Media

There’s ever-growing consumer concern around the way personal information is handled off the back of Australia’s high-profile data breaches at Optus, Medibank and Latitude as well as AI use, says former privacy and now information Commissioner, Angelene Falk – and brands should be worried. Prevention is better than cure when it comes to meeting consumer demands and forthcoming privacy legislative change, and Falk is urging businesses to ensure data breach plans are not gathering dust but are operationally ready. Where businesses also need to do better is around the human intersection with systems and information, Falk says. That’s especially the case with more AI on its way, consuming more and more data sets, often without the ethics of human oversight, from all edges of the internet.  

Digital audio has been on a tear of late. It's the fastest-growing media category, according to recent IAB figures. Perhaps more importantly, with the emergence in recent years of podcasts as a success category, traditional radio companies now have a powerful new tool - first-party data - to help rake in those highly competitive advertising bucks. SCA, publisher of the popular Listnr app, last week announced increased personalisation and targeting, extensive dynamic creative optimisation, and an Australian-based CDP plus first-party data clean room solutions and services. Ultimately, the media company wants to extend to its partners and customers the same benefits it has realised by implementing a CDP, stronger customer acquisition and retention, and much greater media efficiency.

Misplaced brand safety concerns are robbing advertisers of a million listeners a month, with a stickiness in true crime podcasts that most media channels would kill for, according to IAB and Neuro-Insight. Agencies are seemingly behind the contextual curve, per their latest research, and are yet to put the clues together – despite new evidence staring them in the face. It's a mystery Neuro-Insight boss Peter Pynta is determined to get to the bottom of. 

Ever wanted to design your own personal board? Talk under the cone of silence to someone who’s already been a CMO or CEO in the same industry or agency landscape and who actually relates to your struggles without the commercial rivalry? Share high-performance team or startup strategies, transformation plans or simply nut out your next career move with someone who has been there, done that? Or provide your talent with a way to develop and grow so you retain them for longer, and have a happier, more productive workforce? Maybe you've just been fired and need help mapping out the next strategic move. That's what GroupM chief and McDonald's and ANZ CMO, Mark Lollback, believes he can fix through his new venture, Global Mentorship – with some big names on board. Here's the plan.

It sounds like the holy grail of media spend: More efficiency, more effectiveness, more strategic thinking and more brand benefits. And that's what Asahi believes it's getting through its new investment into a marketing intelligence platform. During this week's Salesforce World Tour in Sydney, the FMCG giant was touting KPIs including a 46 per cent drop in cost per click, 20 per cent CPM reduction, 33 per cent lift in 3-second view rates, 17 per cent higher engagement rates on media assets and 50 per cent click through rate in the first few months of having a unified marketing intelligence platform in place across three brands. In the next month, it's expecting even more as all 23 brands in the Asahi portfolio benefit from the new approach to paid media investment and reporting. 

Advertising, ecommerce sales and fulfilment plus subscription revenues are all powering north at Amazon in Australia – and its ad takings, up 51 per cent in 2023, should get a major boost in the second half of this year as it links streaming ads on Prime to its retail media business. I.e. vertically integrated brand and demand with sales and delivery. The company's claim to advertisers that it will hit 5 million subscribers may be a stretch but is doable, even if some analysts suggest its 40 per cent subscriber growth rate has maxed out. Either way, consultants suggest there is existential pressure for local incumbents as the juggernaut starts to hit top gear. After playing the long game, they reckon Amazon is finally approaching primacy, with pure-players likely to be "knocked off" as a result.

Two new appointments to the Mi3 team will see Kalila Welch oversee Mi3’s daily AI Fast News project and cover the agency and media rounds; Pamela Schoenhofer joins in Editorial & Partnerships.

Two and a half years after ditching Nielsen for Ipsos, the IAB is in market with the next phase of its plan to build a true cross-media currency. BVOD data via OzTam is now live, more connected TV data is incoming from both streamers and social media platforms – and the CEOs of all three organisations think "rat bag" Australia can ultimately succeed where markets such as the UK have seemingly succumbed to political stalemate. For now, the new data brings a sharper read not just on reach across the piste but on shifts in consumer behaviour – like how people are hopping from loyalty apps and into media and back again. Which means less guesswork for advertisers.

Marketers, media players and agencies will never knowingly pass up an opportunity to tap the cultural zeitgeist. And the arrival of Taylor Swift and her ‘The Eras’ tour in Australia proved irresistible for plenty. From rebranding a private island in North Queensland to creating a special Tay Tam line of Tim Tams, greetings from Vegemite and Tooheys plus tributes from Twisties to Taylor and her football-playing boyfriend, Travis Kelce, we’ve had a flurry of activations and campaigns pop up, most notably in out-of-home. Here's 13 of the most memorable fired across Mi3's desk.

