government response to contain Google, Facebook
Mark Ritson, IAB CEO Gai Le Roy, Omnicom's Kristian Kroon and Mi3’s Paul McIntyre duke it out on the federal government’s response to the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry, the media industry’s ‘advertise or die’ campaign and if anyone other than Facebook and Google will see advertising growth in 2020. It’s fast, feisty and smart summer listening. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E37 · Mon, December 09, 2019
Rise of the customer data platform - CDPs are hot and here’s why
‘CDP' is the hot new acronym blazing a path into tech stacks and corporates trying to deliver better customer experience. It used to be CRM, marketing clouds and martech so what’s a CDP got to do with anything? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E36 · Mon, December 02, 2019
Accenture Interactive’s new boss Mark Green says market, agencies will follow his firm's model
The Monkeys co-founder Mark Green has just been appointed Accenture Interactive’s boss in Australia and argues agencies, holding companies and the market-at-large “will move closer to where we’re heading”, blending tech, media, creativity, customer and experience design. Green talks to Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E35 · Mon, November 25, 2019
Pressured Oz marketers, agencies more adversarial, fearful than US, UK peers
The McKinsey-backed Marketing Academy co-founder Sherilyn Shackell says the Australian marketing, media and tech sector is more fearful, negative and critical here than their global peers - and Australian expats who are much sought after abroad. She talks to Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E34 · Mon, November 18, 2019
Mark Ritson v Professor Caron Beaton-Wells on Big Tech, ACCC inquiry
Melbourne University Law School’s Professor Caron Beaton-Wells, a leading thinker on competition law, says the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry is globally “groundbreaking” and warns industry not to underestimate the ACCC’s intent on privacy and consumer protection. She talks to MI3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on the consumer privacy “paradox" and what's next for collecting and trading consumer data. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E33 · Mon, November 11, 2019
IPG’s former CEO Danny Bass on his imminent return and why LinkedIn is a new industry problem
Danny Bass has finished gardening leave and reflects on six months outside the media bubble. He’s still off social media and explains why workplace yoga and meditation won’t fix industry's mental health issues. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E32 · Thu, November 07, 2019
Busting marketing's addiction to misleading, real-time dashboards with emerging new models
The marketing industry is trapped with the wrong measurement indicators for actual business growth. IAG’s former Marketing Effectiveness Lead, Matt Daniell, says “attribution models, short-term response campaigns and other crap” is confusing everyone. He joins Executive Editor Paul McIntyre, Ali Tilling, VML Y&R chief strategy officer, TrinityP3’s MD Nathan Hodges and Mal Dale at The Readership Works on the new mindset starting to emerge in measurement. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E31 · Mon, November 04, 2019
Seven's James Warburton on cracking the SVOD market, his text to Matt Preston, reducing adloads and why it matters to marketers
James Warburton talks to Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on the odds for real collaboration between TV broadcasters, Seven’s catch-up job on tech and systems, why he texted Matt Preston on his first day in the job and the future of ad loads for marketing effectiveness See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E30 · Mon, October 28, 2019
Volvo’s marketing director on flipping to longer-term brand building over digital performance tactics
Volvo’s marketing boss Julie Hutchinson says Volvo got too reliant on performance media at Carsales, CarsAdvice and Carsguide and didn’t build Volvo’s brand appeal for buyer consideration in the the luxury auto segment. The new strategy is working. She joins Mindshare’s Joe Lunn and whiteGREY’s Lee Simpson on winning the 2019 Media Federation Grand Prix. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E29 · Thu, October 24, 2019
Michael Stephenson on Nine becoming a “marketing platform”
In this podcast hosted by Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre, Nine’s Chief Sales Officer Michael Stephenson goes into bat against Wavemaker CEO Peter Vogel on Nine's key Upfronts announcements for 2020. Stephenson says Nine is transforming to become a “marketing platform” to compete with Big Tech. It now has 11 million users logged-in following the Fairfax Media acquisition and has invested in an in-house “effectiveness unit". Peter Vogel has some counter-arguments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E28 · Mon, October 21, 2019
Independents smell growth as global agency networks distracted
In Part Two of The Indies, founders at The Hallway, Mutiny, The Royals and Sparro outline the new opportunities competing against global agency networks and consulting firms in predictive data, specialist creative, full-service media and creative and specialist digital performance. Big brands, they argue, are buying the line. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E27 · Mon, October 14, 2019
Brand 'in-housing’ is too hard - new outsourcing models emerge
The movement by brands to in-housing marketing, media and communications functions is all but over in its current form. But new operating models between agencies and marketers are underway. Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks to IAG’s Director of Content and Customer Engagement Zara Curtis, Tumbleturn Media’s Jen Davidson, WPP's Hogarth CEO Justin Ricketts and CX Lavender’s Will Lavender. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E26 · Thu, October 10, 2019
Network Ten CEO Paul Anderson on marketers’ return to top-of-the-funnel TV strategies
Coming in hot off Network Ten’s Upfronts, Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks to CEO Paul Anderson and Chief Content Officer Beverley McGarvey on marketers’ return to TV’s top-of-the-funnel brand credentials, fixing Ten’s 2020 first-quarter audiences and moving the market on from overnight ratings. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E25 · Mon, October 07, 2019
Hamish McLennan: Private equity will break-up a global comms holding company in three years
Consulting firms or private equity will acquire, break-up and spin-off new creative-media agency networks within a few years, says the deputy chairman of $90bn investment firm Magellan and veteran WPP global agency executive Hamish McLennan. He talks with Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E24 · Mon, September 30, 2019
Is the era of independent agencies and consultants over?
