Agencies & Consulting

The full weight of Warner Bros. diverse content slate from acclaimed HBO franchises to DC Universe and Discovery will hit Australia consumers in coming days via a launch campaign offering another subscription service, Max, with ad tiers. While Foxtel’s Binge looks to be most affected by Max – it has carried much of the content now headed to Australia’s latest streaming service  – circa 500,000 of Foxtel's 1.4m set-top box subscribers, who get the Foxtel Go app in their bundle, are expected to sign-on free to Max at launch. Meanwhile, media buyers are adjusting to volatility in viewing and audience delivery on streaming services versus BVOD and live broadcast streaming patterns.  

Australian brands last year poured US$520 million into influencer marketing and media agencies are lining up to help brands take their strategy full-funnel and deal themselves in. GroupM joined Hello Social as joint headline sponsor of AiMCO's annual industry awards night, while indie shop This Is Flow is asserting authority via bespoke research and client education, AKA Playgroup sessions. Its latest findings suggest two thirds of those 19-39 are more likely to buy from brands that used influencer content across multiple channels. Meshki marketing head Alex Rushton backs that view, with the online fashion retailer driving product sell-through by adopting creator content across ecom, EDM, and now OOH – and watching sales grow via 500 influencers. "We can't keep up," per Rushton. Now agencies and platforms are eyeing revenue share models over flat fees.

News Corp is betting on connected TV to pull full funnel brand and demand ad dollars into its increasingly connected audience-data axis and an 'engaged reach' metric to drive hard sales. Subway marketing boss Rodica Titeica is buying in after a campaign using News' new stack – ahead of local and global rivals – boosted sales 3 per cent. Now News has to convince the broader market. Either way, the Tubi streaming deal gives it north of 1.3 million monthly Australian viewers, mostly younger demos – with zero marketing. Lou Barrett reckons it can quickly hit circa 3 million. If so, it will be taking on the streamers now piling into ads, as well as local BVOD rivals. The difference is News has a scaled local sales team, broader suite of assets and is talking a big game with its customer data platform and audience intelligence trove, Intent Connect, whereas soon-to-be streaming rivals are operating off "deeply flawed" data, reckons Commercial Data GM Dean La Rosa. He's not the only one saying it.

CareerOne has just torched the old job board playbook, swapping passive listings for AI-driven talent matchmaking—and the early numbers look impressive. Matches between employers and candidates have jumped 65 per cent, and job seeker engagement is up eightfold. Powered by Decidr’s agentic AI, CareerOne is ditching keyword-driven guesswork in favour of deep-learning-fuelled precision, putting job seekers in front of the right employers, at the right time, with the right skills. Forget classifieds: CareerOne is transforming into  AI-powered headhunter agent for corporates and recruiters.

Accenture Song CEO and New York-based Australian expat David Droga detoured a London trip via Sydney in a 60-hour lap to front the AFR Business Summit for a fireside chat replacing Accenture Australia boss Julie Sweet. Sweet underwent surgery after a breast cancer diagnosis and was “recovering, things are looking good … she’s in a good place,” Droga told Business Summit delegates. On a business level, Droga pointed to autonomous agents and synthetic personas as two material AI developments on his radar – AI and “agentic workforces” as they have been described, will cut a swathe through the “mediocre middle” of jobs in architecture, entertainment, advertising, design and journalism, he said.

Four years after unleashing global research into the woeful lack of briefing expertise across the marketing and advertising industry, the co-founders of BetterBriefs, Matt Davies and Pieter-Paul von Weiler, have taken a plunge into creative ideation and found yet another whopping industry capability gap. Having canvassed more than 1,000 senior marketers and creative agency leaders across Australia, the UK and US – plus luminaries from the IPA, WFA, Saatchi & Saatchi, Beiersdorf, Nissan, Mastercard, AMV BBDO and others – the latest findings show a creative process that is flawed, stifling creative, failing to gain attention and costing marketers and agencies time, money, commercial effectiveness and a trusted relationship.

Amazon’s Australian ad business is accelerating, with its annual growth rate climbing 58 per cent to $242m per latest ASIC filings. With video ads on Prime only coming into effect for half of the year, that trajectory looks set to steepen further as Amazon eyes full-funnel marketing budgets and a slice of TV ad dollars while driving broader spend through its ad stack at the expense of rivals. Meanwhile, its e-commerce operation continues apace, with online store revenues up 23.5 per cent to $1.94bn. Revenues from third-party seller services powered 48 per cent to $839m and Prime subscriptions revenue surged 38.8 per cent to $480m. 