It’s not quite the viewer utopia of universal search for any content on any streaming or broadcaster app but Foxtel’s launch last night of a connected TV super hub aggregating 18 competing apps in a single platform with a one-time sign-in for all is getting close. Hubbl will see Hamish & Andy front a major consumer marketing effort designed to tap growing viewer frustration managing dozens of streaming apps and subscriptions and the time it takes to find something to watch. Early results from Sky Glass in the UK and US – Hubbl’s genesis – indicates viewers spend less time choosing content and their viewing time and repertoire of shows and genres increases. “It’s a content-first experience, not an app-first experience,” Hubbl’s global Chief Product Officer, Fraser Stirling told Mi3 in what he argued was a groundbreaking shift in how people will connect with, manage and consume content.

Don’t be fooled into thinking we’re moving from radio to podcasting, says 'virtual' marketing professor, Mark Ritson. We’re not. Radio, the ultimate sidekick, continues to deliver for brands and will perform even better for them if they find a way to hit the 11 per cent spend sweet spot. Ritson unpacked research that suggests that threshold doubles effectiveness. But there’s an attention differential between radio and podcasting brands must consider if they’re to use both well, speakers from across last week’s Commercial Radio and Audio (CRA) event, Heard, made plain. And as Adam Ferrier says, don’t be fooled into thinking video drives more emotional connection either.

Amazon’s advertising revenues surged 26 per cent last year as the juggernaut powers towards a $50bn ad business – with TV ad takings "growing quickly" and gaming markets now in its sights. Amazon’s Australian business, which last year cracked $100m in advertising takings, is also predicted to double in size by 2025, with retail ecom pure-players beginning to face existential threat in earnest.

The maverick music artist manager-turned publisher of Rolling Stone, Variety and The Brag admits he knew little about media and “didn’t know what a media agency was” when he started his publishing business nine years ago trying to lure big brands like Lexus, Adidas and Jim Beam to the edgier end of culture. Luke Girgis is also outspoken on AI in publishing – journalists, he says, will earn “10x more” as AI moves further into content generation but only the good ones – “average journalists are going to lose their jobs, they probably should have anyway”, he says as his new music parent company, Vinyl, landed a $11m investment from billionaire WiseTech founder, Richard White, and eyes synergies from The Brag deal and expansion here and abroad.

Woolworths' ad business Cartology is approaching five years old, amassing north of 300 staff and, at least per Morgan Stanley estimates, $550m of Australia’s rapidly rising retail media market. But boss Mike Tyquin questions the numbers being thrown around by investment analysts, especially the hundreds of millions predicted to leak from TV. He needs the network majors onside to power the next leg of off-network growth beyond Youtube and while no deals are yet done, he likes the cut of Nine’s jib. Meanwhile, Tyquin warns the rush to capitalise on media’s fastest growing category could backfire without three critical foundations in place. But he suggests that brand marketers, their trade sales counterparts and media agencies are now aligning in earnest to move the investment needle.

It’s official: Sustainability has hit mainstream advertising. According to BBC Studios, 50 per cent of advertising briefs coming through in ANZ are looking to land a sustainability message. What’s more, business leaders are increasingly relying on trusted media channels like the global news house for reliable and relevant information about ESG to build their own knowledge basis. Yet even as Australia edges closer to mandatory ESG reporting requirements, and greenwashing crackdowns escalate, the group’s VP of advertising and distribution is worried there isn’t enough urgency around understanding ESG practically and beyond the message.

It’s “99 per cent likely” Seven will be back sponsoring next year’s South by Southwest Sydney – although CMO Mel Hopkins is being coy about whether its Upfronts will be part of that plan. CommBank CMO Jo Boundy indicates the bank will continue its sponsorship and Destination NSW is locked in. GM of Marketing Kathryn Illy said there were some nervous moments given short lead times on talent and programs but the SXSW team “pulled it off”. With attendance numbers now out – 34,975 paying punters and a claimed unique attendance of 97,462 – it’s a solid return from a standing start. But here’s what the three marketers think would drive higher returns from SXSW Sydney 2024.

A new probe into the programmatic ad supply chain by the peak US industry group, Association of National Advertisers (ANA), has called out key digital advertising supply players, including Yahoo, The Trade Desk, Amazon, Google and Pubmatic, for either declining to take part in a new transparency study it just released or ‘could not provide data in the required timeframe’. The study, sanctioned by top US advertisers and brands, finds at least a quarter of programmatic ad spend is wasted while billions being directed to made for arbitrage sites and large private marketplaces were found to be little better in many cases than the open web. But it also has some relatively straightforward remedies for those with the appetite - so far marketers have been remarkably unmoved by the ongoing warnings of their budgets being siphoned off by fraud and dodgy players gaming the online advertising system.