The global agency holding groups are challenged, the consulting firms are making moves but brands are not backing new indies and start-ups, despite their frustrations. Or are they? Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks to the CEOs at Bastion Collective, Lavender CX and the listed RXP group for a reality check in the first of a new series on the future of Big versus Indie. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E23 · Mon, September 23, 2019
CMOs are in real trouble - some lazy, some just stuck. But there’s hope, says the Institute For Real Growth.
Marc de Swaan Arons says marketers have lost their way in the past decade. He tells Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre how marketing and its downstream industries from media, agencies and tech can rediscover their mojo. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E22 · Mon, September 16, 2019
Jack Singleton on exiting Macquarie Media, Alan Jones, advertiser boycotts and brand-building his flower empire
“Talk radio is a circus,” Jack Singleton tells Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre as John Singleton & Co prepares to exit their final media investment, Macquarie Media. He opens up on the fine line between driving audiences for advertisers and getting bitten, and why the Singletons will stay well clear of the ad business. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E21 · Mon, September 09, 2019
Audi CMO Nikki Warburton on James Warburton, TV, troubled agency models and new CMO pressures
Audi’s chief marketing and customer officer Nikki Warburton talks with Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on her media mix, driving a new agency model which demands brand owners share their data, martech’s limitations and how much time she spends on media and communications (it’s not much). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E20 · Mon, September 02, 2019
'Data ethics' is the new black: Cadreon, Omnicom, IAB and Audited Media debate industry’s looming challenge
Cadreon’s Raph Hodes, Omnicom’s Kristiaan Kroon, IAB CEO Gai Le Roy and Audited Media’s Josanne Ryan dive into the new world of data ethics arising from the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E19 · Thu, August 29, 2019
Older women’s ‘sexy’ handicap is skewing industry to young and ignorant
This is a powerful, potent and problematic podcast. A CMO, a creative and a publisher talk frankly to Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on the raging bias of ageism in marketing, agencies and media. It’s crippling the marketing industry’s ability to connect with 2 million high-spending, defiant, culturally connected, tech-savvy 50-65 year-old women. Few get it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E18 · Mon, August 26, 2019
IAG CMO Brent Smart and The Monkeys’ Mark Green talk Accenture, media and creativity
IAG’s outspoken CMO Brent Smart is joined by The Monkeys CEO Mark Green to talk martech, media and creativity and busting fancy attribution modelling myths with Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E17 · Mon, August 19, 2019
Streaming wars: Stan CEO Mike Sneesby on why no ads, viewing time up 40% in 12 months
Stan’s CEO Mike Sneesby opens up with Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on what's next in the streaming wars, a 40% lift in daily viewing time on Stan, plans for 3 million customers and why he’s holding to a no ads policy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E16 · Mon, August 12, 2019
How Virgin Airlines set a new benchmark for agency reviews, transparency
With pitching, procurement and transparency back on the boil, Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks to former Commbank media GM Jen Davidson, now at Tumbleturn Media, Trinity P3’s Darren Woolley, Slingshot’s Simon Rutherford and Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw about hollow claims and meaningful change. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E15 · Mon, August 05, 2019
Google Search is a drug - why digital start-ups are switching to TV
Online tradie marketplace Hipages wanted to reduce its heavy reliance on Google Search. It tried TV to build its brand and short-term sales took off too. Stuart Tucker, Hipages chief customer officer, talks to Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre about his secret sauce. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E14 · Mon, July 29, 2019
Marketing surveillance: 40% of online users could vanish from tracking under proposed ACCC privacy crackdown
Privacy probe: The ACCC’s digital platforms report is finally out and it’s a beast. Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre covers three critical developments with Southern Cross Austereo CEO Grant Blackley, Mutiny’s managing partner Henry Innis, Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw and the regulatory affairs heads at Nine and News Corp, Clare Gill and GK Schubert. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E13 · Mon, July 22, 2019
Media Federation (MFA) board: agency sector has passed a “disgraceful” period
Media Federation board members come out swinging in defence of the smarts, curiosity and hunger of agency talent in their twenties and thirties in a robust debate with Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre. The MFA’s industry-wide shutdown in October for MFA EX is just the start. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E12 · Mon, July 15, 2019
Martech crunch: snake oil tech “overselling” as marketers “over buy”
Mike Doyle, head of marketing at 70-store fashion chain City Beach, talks with The Lumery’s Raj Kumar and Mi3’s Paul McIntyre about why marketers feel “locked-in” to their expensive customer experience and Martech investments. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E11 · Mon, July 08, 2019
