News Analysis

Broad market frustration and sometimes disbelief at the continued delays from broadcasters promising an audience measurement system that shows how Australians are consuming TV content via rooftop aerials, connected TVs and mobile devices is turning. Terms like ‘world first’, ‘gold standard’ and a ‘significant development’ are back instead of market angst. But there’s still nine months to go in the (potentially) great transition. 

SCA’s shareprice hasn’t been kind to outgoing CEO Grant Blackley – the broadcast and digital audio group is a third of its market capitalisation pre-Covid and investors have been unconvinced by the earnings drag from the circa $50m sunk into the Listnr audio platform - and a six-year plan to have the old analogue radio broadcaster transform to a digital media company. That’s the penalty for being a legacy media group reinventing itself for a new digital order but the tide might be turning. Previously sceptical investment analysts are warming to the Listnr strategy – approaching 1.4 million signed-in users in the two years since launch – as new CEO John Kelly claims SCA is capturing 50 per cent of market growth in digital audio advertising. He also flagged SCA’s intent to fast-track the Listnr bet to break-even ahead of its market guidance for 2025 – Listnr needs to write upwards $45m in revenues to get there.

Dentsu Media ANZ just inked a deal certain to set tyres smoking among media companies and rival agency groups; the local unit of the Japanese-owned global communications holding company just went outside the camp to ensure it’s place in the lead pack deploying AI in automated econometrics and market mix modelling. The most unsexiest of capabilities in marketing is about to beat slower humans doing bespoke projects and go mainstream with faster, cheaper and more predictive automation. The new alliance, with an undisclosed exclusivity period, pledges better results for blue chip clients by planning, buying and even changing media and publishers mid-flight based on pre-determined real-time tracking of business KPis, including revenue or profit - instead of just traditional media and brand metrics.  

Economic and ad spend data crunched by Dentsu Media through the December and January quarters signals a concerning gap between company marketing budgets allocated to advertising to stimulate demand and current consumer spending activity, business investment and company profits. In a briefing to Dentsu clients, the media group said ad spend was declining seven times faster than Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data for sales of consumer goods and services. It's a warning on company sentiment, Dentsu Media CEO Danny Bass told Mi3 – but the marketing, media and ad industry spends too much time “talking to itself” on the empirical evidence of maintaining brand investment in a downturn to ensure mid-term business performance. Instead, the industry should be building the business case to help marketers inform finance teams and break ‘group think’ on the P&L impact of fast and deep marketing cuts in tougher economic conditions.     

News Corp landed some heavy hits this week at the start of its D_Coded national roadshow, building out its pledge over the past year to link audiences to ads and ecom transactions in a bustling “full funnel” suite of new data and tools it calls “Total Commerce”. The publisher has struggled to tap the market stampede to digital video formats but armed with new reach and audience engagement data from measurement firm Adgile, it wants a bite of the TV networks’ BVOD boom and social video with shoppable vertical video for its base of 75 million streams per month. The publisher said it had increased its investment in video tenfold this year. Buyers say the momentum is now with News, raising the pressure on Nine. But how all of this plays out under looming privacy changes is the question everyone now faces.

Australia’s biggest media agency OMD told staff yesterday of a sweeping overhaul of its structure, people and business strategy. It has appointed six new leaders from inside the firm that will continue its “agnostic” media and platform approach. The firm is now going deeper into client transformation programs in which customer experience, martech and market mix modelling [MMM] become core services – not add-ons – in all client scopes of work. Co-CEO Sian Whitnall also nodded to the pioneering “omnichannel work” of former Chief Investment Officer Melissa Hey who “was incredible” – Whitnall said OMD had no desire to block Hey's rise to a Group Chief Investment Officer role at GroupM which Omnicom Media Group [OMG] couldn’t offer – Kristiaan Kroon has that gig.

Digital ad industry lobby groups IAB Australia and ADMA have urged industry to push back hard on government proposals that severely limit key pillars of digital advertising – including tracking, targeting, data sharing and what constitutes personal information. But privacy advocates suggest industry is playing two cards – it has claimed for years that customers want personalisation yet now decries the collapse of business models if people are given the choice to opt out. They suggest companies should prepare to walk away from business models predicated on ingesting and monetising personal data, the workings of which are not fully understood even by big tech companies dominating the advertising landscape.

After designing a “more for more” consumer marketing program to counter rising raw material costs and appointing start-up agency It’s Friday to handle the retailer’s creative business, Domino's Australian CMO Adam Ballesty has exited the Brisbane-based global pizza chain and one-time stock market darling after joining the group 2021. Last week Domino’s share price dived by nearly a quarter to $54.37 after it warned sales and home delivery orders were slowing and pre-tax profits were down 30.6 per cent for the December half across the global network. Although European and Asian sales were hit harder than Australia, the stock slide continued to $49.96 yesterday, valuing the once hot quick service restaurant at $4.45bn. During Covid, sales roared along with a $12bn-plus market cap – yesterday it was trading at a third of its value compared to September 2021. 

Marketing investment analytics platform Mutinex has landed $5m backing with B2B SaaS specialist VC fund, Equity Venture Partners, leading a round that takes the start-up to a $37m valuation. The fund thinks Mutinex can rapidly scale to become a $400m company as blue chip CFOs and CMOs rethink budget allocation and rewire processes around the platform. Founders Henry Innis and Matt Farrugia say competition from holdcos and consulting firms attempting to muscle-in is giving way to conversations around licensing the platform to their clients – effectively turning them into resellers. Dentsu Media boss Danny Bass is a likely early candidate.