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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.

Lee Stephens, the former boss of Australia’s first listed digital agency e-mitch – a spinoff by the late Harold Mitchell’s Mitchell & Partners – and onetime boss of Carat ANZ is back in the media agency game with a plan to do it differently. Meerkat is an unlisted public company to facilitate better equity management for execs and employees and the agency is moving to channel planning and buying based on the best “media moments” for a target audience or segment. Meerkat will also eschew sector specific targeting algorithms from the likes of The Trade Desk for custom-built versions for Meerkat clients. 

It is a mistake to pit the priorities of online safety against those of online privacy, and many of the people who do so represent the interests of giant digital platforms that promote the idea of a decentralised open web, despite having enclosed and centralised control of that same global infrastructure. That was a key message from Privacy Commissioner Carly Kind, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, lawyer and human rights activist Lizzie O'Shea, and UNSW Criminology Professor Michael Salter at SXSW last week. The "data extractive business models" of digital giants came under heavy fire and limiting those models was described as the best way to limit privacy and safety harms by removing the economic incentives that underpin "surveillance capitalism."

Greenhushing versus greenwashing: How companies tout their sustainability progress is increasingly a binary argument as they balance the risk of saying nothing at all with regulatory and consumer retribution for ego marketing or making claims they can’t evidentially back up. Which is why the AANA’s CEO Josh Faulks says its newly updated Environmental Claims Code was so important to get into the advertising industry’s hands sooner rather than later.

Clear career goals, an insatiable desire to lean in and learn new skills, and mentorship have all helped emerging marketing and business leaders from ANZ Bank and Move Bank to be recognised in this year’s this year’s Australian Marketing Institute's Marketing Excellence awards program. And their passion for marketing as both a growth engine and as a team sport could teach other brands a thing or two.

When Mike Napolitano landed at DDB Group Melbourne the once mighty agency had withered to 15 employees. Four years later, more than 100 people make up the integrated structure that has delivered three-fold revenue growth for the Melbourne business and a conga line of new clients. The Omnicom group win at Coles was the big one – but now in the hot seat at CEO, the challenge for Napolitano is to keep the growth coming, as the comps get harder. But he has a highly complex plan: Hire really good people; let them do their best work – and keep senior leaders on the tools.