What would you describe as the biggest shift youʼre seeing in what marketers want from News brands in 2025?

Lou Barrett: Marketers increasingly seek outcomes beyond mere reach and are looking for more meaning to stand out from the sea of sameness. They want demonstrable impact on business goals, leveraging news brands' trusted environments for engagement, advocacy and real outcomes. Some great examples of this are with our NRMA ‘Help Our Highway’ campaign and Medibank’s ‘Can We Talk’ campaign.

The whole dialogue around measurement going beyond reach in media was the topic of the day at the recent Future of TV event. News has been clear on setting its own engaged reach and signal gain narrative in market. What does this mean in practice and how are your investments into capability, technology and data helping realise this?

Marketers are tired of platform-centric reporting that prioritises vested interests over genuine campaign insights and improvement. News offers a solution: we measure engaged reach – impactful interactions, not just impressions. Our brands invest in data and technology to track attention, dwell time, and content affinity, demonstrating active audience engagement and delivering stronger ROI. We champion independent measurement for real results, not the "mark your own homework" approach of platforms.

Can you share a favourite client example that demonstrates how News is delivering engaged reach that delivers business impact?

The Subway ‘SUBHOURS’ campaign demonstrates how smart media partnerships can drive disproportionate impact, even without disproportionate spend. Rather than chasing reach alone, Subway and News built a precision ecosystem rooted in real-time intent, personalised creative, and dynamic context — proving that owning the moment of receptivity wins.

This partnership elevated Subway beyond typical QSR tactics, overcoming significant 1PD gaps to deliver tangible sales results.

The industry takeaway? In an era of budget pressure and consumer apathy, data-driven creativity and contextual excellence aren't luxuries — they're the new standard for building meaningful ROI through media.

A key theme from this yearʼs CMO Awards judging is that while solid progress towards proving marketingʼs value as a business and growth driver has been made, thereʼs still a gap between connecting marketing to business and commercial deliverables. How do you see media owners better helping marketing leaders to connect their work to what their CFO and CEO values?

CFOs demand marketing ROI transparency, scrutinising budgets and prioritising measurable results, especially in challenging economic times. They're shifting focus to long-term customer loyalty and questioning online advertising's effectiveness for brand building. News Australia bridges this gap. We provide data-driven insights linking media performance to business outcomes, demonstrating engaged reach's impact on revenue growth through attribution modeling and econometrics. We offer accountability, proving value beyond the opaque metrics of digital platforms, allowing CMOs to confidently invest in proven results.

Growth is the ultimate ambition for any marketing leader. What do you see as key ingredients to attaining growth as a brand in todayʼs environment, given what marketers and brands have available to them?