Nike is betting big on Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and digital shoes to drive sales, build brand, and potentially generate millions in direct revenue. Coca-Cola, Asics, the NBA and The Olympics have each created a range of NFTs, and VaynerMedia's Gary Vaynerchuk is generating millions in royalties from the sales of his own range of "Vee Friends". So far Australian brand marketers are way behind the curve. But a Sydney-based cereal entrepreneur thinks that is about to change.

Influencer ads are increasingly being pulled by Ad Standards. But that may be the least of their worries. One agency says they’re being asked by big brands to deliberately make influencer marketing less obvious, risking millions in fines under Australian Consumer Law. Media lawyer Stephen Von Muenster says influencer marketing’s “Spam Act” moment looms – sooner or later, the legal limits of advertising on social media through content creators is going to be tested, and it's going to hurt.

A replay of Facebook’s controversial move in February to kill publisher newsfeeds to Australian users, sweeping up hundreds of non-publishing sites as collateral damage, is back on the table as the fallout continues from the tech giant’s refusal to negotiate further revenue agreements under the Federal Government’s mandatory media bargaining code. 

Commercial Radio Australia has answered calls for greater transparency on podcast numbers, but the industry remains divided on what it has offered up. Agencies say download numbers do not equate to listeners, while some of the larger independent publishers are absent altogether. If the podcast ad industry is to scale, there could be challenges ahead.

About 5,000 people yesterday tuned in live for Nine's 2022 Upfronts presentation, positioning itself as "Australia's media company" and rounding out its push into "people-based marketing" with a Salesforce deal alongside those already struck with Adobe and LiveRamp to match 14m logged in users with advertisers' first party customer datasets. Nine firmly put advertising attention metrics on the map – an emerging field which adds an advertising efficacy layer over simple audience reach and impressions measurement. It comes as backroom skirmishes have started with arch rival Seven over how many "active" logged-in users the media groups have versus their total numbers.     

Last Saturday Australia Post’s “double vaxxed” CMO Amber Collins was in a Melbourne distribution hub from 7am for nine hours packing parcels for eager online shoppers. A perfect storm of Christmas trouble is looming for countless companies facing lockdowns, global supply chain crises and chronic pressure on their e-commerce delivery logistics. For some, the usual holiday abundance is likely to get ugly. 

Mediabrands boss Mark Coad is deeply concerned that rampant poaching and over-promotion is creating double negative effects: driving up wage inflation while putting people under too much pressure in jobs some will be unable to handle. Then they leave and the situation gets worse. Mediabrands is building tools to automate the drudge work while baking in flexible working arrangements in order to attract "intelligent, creative souls" – and give them more time to do intelligent, creative work that drives growth.

Digital ad prices in Australia - and globally - have soared over the past 18 months, as brands increased spending on Facebook and Google. One digital agency reported price hikes of 45 per cent on average – prices in sectors like retail and finance soaring. Another agency has seen some key search terms rising by 1,000 per cent. Digital experts unpack what's going on, and how Australia's marketers can avoid getting burnt.

What relationship does brand spend have to a company's share price? Kraft Heinz took a $15 billion write down in early 2019 and watched its share price collapse after neglecting it – an ironic reward for shareholders and disciples of zero-based budgeting. Mi3 mapped ad spend for some of Australia's biggest ASX-listed advertisers from 2018 to 2020, including the collapse caused by Covid-19. Here's what we found in part two.