Episodes
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Welcome to the latest Mumbrellacast, where unfortunately Karl Stefanovic won't be joining us this week.
Instead, we'll make do with the freshest five-piece since Jackson 5: Abe Udy, Tim Burrowes, Eleanor Dickinson, Nathan Jolly, and Lauren Joyce.
If you were wondering why you kept tripping over discarded calculators on your way to work this week, it's because Tuesday marked the end of the financial year -- which means Mumbrella can reveal the winners and losers on the Unmade Index, a Tim Burrowes invention which tracks all the publicly listed media and marketing companies on the stock exchange, and cruelly bundles them into judgmental groups based solely on their performance over the year. Despicable! Anyway, we chat about that.
Tim Duggan co-founded pop culture website Junkee way back when Tiktok was still a Kesha song. This week, he fronted the National Press Club and took a club to the national press, arguing that the entire Australian media ecosystem needs to be protected with tax offsets, social media payments, AI royalties, and government ad money if it is ever going to move off the endangered list and onto the undangered list (not a direct quote).
And this week, former Kyle and Jackie O boss Duncan Campbell did a media tour to promote his new single "It Wasn't Me ft. Shaggy", appearing on the Game Changers Radio and the Quarter Hour podcasts where he spoke freely about his time as a professional Kyle-wrangler -- and distanced himself from the 10-year contract and the decision to network the show into Melbourne. Lauren was Duncan's successor and adds more insider-baseball context to some of his comments -- before putting on a pair of debating gloves and duking it out with a remote Hal Crawford in this week's heated debate (cue sting)!!!
Based on some of Duncan's comments about ARN management's tendency to handle Kyle with baby mitts, Hal and Lauren debate whether or not "on-air talent should be managed with a firm hand". Hal takes the affirmative, Lauren rebuts like the prodigious year-six third-speaker debating champ that she was/is, and everybody listening is the real winner.
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Welcome to the latest episode of the Mumbrellacast. Today, we're joined by Tommy Robinson to discuss whether or not those bloody—oh wait, our lawyers have advised us to drop that segment, so we will instead start by discussing Karl Stefanovic's perfectly played-out cancellation from Nine.
Today, after 20 years behind the Today desk, Karl Stefanovic has finally been axed by Nine, after months of ramping up the right-wing content on his independent video podcast The Karl Stefanovic Show until he hit breaking point with far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, who Karl openly declared his love for.
What's next for Karl's career? Can he make his millions without falling into bed with a major media company? Who will replace Karl on Today? Will Karl's new ARN radio show with controversy-free pundit Eddie McGuire go live at 1pm tomorrow afternoon, as scheduled? Will it still be uploaded to 9now if it does? Has Karl pushed his public persona too far to be a safe bet for a Nine competitor looking to snap up a heavyweight free agent? Will advertisers go near him after this? Will the witches stop waving their wands at Nine? Will Karl have to pay for his own table at the Logies?
These aren't rhetorical questions. We ask and answer them all.
A decent portion of our listeners may be tuning in from Cannes Lions in France, as they take a break from the relentless champagne, sunshine, and trophies to check back in with what's happening back home. Matt Jones, founder of Four Pillars Gin, Mumbrella columnist, and intrepid traveller, reports back from his very first Cannes Lions and tries to make sense of it all.
And finally, we look at the current race for the NRL broadcast rights, the most drawn out negotiations since Waco. It seems to be down to Foxtel and Nine, who are both trying to take the entire rights package, and box the other out, after 28 years of peacefully co-hosting the NRL. During the week, we asked whether Foxtel's bid for the prize is even legal, with the anti-siphoning laws dictating that free-to-air broadcasters need to have the first bite of the cherry when it comes to major sporting competitions.
Today, we take this discussion even further, and debate whether the anti-siphoning laws should just be abandoned altogether. We flip a coin, take opposing sides of that coin, and fight it out, primary-school debate-style. No fourth speakers or rebuttals allowed!
As with most debates, free speech is the real winner. Karl and Tommy will be very proud of us...
Happy listening!
Get the latest episodes here.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio.
