Tech

Analysis of 1,000 company financial reports by IAB Europe underlines that marketing costs are rising while growth is slowing. That’s forcing some major shifts and accelerating those already in play – and piling pressure onto CMOs. Daniel Knapp, chief economist at IAB Europe, said that pressure presents an opportunity for publishers – but they may not be seeing much of that increased spend, because it’s going to other parties. “If you are not seeing it that doesn't mean it doesn’t exist. It means you are in the wrong market or selling the wrong thing.”

The government has yet to decide whether to create a single centralised system that all social media platforms would need to integrate with, although that would be unusual according to Tony Allen, the executive leading the consortium overseeing the trial. Meanwhile a scientist tasked with assessing the rigour of the results of the trial says stopping people under 18 from accessing porn is definitely in play, although there are question marks over gambling content. For its part the government is waiting until the results of the trial before determining the design of any age assurance process, as well as policy questions such as to whether every Australian with social media accounts will need to authenticate – not just kids – and whether to ban will apply to the current accounts of children and teens on social media. The proposed ban comes in light of a parliamentary committee report revealing that over 90 per cent of Australian adolescents use social media daily. Artificial intelligence is expected to play a key role.

Virtual professor Mark Ritson reckons key strategic marketing planning functions face automation within five years or so. Marketing and its supply chain should prepare accordingly, though Ritson thinks creative agencies may survive a cull coming faster than many realise. With a hard swing to the right globally, he suggests sustainability and purpose are being rapidly downgraded – and only the "naive" now position the latter as a revenue driver. Big platforms have likewise pivoted to mass reach over pure personalisation – hoovering up what the virtual professor sees as an investment swing back to brand. Hence TV, especially locally, being overlooked despite continuing to deliver the goods, per Ritson: "I've never seen a bigger delta or disparity between how the tool [TV] continues to work very well for brands and how marketers look at it ... It's still a very strong medium."

Edible Beauty, a skincare brand founded by naturopath Anna Mitsios, has experienced a remarkable transformation. A recent proof-of-concept trial delivered an 18 per cent conversion rate improvement versus the average over the previous 12 months of a third-party chatbot and enabled the company to shift to 24/7 sales and service without having to add three full-time staff. The results underscore the efficacy of its AI-driven chatbot named Ava, says Mitsios. And the chatbot is a better salesperson, outperforming human chatterers in sales by over 50 per cent. This success has not only enhanced customer engagement but also positioned Edible Beauty for greater growth. The success of the proof of concept also prompted Live Verdure, a strategic partner and shareholder, to secure a memorandum of understanding with Decidr for further investment, potentially expanding funding from AU$2.5 million to $10 million.

In an era where generative AI is reshaping business operations, three Australian giants - Telstra, ANZ and KPMG - are leading the charge in harnessing the gen AI based co-pilots to enhance efficiency and customer engagement. Telstra has implemented innovative tools that significantly improve customer service agent effectiveness, resulting in faster resolution of queries and a smoother onboarding process for new staff. Meanwhile, ANZ says it is fostering a culture of AI adoption through its AI Immersion Centre, aiming to equip its leadership with the skills to leverage generative AI across all facets of the bank's operations for improved service delivery and compliance. KPMG is also at the forefront, utilising generative AI to streamline compliance assessments with its ESG Comply AI platform, drastically reducing the time spent on manual evaluations while enhancing collaboration and productivity among its teams. In each case, the firms are using Microsoft's Copilot technology in their solutions.

Technology service providers were given a briefing into an Age Authentication Technology Trial designed to support the Federal Government's proposed ban on social media access for users under 16. Allocating $6.5 million for this trial, officials hope to mitigate online harms such as bullying, stalking, and exposure to inappropriate content. However, critics warn implementing age verification measures creates significant cybersecurity risks and privacy concerns, potentially creating a "honey pot" for cyberhackers.  

Top digital marketing and customer execs at the fancied $22bn New Zealand appliances giant Fisher & Paykel are quick to acknowledge they were “just very lucky” to have had colleagues “passionate about getting the data right early on”. Because as AI deployments gather pace – along with corporate frustration – Fisher & Paykel has been able to test, adapt and deploy fast from bots to co-pilots and now autonomous AI agents. The business has been “hot” on clean data for some time, says Chief Digital Officer Rudi Khoury and General Manager of Digital Sarah Lukins, underpinning their confidence in early trials that autonomous AI agents powered by Salesforce’s “reasoning engine” will ultimately solve “80-90 per cent” of the company’s customer contact volumes at much higher satisfaction levels than today. It’s only part of the Fisher & Paykel plan for AI across marketing, customer service and ecommerce, but it’s where some of the early learning and gains are being made. 

Brands and publishers were put on notice yesterday that policing, fines and infringement notices are coming over the use, disclosure and consent required for tracking pixels on websites – and the likelihood that some user details in data matching and cleanroom processing is "personal information" and breaches current privacy legislation. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), which houses Australia's Privacy Commissioner, this week published new advice on pixels and personal information, ahead of an enforcement crackdown flagged last month in Mi3's podcast with Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind. The OAIC now has powers to impose substantial fines – up to $330,000 – and has signalled more aggressive policing. Privacy specialists urge brands and publishers to heed the warnings ahead of the new year.

