30.

Australia is trailing on global adoption for AI in CX – here’s why

Australia is trailing behind the world when it comes to adoption of AI in customer experience enhancements and programs, according to this years Adobe State of Digital CX Report. Yet that isn’t because the appetite for AI isn’t there. What the report, and a panel of executive leaders from FIFA, Tribal DDB Worldwide and Adobe do believe, however, is there is ‘healthy scepticism’, data governance and trust issues that, rightly or wrongly, are keeping organisations from piling in.

29.

'Quite embarrassing' says Musk as Twitter opens its algorithm on 500m daily tweets; Likes most powerful multiplier, sharing links actually hurts. Katy Perry a test pilot

Twitter released the details of how its algorithm determines which tweets to amplify and which to ignore, and the insights from the code are not as obvious as you might expect. While unsurprisingly, likes and retweets will give your Tweet a big boost, video and images have much less of an effect, and including links actually hurts amplification. And there's some weird, and occasionally troubling revelations that seemed to have surprised even CEO Elon Musk.

28. 

IAB overhaul: Nine’s Pedestrian Group CEO Matt Rowley returns to IAB chair, Carsales’ Vanya Mariani new deputy, Yahoo’s Paul Sigaloff exits as regulatory, measurement heat rises

Australia’s peak digital advertising body, the IAB, finalised a widespread reshuffle of its board, installing Matt Rowley as its new chair and Carsales Commercial director Vanya Mariani appointed deputy. Yahoo APAC boss Paul Sigaloff was replaced by regional platforms director, John McNerney.

27.

RM Williams ecom booms 30 per cent after billionaire Twiggy Forrest pays off ‘martech debt’, unlocks marketing investment, backs UK, US expansion – but headwinds now biting, cobblers required, AR customised boots next

Back under local ownership with Australia's richest man for exactly two years (at the time of publication in late 2022), iconic Australian bootmaker RM Williams has paid off accumulated "tech debt" built up as the previous owners prioritised production and sales. A new martech and point of sale system combined with renewed marketing investment has driven 30 per cent gains in conversion and basket size and site traffic is up 25 per cent year on year. UK and US expansion is now on the cards... just as headwinds and consumer belt-tightening hits. CTO Nathan Alexander thinks the tech and CX investment will offset softening demand. Now the firm just needs to find more cobblers to – literally – maintain its brand for life.

26.

‘Unknown delta’: Flagship programmatic transparency study shows more cash flowing to publishers, fewer missing dollars – but 96% of digital ad impressions still can’t be fully tracked

Publishers – at least at the top end of town – appear to be getting a bigger slice of marketers' programmatic ad dollars while advertisers seem to be getting more transparency. But as ISBA updates its groundbreaking programmatic supply chain transparency study – with brands including Diageo, Dominos, Pepsico and Vodafone – no one seems really satisfied. Unattributable revenue, the "unknown delta", fell from 15 percent to low single digit digits, but critics point out that the key players in the digital ad supply chain remain unable to match 96 percent of impressions end-to-end (yes, you read that right).

25.

Gen AI’s first wave already disrupting creative processes, powering personalisation, boosting performance; but agencies say it can’t do brilliance – and big brands only want big ideas

Harvard Business Review identifies three non-exclusive scenarios around the impact of generative AI on the creative process: think of these as 'everyone gets out alive', 'no one gets out alive', and 'only the very best of us get out alive.' Either way, marketing chiefs are already piling in. Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar told Mi3 the firm is saving masses of time by taking away the work that creatives and ops people hate – like managing creative assets – while deploying the tech on both ad and email creative is driving “meaningful improvements to conversion rates.” Meta is seeing the same thing, per Creative Strategist Carmela Soares. But AI-fuelled hyper personalisation also risks unwinding the kinds of powerful shared experiences brands need to build affinity says Harvard Business Review. And generative AI "is not designed for brilliance yet we have to engineer for brilliance", per DDB Group Sydney CEO Sheryl Marjoram who says she's never met a client who demanded a 'small idea.'