Last week TikTok suddenly found itself front and centre of industry rumblings about the hushed absence and whereabouts of top Australian management and a noted larger presence of executives from Chinese-owned ByteDance parent headquarters in local market engagements. The extended absence of advertising boss Brett Armstrong and business marketing lead Denny Handlin fuelled speculation of a shake-up in the TikTok camp as it emerged both had left the company in a hushed manner similar to the quiet exit of Australian MD Lee Hunter last year. TikTok's ad business has rocketed to between $400m and $500m, with Australian user numbers at circa 9.5 million. But after massive hiring raids on media company execs over 2022 and 2023 with eye-popping packages, industry conjecture was firing last week about rising discontent and broader cuts in TikTok's local operation. TikTok has dismissed most of it in a response to Mi3.

Next week the Federal Court will rule on whether three separate Australian publisher class actions against Google alleging market manipulation – including advertiser bid rigging within its dominant online advertising exchange, which most publishers rely on for digital revenues – will need to roll-up into a single case. Google has hired top defence firm, Herbert Smith Freehills, to counter the incoming lawsuits. The lead lawyer on the Maurice Blackburn claim, Miranda Nagy, would not be drawn on the compensation sum for local publishers her firm thinks is likely but said it will account for "well over $10-12bn" in advertising volumes that publishers could have tapped over the last six years.     

The British adman who packed Brad Pitt into a Levi’s ad campaign before he stormed Hollywood and created Audi’s tagline ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik', thinks the global state of business, media and communications is so dominated by “left brain rationalists” that another 60s-style creative revolution is brewing. “That’s got to happen. We are genuinely losing [public] support,” he told delegates in his Business of Creativity program in Sydney and Melbourne this week. Data was important, he ceded, but was only “knowledge, not inspiration”, pointing to his iPhone on stage: “Absolutely no data went into the creation of this product, none at all.” Telstra’s CMO Brent Smart and Publicis Groupe Chief Media Officer Imogen Hewitt were in eclectic solidarity on a panel in Sydney after Hegarty’s keynote although all three stopped short of welcoming the next “creative revolution” if it rebirthed hippy fashion.

Nine is going all out for digital video at scale in a bid to halt the leakage of ad dollars to global tech giants – and is plotting deals with local rivals, platforms and marketplaces to make it happen. Nine boss Matt Stanton also confirmed ads are coming to Stan – though gave himself wriggle room on timings – and that it is in talks about potentially sharing the same trading platform with Seven, though likewise no timeline has been set on deciding whether Seven’s Phoenix or Nine’s Galaxy would be king. Meanwhile the firm is bridging business units, processes and data to start walking the talk on tracking, targeting and personalisation across all its channels based on the trails and contextual signals audiences are dropping. Stanton said the ad market is in recovery – but that marketers and media buyers “should be piling in” far harder based on audience growth and what Nine can now do with those audiences from brand to demand.

Private and public sector employers are putting pressure on work from home arrangements – some scrapping them completely. WPP is going hardest among agency groups with a four-day mandate that some have complained amounts to layoffs by stealth. Coles, Woolworths, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, Tabcorp, AGL and Flight Centre are among brands now issuing hard mandates, with some of those firms now linking bonuses to in-person attendance. For agencies, STW exec turned advisor Chris Savage reckons the shift is inevitable. He predicts four days in the office will become the benchmark over the next year, and that those resisting making staff physically come to work, indies included, will struggle to survive incoming structural change. Problem is, employee sentiment still sits firmly with the hybrid approach, unless a shorter week is on the table: Seven in ten would be happy to ditch WFH flexibility in return for a four day working week in office at full pay, per Mi3's polling. It's a model that has so far proved successful for Brisbane-based shop Claxon, where boss Daniel Willis says the arrangement has driven productivity gains – with staff completing reoccurring tasks 18 per cent faster.

Disney+ has told Australian subscribers to expect streaming ads from 26 March – but has not yet briefed local advertisers and buyers on rates or packages. Which suggests after two years of the market expecting an ad tier proper from Australia's third biggest streaming service – behind Netflix and Amazon Prime – that its announcement two weeks ago to bundle ESPN into the Disney+ platform has created an ersatz soft advertising launch. More SVOD (subscription video on demand) rivals meanwhile are jostling for a slowdown in advertiser budgets diverting from free-to-air TV and the market is set for another major global AVOD (ad-supported video on demand) announcement in coming weeks. 

