Chris Stephenson, global CMO at media agency network PHD, thinks marketing's massive blindspot around gaming may come back to haunt those left behind when the metaverse – eventually – eats the internet. But that and other myopic tendencies may be because marketers are buried in admin rather than doing actual marketing. Per PHD’s latest research, 1,700 marketers globally say their biggest time allocation is spent on reporting, not smarts. Marketers unable to shake off administrative shackles risk being overtaken by a function overhaul now fast approaching – at least according to the group’s new book, ‘SHIFT: a Marketing Rethink’. PHD's futurists says it's time to build influencer programmatic teams, creator collaborators, decision scientists and distributed talent managers while preparing for 'agencies as a platform'. Meanwhile, Stephenson thinks those rushing headlong into Web 3.0 are barrelling into Gartner Hype Cycle's trough of disappointment.

Skills and capabilities across digital marketing, CX, data and analytics have flatlined in Australia over the last three years according to a study of more than 200 marketers. If the data is right, brand owners are a touch delusional about the skills they have versus what they need, while fully half the market has either been stripped of CX responsibility, or never had it to start with. Fresh from a decade in the UK, Coles GM of Brand, Digital and Design Sam McLeod thinks Australia is way behind the data-to-insight curve. Willem Paling has just left Woolies X and Cartology and says marketing must present itself as greater than the promotional function if it is to regain the CX remit. Teresa Sperti, whose firm Arktic Fox is behind the Marketing State of Play study, thinks ANZ’s marketing team and Kate Young have set the standard when it comes to equipping teams with the skills now sorely required. But there’s a big chunk of the market that still needs a plan.

Big Tech’s $200m pay-off last year has silenced Big Australian Media. That’s what more than 40 independent publishers think after attempting to negotiate with Facebook and Google in the afterglow of huge payouts to leading Australian media groups when landmark federal legislation was passed. On 21 March, dozens of local publishers synchronised a freeze of their news feeds for 24 hours and launched a public awareness campaign protesting Facebook and Google’s dismissive and arrogant approach to small and medium-sized, independent media companies under the Federal Government’s internationally regarded media bargaining laws. Ultimately it pitches Silicon Valley’s cool coders against the Pilbara’s commodity king, Fortescue Metals founder Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest.

The first detailed attention data from a major media group is out with Nine releasing findings of its attention study with Professor Karen Nelson-Field’s Amplified Intelligence. It's all in the chart below but for a 30-second spot on linear television, the average person pays just 11 seconds of “Active Attention”, or 37 per cent of the ad. BVOD on connected TVs and mobile phones score higher on active attention but when added to “Passive Attention”, linear television vastly outperforms most of its rivals, say Nine’s Liana Dubois and Jonathan Fox. So what to do with this conundrum? Hatched Media's Head of Planning, Andrew Pascoe, who has gone all in on attention, says the opportunity is nuanced but massive. To boot, "attention CPMs", currently being used by many agency groups, are deeply troubled, the trio warn.     

From flipping the marketing funnel sideways to scotching “delusions” that retention and loyalty trump acquisition – and a new performance-enhancing twist on Binet & Field’s 60:40 brand to performance rule (it should be 95:5 in B2B) – the science unpacked in How B2B Brands Grow also applies in large part to B2C marketing, says its Ehrenberg-Bass co-author, Jenni Romaniuk. Jon Lombardo, Global Research Lead at The B2B Institute hopes the science emboldens brands to stop making “drab and dull” performance ads and stop worrying about offending customers. The truth, he says, is few people care about brands at all: “It’s all upside. The job is always to build mental availability.” LinkedIn’s ANZ and SEA Enterprise boss Prue Cox says the likes of Westpac and DocuSign are nailing it. 

Former McDonald’s CMO Jenni Dill joined the old but iconic Arnott’s in the same role 18 months ago after US private equity firm KKR paid $3.2 billion for the business from Campbell's. Rather than stripping out costs in pursuit of rapid profit, the new owners are investing to build Arnott’s return as a contemporary Australian iconic brand. The growth plans are ambitious and, in the case of a sell-out of Tim Tam perfume, unconventional – but this year will see Dill and her team put the foot down and accelerate an all new Arnott’s. A booming retailer media sector, by the way, is promising for Arnott’s growth but Dill remains pragmatic on its potential. For now, it’s sitting at circa 10 per cent of the biscuit maker’s budget. 

Influence, influencers, the creator economy and ‘systems thinking’…standby for some new buzzwords: people-based influence and privacy-friendly zero party data are on the rise. The global influencer market is set to top $16bn this year but the influence industry is still unhinged, poorly managed and urgently needs integrated measurement to help marketing understand business impact. And for different reasons corporate strategy, market research and agency strategy planning are facing structural overhauls that a new venture, The Influence Group, is banking its model on. Here’s why.

$6.5bn fund manager Australian Ethical, Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s, Lion’s Stone & Wood, Four Pines, Koala, The Body Shop and Danone ANZ are all Bcorps – and are all laser-focused on the sustainability and purpose credentials of those they do business with. That includes media owners and agencies. A new media carbon calculator developed by Benedictus Media sister company Net Zero Media – launching ahead of those being touted by the likes of GroupM – will give brands the means to see which media channels will deliver lowest carbon footprint. Bosses of Australia’s three certified Bcorp indie agencies, Benedictus, Alchemy One and Optimising, say those clients can then re-weight spend – and may even make shorter ads – in a bid to lessen environmental impact. They think it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

With the largest social media following in the world as a tourism destination – 17 million – an international advertising blitz in the wings and the expansion offshore of a new customer experience (CX) and post-cookie ID platform trial, Tourism Australia’s CMO Susan Coghill and team are taking on a billion dollar fight. How do you attract tourists when just about every government in the world is throwing the kitchen sink at kickstarting decimated tourist economies? And travellers are eschewing long-haul flights? TA has a potential head start on first party data-driven CX designed to pass muster in a post-privacy, post-cookie world, but it’s got to build and convert intent first. There’s $60bn at stake for the Australian economy, and hundreds of thousands of livelihoods in every state counting on Tourism Australia to pull every lever at its disposal – but the early indications are positive. CMO Susan Coghill unpacks the roadmap.