24.

Foxtel banks on CDP to power smarter in-house ad buys, counter streamer incursion, drive sharper attribution as cookies fade, privacy tightens

While majority owner News Corp has opted for Adobe’s CDP, Foxtel – one of the heaviest digital ad spenders in Australia – is backing Segment to drive smarter digital in-house ad buys with sharper attribution amid increasing signal loss from the major platforms, incoming privacy changes and an increasingly cutthroat streaming market.

23.

Domino's discovers dough in multimedia messaging; 5X better results than traditional texts; roasts EDMs for reactivation

Listed Australian pizza super star Domino's Pizza Enterprises is mining a rich vein of data insights and extracting tasty results from an out-of-favour channel – MMS. Its APAC head of CRM Adrian Westwood says MMS, or in telco terms multimedia messaging service, outperforms traditional SMS, or text messaging, by 5X in specific circumstances while blowing reactivation EDMs out of the water. And while more expensive, he says ROI holds up – if you look longer term.

22.

News Corp, PBL, Seven West alumni back Andi to take generative AI fight to ChatGTP and Bard, renowned Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator piles in

Empires seem unassailable right up until the moment they are not, as Google is now discovering. Andi, a generative search tool with a strong antipodean pedigree, demonstrates the kind of emerging and asynchronous threat facing the global incumbent. It won't be the last. With backing from News Corp, PBL, Seven West alumni Nick Chan, Tim Trumper, and Peter Zavecz – and Y Combinator, the Silicon valley accelerator that backed Airbnb, Reddit, Stripe and Twitch – Andi founders Angela Hoover and Jed White may have already stolen an early march in the race to exploit the great disruption.

21.

Oracle blasts Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft’s ‘excessive, intrusive, unfair, anticompetitive’ data collection, urges Australia’s regulators to go nuclear on data privacy overhaul or fail

Inferred data, geolocation data, phone identifiers and beyond: Oracle Corp has urged Australia's regulators to go nuclear on data privacy, savaging its tech industry peers' data collection practices and claiming their use of consumer data forms the bedrock on which they have built an anti-competitive stranglehold. Describing its own ad business as a 'rounding error' in its submission to the Attorney General's proposed privacy overhaul, the US$320bn software vendor goes in two-footed on Facebook and Google – and warns anything but far-reaching, aggressive regulation will damage Australia's economy and its consumers. Meanwhile, Oracle is being sued in a US class action for allegedly building a global surveillance system that captures most of the world's population.

20.

Ex-AFR, Which-50 Publisher Andrew Birmingham joins Mi3 to lead CX, ecom, martech and broader tech coverage

Veteran technology editor Andrew Birmingham has joined Mi3 to lead our coverage of tech and data trends and developments with a marketing, media and customer focus. Convergence across brand and performance marketing, media and audiences and CX, data and ecom continues its march and Mi3 will continue to help drive industry thinking, debate and developments.

19.

Workato’s marketing operations chief used a large language model to resurrect 150 dead deals, reactivate $6 million pipeline; new automations planned

 It’s never a great feeling, adding that ‘Deal Lost’ flag against a previously hopeful prospect in the CRM. But B2B marketer Michael Fan, the marketing operations lead at low code/no code technology vendor Workato – and an engineer by trade – built a reactivation campaign on Open AI’s large language model, breathing life back into $6 million worth of sales pipeline. Just as importantly, it released account executives from their desks – and drove home just how critical effective marketing is to sales.

18.

Adore Beauty CMO on returning to growth after ecom reality check, getting 200k podcast downloads a month, non-naïve loyalty gains, and why he tells teams to run – and review – martech as if it’s their own business

After riding the Covid e-commerce swell to peak at $200m in revenues, Adore Beauty found itself dumped heavily when the economy reopened and everyone raced back into shops. The first half of 2022 brought choppy waters for the growth, profitability and even survival for plenty of other big-name Australian e-commerce brands. Booktopia, Kogan, and Temple and Webster faced heavy headwinds, while online furniture brand Brosa went under. But Adore doubled down on driving customer engagement, built a new app and tightened its grip on marketing costs, returning to growth in the past year. CMO Dan Ferguson says the P&L tells a story of resilience. But he says marketers thinking naively about loyalty may be in for a rude awakening. Plus, why Ferguson thinks the tide going out has opened the floodgates to a lot more martech reviews.