Yahoo and Magna have polled Australians and claim the findings suggest data security and fear of hacking is being conflated with digital ad targeting and personalisation, use of which barely registers on consumer worry lists, per their survey. It's a direct counter and contradiction to earlier consumer research that has informed Australia's ongoing privacy overhaul and suite of digital platform inquiries, and Yahoo's Dan Richardson and Magna's Lucy Formosa Morgan suggest that puts the onus on brands, the digital ad industry – and the government driving through regulatory changes – to fill in the consumer knowledge blanks.

A week after a visit Down Under by BBDO’s global CEO and creative boss, widespread conjecture that a consolidation of creative agency networks in the Clemenger Group has landed - staff across the diversified firm were informed this morning of the changes, effective next month. “This is not about doing more for less. This is about doing more with more,” Clemenger Group CEO Les Timar said on the rationale for the three-to-one consolidation.

Tony Kendall says ACM’s digital and data play is starting to mine fresh revenue seams and drink just a little of Meta’s milkshake as the platform refuses to play ball with news media on the media bargaining code. It comes as the regional and agricultural publisher announced today that weekday publishing would end for 14 regional mastheads – some 100 years old – and switch to advertiser-friendly “Weekend Collection” editions.

Out-of-home was the fastest-growing media channel in Australia in 2024 surpassing $1.2bn for the first time, according to SMI data last year. It's "loved" by marketers, planners and creatives alike but proving its effectiveness remains a bone of contention if simply reach and frequency provides the benchmark measurement for impact. And that bone only collects more teethmarks as MMM and diverse modelling methods raise questions about what channels really work short and long-term, and billboards continue to be stuffed with too many messages or poor creative that fails to generate brand recall or build memorability. Enter this week’s JCDecaux upfronts events in Melbourne and Sydney, and a fresh swathe of evidence to demonstrate how quality out-of-home environments and creative executions can drive significant brand and business gains through the funnel. Top of the list was global-first research from System1, which found 7 in 10 OOH ads aren’t working, and put forward seven practical principles for doing creative well in response. But there was also plenty of debate from Specsavers and UM on what makes up effective measurement, and how media agencies and marketers embrace MMM and emerging modelling methods to shift the dial from outputs to outcomes – with the hugely important caveat of avoiding garbage data in, garbage data out.

The collective of independent media agencies held their annual 'IndiePendence Day' summit yesterday as they continue to push their credentials as a viable alternative to the global networks for advertisers small, medium and increasingly large. For most media owners, independent agencies collectively represent their first or second biggest revenue source and provide leverage against the muscle of the multinationals. Adam Ferrier, adland's resident consumer psychologist and founder of creative, media and stunt shop, Thinkerbell, poured some heat on his bigger rivals yesterday although some counter that indies are not as clean, accountable and transparent as their narrative would have it.  

The biggest sports rights deal in Australian history – $4.5bn over seven years, or $643m per season – starts in three weeks and the urgency from the two broadcast and streaming signatories, Foxtel and Seven West Media, to recover their outlays is at full throttle. Foxtel Group CEO Patrick Delany told an upbeat Fox Footy launch event in Melbourne yesterday that brand partners and viewers were about to see a “massive game changer” from a combination of Foxtel, Kayo and Binge although bigger audience and subscription gains would come in the second season based on its experience with the NRL. Brands that have signed-up so far include Toyota, McDonald’s, AAMI, LG, Harvey Norman, Bunnings, Sportsbet, and Coles. 

Some of the world's largest advertisers – including PepsiCo, Unilever, Adobe, L’Oreal, Nestlé, Honda, Samsung, Paramount+ and the US Department of Homeland Security are among those mired in allegations that their ads were served on websites containing child sexual abuse. Those accused of failing to spot the warning signs and involved in the supply chain include Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Outbrain and others along with ad verification services monitoring brand safety and ad industry standards bodies including the US-based globally influential Media Ratings Council and TAG. Now US Senators have waded in and want answers. Former UM privacy chief turned watchdog at Check My Ads, Arielle Garcia, thinks the fallout is only just starting.

Global US holdco Omnicom is shaking up its under-pressure creative agency networks including DDB, BBDO and TBWA with a new consolidated unit housing its flagship creative brands – Omnicom Advertising Group, led globally by expat Australian Troy Ruhanen. Next week, BBDO global CEO Nancy Reyes lands in Australia as conjecture mounts on a possible restructure of the business – but officially Reyes is on a global roadshow unveiling BBDO’s new positioning and strategy. 

