News Analysis

Toyota’s iconic ‘Oh What a Feeling’ campaign celebrated its 40th anniversary this week. Originally a US idea that Australia made its own, it helped Toyota become the first manufacturer to break the grip of Ford and Holden in the early 90s. Today it's top of the pack by miles, but could do with a shot in the arm. Mi3 spoke with the marketer behind the campaign Bob Miller, creative Roger Pugh and media buyer Steve Allen about how the ad came together, what it delivered and way the motor's still running sweetly four decades on.

Australian brands are returning to Twitter but with substantially lower budgets than prior to Elon Musk's takeover. Brands and agencies are still confused by the Twitter 2.0 proposition, urging the platform to explain where it fits on a media plan and concerns remain about brand safety, cultural relevance and whether Twitter can stand out in an increasingly crowded social media market. The arrival of so called "Twitter killer" , Meta's Threads, is not moving media buyers who argue there is room for both. Threads, in fact, could give Twitter the jolt it needs to evolve, with early signs it is rolling out some positive product improvements. Twitter hacked its Australia team after Musk's takeover and the local operation still has a job to convince the market that Twitter 2.0 is where brands should play.

Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain is predicting major revenue gains for its ad-funded tier on Binge as it opens up to all advertisers. But buyers say it’s not yet eating linear TV budgets and urged Binge and the other streamers to commit to OzTam’s total TV measurement system and collaborate on frequency capping or risk crimping growth. Frain is hedging his bets. Meanwhile, reports that Netflix could drop Xandr and is building its own ad stack have been met with scepticism given the cost involved. GroupM’s Melissa Hey, Carat’s Craig Cooper and Zenith’s Jason Tonelli weigh in.

US advertisers released another mind-bending report a few weeks ago on the scale of wastage in the digital ad market - $20bn. But most Australian marketers remain blissfully – or negligently – unaware. Scrutiny and understanding of programmatically-traded advertising is all but absent within most brands. Their media agencies are rarely challenged on digital ad schedules yet they will pursue line-item auditing of other media with rigour. Virgin’s Head of Paid Media Ben Will is one of the few to call it: “The ad industry is putting a lot of trust into data without really challenging it.” Ben Oliver, digital media lead at Treasury Wine Estates in-house agency Splash, is another. "When you're trying to get an insight into what's going on – and I won't name names – but there are some programmatic partners who just won’t give you any." Oliver is turning to outspoken US ad fraud analyst Dr Augustine Fou for answers he can't get here.  

The Monkeys, part of Accenture Song, has cemented its reputation in global adland folklore by winning the coveted Daniel Wieden Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes. Working alongside the Tuvalu Government and the agencies Collider and Thrive PR, the campaign creates Tuvalu in the metaverse and uploads historical records and cultural material onto the cloud to preserve the nation's statehood in the digital realm when the islands are eventually swamped by rising sea water, a fate predicted to be only decades away. Meanwhile, Australia finished among the Top 10 countries on the Cannes medal table and New Zealand enjoyed its own success.

IAB Australia today launches a comprehensive Ad Fraud handbook that identified 35 different types of grift, and acknowledges that in the world of financial crimes, ad fraud stands alone in terms of its capacity to deliver high rewards for low risk and effort. But the industry association, some of who's members have an uncomfortable past sustaining both the poachers and the gamekeepers, is still shy of nailing a specific ad fraud number to the mast. By comparison, Juniper Research puts the scale of the problem at $68bn worldwide.

The cheeky peeps at JCDecaux pulled off a solid move last week to validate some serious investment into the younger set and arrest agency and advertiser bias that Gen Z is more URL than IRL (that's In Real Life for any perplexed boomers). To land the point, JCDecaux's team pulled their trump card to 300 or so agency and marketing types at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art. A brand facing alarming consumption problems with Gen Z - and who doesn't spend in OOH (pff) - was delivered a fully loaded strategic, creative, experiential and media schedule showing how to make its product - milk - great again and send the snappy oatmeal, soy and tumeric-infused almond nut stuff, which the kids are choosing in droves over cows milk, back to the hippies, not hipsters. 

GroupM is ratcheting up its ESG credentials – earlier announcements to decarbonise the media supply chain by 2030 are extending to a civics and society agenda which this week saw WPP’s media investment arm launch a private marketplace (PMP) designed to swing advertisers “Back to News” and “responsible journalism”. GroupM CEO Aimee Buchanan said “there is value” in backing the role responsible journalism played in “shaping society, culture and shaping brands”; Chief Investment Officer Melissa Hey said “we are aiming to increase that investment in news” as publishers scramble to address a 16.4 per cent decline in ad revenues, according to SMI’s March quarter update.

Stung by a spluttering launch of its ad tier service late last year, Netflix is starting to get its act together for advertisers. The global streamer has been steadily growing Australian impressions each month, providing media buyers and brands with greater assurance that it can deliver on its launch partner promises. Globally, Netflix says about a quarter of all new subscribers are signing up to its ad tier service. But it still has some catchup ahead in the Australian market to keep pace with Foxtel Media’s Binge on scale. Binge opted to convert all of its entry-level subscribers onto an ad-funded plan versus Netflix which is building an ad tier audience from scratch. With Disney+ predicted to launch an ad-tier in the next year, Amazon Prime revealing its own advertising ambitions and Paramount+ already dabbling with sponsorship – the AVOD duke out is heating up.