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Australian ad spend declines as digital media shows resilience

Guideline SMI’s media agency data for January 2025 indicates a 5% decline in Australian advertising expenditure compared to the same period last year. This downturn is reflected across various media channels, although certain digital segments aligned with traditional media content have demonstrated growth.

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Freedom Furniture finds AI search pays early dividend with an uplift of 5.5% in average order value

After years of digital transformation, Freedom Furniture has hit the accelerator. With a fivefold increase in SKUs and a renewed focus on omnichannel strategy, the retailer needed a search solution that could keep up. Enter Coveo’s AI-powered search, a tool designed to serve up fast, relevant results in real time—without overwhelming customers with choice paralysis. The system only went live for customers just before Christmas, but early data is promising: return visits are climbing, and average order values are up. Now, as Freedom preps for the next phase—an overhaul of its marketing tech stack—Digital GM Paula Mitchell is deep in the trenches of an RFP process that could complete a five-year transformation journey. So, what’s driving this shift? And what’s next for one of Australia’s biggest home retailers? Let’s unpack it.

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Toyota Australia hits $20 million in grassroots sports support

Toyota Australia has hit a major milestone in its Good for Footy and Good for Cricket Programs, reaching $20 million in contributions to grassroots Australian cricket and football clubs since the initiative was launched in 2008.

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Airwallex, McLaren and Reko Rennie collaborate for 2025 Melbourne GP

Global financial platform, Airwallex, has announced a collaboration with the McLaren Formula 1 Team and First Nations artist Reko Rennie for the 2025 Melbourne Grand Prix. This partnership will see the unveiling of a bespoke McLaren Artura supercar featuring Rennie’s design.

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Stores first, ads second: Adore Beauty CMO on flipping from ecom pureplay to 25 locations – and what’s next for retail media play that’s ‘larger than most popular TV shows’

Ecom pureplays are buckling under crunched unit economics and rising pressure from Temu, Shein and Amazon. Adore Beauty has flipped to omni, with queues literally out of the shopping centre for its first store launch this month. CMO Dan Ferguson says recently installed CEO Sacha Laing has outlined a crystal-clear strategy: physical stores, profit-powering retail media, ramping up owned brands and better gross margins while notching higher CLVs by priming more active customers. Here’s the plan – and what’s next for product, stores and a retail media strategy that taps an audience Ferguson says is “larger than most TV programs”.

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‘The hippies were mostly right’: Sir John Hegarty says societal unrest will trigger ‘another creative revolution’ to challenge ‘left brain, rational thinking’ in business, marketing, media; Influencers a clue – ‘inspire’ don’t ‘interrupt’

The British adman who packed Brad Pitt into a Levi’s ad campaign before he stormed Hollywood and created Audi’s tagline ‘Vorsprung Durch Technik’, thinks the global state of business, media and communications is so dominated by “left brain rationalists” that another 60s-style creative revolution is brewing. “That’s got to happen. We are genuinely losing [public] support,” he told delegates in his Business of Creativity program in Sydney and Melbourne this week. Data was important, he ceded, but was only “knowledge, not inspiration”, pointing to his iPhone on stage: “Absolutely no data went into the creation of this product, none at all.” Telstra’s CMO Brent Smart and Publicis Groupe Chief Media Officer Imogen Hewitt were in eclectic solidarity on a panel in Sydney after Hegarty’s keynote although all three stopped short of welcoming the next “creative revolution” if it rebirthed hippy fashion. 

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