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Six years ago, Rob McFaul launched UK-based non-profit Purpose Disruptors with an aim to help the advertising and marketing industry move towards sustainability. Purpose Disruptors has just launched in Australia, with former OMD and Mindshare boss James Greet as its local boss.
On this week's Mumbrellacast, Tim Burrowes speaks to McFaul and Greet about the non-profit's mission in Australia, and how changing the mindset around client briefs so they understand how climate change is impacting marketers, and how marketers are impacting climate change.
Greet and McFaul said that most advertising clients aren't aware of the emissions impact their campaigns have on the environment.
"Climate change and biodiversity loss isn't a future problem, it's right here, right now," Greet tells Burrowes.
"It's a problem for businesses right here. All businesses are seeing a massive impact because of the impact of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss on their supply chains. That's happening now. Australians are feeling the impact of that through cost of living and increase in pricing on food and insurance and so forth. Which has to mean, if it's affecting consumers and all businesses now, it's got to be a problem for marketers.
"The challenge we have here is that I still don't think many marketers understand that or see the connection yet, let alone actually understand what's the relevant way in which they can get involved."
Greet said he was compelled to make a difference after realising he had spent the best part of four decades religiously following briefs for clients without thinking about the wider impact.
"You suddenly realise the better I am at my job, the worse I'm making the stuff I really care about, which is nature and environment." -
Welcome to a very radio-heavy Mumbrellacast, where we discuss Kyle Sandilands' big settlement with ARN, SCA's sacking of three regional breakfast show, and even attempt to take Pauline Hanson's side on an issue or two (actually, just one). Best of all, we are joined by Lauren Joyce, who spent some time inside ARN, dealing with some of Kyle's mad fucking detractors.
We begin with Kyle Sandilands' settlement with ARN, which will see him take home $12m plus change, millions in advertising, and Smallzy's collection of Reeboks. It's hard to see who won, ultimately, aside from activist group Mad Fucking Witches. But, with Sandilands and ARN still in business through a revenue share agreement, will this public separation be enough to see the MFW back off ARN?
Southern Cross Austereo is the latest media company forced into "rightsizing" as business-types call the sacking of humans. The newly merged media company has cancelled three of its regional radio shows as it looks to cut 250-300 jobs across the entire company, and save $150m.
It's a big mission, but isn't regional breakfast radio the wrong area to look for savings, especially as the gulf between the monolithic tech giants, and local DJs discussing the weather between No Doubt tunes continues to grow wider? What has SCA lost by getting rid of its local talent?
This week Google flew marketing legend Les Binet to Sydney where he revealed the secret to marketing. His take? The more you spend, the better your results. Not surprisingly, such a simplistic take received a little push back from the Mumbrella team.
And finally, following Pauline Hanson's declaration that she would axe the SBS and use that money to invade Greenland or something, Hal Crawford and Tim Burrowes take opposing sides and debate whether the multicultural broadcaster should exist at all.
Oh, and did we mentioned -- we've got an exclusive snippet of Kyle Sandilands talking about-- well, you'll just have to listen in.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
On this week's Mumbrellacast, we dive into today's radio ratings and look at who will fill the Kyle-sized hole in the Sydney breakfast market, debate Vinyl Group's masterplan, and chat to Nicky Barton from Mutinex about why brands are cutting marketing spend to long term channels.
We start with today's radio ratings, and the race to secure the Sydney breakfast radio crown now that Kyle and Jackie O are doing their broadcasts live from the Federal Court.
Triple M, ABC Breakfast, Smooth, Nova, and Gold all enjoyed increases in audience share for the timeslot, with Nova's new breakfast duo Ricki-Lee Coulter and Tim Blackwell managing to net the station's best breakfast ratings in 17 years, and Christian O'Connell starting to build an audience in his newest market. Tim also shares some interesting info about the most-listened-to shows nationally, and finds that all that glitters may well be Gold.
This week, Vinyl Group took over Pedestrian Group from Nine, and the licence for Time Out Australia and, according to CEO Josh Simons, did both deals for the price of a latte. It's the latest land rush for the aggressively minded media company, but does buying and bundling a bunch of once-hip, loss-making, youth-targeted media titles add up to a profitable business or are you just left with a stack of once-hip, loss-making, youth-targeted media titles? I guess we shall see.
