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Uber’s ads business is starting to scale and its New York-based boss Michael Akkerman says Australia – one of its best performing markets, with a rapidly growing sales operation – will see the next wave of new formats first. He’s touting retail media meets “mobility media” and a collapsed funnel “brand-formance” model – brand and performance marketing in a single execution. A younger, richer set exposed to an Uber Ride brand ad is driving hard sales via Uber Eats with delivery and verified “closed loop” attribution. Akkerman was in Sydney last week wooing “hundreds” of agency execs and rattling off big numbers. Coke’s gamified ads in the ride business got a tonne of new customers and orders via Eats. Absolut Vodka got a 28 per cent sales increase, HSBC likewise a major uplift – and they are coming back for more.
 Put a performance element on a brand ad – and a percentage of people will immediately go and buy, says Akkerman, blurring the line between brand and demand that he suggests is a false marketing construct anyway. Just don’t ask for cheap reach, because advertisers are getting “100 per cent share of voice” with “actual humans, not digital representations” and because “bots don’t hail rides”.  Hence why Uber’s bullish on hitting a billion dollar ad business very soon – if it hasn’t already.

Tradie marketplace Hipages, which competes in a $50bn subsegment of the $131bn trade services market, has reached an inflection point, and is now spending circa $9-10m a year developing CRM and ERP-like services for its core audience of tradespeople. In 2025, it will begin development of new capabilities for homeowners as well. It’s all part of a plan to grow profitability and market share in the notoriously fragmented tradie ecosystem. On the marketing front, Hipages is back for a sixth year sponsoring Nine’s The Block, and it has also taken a Platinum sponsorship of rival Seven’s Dream Home, due for launch mid-year.

Karen Ganschow has spent her career trying to identify customer problems then addressing them in product propositions, engagement, experiences and services. As the former customer marketing leader and first head of data sciences at Aware Super hangs up her full-time hat, she speaks to Mi3 about the urban myths around digital experiences and customer behaviours, how technology and machine learning have brought the cost of a 360-degree, data-driven customer view – and actionable capability – down by millions, and why she’s still worried marketers are seen as the colouring-in department.

An eclectic group of business founders and c-suite execs gathered in Nine’s Sydney HQ recently as part of the Compadres business mentoring initiative created by former agency boss and founding partner of poverty non-profit, Global Citizen, Clive Burcham. The lure was a dazzling macro view on geo-politics, AI, retail, marketing, advertising and media and entertainment from a career marketer, John Batistich, who now sits or advises nine company boards from Zip Co and FoodCo to Ksubi International and the $1bn Australian toy company “you’ve never heard of”, Moose Toys.