17.

Well that's embarrassing – and costly – and a $100bn teachable moment: Alphabet share price drops 8% after Bard AI tweet demonstrates its own inaccuracy

With ChatGPT capturing all the headlines, and the new platform's biggest backer Microsoft doubling down on its investment in OpenAI, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai rushed out an announcement about his company's response. Google then amplified the announcement on social media. $US100bn later, that probably feels like a mistake.

16.

Once burned by partners who abused its trust – and data – LinkedIn is rebuilding martech-adtech bridges; CDP and CTV initiatives incoming, marketers keen, agencies want more

A decade ago LinkedIn made some questionable martech and adtech partner choices, subsequently accused by a key exec of abusing their status – and its data. Burnt, the now $14bn business chose to go-it-alone. But tech hermit status ended in 2019 when a Microsoft-Marketo deal started to drive solid cost of conversion savings for customers like law firm Gilbert and Tobin. This year the platform has inked a deal with Hubspot and Mi3 has learned LinkedIn is now working with Tealium on a much-requested conversion API. Meanwhile, the company is putting flesh on the bones of a CTV initiative for B2B advertisers. But marketers and agencies want more, Google and Facebook-style more.

15.

‘Those of you who work in CPG or retail … this completely destroys your business’: Amy Webb on Generative AI, the death of search, endless 'aggressive' recommendations that override brand choices

One of the world’s leading futurists has warned that the rush to embrace Gen AI could place too much power in the hands of very few tech giants. The upshot is that search could be replaced by a frictionless system where technology provides all of the answers without human interrogation. For brands, a catastrophic outcome could see the erosion of choice and human marketing. For society, the stakes are even higher and our lives can be materially different and much worse in ways that are largely invisible. Amy Webb, founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, described this dystopian scenario as living with 5,000 papercuts in a constant recommendation loop that replaces our agency to choose what we like with blandness, such as terrible ‘smooth jazz’ conference music on repeat.

14.

MiQ boss: 20% swing to brand, video and pDOOH rise as programmatic performance, display fizzles; privacy overhaul precedes adtech shakeout; arbitrage suggestions rebutted

Programmatic pure-play MiQ says there's a major shift away from performance media buying and into brand underway – in dollar terms a circa 20 per cent swing over the last 12 months. That's a view informed by buying and data-enriching programmatic media across circa 2,500 advertisers in any given month via 700 agencies globally. Global boss Gurman Hundal and APAC CEO Jason Scott unpack programmatic's moving up the funnel, what's coming next, why Australia looks set for a shakeout – and why those crying arbitrage are stuck in the past.

13.

70% of business transformations fail, says McKinsey. Digital transformations are worse, says Gartner. Guess where marketing, CX, and digital leaders are being asked to take charge? Challenges and success stories from the front line

Customer-focused leaders are increasingly involved in product development and company-wide process change as they look to drive innovation that grows revenues and improves margins. That means managing organisational challenges from early stage start-up through to global scale. We reveal lessons learned at the front lines of innovation from companies including Blackmores, Compass Group, Country Road Group, Uber, Iconic, Village Roadshow, Kmart and Kennards Hire. And we identify the qualities boards are seeking from transformation leaders.

12.

Westpac to cut tech stack by two thirds amid $4bn overhaul, CFO sounds warning for vendors mulling price hikes

Westpac is plotting a $4bn overhaul of its business in the name of customer experience, planning to entirely rebuild its back-end. Customer systems and data analytics will get a share of spoils as the bank shifts spending away from regulatory and risk and sprints to deliver an experience – and cost-base – that bests its peers. Yet despite all the extra money going into tech, the end result will be a vastly reduced architecture with Westpac culling tech components from 180 to just 60 systems. CFO Michael Rowland gave tech vendors thinking of hiking prices something to consider.