And finally, marketing effectiveness company Mutinex has released data that shows how Aussies brands are crowding into marketing channels that are already saturated, while cutting spend in those that build long-term memories, such as television, talkies, and the wireless.
Mutinex head of marketing science Nicky Barton joins the Mumbrellacast to discuss the findings and to be peppered with a barrage of questions from Hal and Tim.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
On this week's Mumbrellacast, Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine joins the team to discuss a variety of topics, including her company's latest survey, which saw Optus pass Woolworths as Australia's most distrusted brand -- quite a dubious honour, indeed.
There's a Paul Kelly lyric: "To be good takes a long time, but to be bad no time at all." We saw that song play out when Qantas went from an untouchable Aussie icon to a national disgrace during the pandemic, and we've seen it happen to the once-sparkling reputations of Optus, Coles, and Woolworths over the past few years, which we discuss.
We also look at the continuing downturn in advertising spend in Australia through the lens of the new Guideline SMI figures, and try very hard to find a bright spot amongst all the diving lines on dot graphs.
This week, a friend of Mumbrella passed along an email from Elizabeth McIntyre -- the CEO of the Outdoor Media Association, a peak body that does exactly what its name suggests -- to her own board, blasting the country's largest outdoor media operator, Ooh Media, for making some dubious claims using OMA's Move measurement data. We love a good internal fight between stakeholders, so we unpack all the drama here.
And speaking of drama, this week was meant to signal the deadline for networks to make their first bids for the National Rugby League broadcasting rights, and it could go one of several different ways.
Will the league's chairman Peter V'landys get the record deal he has been bleating about for several years? (Spoiler: He probably won't).
Will Seven swoop in and take the two biggest footy codes? Will Nine box out Foxtel? Will Foxtel box out Nine? Will an American streaming service take a punt on a sport that calls 'punts' 'kicks'? Why are there so many songs about rainbows? We attempt to answer some of these questions.
And finally, there is seemingly a lack of basic training in the marketing industry, as Mark Ritson revealed at Mumbrella360 last week. He gave marketers a simple ten-part, multiple-choice quiz -- and most professionals couldn't get a pass mark, despite the test featuring what Ritson dubbed "basic sub-undergraduate questions". Worse still, 75% of those who failed rate themselves as "above average" in their field. Gulp!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Rohan Lund, the newly minted CEO of SCA, joins Tim Burrowes on stage at the Mumbrella360 conference for his first major public interview since becoming boss of the media company.
Lund joined the board of SCA in March, was appointed CEO in April, and officially started in his new job on May 1.
Four weeks later, he jumped onto the M360 stage for a wide-ranging chat about a newly merged company in flux.
Lund speaks about his first month in the role, the biggest differences between the cultures at SCA and Seven, whether he will bid for the NRL, the predictable perils of having Gina Rinehart as a new financial backer, and how he plans to build his executive team.
“I don’t think the media is ready for these horizontal views," he said. "I think TV, radio, and publishing are very different businesses. They have different customer strategies and different cultures today."
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
This week's Mumbrellacast was recorded live at Mumbrella 360 at Carriageworks in Sydney, with a six-person panel featuring our host Abe Udy, special guest Vinne Schifferstein Vidal, and regulars Eleanor Dickinson, Nathan Jolly, Hal Crawford, and Tim Burrowes.
We open with a selection of quotes from day one of the conference, with luminaries such as marketing leadership guru Thomas Barta, Ebiquity CEO Ruben Schreurs, Henry Innis and Nicky Barton from Mutinex, and Maura Touhy di Muro of Roblox speaking on redundant terminology, marketing mix modelling, artificial intelligence, leadership, and what Barta calls "the evil twins of marketing stupidity".
Tim spoke with SCA's newly minted CEO Rohan Lund, who was very honest about the "duplication" and "inefficiency" in merged companies such as the one he has been running for the past 28 days. He unpacks what he learned from that conversation.
