Winners, grinners and grind

The Effies, considered Australia’s top advertising show by marketers because winners must demonstrate a business case for effectiveness, roared back to a live event last night for the first time in three years with a diverse sweep of large and small brands and agencies landing gongs.

But Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) chair and boss of Nestle’s coffee business Martin Brown made it clear marketing effectiveness would be tested next year as industry faced “something different” for 2023. “It’s tough for everyone in this industry,” he said. “But we’re now leaning into something different. We’re leaning into… the most significant spike in inflation in 40 years. This is new ground for all of us. We’re asking consumers to pay much higher prices for products than ever before and we’re doing that at a point in time where their real incomes are dropping. It’s a fantastic test of brand loyalty right now. We’re also going into boardrooms and we’re asking for more money to invest behind brands and really the case study behind why you get that yes to investment… is the [return on investment] behind it. So we’re really delighted to support the Effies more than ever. It’s incredibly important.”

Brown’s warning for difficult marketing conditions next year was backed by most brands at the Effies when asked by Mi3. 

Protein hit 

Yash Gandhi, CMO for the Baiada-owned Steggles and Lilydale brands, said his budget for the 2024 financial year “will reduce” although budgets for the first half of next year “is pretty much set. There’s a lot of things that as marketers we’d love to do that we have to scale back on and be very targeted with where the money is spent,” he said. “We’ve got to look at where we carefully spend our budget – only on the things that we know is going to give us a good return on investment. So where do we spend our money? Brand versus product and tactical… that's really the balance to strike. But it's never been more important to invest in brands and continue to invest in brands because that's what grows the business, grows better margins and hopefully maintains brand loyalty. With a commodity product like ours, we need to maintain that.”

Telstra, Suncorp and Uber CMOs were aligned with the tightening outlook but all backed holding to brand investment.

Telstra CMO Brent Smart, in the chair for five weeks, said it was too early for him to make a call on budget levels at the telco but predicted many brands would react by "over-investing in trading, performance and short-termism and ultimately I don’t think that’s the most effective option. A lot of brands will do that. Wherever the budget lands, we need to use creativity to make that budget feel bigger and more impactful. It’s a boring answer. It’s what I always say. But there’s no doubt we have to all work hard on value perception. It’s definitely going to be a more challenging marketplace.”

Smart said Uber Eats winning Effective Advertiser of The Year was a benchmark for the industry. “Uber Eats is such a worthy winner. They have been incredibly consistent over many years. Their commitment to consistency is so admirable. They've invested in brand in a category that could be quite retail and tactical and they've totally won that category by being brand focused and being consistent.”

Uber’s APAC Head of Marketing, Lucinda Barlow, also warned of a difficult 2023. “When you're facing a recession or a possible recession or a reduction in consumer confidence, it is really important to be consistent and to be present,” she told Mi3. “It can even be an opportunity actually to separate because often competitors may pull back or may focus solely on short term levers. But it’s incredibly important to keep focused on the long term and equally important to invest in your products and your consumer offerings because they’re really thinking more closely around purchases and finding value. So for us that means investing in and strengthening the core product experience which means in Australia ensuring that we've got enough delivery partners, driver partners on the platform so that it's fast and it also means it's an opportunity for new products. There is movement with consumers.”

Suncorp’s CMO Mim Haysom would not comment on budget plans but said brand investment would hold at broadly the same ratios whether her budget decreased or held. “You can't generate consumer confidence, you can't push through pricing and inflation if you haven't got strong brand equity, strong consideration, strong retention levels. So there's a lot of data that we use to support that discussion with our executive leadership.”

Arnott's an exception

One exception on budgets was Arnott’s CMO Jenni Dill. She told Mi3 that while Arnott’s was acutely aware of economic and spending volatility, the company, owned by private equity firm KKR, was increasing its marketing above current sales growth. 

“We're growing. We're planning to grow. We're doing everything we can to make sure that we can grow but I think we're just seeing even more volatility in the external environment at the moment, which is when you look at risk, there's a lot coming at us. Whether it's the availability of talent, whether it's buyers, whether it's trying to get inflationary pricing away, trying to deal with commodity supply chains, there's a lot going on outside of your marketing that's having a big influence. What I would say is we're growing our marketing budget at a higher rate than sales at the moment.”

Effie judges - pendulum has swung to brand

Beyond the outlook for next year, Dill has been an Effies judge for at least a decade and noted some changes this year. “What I've observed is the spread between amazing cases and okay case studies,” she said. “The brands that are investing, that are doubling down and staying with their positioning and on their core assets and on the work that they're doing are driving even better results. We're seeing brands that have been on a positioning or on a particular advertising campaign for a number of years versus new marketing campaigns, new positionings is the difference between amazing and okay.”