Tours operator Explore Worldwide bet big on true crime podcasts cutting through – and hit the jackpot. It ploughed 80 per cent of its podcast budget into the genre for its first campaign of the year in a bid to own a category some are nervous to enter – citing brand safety fears. The true crime spots – with tailored, contextually relevant creative – smashed expectations, beating typical industry benchmarks by 7x, with response rates that touched 7 per cent helping increase booked revenue by 25 per cent.

"We already share helicopters," an upbeat Seven West Media CEO Jeff Howard told an analyst earnings call yesterday as he signalled the three major commercial TV bosses at Nine, Paramount-Ten and Seven are aligned on more collaboration. But Howard stopped short on the possibility of the free TV majors combining revenues via the circa $60m investment Seven has ploughed into the tech build of Phoenix, launching in March, which unites linear TV, regional TV and digital assets in a multi-screen trading platform. The upward swing in sentiment from Seven's new chief over a turning ad market, stabilising linear TV audiences and share and audience gains at 7plus is a long way from the carnage last year when Howard axed veteran commercial chief Kurt Burnette and chief marketer Mel Hopkins as part of a broader cost-out program. He said he's not planning to hire another CMO – but sales is set for a shake-up.

CEOs and CFOs at some of the world's biggest consumer brands – including Colgate, PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark and L’Oreal, Ford and Mondelez – say they’re increasing spend on advertising and promotional activities because they believe in its power to drive growth. Yet study the commentary a little harder and there's a thread of ruthless and relentless marketing optimisation and efficiency connected to every dollar spent. Companies are throwing everything from AI analytics tools to agency relationship reviews at their approach to find better ROI.

CRA stripped back its annual Heard conference this year, running straight at the channel's glaring audience-revenue gap with a strong bid to make commercial audio easier – and more enticing – to buy. The event was headlined by the launch of a new unified digital audio trading currency, the CRA Audio ID, that from June this year will pool local broadcaster's digital inventory in  one place – with linear eventually following. CRA brought in System1's Andrew Tindall to build on Mark Ritson's 2024 radio sell with new creative effectiveness research that gives advertisers the blueprint on how to "double the double" in ROI through sonic branding, and more upper-funnel campaigns. It's a line likewise backed by Analytic Partners.

Val Morgan is late to the party on its 2025 upfronts roadshow versus most of its media rivals. The cinema, retail OOH and digital publishing group, currently on a national tour, has cleverly repackaged a disparate collective of media channels into an integrated audience and attributon bundle which challenges mass reach and dabbles in marketing science with 10 initial Ehrenberg Bass-inspired category entry point "packs". It's also custom-built an audience and analytics platform, Validate, which brings a single view of audience segments and attribution across the three divisions. The group, with about $150m in revenues, delivered circa 15 per cent revenue growth last year against a tanking ad market and it's predicting double digit growth again in 2025.

The massive makeover of the broadcaster audience measurement system is here - VOZ and VOZ Streaming between them serve as a 'total TV' audience currency across linear and digital and enables a single view and trading of all broadcaster BVOD audiences. The Trade Desk ANZ boss James Bayes says his global team see it as a 'remarkable' and 'world leading dataset' – but there are caveats. After years of working through the complexity of appeasing disparate broadcaster agendas, market stakeholders and methodological challenges, the broadcaster-controlled ratings body OzTam has given the market what it's asked for. Media buyers and adtech operatives, however, say the new solution is still falling short.

Marketing teams are ‘under massive pressure’ with squeezed resource and capability gaps creating drag on otherwise optimistic 2025 growth expectations, according to the heads of 60 independent creative agencies polled by former STW ops chief turned consultant Chris Savage. He thinks those growth expectations may be wishful thinking. “There isn't a single piece of economic data  … that would suggest that it's going to be anything but another very tough year ahead.” He also offers a withering assessment of agency bosses now planning to go end-to-end in a bid to capture greater share of budget: “If you're full service, you're commoditised, you're doing a lot of things in an average way.” Either way, some indies are already reporting a significant uptick in work – and say the most flexible models will win. But the automation of junior roles and tasks is starting to bite. Thinkerbell's Margie Reid, The Hallway's Jules Hall, and Paper Moose's Nick Hunter weigh in.

French communications giant Publicis Groupe has acquired Australia's largest independent media agency, Atomic 212, in a move ANZ boss Mike Rebelo acknowledged was counter to many of his rivals steering away from media agency acquisitions because of structural shifts and challenges in the broader media sector.