Three years after taking on the daunting challenge of rebuilding respect for the AMP brand, Renee Howie has been lured by the appeal of a group-level executive role to join Insignia Financial as chief customer officer. It's a mega remit, spanning all traditional marketing functions through to digital, data, analytics, marketing, brand, customer analytics, government relations, media, public relations – and, overseeing the advice business, she’s also picking up a P&L. All of which comes under the watch of a recently installed CEO who’s future focused and chasing growth for an ASX-listed group that now managed $311bn in funds. As Howie tells Mi3, it was too rare an opportunity to pass up.

Twilio had the opportunity to exit the customer data platform (CDP) market thanks to a strategic review ordered by new CEO Khozema Shipchandler in February this year. Instead, it is staying the course and doubling down on the strategy that saw it buy Segment for US$3.2 billion at the start of the decade. Now, the popular Segment CDP is seen as central to its embrace of generative AI and ultimately to executing is conversational commerce plans. Twilio Segment President Thomas Wyatt describes to Mi3 the importance of data orchestration in delivering personalised customer experiences in an increasingly complex digital landscape, as Twilio seeks to integrate its Communication platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) with its CDP offerings to unlock new market opportunities.

Use of generative AI by business decision-makers in the US doubled over the last 12 months with 72 per cent now utilising the technology weekly. It's a significant leap from just 37 per cent a year prior. This growing reliance on generative AI is accompanied by a dramatic increase in budgeting, with organisations planning to double their spending from an average of US$4.5 million in 2023 to an impressive US$10.3 million in 2024. As companies shift their focus from initial experimentation to strategic implementation, the potential of generative AI to drive efficiency and innovation is becoming increasingly clear, prompting executives to re-evaluate their investment strategies in pursuit of tangible returns on investment.

Tech investment advisor Terry Kawaja – the man behind the adtech Lumascape – thinks adtech’s lean M&A period might be about to turn, driven by an incoming wave of what he calls “creative tech” start-ups. Canva's $370m acquisition of Leonardo.AI is an early example and Luma Partners, he says, is “one hundred per cent” eyeing potential deals. Meanwhile, he thinks agency arbitrage via principal-based media buying is anything but nefarious. “It’s fine,” per Kawaja. But he doubts it will prop up business models under “encroachment” from all quarters. The holdcos, he suggests, are going to need a bigger tool belt. Kawaja’s also spoiling to fight Apple CEO Tim Cook, at the very least verbally, for hobbling the digital ad industry in the name of privacy while, he claims, using the same data to fuel its own ad business. Apple, per Kawaja, is putting itself in antitrust crosshairs – he hopes it’s next.

Generative AI costs have plummeted 80 per cent in less than two years since OpenAI launched ChatGPT. Some of the world’s biggest firms have rolled out company-wide use cases, saving hundreds of millions of dollars and driving new previously unimaginable revenues. What’s more, AI is fuelling itself. “We're using AI to build AI tools to build better AI”, per Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Addo AI CEO and cofounder Ayesha Khanna says the costs will keep falling due to Scaling Law, AI's equivalent to Moore's Law.

The ways firms use data, and the technology architecture that underpins that usage has changed dramatically over the last 20 years. But one thing has remained constant, according to Sriraman (Sri) Annaswamy, a pioneer of the Australian analytics sector, whose firm Swamy and Associates has been a go-to service provider for some of Australia's biggest organisations in finance and healthcare. Value from each new wave of innovation, whether that be business intelligence, data science, or now, generative AI is realised when it is applied to very specific parts of the business operations.

Australian accounting software powerhouse MYOB was a pioneer in the use of customer data platforms (CDPs) in Australia. Even a decade later, the technology is still delivering new and impressive benefits, and equipping the brand for a new stage of technology innovation: Personalisation at scale.

Former GroupM stalwart and one-time Maxus Australia boss Dave Gaines has built a USD$400m-billing independent agency in New York that doesn’t make any money on media mark-ups. He thinks audience metrics may face redundancy – as do media buyers – and agrees with former UM privacy chief Arielle Garcia that the data underpinning the promise of personalisation at scale is woefully inaccurate. But marketers and their peak bodies are doing little to change the status quo. Act fast, warns Gaines, or get fleeced by machines as well.

There were audible gasps when the Treasury Wine Estates board saw the first non-red Penfolds Grange gift box designed by creative collaborator, Japanese artist, Nigo, earmarked for the ever-younger luxury market. But as chief data and technology officer, Kate Whitney, points out, all the consumer insights, demand zone mapping, consumption occasion trends, moments and retail markers make it plain: Disrupting the wine category by building cultural credibility and meeting changing retail experience expectations is critical if Penfolds is to win against declining wine preferences. The former CMO joined Mad Paws CEO, Justus Hammer, plus FiftyFive5 head of cultural forecasting, Michelle Newton, to debate the facets of future retail and changing consumer views of value on a panel at the recent SXSW Sydney event.

