News Analysis

If you’d asked agency bosses how the market was tracking before Easter, you would have received an uneasy response along the lines of “a bit slower than usual”. A few weeks later, the response is "we're under the pump" after an influx of global and local pitches. The market's stacked from here to Christmas.

Apple's privacy changes, set to kick in as early as today via iOS14.5, have massive ramifications for brands, publishers, developers, ad tech and martech firms – and Apple's Big Tech rivals. In Australia some $2billion-plus of ad spend will be affected as addressable audiences shrink, tracking is vastly reduced and analytics upended. But in the new world order, there are also winners.

WPP's carbon footprint is equivalent to that of a small country - literally. But last week it committed to reaching net zero emissions across its entire supply chain by 2030. That has major implications for production house Hogarth, which accounts for more than half of WPP's production emissions, according to global CEO Richard Glasson. Meanwhile, WPP's supply chain includes publishers. So media owners that want WPP client dollars must also decarbonise – fast.

Rod Sims has pushed back after being called a Murdoch minion by the New York Times in driving forward Australia's news bargaining code. Sims also harpooned claims by Google that 'big business' had bent the ear of federal government and regulators. Murdoch, he suggested, is a midget compared to the tech giants. He also suggested Facebook had misunderstood the nature of antitrust – and flagged that the code is merely one small part of Australia's overhaul of data, privacy and competition.

Following Mi3's report on the IAB putting Nielsen's measurement service to tender, the industry body has also confirmed it won't fully endorse Nielsen's new audience measurement service, which replaces the now scrapped Digital Content Ratings product. Nielsen's panel-only service has been renamed Digital Media Ratings and publishers with upmarket audience skews are likely to see declines of up to 25% under the revised methodology.

A ruling by the Federal Court last Friday finding Google misled consumers about location tracking data is another signal the ACCC will use both consumer and competition law to pounce on data economy misdemeanours. Google's latest breach may lead to fines in the tens of millions of dollars, the ACCC says. Experts say the decision should serve as a warning to all companies that collect data: you are squarely in the ACCC’s sights.

As companies stampede to digital transformation programs, brands and agencies are scrambling to secure specialists in high-demand channels such as SEO, paid search, programmatic, UX and e-commerce. Digital marketing salaries are up 15-20% but recruiters claim the talent pool is shrinking and wage demands are rising as it becomes a “favourable market for candidates”.

PwC’s CMO Advisory unit has lost another partner and its co-architect, Justin Papps, who will leave in August to join former PwC partner and Chief Creative Officer Russel Howcroft at the Melbourne-based boutique consulting and wealth management group started by PwC’s former CEO, Luke Sayers.

The private equity-owned audience measurement giant Nielsen faces widespread market frustration with its digital measurement products and service levels as IAB Australia's tender for a sweeping review of its digital measurement contract is set for release. It comes as advertisers mount a global effort to develop - and fund - a complex and challenging cross-media measurement system via the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA).