Opinion

Claire Fenner “found the courage” recently to share with her entire agency team her struggles with imposter syndrome, anxiety and self doubt. It’s the first of many open and honest conversations she says are now culturally locked-in at Atomic 212 in a bid to humanise and normalise how we can help ourselves and our people. The 'new normal', she says, must become a better normal.

As Head of Marketing at Adelaide-based OTR, Peregrine was ranked 9th in top 500 companies last year 2020 with revenues circa $2.6bn, Andrea Ingham’s marketing remit includes a national fuel and convenience operation, along with the master franchise for Oporto, Guzman Y Gomez and Krispy Kreme in South Australia. Ingham has only done two dozen Zoom meets since Covid took hold last year – and fears the impact of team isolation and remote working is still to bite.

The stampede to Covid-era digital transformation has only intensified a major problem: the rate of change in martech and adtech continues to outpace education and everyone is feeling the pain. Joey Nguyen says it’s one of the biggest challenges for consultancies and agencies and every customer he works with. The other is figuring out what “privacy ready” ready means.

Audi’s consumer brand consideration had doubled before Covid, the highest in four years. Audi’s sales were up in 2020 versus a premium auto segment down 8.3%. Nikki Warburton says brand work and ‘charming creativity’ was the secret sauce.

As technology expands further into daily life post-Covid, Google's interim MD Rhys Williams expects more “focus and scrutiny” on how tech can improve and provide “benefits for people, communities and businesses”.

Covid, says Facebook MD Will Easton, made him realise society was more offline and physical than he expected. But the gap between the two opposing forces are now closing faster. And CMOs are back. 

After the “most significant moment” in recent tourism history, Tourism New Zealand’s Australian boss Andrew Waddel is betting on never reaching a true ‘post-Covid’ era. The people and brands currently flourishing, he says, are building the future into the why, how and what they are doing now.

Brands like Optus, L’Oreal, CBA, Subaru, Toyota and Stan have pushed the number of content briefs aimed at women up 40% for indie media group Mamamia. Time spent has gone up but more importantly engagement metrics are at an all-time high, says Mia Freedman.