Telstra’s Smart, also an Effies judge, concurred. “We’re definitely seeing more brand driven work. The pendulum has definitely shifted. I think people have realised we shifted way too much to short term performance, attribution models…you're seeing people focus more on brand building, mass reach, spreading their budget across the year. It's a very different approach than what we saw five years ago, which was about targeted, digital responses and so-on.”

Here's the full list of 2022 Effie Winners:

The Grand Effie - sponsored by ThinkTV

Special Australia | Uber Eats Australia | ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’

The Effective Advertiser of the Year Award 

Uber Eats Australia

The Effective Agency of the Year

The Monkeys Australia

Financial Services

Leo Burnett Australia | Suncorp | One House to Save Many | Silver

Ogilvy Australia | Suncorp | AAMI – A Cautionary Tale of Bargain Regret | Bronze

DDB Sydney | Westpac | Life is eventful. That’s why we help | Bronze

Government

Simple | Party | The Unwinnable Election | Silver

303 MullenLowe | Mental Health | One Drink | Bronze

Other Consumer Goods

Richards Rose | Mitsubishi Motors | Not being considered tough, didn’t frighten a Triton | Bronze

Food, Confectionary & Snacks

BMF | George Weston Foods | Baked into Australia: Letting go of the past to get back to the Tip Top | Silver

Short Term Effects

Special Australia | Uber Eats Australia | ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating… with the Grey Wiggle’ | Silver

AJF Partnership | Officeworks | Turning tax time into payback time for Officeworks | Bronze

BMF | ALDI Australia | How ALDI liberated Aussies to go all out at Christmas | Bronze

New Product or Service

The Monkeys Australia | Beam Suntory | Ridiculous! How -196 defied the hottest trends to become Beam Suntory’s most successful launch ever | Gold

Positive Change sponsored by Ad Standards

M&C Saatchi | The Minderoo | Thrive by Five | Gold

Leo Burnett Australia | Suncorp | One House To Save Many | Silver

Health & Wellbeing

CHEP Network | Danone | How Aptamil returned to No 1 by helping new mums return to work | Bronze

Most Original Thinking sponsored by Google

Leo Burnett | Suncorp | One House to Save Many | Gold

Howatson + Company | Matilda Bay | Matilda Bay | Bronze

Innovative Media or Channel Solutions

Ogilvy Australia | KFC | The Long Game: KFC’s Bucket Hunt

Insights & Strategic Thinking

Leo Burnett | Suncorp | One House to Save Many | Silver

CHEP Network | Danone | How Aptamil returned to No 1 by helping new mums return to work | Bronze

Beverages

The Monkeys Australia | Beam Suntory | Crazy! How -196 beat “the hottest beverage on the planet” | Silver

Challenger Brands

CHEP Network | Danone | How Aptamil returned to No 1 by helping new mums return to work | Bronze

Richards Rose | Great Southern Bank | How Great Southern Bank helped twice as many Millennials live Happily Clever After. | Bronze

Other Services

Special Australia | Uber Eats Australia | ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating… with the Grey Wiggle’ | Gold

The Monkeys Australia | Telstra | How Telstra’s purpose-led growth left the competition in its wake | Silver

Clever Use of Research / or Data 

AFFINITY | Concierge Car Wash | How Creativity Via Handcrafted Text Messages Cleaned Up COVID | Bronze

Return on Investment sponsored by ThinkTV

The Monkeys Australia | Beam Suntory | How 196 achieved an ROI that catapulted it beyond the hottest drink on the planet | Silver

The Monkeys Australia | Telstra | How Telstra’s purpose-led growth generated profitable ROI on a titanic scale

Marketing Solutions Other Than Advertising

AFFINITY | Concierge Car Wash | How Creativity Via Handcrafted Text Messages Cleaned Up COVID | Bronze

Best Smaller State Campaign

Simple | South Australian Labor | The Unwinnable Election | Silver

303 MullenLowe | Mental Health | One Drink | Bronze

Brand Value

The Monkeys Australia | Telstra | How purpose-led growth revitalised the value of Telstra’s brand | Silver

DDB Sydney | Westpac | Life is eventful. That’s why we help. | Bronze

Retail / Etail sponsored by ThinkTV

BMF | ALDI Australia | How ALDI liberated Aussies to go all out at Christmas | Silver

AJF Partnership | Officeworks | Turning tax time into payback time for Officeworks | Bronze

Long Term Effects sponsored by YouTube

Special Australia | Uber Eats Australia | ‘Tonight, I’ll be eating…’ | Gold