Abe also runs a live demonstration of his new AI-built sales-enablement tool that turns a few quick prompts into a fully-produced radio advert, with music, and real voice-over talent from the Abe's Audio stable. It's quite remarkable, even if the live demo went slightly askew...
And we drag down the celebratory mood of the conference by discussing the bleak economic conditions, and how they are impacting marketers. Sorry!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
BYD Australia CMO Kate Hornstein joins the Mumbrellacast to discuss the brand’s rapid rise from new EV entrant to one of the country’s top-selling automotive players, and the marketing strategy behind it.
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Welcome to this week's Mumbrellacast, where Abe Udy, Hal Crawford, and Nathan Jolly -- who some are calling the best power trio since Nirvana -- discuss the Federal Budget's impact on the media world, the new SBS managing director, and the job losses and bidding wars at Ooh Media.
We open with the Federal Budget, easily the best 990-page document to be released so far this month. AAP is being given a cool $15m to keep the newswire ticking along, while the ABC and SBS both got their budgets increased. But it's the capital gains tax changes that have start-ups in the media and marketing space worried. Is it just post-budget panic, or will the new rules make it less attractive to start -- or continue -- a small business in Australia?
Also this week, Jane Palfreyman has been named the managing director of the SBS, a job she's been doing for around nine months already, taking over from James Taylor, who is now at Ooh Media (more on him, shortly). As we discuss, the SBS has a reputation for promoting from within their ranks -- and for largely avoiding the "our tax money pays for this garbage" garbage that the ABC seems to cop every time they report something slightly impartial or show a boring re-run of The Bill. Is it time to apply more scrutiny to the SBS?
As we were going into record this podcast, Ooh Media was just wrapping its annual general meeting, during which CEO James Taylor announced 82 job cuts -- around 9% of staff -- and $12m in annual savings. The shareholders seemed quite impressed with the way the company is being ran -- possibly because two recent takeover bids have seen share prices soar in the past few weeks. Taylor and co. also seem largely unconcerned about Nine's recent acquisition of outdoor media rival QMS, which seems to have appeased the shareholders somewhat.
And finally, Eleanor spoke to Gavin McLeod, chief creative officer at Emotive, about the new campaign they created for Four Seasons Condoms entirely with AI. It's worth watching the ad before you start typing "AI slop" into the comments box below...
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
"Once a marketer, always a marketer," declares Thomas Barta. "Marketing is about creating change and desire, and I'm still in it."
Later this month, Barta is flying to Sydney from Cologne to present a keynote at Mumbrella 360 around the "catalyst" theme of the conference. He aims to provide a framework to close the gap between knowing what needs to change, and actually making change.
His overriding premise is that “companies don’t create the future — people do”, and that individuals inside organisations are the ones who propel change.
"If you wanna be a catalyst ... it's not about some skills you were born with and then you suddenly are that.
"It's that you need to very simply learn how to do two things very well. The first thing is ignite ideas that lead to growth ... second, you also need to learn to rally an organisation.
"We have a lot of people who have lots of good ideas that go nowhere. We have a lot of people who execute like hell and maybe are hitting a wall because they're in the wrong direction, and they have lots of people who do none of the above because they just tick along.
"But then there are these few people who lead the company and that is the role you can take, even if you are 21-years-old, and you are starting out in this profession.
"That's what we need to learn: How do you ignite and how do you rally? And if you take these two themes and you work on them a little ... your career will clearly take a positive turn."
Listen to the entire podcast to learn why Barta thinks the terms 'performance marketing' and 'brand marketing' are "complete bullshit"; how marketers can treat the infux of AI in marketing as akin to choosing the red pill or the blue pill; and why Donald Trump is the best marketer he's ever seen.
Mumbrella360 runs from May 26-28 at Carriageworks in Sydney. Get tickets here.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Welcome to this week's Mumbrellacast, where Tim Burrowes joins us live from the Qantas lounge but swears he isn't compromised.
The reason we mention this is because this week, it was revealed that ABC managing director Hugh Marks has accepted a membership to the Qantas Chairman's Lounge, one of the most exclusive clubs in the country -- and one where memberships are dealt out -- and rescinded -- by one of the biggest corporations in the country, one which has had a horror PR run since the pandemic.
