Deep Dive

Deep Dive 6 May 2024 - 10 min read

CX disconnect: Banks, carmakers, telcos failing to join customer dots, ‘gaming’ NPS, measuring wrong outcomes, undermining martech investments – but universities nailing it

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

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, water 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.

Deep Dive 30 Apr 2024 - 10 min read

Metrics meltdown: Avoid TV's 'colossal balls up' in podcast measurement warn agencies as fragmentation inhibits ad spend, buyers grapple with walled gardens, cross-platform attribution, 'surface level' Triton Digital ranker

By Kalila Welch - Senior Journalist

Australia is a global leader in podcast listenership, but the growth of local industry is being stifled by measurement that many suggest simply doesn’t stack up. Fully 41 per cent of media agencies basically overlooked podcast ads in 2023, with concerns around measurement, effectiveness, addressability, and standardisation being the key barrier to uptake. It all comes down to a lack of consensus, with publishers like Spotify and Acast building out their own systems rather than working towards a more collective approach. The Triton Digital Ranker is the closest there is to an industry-wide currency, but there’s contention over the suitability of listeners and downloads as key metrics, plus buyers say it lacks the context required to make informed investments. While there’s a diversity of opinions about the way forward, what buyers can agree on is that collaboration by all stakeholders will be key if progress in podcast measurement – and therefore share of budgets – is to be made.

Deep Dive 30 Apr 2024 - 9 min read

AMI CPD: 1

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'

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

Forget cookies, regulatory risk is live and legal for marketers, publishers and the media, martech and adtech supply chain. Peak industry groups are responding to economic analysis commissioned by the Attorney General's department on the cost to implement what some say are hardening privacy reforms, including tightening rules on geo-location and what constitutes personal information. Data brokers like Woolworth's-owned Quantium, however it may protest to the contrary, will also find out within weeks if not days whether their arguments hold regulatory water – and it will likewise be an anxious wait for loyalty operators and their retail media progeny as privacy and consumer advocates successfully displace industry within Canberra's sphere of influence. Across the pond, the US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have seemingly decided to try and break up Google in a series of lawsuits. So if you're planning major martech, CX, adtech and data investments, privacy experts suggest holding fire – and get to grips with what is about to hit. There's massive change in play, with day-to-day movement. Here's the latest from experts Peter Leonard, Ricky Sutton, Laurel Henning and Chris Brinkworth – with least regrets actions for brands, publishers and pretty much any business turning over north of $3 million.

Deep Dive Library

Deep Dive 6 Feb 2024 - 12 min read

Lessons from Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty: Unilever marketers forgot product in ‘purpose' mission; ESG now corporate ‘Voldemort’ but employee, stakeholder strategies a ‘massive opportunity’ for marketing influence in c-suite – Institute for Real Growth

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

50 Australian CMOs have just been briefed on a “massive opportunity” for marketers to increase influence and impact with executive leadership colleagues via ‘humanised growth'. How? By offering their strategy and insights nous to help build out divisional and all-of-company stakeholder-employee management blueprints and programs. But it’s crucial to avoid making those cross-departmental overtures appear a land-grab, says former Unilever marketer turned Institute for Real Growth (IRG) co-founder Marc de Swaan Arons. In town with the IRG’s latest study across 475 CEOs, CFOs, CCOs, CMOs and HR chiefs, he rejected the idea that marketers are too crunched by exploding remits to drive higher order value creation by breaking down silos – they have teams to do the tactical legwork, he suggests. He’s also scathing on misguided purpose and ESG, which has trapped his former employer in the past and is acquiring “Voldemort” status among boards. Corporate purpose, he says, is not social purpose – and is a cornerstone of the IRG’s five-point plan to drive ‘Humanised Growth’. The likes of Suncorp and CMO Mim Haysom, reckons de Swaan Arons, are nailing it.

Deep Dive 29 Jan 2024 - 10 min read

‘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 the dollar is ‘optimistic’

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

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, Yahoo, 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 on the programmatic dollar is optimistic – because the investigation spanned sophisticated advertisers and because it doesn’t factor-in things like agency commissions while its calculations are based off feeble viewabilty metrics. “We are talking about a massive global marketplace and it is out of control,” says Manning. “Nobody wants to derail the gravy train.” But the report differs from myriad predecessors because it spells out exactly how advertisers, their procurement departments and agencies can regain control. 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.

Deep Dive 22 Jan 2024 - 8 min read

Brand acrobatics: Adobe wrestles with ‘category awareness’ for CX as LinkedIn signals B2B CMOs prime 2024 budgets, CFOs greenlight creative spend – MYOB, Canva, MailChimp advance

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

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 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.

Deep Dive 14 Dec 2023 - 10 min read

Mi3’s top podcasts of 2023: Effectiveness record breakers; linking brand to P&L; halving ad emissions; Customer, martech, personalisation overhauls; Accenture, ANZ, Deloitte, IAG, Lion, NAB, Tabcorp, Telstra, Virgin, Volvo, Youi – 24 hours of intel

By Brendan Coyne & Noah Bass

Massive personalisation at scale; wholesale CX overhauls; martech switch-outs; porn star martinis; huge customer remits; 80,000 ad variants; deploying a holdco’s 100,000 workers using an AI hive mind; in-housing properly; reorganising a bank’s media spend around owned media; halving ad carbon emissions by culling adtech supply chains; linking brand investment directly to sales; de-coupling from Google; generative AI’s impact on search and content strategies; double duty on brand versus demand; copying the marketing effectiveness rulebook word for word and winning the biggest budgets in company history and much, much more. Mi3’s top podcasts are deep, wide-ranging and durable. Even the sponsored ones are genuinely good. More than 24 hours worth of insight and occasional humour from smart people at the sharpest end of marketing, media, tech and consulting – bookmark this one, dip in at leisure and genuinely learn from some of the best in the business.