11.

Dan Murphy's, Flybuys, REA face serious media buying upheaval as Magnite, Pubmatic cut the cord to MediaMath; Searchlight debt reversal sunk DSP, Trade Desk in box seat

Back in July, major Australians brands including Dan Murphy's, Flybuys and REA Group faced significant disruption to their media buying and a fast, forced march to a new demand side platform after MediaMath's DSP rapidly unravelled. Supply side platforms including Magnite and Pubmatic – the two biggest unsecured creditors in one of adtech's biggest bankruptcies – cut the cord. The shambolic nature of the MediaMath closure reflects speed at which the bankruptcy decision was taken, per company insiders, who claim the move to bring down the curtain was triggered by investment firm Searchlight's decision to pull the pin on support for more than $150M in debt. With three potential buyers having evaporated, time ran out for the one time darling of the DSP world – which ironically was carving a solid foothold and reputation in Australia.

10. 

Carsales resurrects its Safari audience via its CDP; builds a $55m ad business – but silos made hard work of the tech rollout

Carsales' CDP is not just another piece of marketing tech says Stephen Kyefulumya, its GM media product and technology. Instead, it's the bedrock of a data ecosystem that has buttressed the growing business against the decline of third party cookies and the rising tide of privacy regulation. Despite a sometimes challenging implementation complicated by the need to build engagement across commercial, marketing, product, and technology disciplines, the business experienced rapid speed to value — and resurrected its cookie-deprived Safari audience along the way.

9.

CDP Investigation Part Four: Chemist Warehouse, SCA, Nova, News, Carsales on how CDPs have changed operations, structures, capability – but why consent management may be next martech wave

Beyond the conversion rates, the upsell, and the media efficiencies, the stand out feature of many of the CDP projects interrogated across Mi3's four-part market investigation was the wider impact on the organisations and the role the CDP projects play in driving organisational and cultural change. In this final edition, CDP program leaders unpack how their new capabilities and insights are changing the way the company works – future-proofing against major data privacy shifts now washing through the entire digital landscape. Alongside the tech, the series wraps up by looking at capability investments brands must simultaneously make in order to generate the best return from a CDP investment – and not be left with expensive kit they can't properly operate. Plus, why consent management platforms, or CMPs, may need to sit at the top of the martech stack. (Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found in Marketing Year in Review)

8.

Google, Yahoo machete local teams as media talent market cools... but tech’s staff cull has only a small impact on digital talent shortfalls

Red hot, not white hot, but still very bloody hot. At the start of the year Yahoo all but wiped its ANZ commercial team, including APAC CEO Paul Sigaloff. Then came rumblings of further cuts underway at Google, with early signs of cooling in parts of the media and agency sectors were on the rise. Mass tech redundancies have "opened up a whole new supply of tech and digital people", says OMG CEO Peter Horgan, although not everyone agrees, suggesting the tech casualties don't have the "battle scars" required to thrive in agencies. Either way, the wider tech skills shortage remains – and could still see big cheques being written for specialist roles.

7.

Customer Data Platform boom hits new hurdle: search rankings, personalisation, shopping cart abandonment at risk

Australian brands are piling into the hot tech spot of Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), especially retailers, but there's a live conundrum in the bullrush which could ultimately impact brand search rankings, personalisation and even shopping cart abandonment, according to technology executives who spoke to Mi3. The dilemma is where customer data is housed - locally or offshore. And that depends on whether proliferating CDP vendors have built local data centres so their platforms can be hosted in Australia. The upshot is regulatory requirements in some sectors on data governance - and sovereignty - and concerns over future industry-wide regulations could complicate some current CDP deployments. And there's more for marketing teams wrapping their heads around data, tech and customers: the further away a CDP is hosted from users, the risk of latency - the time it takes for an action to be triggered - rises and that spells potential trouble for ecom and more.

6.