We discuss why this is potentially a huge problem when it comes to the perception of the national broadcaster as an independently minded news outlet, and why other media outlets aren't slamming Marks for this decision, when lesser ABC scandals seem to be beaten up.
Dentsu Australia has ditched its Carat and iProspect brands and reduced its Australian operation to one brand. Why did this happen, and what does it mean in a wider sense? These aren't just rhetorical questions: we attempt to provide answers.
Now onto radio (or the 'wireless' for our older listeners; don't the kids dress weird these days?). This week, Heith Mackay-Cruise stepped down as chair of Southern Cross Media. He will be replaced by Teresa Dyson, a long-time Seven West Media board member, and a portent of the shifting power dynamics in this newly merged media company. A week or two ago, Seven’s former chief operating officer Rohan Lund was named CEO and managing director, and it seems that SCA's John Kelly -- who seemed to be the frontrunner for the top job -- will remain as audio boss.
Stay tuned to this end of the dial, as we turn to Kyle Sandilands' defence against ARN defence against Kyle's defence against his sacking -- we've gotten hold of Kyle's Federal Court filings this week, and it might be the only legal document in the history of the courts to feature the word "arse-licker".
Kyle is somewhat throwing Jackie under the bright-pink Kiis bus, claiming she was just as offensive on-air as he was, and contributed to the tone of the show -- and that ARN's producers not only encouraged this, but actively monetised it.
Finally, Trinity P3’s latest State of the Pitch report reveals that “abusive” pitching practices are becoming normalised across Australia’s advertising industry – and, according to Trinity P3’s CEO Darren Woolley, agencies share some of the blame. Over to you, Darren....
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
On May 1, Australia's biggest talk-radio network Nine Radio shut down and in its place sprung up Tapt Media, as hoteliers the Laundy family officially took over Sydney's 2GB, Melbourne's 3AW, Brisbane's 4BC, and Perth's 6PR.
Former Nine Radio -- and now Tapt Media -- CEO Tom Malone and chief commercial officer Brian Gallagher both speak with Tim Burrowes in the latest episode of Mumbrella’s Unmaker Series podcast, about what the new ownership means for the future of its talkback radio empire.
"This is a hundred-year-old startup", Malone notes, "and there's a huge opportunity ahead of us."
Coming from Nine, Malone says that the network "understood that the best way to run this business would be as a standalone entity", and it's clear both he and Gallagher agree with this sentiment.
"Having your own bespoke sales team commercialising with a singular focus on audio — linear, streaming, podcasting — is gonna drive a better result for the business," Malone notes.
He lists off short and long form video and audio, on and off-platform plays, third-party reseller agreements, and even a subscription offering as possibilities that are in the pipeline.
"There's lots of different avenues that we can explore. That's really exciting for us as a business, harnessing the power of our content, but also the power of our connection between our broadcasters and our listeners."
There's also a neater demographic fit between the Laundy's hotel empire and the stations' audience.
"We're not playing top 40," Gallagher notes. "We're getting to core issues and we're connecting community. We're connecting them beautifully with clients as well. So it's a real opportunity.
"Look, in all fairness to the power of Nine, which is the preeminent Australian media company, the ability for this business to actually maximise its revenue opportunities in that umbrella were very limited ... That's a business that trades very effectively in a 25-54 marketplace ... We deal with slightly different demos that don't make the CPM (cost per mille) cut in the analysis from time to time.
"So it's a really hard thing to be competitive and achieve the right kind of market share."
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Welcome to an early edition of the Mumbrellacast, hot off the audio presses, where we dissect the recent developments in the media and marketing space -- as we do.
Tim Burrowes, Hal Crawford, and Ben Willee from Spinach Advertising react to this morning's news that Pacific Equity Partners has made an offer to buy outdoor advertising company Ooh Media -- an offer worth around $750m according to the AFR.
The government released its draft version of the News Bargaining Incentive yesterday, which it is hoping will sail through parliament this winter. According to Anthony Albanese, the proposed legislation will encourage “deal making between the platforms and news organisations”. But who exactly is being incentivised to do what? We know some of the smaller publishers aren't happy.