Deep Dive 5 Dec 2023 - 10 min read

Mi3's top Agency & Consulting stories of 2023: Pitch rage, talent raids, job cuts, restructures, measuring contests, AI's remuneration crunch, big wins... and the return of the Mat

By Brendan Coyne & Noah Bass

Another year packed with reviews, pivots, and positioning as agencies and consulting firms move deeper into each other's turf – but this year with the spectre of generative AI finally pulling the pin on remuneration models, or "hours based extraction", per one agency boss. Some smart takes from disruptive independents jostle with the strategic capability of the large holdcos but almost all are working through the implications of a tech-regulatory-business model crunch – and for many a generation reluctant to get back into the office.

Deep Dive 5 Dec 2023 - 8 min read

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

By Paul McIntyre & Brendan Coyne

Amid exploding remits and static resource, marketing is being squeezed – and compared to what’s coming down the track, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. The reaction by many marketers has been to seek safety in specialism. But that risks narrowing career choices at best and functional obsolescence at worst. Which is why the Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) has created a 25-strong capability program that future-proofs marketers and gives marketing the same accredited status and standards as accounting and engineering, via its overhauled Certified Practising Marketer (CPM) program. Marketing bosses from ANZ, Deloitte and Destination NSW are among those backing the push for an overarching professional development and standards benchmark for industry - agencies, media and customer tech included. AMI CEO Bronwyn Powell, a former local and global CMO with the likes of Mars and KFC, urges Australia’s marketers – from top, through middle-rankers to those beginning their careers – to get on board and upskill their way to growth, status and credibility. Agency leads too – and Powell’s also targeting CEOs and CFOs.

Deep Dive 30 Nov 2023 - 10 min read

Mi3's top Media stories of 2023: Breakaway currencies, BVOD frequency capping fails (and fixes), TV's tipping point, ad-funded streamer launches, woes and holdouts, retail media's rise, VOZ late show

By Brendan Coyne & Noah Bass

TV's race to transform amid aggressive incursion from all quarters made up most of Mi3's top read media stories in 2023. As did the main network's countermeasures. Tensions around measurement and currency came to a head – a story that will play out next year. But the big bang threatened by global streamers' push into advertising turned out to be a damp squib, though next year may be different. Retail media's rise continued, with the likes of Nine and News positioning to get in on the action, as did BVOD's frequency capping problem, though some suggest it's within agencies' power to fix it.

Deep Dive 29 Nov 2023 - 10 min read

Mi3's top Tech stories of 2023: Ecom swings, stack wars, adtech upheavals as Australia goes on CDP bender – and ChatGPT upends just about everything

By Andrew Birmingham & Noah Bass

This was the year of generative AI. It seemed to find a way of sliding into just about every topic we covered in tech. But while ubiquitous, it wasn't exclusive. CDPs' rise, privacy fallout, upheavals in ad tech, major ecom swings, CX overhauls and Twitter/X shenanigans all made the cut. Foxtel, Domino's, Bupa, Workato, Adore Beauty and RM Williams all piqued interest, along with Adobe, Coles, Woolworths, Westpac and more. Ultimately though there's no escaping ChatGPT. The most popular tech story of the year – how a consulting giant's staff using ChatGPT outperformed non-generative AI enabled colleagues on every measure – was also Mi3's most popular story of 2023 in any category.

Deep Dive 29 Nov 2023 - 10 min read

Mi3’s top Marketing stories of 2023: Marketing, ad effectiveness debate rages; Prof Byron Sharp – agent provocateur or enfant terrible? In-housing and Australia’s CDP, martech ‘bender’

By Paul McIntyre & Noah Bass

If Mi3’s fancied audience of senior industry leaders across brands, marketing, customer tech, media and agencies signalled anything this year it’s that the broad appetite for chasing better marketing and advertising effectiveness has not waned on the industry heat map over the past three years. Whether its Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp, Binet & Field, Karen Nelson-Field or flagship cases studies of marketers and brands applying the theory, effectiveness themes again dominated Mi3’s top stories for 2023. Mi3’s coverage of Ehrenberg Bass’ Prof Byron Sharp sparked much global debate over his “Singapore diss” of other marketing and effectiveness commentators – Mi3 loves an agent provocateur – or is the world’s leading marketing academic an enfant terrible? Outside those lofty themes, there was a newcomer that burst onto the marketer’s radar this year – customer experience and customer-facing tech. Interest in Mi3’s coverage of marketing technology, CDPs, decisioning engines, ecom, AI and the impact they’re having in the real world of business deployment and impact has surged this year – in no small part down to the arrival of Mi3’s Technology Editor Andrew Birmingham. Expect more tech and more marketing coverage on the stuff that matters next year with the recent arrival of Associate Publisher and Marketing Editor Nadia Cameron. For now, here’s the top 30 marketing stories for this year.