The Australian Gas Infrastructure Group (AGIG) has removed a LinkedIn post following a complaint lodged by the Environmental Defenders Office on behalf of Comms Declare. The post asserted that gas cooktops have lower annual emissions and energy costs compared to electric alternatives in Victoria.
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‘If you’re not building mental availability in B2B, you’ll miss the 81% buying the first brand that springs to mind’; Adobe and ex-Salesforce marketing chiefs align on dangers of qualified lead reliance, AI or otherwise
According to Adobe APJ VP marketing, Duncan Egan, AI in martech is finally giving B2B marketers the tools to do what B2C marketers have been striving to do for years: Personalisation at scale, creatively and to context, not just stilted linear journeys. The rise of agentic AI to take on burdensome tasks in the marketing supply chain will further free up marketers to find efficiencies that allow them to finally think about what and why they’re pursuing a campaign, not just executing it, he claims. But even as B2B vendor ServiceNow doubles down on its own Adobe martech investments and identifies dozens of new category entry points through AI, its global CMO, Colin Fleming, says it’s not enough to just tailor an interaction to realise demand, or rely on what he calls “FOG, or ‘fact deficient, obfuscating generalities'”. Without concerted brand building, B2B marketers will keep short-changing themselves on the strategic standing they should have in organisations given the hefty 70 per cent of GDP comes from B2B transactions today, he says. If you’re not building mental availability in B2B, you’ll miss out on the 81 per cent of people buying the first brand that springs to mind, Fleming warns.
Intuit QuickBooks confronts negative reviews head-on in new campaign from R/GA
Intuit QuickBooks has partnered with R/GA Australia to launch a new campaign that challenges outdated perceptions of its products. Titled ‘QuickBooks Re-Review’, the works seeks to address past negative reviews and demonstrate improvements in the software.
Australian Bananas launches campaign to energise active lifestyles via Thinkerbell
Australian Bananas has released a new campaign promoting bananas as a source of energy for active lifestyles. Developed by Thinkerbell, the initiative includes retail outdoor, online, and social media components, with a focus on turning supermarket aisles and digital feeds yellow.
‘Clients in on it, boatloads of cash, complex, opaque corporate structures’: Principal media arbitrage trading spreads to TV, out of home, audio as holdco’s, retail media pile in; ex-IPG, GroupM, Omnicom execs on fixes
Media agency holding company CEOs are openly acknowledging the importance of arbitrage-based principal trading to their business models – and it’s spreading rapidly out of digital display into TV, audio, digital out of home, connected TVs and beyond. Former UM Global Chief Media Officer Joshua Lowcock, who left the IPG-owned media agency network last year to head up media at US group Quad, is bleak on the distorting market effects of holding companies buying media for themselves and on-selling to advertiser clients with handsome mark-ups – often in ‘bundled’ products which blend a small quota of quality inventory with the tonnage more in low value, low quality ad placements. “Both agencies and clients have built themselves a prison that they can’t get out of,” says Lowcock.And agencies resisting principal models are increasingly disadvantaged – they risk being dragged into “financial engineering” too. Per Lowcock, “somewhere in the myriad of complexity of a holding company, I can tell you it’s occurring and a large armoured vehicle with boatloads of cash is pulling up somewhere and unloading it into a holding company … well, it’s probably more electronically transferred.”Should anyone care that agencies are finding ways to make money that procurement-driven clients are in effect incentivising by refusing to pay fees for service – especially if the media bought and on-sold arguably does the job?”It’s not doing the job because clients are not getting the media that they should be getting to drive the ultimate business performance,” Lowcock argues. “They’re getting the media that drives the agency’s bottom line,” per Lowcock. He describes it as a nutritionist advising a diet of “junk food”, with clients at risk of morbid obesity.Indy shop Media by Mother, headed by former GroupM exec Dave Gaines, says he doesn’t do principal media deals or arbitrage but “it’s surprisingly hard to get people to align on business success outcomes” versus the short-term allure of trading off not paying media agency fees for the hidden costs in mark-ups and tech and data fees typically wrapped into principal media agreements. Moreover, Gaines says retail media is making the situation worse with retailers becoming media owners and seeking their own preferential deals. While traditional media owners complain about principal media trading eating their margin and agency mark-ups making them appear expensive, Gaines says the truth is, “a lot of the big TV networks don’t like to have to deal directly with clients. They’re happy to offload a lot of this media inventory because then they haven’t got to worry about selling it”.Either way, few owners will complain publicly for fear of retribution, i.e. being cut out of group spend, per Nick Manning, non-executive chairman of Media Marketing Compliance and adviser to peak US advertiser body the ANA. Manning sees principal media’s rise leading holdcos to becoming just the same as the walled gardens whose business models they are trying to emulate.”They’re all building AI tools that will do creative production, media distribution and analytics together in one in one box. It will be a black box, and clients won’t be able to tell a lot about what’s going on in there, but it will be an arbitrage-led model.”Quad’s Lowcock says he’s happy to tell any finance, procurement, marketing, legal and internal auditing department “all the answers” as to what goes on and how to fix it – and does just that in this podcast.