Martech maestro: Here's the four emerging technologies driving the next wave of customer, marketing and business model innovation: Scott Brinker

Three of the most transformational technologies of the last two decades are running out of juice – social media, Software as a Service (SaaS) and smart mobility, says leading international martech commentator and brainchild of the benchmark marketing technology industry landscape maps, Scott Brinker. Those innovations unleashed 20 years worth of digital disruption and transformed the relationship between brands and customers. Now all three are plateauing on the famous technology innovation S curve. But, says chiefmartech.com's Brinker, here's the four emerging technologies set to replace them.

5.

Zombie pixels, data consent, de-identified user tracking face ACCC heat in data broking probe – Commbank, Woolworths among big names listed in retail, loyalty, banking and alternative ID sectors

Whether you believe they are trading oil or asbestos — choose your poison — Australia's data brokers face a potential regulatory blowtorch after the ACCC released a discussion paper ahead of an industry-wide probe. The regulator says the industry – which hoovers up and resells vast amounts of information about Australians – lacks transparency. No surprises there, but it's not just the brokers facing heat. Commbank and Woolworths were both name checked in the discussion paper, and loyalty program and alt-ID providers are also being scrutinised by the regulator in what appears to be a pincer movement alongside privacy lawmakers. Like the Attorney-General, the ACCC is treating de-identified, anonymised, or aggregated data as personal data. And that's exactly what brokers trade.

4.

Buckle up! The ChatGPT disruption is just the beginning: Brand, agency, tech and research execs reveal the risks, opportunities, and roadblocks Generative AI creates

ChatGPT won't take your job, but the person using ChatGPT almost certainly will. Execs from Kia, IAG, SAP, The Lumery, WPP and others, along with global martech experts like Scott Brinker and Liz Miller reveal the risks, opportunities, and roadblocks for the next great wave of transformation. In just the first five days after its release in November 2022, more than a million users logged onto the platform. It took Airbnb six years to meet that benchmark, Facebook one year, Spotify five months and Instagram two and a half months.

3.

'30% uplift in customer response rates': BUPA's AI-powered decision engine delivering huge early NPS scores, $12m incremental revenue gains, $1m in cost out

The health insurance giant BUPA is landing strong early returns from a new round of investments in machine-led real time decisioning, and the kinds of NPS scores most brands dream of — To boot, the insurer is posting strong incremental revenues and cost savings so far topping $1m. But there's plenty of gains left to be made, says BUPA's Head of Marketing Automation, Lisa Dickson, by tackling 11 "micro-moments of basic health insurance hygiene" identified in its global research from HQ in the UK. Bupa is also investing in a customer data platform (CDP) but Dickson is cautious on when real time data adds real value - or fuels too much complexity.

2.

Coles versus Woolies: ecom drops as shoppers hit the streets, Brad Banducci says decline faster than predicted; customer fulfilment overhaul ‘really painful’

Consumers are once again wearing out the shoe leather and returning to stores to stock up on the weekly grocery shop. As a result ecommerce sales dropped fast from pandemic rivers of gold even as digital engagement continues to rise. Meanwhile, the complexity of creating new fulfilment models is causing management headaches and construction delays for Australia's two giant grocers.

1.

Work 25% faster, 40% better: Harvard study finds consulting giant BCG's staff using ChatGPT outperform on every measure – and underachievers get biggest boost

ChatGPT can lift capabilities of worst performers and narrow the gap with high achievers according to a study by Harvard Business School but training is crucial. The study, based on tests at management consulting giant Boston Consulting Group, determined that on every task, staff using GPT significantly outperformed their peers, no matter how performance was measured. The AI-powered group completed 12.2 per cent more tasks on average than their peers, while completing tasks 25.1 per cent faster with 40 per cent higher quality results than those without, per one of the study's authors. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT seem to particularly outperform on tasks requiring creativity or innovation – sometimes at the expense of accuracy – but underperform on some simple mathematical or logical exercises. This story has got legs: it's the highest read of all Mi3's stories in 2023.