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 ou...
Sep 16, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 154
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 platfor...
Sep 13, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 153
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 Medi...
Sep 09, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 152
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 ...
Sep 06, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 151
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 telli...
Aug 30, 2021•43 min•Season 1Ep. 150
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 ...
Aug 26, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 149
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 wi...
Aug 23, 2021•29 min•Season 1Ep. 148
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 extraor...
Aug 19, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 147
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 ...
Aug 16, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 146
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...
Aug 12, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 145
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 ...
Aug 09, 2021•38 min•Season 1Ep. 144
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 p...
Aug 05, 2021•47 min•Season 1Ep. 143
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, alth...
Aug 02, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 142
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 ...
Jul 29, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 141
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, Commtr...
Jul 26, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 140
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 ...
Jul 19, 2021•54 min•Season 1Ep. 139
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 Reven...
Jul 15, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 138
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” ...
Jul 13, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 137
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...
Jul 12, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 136
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 digit...
Jul 05, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 135
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 cal...
Jul 01, 2021•20 min•Season 1Ep. 134
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. See omnystudio.com/listener for privac...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 1Ep. 133
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-...
Jun 21, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 132
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...
Jun 17, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 131
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 “explodi...
Jun 15, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 130
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 2...
Jun 10, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 129
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 say...
Jun 07, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 128
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 p...
May 31, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 127
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 informati...
May 27, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 126
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...
May 24, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 125
