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Andy Maxwell and Ralph van Dijk are out to undo the norms of podcast media planning, and they’re going in hard against the standards set at the big end of town. The duo last month hard-launched EarMax Media, a podcast-only media shop that promises to deliver meticulous podcast strategies via direct trade with publishers big and small. The plan is to turn around conceptions that podcast advertising just doesn’t work for some clients – a sentiment van Dijk says is courtesy of “scattergun media plans and grating, lowest common denominator creative” that has left some marketers burnt. Maxwell says a lack of knowledge on the sell-side hasn’t helped things either, but with time and plenty of “due diligence”, he’s confident EarMax can remind advertisers of podcast’s super power: Targeting engaged audiences in the context of their passions. 

Tough cost-of-living conditions have put brand trust on a par with free shipping and promotions with consumers, Mailchimp’s global CMO, Michelle Taite admits. Speaking to Mi3 at the martech vendor’s Sydney conference last week, the self-professed “design for data” marketing leader says finding a way to connect as a brand that simultaneously encourages data sharing is critical at a time where consumers are questioning concepts of value against decisions they’re making about their finances. And the only way to do that is through hyper-personalisation and B2B creative that “makes you feel uncomfortable”, she says. Which is why Taite and her team are bringing the vendor’s ‘Email is Dead’ exhibition, which ran at the London Design Museum last year, to Australia for the second edition of South by Southwest Sydney this October. More cost-effective than a TVC, she says, the exhibit attracted 25,000 attendees and 5.7 million social media impressions. It’s just one example of how Taite is striving to unite a creative B2B brand approach with first-party data acquisition enabling Mailchimp to harness insights it then uses to fuel hyper-personalised experiences, connection and commercial outcomes for marketers.