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Rich consumer trend insights, API integrations with Salesforce Marketing Cloud to match data and advertising options that stretch across the funnel have led Flight Centre to up its investment into paid activity on Pinterest by 1,000 per cent. The platform is delivering “very competitive” ROAS as both reach-first and targeted audience plays pay off, says retail advertising leader for campaigns, Rachael Green. Even so, Hello Social head of data and insight, Daniel Hill says Pinterest isn’t commonly on the media buying plan for brands until they’ve exhausted other channels, hindered by a lack of awareness, bespoke creative and misperceptions of how attention works against other social channels. In fact, it’s a distinctly different option to social media, both insist, thanks to the search-based nature of how consumers engage with content in the platform.

Former Coles and Tourism Australia CMO Lisa Ronson is returning to Australia’s marketing leadership ranks, taking the reins at Medibank with a remit to enhance customer engagement and drive growth. It’s going to be a meaty one for the experienced marketing chief, as the ASX-listed health insurance giant battles legal action for its 2022 data breach and has hard yards ahead to re-establish brand credentials and trust with customers.
 

With three new electric vehicles is its latest car line-up, the largest Countryman SUV ever offered, and a fresh product brand to educate consumers about, the job for the Mini marketing team just got a lot more complicated as the target audience and competitive set opens up. But for local marketing lead, Nikesh Gohil, building brand awareness still has to hold firm to what makes Mini unique first, and everything else comes second.

Havas last month took the stand at Cannes Lions to launch a new AI-powered operating system that promises to optimise end-to-end delivery, from media planning to creative rollout, in the one place – dubbing it Converged OS. It's been a quiet reception for the new tech in the Australian market, but the local chiefs of the French holdco's creative and media units are confident that their new kit will deliver an edge competitors – despite ceding early mover advantage to Publicis' Marcel and WPP's Open. They reckon Havas has got the jump from a creative perspective, and that it's also the first to put a white-labelled AI platform in the hands of clients – and partners – to build out efficiencies externally. Converged has also been built privacy in mind, they claim – which is just as well, given what's about to hit.

The Chief Commercial Officer of Hawaii’s iconic Turtle Bay Resort, Robert Marusi, was the AI and marketing superstar at a recent Salesforce marketing and commerce conference in Chicago where his plan to revolutionise the Hollywood darling that’s featured in blockbuster films like Hunger Games and Pirates of the Carbibean came in chunks to prove incremental revenue gains that reassured his nervous c-suite to try the next deployment. Turtle Bay has now “absolutely swept away our competitors to the point they don’t know what I’m doing. It’s magical”, said Marusi.  

An overhaul of ecommerce, marketing and customer service technology has seen ASX-listed online retailer, Toys R Us, improve onsite conversion rates by 50 per cent. It’s also delivering much-needed site stability and reliability – something that ensured all Black Friday orders were not only received, but shipped out within 48 hours.

Over at sister brand, Babies R Us, new levels of product findability are being realised through customised journeys on its website. Migrating to out-of-the-box, well-integrated platforms including Shopify also enabled the group to onboard new acquisition, RIOT Arts and Craft, within 30 days.

The tech and data platform investment represents one pillar in a much-needed comeback plan for the Toys R Us brand, which has struggled on after the spectacular collapse of its US parent in 2018 and continues to report losses locally. For group CEO, Penny Cox, bringing stability, scalability, operational efficiency and better management of customers across its house of brands is vital to getting the business back on its feet.

It’s been said that everything becomes an ad network, eventually. The same seemingly applies to retail media – everyone’s eyeing a slice of Australia’s circa $1.5bn market. Cartology boss Mike Tyquin and Coles360's Paul Brooks suggest the arrivistes may not have what it takes and WARC’s Gregory Grudzinski forecasts consolidation ahead for those lacking scale, particularly as off-site revenues ramp up, with retailers chasing greater revenue by partnering with CTV and social platforms, per Diageo's Roger Dunn. The challenge for that approach is just how far looming privacy regime change – landing in parliament next month – curbs current practices.

Fostering a customer-focused mindset, resiliency in oneself, courageous leadership and gen AI were among the 15 topics explored by more than 1,000 Bunnings staff in its first-ever Learning Festival for support centre employees. As many brands struggle to lift flatlining customer experiences through external channels and fewer than one in 20 prioritise the role employees have in this mix, Bunnings has been busy ensuring staff in corporate HQ also have the smarts to help realise its principles of widest range, lowest prices and best experiences for customers. With sessions averaging at least 300 participants and an 80 per cent-plus engagement rate, the experimental learning platform has been deemed a hit and a sign of the connective tissue between customer delivery and employee engagement, Bunnings head of talent and capability, Mark McLaren, tells Mi3.

Too many marketers engage in the “cardinal sin” of taking B2B audience attention for granted, according to Emotive’s managing partner and head of strategy, Michael Hogg. But not this time, reckons Google’s group marketing manager, Duncan McGrath. A new campaign created by the pair and launching this week sees Google teaming up with Australia’s favourite bowlcutted netballer Sharon Strzelecki, to show how easy it is for small firms to set-up an advertising program on Google Search or YouTube with the help of AI and some entrepreneurial spirit. It’s anything but traditional B2B marketing.