In light of Henry Innis' piece on Mumbrella this week about how Australia’s coming housing crisis will impact marketers, there's also a rather downbeat conversation about the economic outlook, if bad news is your thing.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Two decades ago, James Donald was working on an oil rig in Norway. This month, Ideally -- the market research platform he co-founded -- raised over $13m in an investment round that will help the NZ-based startup push into the US, and launch a new product Ideally Canvas.
Donald speaks with Tim Burrowes in the latest episode of Mumbrella’s Unmaker Series podcast, about his journey from oil to artificial intelligence and consumer research, and how he helped build a company worth north of $90m in a few years.
He also discusses his company's new product, Ideally Canvas, which gives brands a real-time, continuously updated consumer profile rather than a static snapshot; the limitations of synthetic data; and how Ideally is able to offer a nimble consumer insights service that competitors will routinely charge ten times more for.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
This week on the Mumbrellacast, we parse the second book of the radio ratings, look at M+C Saatchi Australia's fall from grace, and speak to Spotify's global head of thought leadership, Jenny Haggard.
First off, we look at the first radio ratings survey since every single network decided to lay waste to their Sydney breakfast radio plans. Kyle and Jackie O are gone, Jonesy and Amanda are gone, Fitzy, Wippa, and Kate are gone, even 2Day's "the hits before they hit" format has gone out the window. We take a look at a survey where everything changed -- but mostly stayed the same.
Next, we look at M+C Saatchi's dive. The global agency delivered its worst ever yearly results this week, and the Australian operation has copped the blame for the fall. It was so bad that the company presented its full-year results, minus Australia. Gulp! What's the story?
And finally, we convinced Jenny Haggard, Spotify's global head of thought leadership, to take a three-month tall-ship from her Los Angeles office to our converted 1800s wool shed office in Sydney just to appear on the podcast, which is the type of commitment to cause we should all expect from our Swedish tech giants.
Jenny has been with Spotify for 12 years, which is much longer than Taylor Swift and Neil Young have been. She chats about how the company is letting users become more active in how their own algorithmic recommendations work, the delicate balance between being a company that is chasing both subscriptions and advertisers –- and the struggles they’ve had educating the market on its ad offering -- what sets Spotify apart from social media platforms, despite being on the same pocket-computer, and how Australia's under-16s social media ban may impact them in the future -- and what they'll do if it does.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Welcome to a special relationship issue of the Mumbrellacast, where we look at the delicate dance between creative agencies and clients, and the harried, hurried waltz between media agencies and media salespeople.
BMF and Westpac announced their divorce this week after just one year. Both are claiming they initiated the breakup, due in no small part to Mumbrella's own investigations into the matter. BMF fired the first shot, as far as we can tell, but isn't it rather unusual for an agency to fire a client? We discuss.
A nicely timed study from marketing consultancy We Grow came out this week, examining the fragile relationships between those who buy the ads and those who sell the ads.
Small talk is out of fashion these days, it seems, with each meeting needing to have a clear, concise point -- and hopefully nouns used as verbs and vice versa. There is increasingly no tolerance for salespeople reaching out just to reach out, meetings with no clear agenda, and God help the media seller who tries to book a boozy lunch without any concrete pitch. It's a pressure cooker situation, the agencies say, and salespeople who fail to understand this are doomed to annoy agencies into eternity. But aren't relationships built mostly on pointless chit-chat? There's a massive disconnect here, and we delve into it.
Within 24 hours this week, Snap, BBC, and Disney announced around 4,000 job losses between them, with AI being blamed for a lot of the redundancies. But is that just an easy excuse to get rid of staff, and save some money during a period of declining traditional media, soft advertising spend, and mass uncertainty around what technology will bring next?
And we wrap up this week's podcast by asking the question: Why in the world is News Corp launching an 87-year-old fashion title into the Australian marketplace? The mobile-first, social-first play seems at odds with a classic glossy magazine brand, but there may be method in the madness -- especially given the Myer partnership and the e-commerce side of things.
