Opinion

Outrage, nark and constant negativity in comment threads is a terrible proxy for audience engagement, even for trade media. Everyone's talking about disruption so how about industry and publishers walk the talk with a trial in which comments require a log-in. Something - and someone - has to give. It's time.      

It's been quite a year for the market, Mi3 and the huge response to our launch in May to help stimulate more intelligent conversations, debate and coverage across the marketing, media, agency and technology sectors. Much more is to come from Mi3 in 2020 but here's the top conversations that Mi3 readers - and podcast subscribers - piled into this year. There's insights everywhere. Take the refresher here. 

Here's a selection of 2019’s most entertaining and cringeworthy words, phrases and acronyms that have pervaded meetings, documents, emails and presentations this year. Yes, they have all been heard – seriously, people actually talk like this – by a small group of trusted corporate nonsense freedom fighters. Liberation for 2020! Enjoy the festive spirit.

The first plank in Mi3’s plans to lead intelligent industry coverage and conversation for 2020 sees Josh McDonnell join the editorial team, covering the media and agency sectors and marketing’s next generation of leaders and talent. 

The buzz was good, the turnout strong, EQ debates high and industry big guns from IAG's Brent Smart to Seven's James Warburton and Dentsu's Henry Tajer threw some curveballs. So let's talk more about impact and effectiveness for MFA Ex 2020   

Whole-brain creativity, personalisation at massive scale, relentless disruption, controlling the consumer and the importance of failure. These are a few of the themes and standout topics from Advertising Week New York.

Advertising Week NYC was itself a reflection of the state of the marketing and advertising industry today – chaotic, complex, anxious, and an overwhelming amount of content impossible for any one individual to consume and comprehend. And yes, there's the now well-covered and hotly debated Pitbull controversy.  

Next week, the research company SMI will release its report on media advertising spending in Australia during August. It’s going to be ugly. The report will confirm that spending is as sick as it was during the 2007-08 GFC. It's time for every industry body to step-up and hustle - together, says Neil Shoebridge.

Smart thinking should get airtime. This weekly series features what women across marketing, media, agency and tech leadership are reading globally and thinking locally. Our launch this week has Audi CMO Nikki Warburton on the troubled tenure of CMOs, IBM's CMO Amanda Johnston-Pell on AI hitting the boardroom, Nine's MD for commercial partnerships, Lizzie Young, warning about the "drug" of social referral traffic, Professor Karen Nelson-Field on the rise of an "attention economy" holding company and WPP's Chief Customer Officer, Sunita Gloster, takes on the Mark Ritson. Check-in each week for more perspectives from dozens of industry's leading women.