Deep Dive

The intense heat and conjecture coming on the subscription models of Netflix, Stan, Paramount+, Disney+ and beyond may, ironically, not cut so deep for battle-weary publishers if they keep moving fast with new bundled products, content, AI and UX. That’s Mark Reinke’s view, who moved from financial services to the media industry in 2019 and admits to a baptism of fire – publishing is tough, News Corp to many even tougher. Under Reinke, News Corp has launched subscription puzzles, mindfulness and wagering sites, its first crime podcast series with Apple that is casting for a global paid subscription audience, and a younger version of The Australian – The Oz – which looks more like Instagram and has attracted 500,000 younger readers since launching six months ago. Propensity modelling is part of it – Reinke and team have worked out they have 48-72 hours from when a new user arrives to get the experience and content mix right or see their “staircase” to a paying subscription face trouble. And News Corp’s Australian experience is matching – ahead in some areas – what is underway globally among publishers according to Tim Rowell, APAC boss of subscription platform Piano, which counts 3,000 media titles worldwide using its tech. Rowell says editors and journalists have seen many of their assumptions challenged about how audiences consume and behave with content – the old newspaper lifestyle sections are returning as new gold in rebundled digital subscription packs. And there are big lessons for brands, their advertising plans and content marketing investments. Heads-up: move faster, experiment more, repackage content, use AI to find smaller but lucrative emerging audiences and blow up your assumptions.

At the height of anti-vaxxer revolt, with protest boiling out on the streets, NAB decided to nail its colours to the flag and launch a pro-vaccine campaign – changing its name to JAB seven days after signing off the brief. A bold move for a risk-averse ASX-listed bank and NAB was bracing for blowback from “keyboard warriors”. Within hours, it arrived in spades. But the bank “held the line”, per NAB Head of Group Brand Faycal Ben Abdellaziz – and the stream of vitriol actually helped propel NAB JAB to go viral. What’s more, anti-vaxxers vowing to close accounts were largely all talk. Instead, NAB gained thousands of customers, while engagement rates and brand reputation metrics shot to multiyear highs, and played a role in Australia reopening weeks ahead of schedule. With a downturn likely, Ben Abdellaziz suggests JAB’s legacy is bravery and that the bank won’t let “an extremely vocal minority” water down its approach to bold work. NAB, he says, won’t be pulling back on brand spend either, whatever the economy throws up next.

Richard Facioni, chair of retail groups Alquemie and Mosaic Brands – with upwards of 1,000 stores and brands including Surf Stitch, General Pants, Lego Stores, Ginger & Smart, Noni B and Rivers – thinks ecom pure players may be in trouble. Shoppers have swung back to physical stores just as digital customer acquisition costs “are going through the roof”. If marketers turn off the taps, sales evaporate, which could spell danger for the likes of The Iconic and Adore Beauty. Versus last year, “we’re definitely seeing a pullback in online,” he says, with some brands back as much as 30 per cent. Meanwhile, retailers that stocked up to head off crunched supply chains may find themselves scrambling to offload in January as a “definite slowdown” bites. Facioni hates the word ‘omnichannel’, but says it’s the future of profitable retail – hence lining up a physical presence for $50m acquisition Surf Stitch, currently an online pure-player. Fresh back from Dreamforce in San Francisco, Facioni’s helping steer both group’s commerce and ERP stacks, with a customer data platform likely to follow. He also predicts social commerce will be the next revenue frontier, while November has already become the new December as deep discounts shift shopping habits – and eat margin.

When Aimee Buchanan jumped ship to arch rival GroupM, the knives were out for OMD’s joint CEOs Laura Nice and Sian Whitnall who stepped up to take charge of Australia's biggest media agency network. “The only way is down,” per one nameless exec. One year on, they’ve so far proved the doubters wrong, retaining Coles and landing the consolidated NSW Government account, where a new behavioural science unit helped nudge the business over the line. By 2025, they’re aiming to launch ten similar new products in a push to break the media agency mould, with CX and UX top of the agenda. Unlike some rivals, they’re uninterested in going toe-to-toe with the big consultants eating market share, while suggesting rivals remain conflicted on tech recommendations now driving a big chunk of their cash. They think a very different leadership style to the previous regime is now paying off, and have even accepted the so-called ‘twats’ model – staff mostly in Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays – is working. 