KFC Australia introduces Kwench beverage range in Wollongong trial
KFC has brought its new Kwench beverage range to Australia, launching with a trial in Wollongong. The new offering includes ten beverages across four distinct categories: Lemonades, Boba Refreshers, Krunch Shakes, and Iced Koffee Krunch.
Microsoft Advertising’s Nicole Prior to helm IAB’s Executive Technology Council
IAB Australia has appointed Nicole Prior, Head of Media and Adtech Solutions APAC at Microsoft Advertising, as the Chair of the the Executive Technology Council (ETC). She succeeds Adele Wieser, Managing Director of Index Exchange, who has completed her two-year term as Chair.
‘Clients in on it, boatloads of cash, complex, opaque corporate structures’: Principal media arbitrage trading spreads to TV, out of home, audio as holdcos, retail media pile in; ex-IPG, GroupM, Omnicom execs on fixes
Media agency holding company CEOs are openly acknowledging the importance of arbitrage-based principal trading to their business models – and it’s spreading rapidly out of digital display into TV, audio, digital out of home, connected TV and beyond. Former UM Global Chief Media Officer Joshua Lowcock, who left the IPG-owned media agency network last year to head up media at US group Quad, is bleak on the distorting market effects of holding companies buying media for themselves and on-selling to advertiser clients with handsome mark-ups – often in ‘bundled’ products which blend a small quota of quality inventory with low value tonnage. “Both agencies and clients have built themselves a prison that they can’t get out of,” says Lowcock, adding that holdcos are hiding “boatloads of cash” within the “myriad complexity” of their structures – and that rank and file staffers don’t even know they are doing it. He thinks a client-driven “ugly” reckoning is coming that will pull down the principal media house of cards – and has the five questions procurement, marketing, finance, legal and compliance should be asking. But evidence so far suggests that day may be some way off. Ex-GroupM exec Dave Gaines, now CEO at Media by Mother, says retail media is making the situation worse – but also that media owners complaining of getting squeezed are likewise reluctant to apply margin-sapping sales resource to direct client deals. Either way, few owners will complain publicly for fear of retribution, i.e. being cut out of group spend, per Nick Manning, non-executive chairman of Media Marketing Compliance and adviser to peak US advertiser body the ANA. Manning sees principal media’s rise leading holdcos to becoming just the same as the walled gardens whose “black box” business models they are trying to emulate, a “zero sum game”. But for those that care, here are the fixes.
Dan Ferguson ends 7-year tenure as Adore Beauty CMO
Adore Beauty CMO Dan Ferguson has parted ways with the business after seven years. His exit follows the opening of the once ecommerce-only beauty retailers first physical store in Southland, Victoria last month – the first of at least 25 retail locations the planned nationally as the brand looks to grow its active customers from 800,000 to 1.25 million.
ALDI Australia, Budgy Smuggler launch hot cross bun-themed Easter swimwear collection
ALDI Australia has gone hard on hot cross bun season this year with the addition of a Giant Hot Cross Bun to its Easter bakery range, alongside the launch of a hot cross bun-themed swimwear collection in collaboration with Budgy Smuggler Australia.