Samsung questions the efficiency and costs of programmatic advertising tech
Samsung’s head of media Beau Curtis has concerns about adtech returns and wants industry to move beyond media metrics to business results for marketing to build boardroom cred. He talks with Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre, IAB’s CEO Gai Le Roy, Adobe AdCloud's regional boss Phil Cowlishaw and Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E10 · Mon, July 01, 2019
The ACCC's investigation into the digital platforms is done and it could get ugly
Regulator's romp: The ACCC's investigation into the digital platforms is now with the federal Government and the implications could be profound. Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre puts GK Schubert and Clare Gill, who lead government and regulatory affairs at News Corp and Nine respepcitvely, into the pit with Omnicom Media Group’s Kristiaan Kroon. Everything professionals in marketing, agencies, media and tech need to know is here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E9 · Mon, June 24, 2019
Analysis paralysis - brands have built fancy data dashboards for insights but an advertising and marketing-led growth funk remains
PwC’s Justin Papps muscles up with Omnicom’s Kristiaan Kroon, Nine’s Michael Stephenson and SCA’s Brian Gallagher on PwC's Media Outlook forecasts. Nine and SCA think they can close the gap on the Google-Facebook ad duopoly and Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw tells Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre what marketers have to do next. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E8 · Mon, June 17, 2019
Cookie meltdown pt 2 - first party data flashpoint looms for marketers and they don’t know it
The cookie meltdown, a new era of consumer consent for personal data use and tracking will hit marketers first party data strategy as hard as media and tech companies. News Corp’s Suzie Cardwell, Publicis-owned Performics' Jason Tonelli and Andy Lark outline the disruptive regime change most brands are missing in the second part of the cookie meltdown series with Mi3’s Paul McIntyre. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E7 · Mon, June 10, 2019
Marketing funnel wars - Coles’ new online media platform triggers debate on the future of the marketing funnel
Brad Moran, the man behind Coles’ new online media platform, says "closing the loop" between ads and shopper purchases will spark a retail media boom. Moran wrestles with Nine’s Pippa Leary, Brand Traction’s Jon Bradshaw and Mi3’s Executive Editor Paul McIntyre on what it means for moving people through the classic marketing funnel from brand consideration to a transaction. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E6 · Mon, June 03, 2019
What’s behind the exits from big consulting firms to agencies?
Two former Deloitte execs explain why they moved to DDB-owned Interbrand as a raft of consulting firms departures continue. The AFR’s professional services editor, Edmund Tadros, explains the consultants’ pressure for growth and margins and host Paul McIntyre speaks to Jon Bradshaw to get a CMO’s view on it all. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E5 · Mon, May 27, 2019
The online cookie meltdown - what marketers should know but don’t
Large chunks of Australia's $9 billion online ad market are challenged as user tracking via web browser “cookies” hits a wall. Former IAB chairman and ex-News Corp digital boss, Cameron King, and Verizon Media’s Sebastian Graham join Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre and his regular guest marketer Jon Bradshaw for some straight talk on what it all means for advertisers, agencies and media. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E4 · Mon, May 20, 2019
Can the worst ad market since GFC turn in 2019?
Green shoots? Paul McIntyre talks with the founder of Standard Media Index Jane Ractliffe on the troubled ad market while Jon Bradshaw unpacks it for brand-owners along with the boom (and peak?) in direct-to-consumer businesses like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E3 · Mon, May 13, 2019
Woolies Aspirations to be a $200m Media Company
Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre debates with marketers Jon Bradshaw and Andy Lark about whether or not Woolworths can crack the ad business with its detailed data on million of shoppers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E2 · Mon, May 06, 2019
Machine automation in marketing hits jobs
A call to boycott Facebook and what's slowing Google's ad revenue? Paul McIntyre, Andy Lark and Jon Bradshaw discuss all this and what's next for jobs after the news that machines will automate 65%+ of all media transactions in five years. Plus more global marketing & media essentials in this week's Mi3 Audio Edition. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
S1 E1 · Mon, April 29, 2019
Have we hit peak UGC?
Paul McIntyre and Jon Bradshaw discuss mythbusting around the age-bracket of the founders of the most successful start-ups , how User Generated Content is under marketer pressure and more global marketing & media essentials in this week's Mi3 Audio Edition. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Trailer · Tue, April 23, 2019
Mi3 Audio Edition - trailer
A weekly wrap of the “must-know” developments in Marketing, Media, Agency and Technology for leaders and emerging leaders in the industry. Veteran industry journalist and Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks each week with guest marketers who are in the know on what matters at the nexus of marketing, agencies, media and technology. Powered mostly by Human Intelligence (HI). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
loading...