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The Government has gone all out to make its $22.7bn Future Made In Australia plan land with a splash. On paper a $45m campaign budget – with $4m for The Monkeys – should be a recipe for success. The challenge is getting voters to give a toss about a vision of future prosperity years away from today’s long-running wallet squeeze and spiralling bills. Whether Australians are willing to pay more to support beefed-up local industries over cheaper imported alternatives will determine the policy’s success or failure. Consumer researchers say it comes down to collective willingness to put the bigger picture over our own back pocket. The data says it’s highly unlikely – and the odds of an ad campaign moving the needle are pretty long.

Electric vehicle sales are decelerating while competition intensifies. Polestar has to cut through as a three-year-old brand amid free-spending century-old auto heavyweights while charging top dollar for its cars. Yet local boss Scott Maynard reckons it will double sales within the next two to three years – with bonafide sustainability creds doing heavy lifting. But he says the cars have to be hot and sexy too, otherwise nobody will buy them. Luckily Polestar is ramping up production and the new models – the SUVs Australia has gone nuts for – are hitting the streets with performance that blows most petrol sports cars away. Meanwhile tax and emissions rule changes could refuel electric vehicle growth next year – and maybe see competitors topping up its marketing budget.

The cost-of-living might be grabbing the headlines but according to panellists at the latest Australian Marketing Institute (AMI) and ThinkNewsBrands Marketing Perspectives Series event, it’s uncertainty and anxiety that’s driving the way consumers behave and make decisions. The bad news is it can send consumers into echo chambers in an attempt to find connection. The good news is it can also drive us to pragmatic action and the desire for authentic, genuine engagement.

Fifty per cent of consumers participating in Walmart’s car seat recycling program were net new customers for the retailer. BiC’s writing instruments and Royal Canin’s pet food packaging recycling programs opened up access and engagement with hard-to-reach but critical stakeholders. That’s the kind of demonstrable customer and sales value TerraCycle CEO and founder, Tom Szaky, says more marketing teams could be capturing if they leaned into waste management and recycling as less of a regulatory sustainability activity and more of a brand and business growth opportunity.

GroupM is making a major play for commerce revenues as retail media continues to rise. Ex-Amazon and IPG Mediabrands’ Cadreon boss, Marc Lomas, is spearheading the play – along with former Goodman Fielder marketer Leah Jackson, who in her previous gig played a key role in handing trade marketing budgets as well as media to Initiative. Now at GroupM Commerce, the duo will be aiming to convince more brands to take a similar approach. But that requires proving incrementality – i.e. that media investments are leading to new sales and hard growth outcomes and linking measurement across all digital channels directly to the in-store shop floor. No mean feat, but Lomas, Jackson and Mindshare CEO Maria Grivas say they can do it.  First port of call? Busting measurement mind-sets away from “dumb” ROAS metrics, per Lomas. Then convincing more brands that an integrated operating model that aligns sales, marketing, brand, ecom and retail media should no longer be an outlier.