Opinion

Opinion 13 May 2024 -

AANA Reset: A lesson in the virtuous cycle of paid, earned and owned media; share spaces, and aligning to the right cultural movement

By Nadia Cameron - Editor - Marketing | Associate Publisher

In the words of AANA chief, Josh Faulks, this year’s AANA Reset event was designed to bring the biggest and most successful global campaigns to Australia to help inspire local marketing and media industry to better pursue growth. For those lacking big budgets and brand salience, or suffering economic fallout and tackling some of the other 4Ps of marketing (and a fifth – privacy), it can feel aspirational but less practical. But there were some useful lessons around what’s really going on with advertising and media under the surface of the big creative wins.

Opinion 31 Oct 2023 - 7 min read

AI Fast News – a personal note from Mi3's Executive Editor

By Paul McIntyre - Executive Editor, Mi3

Today is a big day for the Mi3 team. It’s when Fast News will land in your inbox – a generative AI news project that for us is terrifying, intriguing and not without some hope. Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre unpacks what's coming, and why.

Opinion 27 Jul 2023 -

Objectives are the most important components in marketing briefs – The Marketoonist, Peter Field and Wiemer Snijders on how to brief better, grow faster

By Peter Field & Wiemer Snijders

The BetterBriefs project – spanning 1,700 marketers and agencies – unearthed some sobering, if not entirely unexpected truths: Marketers are wasting a third of advertising budgets by giving agencies crap briefs with non-existent strategy. In Australia, the data shows 50 per cent of marketers have not been trained on how to write briefs, so half don't know what they are doing. Help is at hand: BetterBriefs and the Marketoonist have launched a five-part series to visualise key findings from its global research along with some expert commentary - here's the first instalment from ad effectiveness guru Peter Field, and fellow marketing consultant, Wiemer Snijders of The Commercial Works.

Opinion Library

Covid: One year on 31 Mar 2021 - 3 min read

Beyond e-commerce: The way we search and research online is shaping attitudes towards brands

By Jen Davidson - Principle, Tumbleturn media

A beautiful creative idea executed in an above-the-line campaign can tick all the brand and ad recall boxes. But in this new reality, the next step is likely to be online so connect it all up, says Jen Davidson, because brand loyalty can disappear in two clicks.

Covid: One year on 31 Mar 2021 - 6 min read

We increased media spend 65% but creative still differentiates in a sea of tech sameness

By Brent Smart - CMO, IAG

IAG chief marketer Brent Smart says companies which invested in brand building through Covid will soon reap their rewards. For IAG it was a no brainer – no demand for insurance to convert in performance channels meant Smart doubled-down on brand investment. He's also perplexed by the favourable contracts and terms marketers accept from the likes of Google and Salesforce while agencies get screwed.

Opinion 23 Mar 2021 - 3 min read

Attention local media carpers: Here’s why former Coalition Finance Minister Mathias Cormann might be your hero running the OECD

By Paul McIntyre - Executive Editor

There’s a vocal camp in the advertising, media and related tech industries that are appalled at the ACCC and Federal Government over its bold and brash plan to force Facebook and Google to pay local media for news. Disdain for News Corp aside, they want a broadly applied digital tax. Impossible, until now.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 2 min read

Hello Monday morning, hello steel underpants

By Katrina Strickland - Editor, Good Weekend

Good Weekend Editor Katrina Strickland dons steel underpants before opening the Monday inbox to often confronting emails about who and what the magazine has covered. She urges women to promote themselves unashamedly to keep countering the skew.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 2 min read

Go hard, forgive yourself and be present

By Karen Halligan - Director, Media Value Advisory, KPMG

Karen Halligan, Director, Media Value Advisory, KPMG, says the glass ceiling for women that become mothers remains all too real. Go hard and smash it, she urges, and never feel guilty.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 3 min read

My big breaks were from ‘gender-blind’ CEOs and Chairs…but

By Cathy O'Connor - CEO, oOh!Media

Cathy O’Connor has always felt powerful in an all-male room. Her big breaks came from CEOs and Chairs who looked through gender but… nuanced behaviour still goes un-checked and it starts at the top.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 4 min read

No more birdies, no more boys clubs

By Victoria Curro - Managing Director, RG/A

There’s a reason women tend not to see advertising as a lifelong career, says Victoria Curro, Managing Director, RG/A. Enough’s enough, and golf needs to go too.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 5 min read

Nine’s first ‘female cameraman’ reflects on Kerry Packer and progress

By Michele O'Neill - Director of Powered Enterprise, Nine

At 64, Michele O’Neill has gone full circle from the first women on a broadcast camera 40 years ago at Nine to an international advertising career and now back to Nine. Tales of Kerry Packer aside, she’s a “kid in a candy store” with her new gig.

IWD Special 7 Mar 2021 - 3 min read

To change the game, remodel the locker room

By Melissa Fein - CEO, Initiative

Become part of the solution, not part of the problem, says Melissa Fein. Here’s what she has done to try and level-up inequality since becoming CEO at Initiative.