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Deep Dive

Deep Dive 19 Mar 2024 - 12 min read
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Meta’s News Media Bargaining Code rug-pull lit up the media sector and has government, regulatory and lobbyist wheels belatedly spinning. Upwards of $70m in publisher cash is about to evaporate, leaving Google the only game in town for an already stressed news media sector. Smaller publishers fear Meta pulling news from its feeds in Australia – as it did when Canada attempted to strong-arm the social media giant into paying news publishers – will lead to potentially existential audience and revenue hits. Not to mention a "bin fire" of disinformation. And there could be widespread carnage if the Federal Treasurer ‘designates’ Meta, as is probable, forcing the tech giant into an independent arbitration process which by law means it will have to pay what the arbitrator rules between one of two fixed bids from Meta and media companies. And it would likely have to pay more media companies. Some argue Meta’s concerns for Australian designation means it will set international precedent for other countries to hunt billions more for news media – triggering a full-scale exit of Facebook and Instagram in Australia rather than pay and kick-start a costly global movement. That could cause chaos for small businesses – and the economy. News Corp chief Michael Miller, Nine publishing boss Tory Maguire, Private Media CEO Will Hayward, Capital Brief chief Chris Janz and the co-architect of the news media bargaining code, former comms minister Paul Fletcher, unpack where Australia heads next.

Deep Dive 26 Feb 2024 - 10 min read
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When it comes to principal-based media trading, AKA arbitrage, “we can argue about the pros and cons but collectively [marketers] are saying that they kind of accept, if not sometimes prefer, that model,” says Madison and Wall founder and one-time WPP global business intelligence chief Brian Wieser. It’s no coincidence that two of the “most aggressive” proponents of buying ad inventory from media owners and on-selling it to clients with handsome markups saw their respective media businesses notch double-digit growth in 2023. Publicis and Omnicom also have the most bullish growth forecasts for 2024. Yet their broader business strategies and models are almost polar opposites and Wieser sees a structural fault line widening across the major holdcos – unified businesses that sideline individual agency brands at Publicis and Dentsu versus traditional multi-brand models at WPP, IPG and Omnicom. Both can work, says Wieser, but he thinks those with fewer silos are “more likely to thrive” and suggests very few marketers still care about conflict, one of the original reasons for holdcos running lots of agencies. Dentsu is tracking closer to Publicis on consolidation but the Japanese firm hasn’t executed like the French. One positive for Dentsu, per Wieser, is “it’s hard to imagine it getting any worse”. Regardless of model, he sees a single key differentiator in determining holdco winners as IT services firms streak ahead and the big platforms use generative AI to eat further into agency turf: Investment ambition, or lack thereof.

Deep Dive 20 Feb 2024 - 8 min read
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Deep Dive Library

Deep Dive 29 Nov 2023 - 10 min read
 
Deep Dive 29 Nov 2023 - 10 min read
 
Deep Dive 29 Nov 2023 - 7 min read
 

Like Mi3’s top Marketing stories for 2023, marketing and advertising effectiveness ruled the heatmap in our overall biggest stories for the year. But there’s a new wave of surging industry interest in customer tech – customer data platforms, martech stacks and decisioning engines have been notable areas of rising interest from marketers and the agency sector this year. Plus a little corporate intrigue went a long way when Thinkerbell split with PwC and its stake in the agency after the big audit and advisory firm’s tax scandal. There was also much intrigue around the broadcaster v streamer street fight and Australian adland’s biggest export – Accenture Song’s Global CEO, David Droga.      

Deep Dive 28 Nov 2023 - 8 min read
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Deep Dive 27 Nov 2023 - 10 min read
 
Deep Dive 21 Nov 2023 - 12 min read
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Deep Dive 14 Nov 2023 - 8 min read
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Many predicted The Monkeys would be “roadkill” when Accenture in 2017 paid $63m for Australia’s hottest ad agency, its creative culture steamrollered by the immaculately polished heads of the consulting world. Instead, says creative chief Scott Nowell, who last week departed the agency he co-founded, The Monkeys began a cultural infiltration mission. Six years on, the broader Accenture Song creative-customer model has turned heads in the broader Accenture business – because it’s largely outperforming. But there were some awkward early moments. “A request that we lock our beer fridges until 5 p.m. went down very badly,” says Nowell. He admits moving to a hierarchical consulting giant can take some getting used to: “You’ve just got to ask a lot of people if you can do something or not.” But after some mutual “bum sniffing” the “more closed” corporate and “more open” advertising packs began to run together – and start building products and solutions that go well beyond advertising. Whether Nowell climbs back into the saddle, time will tell. For now he’s smelling the roses after 17 years building a business that won everything going, rejected an offer to reverse takeover Saatchi & Saatchi locally, came close to forming a “pan-Pacific micro network” with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and tried – and failed – to revive ice cream brand, Homer Hudson, which it co-owned. His advice to anyone starting their own agency today? “Start smarter … get an accountant … try and balance your life.” 

Deep Dive 7 Nov 2023 - 9 min read
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GroupM global boss Christian Juhl says rival holdcos may now regret spending “billions of dollars on cookie-based solutions or personally identifiable information” as privacy moves dead centre in regulatory affairs. Some, he says, “are going to be sitting on a razor’s edge about whether they are going to be compliant ... it will definitely have ramifications for the industry.” In the meantime, he says a key challenge facing marketers across every facet of their business, and fundamentally “how they justify these massive budgets to their CEOs” comes down to measurement. But building post-privacy metrics and proxies, per Juhl, is probably the most “dynamic” – read challenging – part of his business. GroupM is building its own econometric or “full funnel” models for brands because, says ANZ CEO Aimee Buchanan, market mix models focused on shorter-term campaign metrics no longer cut it. Meanwhile, both Juhl and Buchanan have been pushing hard on carbon-based trading. Culling low performing, high emitting inventory is the easiest first step, says Buchanan, followed by stripping out digital weight from creative assets. But both bosses are less aggressive than previous statements around moving ad dollars based on emissions. Likewise, no hard mandates on getting staff back in the office beyond “probably more than we are right now,” per Juhl with hybrid flex built-in. For now, three days is a rule of thumb. Plus, Juhl is unsure how long brands will “pay more for less” on linear TV – and the world’s biggest media buyer thinks the world’s biggest streaming service, Netflix, has an opportunity to start integrating brands. Netflix’s Microsoft-powered ads launch may have underwhelmed, but Juhl sees “wide open” space ahead.

Deep Dive 31 Oct 2023 - 12 min read
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