And just for the hell of it, we close with an impromptu magazine-based pop quiz.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Welcome to the Mumbrellacast, where chances are you're about to win.
We open this week's podcast by parsing the new gambling advertising restrictions announced last week by Anthony Albanese, more than one-thousand Earth days since a parliamentary inquiry recommended a total ban. While this isn't a total ban, in-stadium advertising at sporting events is no longer allowed (including on teams jerseys), TV stations are limited to three ads an hour, celebrities can no longer promote betting companies, and kids will be spared the footy odds blasting through SEN 1116 during school pick-up times.
But do the new restrictions go far enough? Is Albanese's focus on protecting children from the evils of hearing about a same-game multi missing the point, when we live in a country with the most gambling losses (and wins!) per capita in the world?
And what does this mean for the NRL's pending broadcasting deal, which footy boss Peter V'landys still believes will beat the AFL's current $4.5b seven-year deal? For that last question, we pass the mic to gambling and sports media rights expert Lachlan Gepp, who channelled Daryl Kerrigan in saying, "tell him he's dreaming".
This week, Daily Mail Australia hired a new head of digital subscriptions, who has the modest task of driving the transformation of the company's revenue stream.
We discuss how the Mail's increased focus on chasing subscription dollars instead of web traffic marks a big shift in the global media landscape, and ask whether they will be successful in retraining and retaining legions of readers drawn to its entertainment-heavy content.
Also, Ooh Media had an eventful week, with the departure of its chair Tony Faure -- as well as most of the staff within its retail media arm Reo, which will be shutting down by the end of June. While retail media is booming at the moment, there appears to be no room at the inn for third-party companies trying to team up with brick-and-mortar businesses to help them sell retail media assets, advertising, or both.
And, just for fun, we press rewind on a snippet from an February interview with Ooh CEO James Taylor, where he talks about the future of Reo.
Happy listening!
Get the latest episode every Thursday.
Podcast edit by Abe’s Audio. -
Welcome to a special Easter edition of the Mumbrellacast, where you don't have to search high and low to find the treats.
We start with the news that Telstra's chief marketing officer Brent Smart has left the company, after launching one of the most memorable campaigns seen on Australian television in years. We couldn't confirm news that he left the offices leaning back and whistling a Bee Gees tune, but we do look at what's next for the country's biggest telco.
And while we're on the subject of telcos, Vodafone has managed to upset a lot of Australians with its newest campaign by suggesting that regional and rural areas are devoid of life, culture, and phone service. Plenty of emus though, apparently. American Ali Wong stars in the commercial, and her claim that "nothing's out here" has made national news. Is the ad elitist, funny, or a bit of both? (Or neither?)
This week, Mumbrella broke the news that Virgin Australia is quietly building its own retail media network, hiring the former McKinsey and VML digital leader Scott Moore to drive its development. Retail media is becoming a major money spinner for brick-and-mortar stores, neatly wrapping together their physical and digital locations to sell you cat food and Zooper Doopers, but how exactly will it work for an airline? And will Qantas board the retail media plane next?
The eSafety Commissioner’s first report on the under-16s social media ban is rather damning. It has found that, close to four months since the implementation of the ban, Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Youtube still have “major gaps” in their compliance, and that more than two-thirds of children under 16 who already had a Facebook account in December when they bans came into play, still do, despite two-thirds of kids also believing Facebook is "totally lame, Mum, gross!" (okay, that final stat isn't from eSafety). We unpack the report.
Finally, Jackie Henderson has filed suit against her former employee ARN, claiming that the termination of her contract “constituted adverse action".
Henderson is arguing that her initial complaint letter, where she said she can no longer work with Kyle Sandilands was simply her exercising her workplace rights, and that the contract was terminated because of this, in contravention of the Fair Work Act.
Happy listening! -
This time last year, Publicis Group completed its landmark acquisition of Atomic 21 2, bringing one of Australia's biggest independent media success stories into its fold.
In today's interview episode of the Mumbrellacast, Rory Heffernan, CEO of Atomic 21 2, and Michael Rebelo, CEO of Publicis Group ANZ, unpack the year-long integration process, including what's worked and what comes next. - Show more