Telstra’s top marketer Jeremy Nicholas has moved on to run the telco’s digital sales and service operations, handing the CMO baton last month to former IAG marketing boss Brent Smart. Both are still working side by side at Telstra. The remits of digital, CX, ecom and marketing are increasingly intertwined - Nicholas now has responsibility for the 80 per cent of Telstra’s customer sales and service engagements which start online. Nicholas says he was partly lured to the role because brands are “defined increasingly by their customer experience and increasingly that’s a digital experience.” On the flipside, Brent Smart in 2019 was one of the few marketers who publicly called out the tech platforms which power blue chip customer experience deployments by saying marketing technology, or martech, was quickly turning vanilla. His position is softening. Here’s the full lowdown from two execs with among the biggest marketing and digital CX remits in the country. 

Coles is playing catch-up on the billion dollar retailer media market but is now officially in play. Coles 360 boss Paul Brooks reckons second mover advantage, “humility” said by some to be lacking to date, and a non-aggression pact between Coles business units, merchandise and suppliers will fast track its ambitions to be a global leader. Coles supplier media chief Jess Torre said brands are digging an approach “that feels different” to what has gone before. Agencies though will probably have to wait until 2024 for any proactive engagement.

Woolworth's-owned Cartology might have made the early running in building its $300m supermarket media unit in a category with commercial potential of $1bn but the broader "owned" media sector - media assets owned by brands including websites, apps, email and stores - is four times bigger than grocery and liquor at $3.9bn, according to a new benchmark report from media valuation firm Sonder. "Aggregated’ retail" - think Officeworks, Big W, Myer and JB Hi-Fi - is a bigger prize than supermarkets and Sonder's calculations of owned-media margins in the 80-90 per cent range are turning CEO and CFO heads. That could alter the balance of power between marketing, sales and merchandise, and potentially change the dynamics between paid, owned and earned investment. Sonder founders Jonathan Hopkins and Angus Frazer run the rule over five standout categories – grocery and liquor, aggregated retail, telco, petrol and convenience, and finance – and identify which players may be next to market (hint, anyone with a loyalty programme) and the implications for Australian media market dynamics. 

Delays to the new online ratings currency from Ipsos have seen rival Nielsen go to market aggressively – and publishers are re-signing 12 month contracts. While the big players bar Yahoo and Facebook are all committed to the new hybrid Ipsos system, the independents say it is too expensive and crucially, agencies are not asking them to do it. Even the sole independent that has committed to Ipsos has just signed a new Nielsen deal. That risks a two-metric economy over the year ahead, though IAB CEO Gai Le Roy said holdco-owned agencies will switch to Ipsos when it finally gets to market, forcing a broader shift. Investment bosses warned any further timing blowouts could have knock-on effects.

The ACCC is entering the next phase of its sweeping five-year Digital Platforms Services Inquiry with social media squarely in the spotlight and TikTok getting plenty of attention. Mi3 ploughed through dozens of the latest submissions to the Digital Platforms Services Inquiry so you don't have to. The key points? Australia’s TV and digital industry bodies are at odds on whether TikTok has altered Facebook’s dominance of social media, its control of audiences and the billions of dollars of ad revenue at stake. Leading TV networks, meanwhile, can’t fully agree a position as Nine alters course with Seven and Paramount-Ten. ADMA says regulate TikTok, Free TV says Meta is still the only game in town – though Nine, one of its own members, disagrees. But Australia’s major peak bodies, consumer advocates and think tanks are aligned on the need to hold platforms – and influencers – accountable for scams and misinformation by strengthening consumer law and enforcing compliance. ACMA is mulling $250k fines per scam. Here's how key players are aiming to influence the ACCC's next steps.