Author: admin

After a stellar innings at Uber, APAC marketing boss Andy Morley is about to leave the building after contemplating his next ten years. An annual RV road trip with four families is about to start, then the hunt to join a growth-minded company, likely in the new year, with an appetite for “big swings” without a “set playbook”. He’s also got some wise words for the next wave of marketers – add strategy and brand marketing skills to the tactical, channel nous many are chasing.

Youi CMO Angela Greenwood is getting a lot more money to spend – and it’s her 48-strong in-house team spending it – because growth is powering at the insurance brand. Per Outsurance financials, Youi’s FY25 performance was among the strongest in the South Africa-based group: Operating profit up 52 per cent and headline earnings up 45.5 per cent. While some of that is due to market conditions and pricing, Greenwood says the proof is in the pudding. Here’s how she renovated rather than rebuilt the brand around the customer – genuinely – including one called Scott; how her CEO was pleased when people moaned to Ad Standards; and how Greenwood thinks in-house agencies can deliver massive growth at pace. Plus the book everyone should read, the one-line mantra to at least stick on the laptop – but why trusting one set of metrics or models is “dangerous”.

Metricon marketer Angela Purdy jumped from automotive into housebuilding just before the Covid bubble exploded, almost taking the firm down with it. Amid the rebuild, the creaking CRM – which risked data leakage and all the associated penalties if used to share data with agencies – had to go, as did old school multichannel marketing, flipped for first-party omnichannel methods that meant it could link ads to leads to physical show home visits. Less than two years on, Metricon and Starcom, with help from The Trade Desk, have just won the MFA’s award for best use of data. Leads and conversions are soaring, costs are down and double duty “brand-tail” ads co-funded by 18 suppliers can be mapped to in-store visits. Plus they’ve hit a magic formula to create a lead – seven touch-points – while clocking what actually contributes to a conversion versus last click shenanigans. “It’s given value in channels that maybe I wouldn’t have thought about before,” says Purdy. The sales team – and those of supplier partners like Dulux and Reece – now know what marketing investment is delivering. “The conversation has completely changed for our business.” The Trade Desk boss James Bayes says “it feels crazy” that brands would do anything but omnichannel, given tech and scale is now available – and media metrics no longer cut it.

Smaller, higher touch niche publishers are theoretically prime targets for large blue chip brands chasing authenticity, trust and community connection. So it was telling that Mastercard, Uber and Hello Fresh were among the handful of brands that sent marketers to connect with independent publishers via a speed dating format representing millions of Australians at the Digital Publishers Alliance upfront last week. Holdcos often get fully-earned stick from Mi3, but (bar Dentsu) they were out in numbers. Not that it really matters to the publishers – most are going direct for the bulk of their business. But for marketers seeking engagement, agility and a hands-on execution that delivers connection beyond reach, here are a dozen or so of Australia’s independent publishers that Mi3 met on its speed dates that claim big numbers. Some rival, even top, mainstream mastheads and streamers with crazy engagement rates and a proximity to their market that platform players definitely cannot match. For Mi3’s (independent) money, they’re likely worth a punt – and perhaps a chunk of marketers’ experimental budgets that typically go to the shiny and new.