Personalised Plates Queensland (PPQ) has overhauled its data-driven approach to marketing on top of a new platform implementation built upon Tealium, Dotdigital and Craft CRM. It's part of a wider change which has also seen the creation of a digital experience team inside the group. And they are getting wins on the board with strong conversion rates and much higher visibility over the audience thanks to much more sophisticated approach to analytics.

Qantas' brand has taken a roasting in recent years. But thanks to artificial intelligence, it's no longer serving up dry chicken. Since taking the helm from Alan Joyce, new chief Vanessa Hudson has made customer experience key to the trust rebuild – and AI is playing an increasing role. Scott Wilkinson, executive manager, digital and direct customer experience, outlined three early CX use cases during a panel discussion at SXSW this week: Ticketing; giving customer agents additional firepower; and spotting and solving problems and complaints – e.g. paltry poultry – as they emerge rather than months later.

Artificial intelligence makes for solid panel fodder at an event like SXSW. The playbook goes that creativity and insight will overcome a sea of machine-generated same, and that humans will be masters of the machines and their prompts while everybody will upskill and adapt. But then someone asks an unscripted question: What about London's creative industry being decimated? Accenture Song's global and APAC creative chiefs didn't duck the question – but reckon there's a rebalance incoming.

Accenture Song ANZ has split the remits of the customer “promise and delivery” firm under two new leads to replace former regional boss Mark Green, who has relocated to New York to be Droga5’s global CEO. Bronwyn van der Merwe steps up from her current role in the high-demand customer service unit to run Accenture Song’s marketing, commerce, design, digital products and service business while veteran Monkeys exec, Matt Michael, becomes CEO of Droga5, officially rebranded from The Monkeys on 1 December. He also has responsibility for Accenture Song’s foray into media planning and buying.

If you’re in a marketing team still attempting to crack how AI can be deployed safely, effectively, and efficiently with some scale and real ROI scenarios, saddle up to an industry peer in the next six months who’s road-testing the “no code” drag-and-drop templates and process-collapsing, easy-build, AI capability claims launched last month by Salesforce across its multiple cloud offers. The customer tech giant this week is on the Australian leg of its “World Tour” to 3000 delegates and such is the pitch - that it has simplified and revolutionised “applied AI” for businesses that have struggled so far to cut through their hallucinogenic concerns and deployment complexity - that all industry eyes and ears in the next six months should be on whether early users agree with the bold claims pasted on the Salesforce can.

National Dental Care has been growing aggressively through a strategy of acquisitions. However, to mitigate the inevitable toothache of growing pains, it has embarked on an online transformation with its digital agency Nightjar, rationalising a network of 80+ sites under a master website, and delivering better customer services and efficiency gains into the bargain.

In the last six months, Salesforce ANZ chief Frank Fillmann has met 70 Australian CEOs. They're facing pressure to move on AI from four sides, but he says leading with cost-out won’t relieve that pressure. Leading with experience will. That’s what Hipages is now doing, cutting tradie onboarding from an hour to 10 minutes. Likewise Fisher & Paykel is using autonomous agents to cull service enquiries by 30 per cent, freeing 3,300 hours a month. Which means cost out, employee experience in, and customer experience wins. The trade-off between cost efficiency and experience, reckons Fillmann, “is rapidly becoming a myth.”

News Corp-controlled REA Group is reaping the benefits of a long-term CX investment strategy, with some key metrics powering by an order of magnitude. The firm was the first to combine Tealium's CDP and Braze's customer engagement platform – and the likes of Kmart have since followed. As well as soaring conversions and clickthroughs – and the Holy Grail of personalisation at scale – Audience and Marketing GM Sarah Myers says the stack now driving earned media she estimates is worth circa $10m a year. 

Marketing's adtech and personalisation obsession is blowing out brands' carbon emissions while accelerating generative AI use risks 10x increases. Relying on the renewable energy promises of SaaS vendors and hyperscalers like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google who host them or provide their LLMs won't solve the problem – because their own emissions are running out of control for precisely the same reason. But renewable generation means there is a new meaning to 'right ad, right place, right time' – and some agencies are starting to match digital ad buys to within-day periods of high solar and wind power.

Pinterest aims to put clear air between itself and rival platforms under pressure globally over mental health and algorithm-induced anxiety and the prospect of teen bans locally. It’s simultaneously making a play for more full-funnel ad dollars as performance media acquisition costs soar, doubling in the last four years and threatening unit economics, especially for ecom pureplays. The platform called out rivals at this week’s annual showcase, with global CEO Bill Ready talking up a “positive business model centred on emotional wellbeing rather than engagement via enragement”, and throwing down the gauntlet to Meta, Twitter and TikTok to use its third party-developed tools to gauge negative impacts on users. Local MD Melinda Petrunoff said it’s been private by default for under-16s for more than a year “before this was a discussion”, and advertisers are buying the positive vibe. Now it’s pushing performance and commerce capability – and the likes of Mecca, Pandora, Adidas and Walgreens are converts.

Google's fast-tracked legal battle with the Justice Department has ended faster than anticipated, just three weeks in, with Google putting up a remarkably weak fight, according to some observers. Tactical? Maybe. Whether it decides to appeal a guilty judgement – if given – will be telling.