Research Space / Marketing

Complexity in Marketing. Among the topics was the opportunity that a more complicated marketing environment creates for brands that are good at what they do.

Brisbane Compass Tour. Last week saw Unmade’s Compass tour hit the Eastern seaboard with the Brisbane edition of the event delivering an excellent conversation.

Market Mixed Results. It was a mixed day for Australia’s listed media and marketing stocks. Nine gained 0.4%, while Ooh Media lost 0.4%.

Unmade Index Performance. A day after Southern Cross Austereo’s share price unexpectedly spiked upwards by 12.6%, it lost 5.2% yesterday, taking it back down to a market capitalisation of $130m.

TV Industry Warnings. Kerr, who is one of the biggest buyers of TV advertising in the country also had a warning for the TV networks: 'I am annoyed with TV. It’s really sad to see the way they can’t come together.'

Trust in Media. Simon Murphy, global strategy director for Publicis, suggested that social media is benefitting from a decline in public trust in established news outlets.

Facebook's Decline. Cath Brands observed: "As a marketer, Facebook is so 1980s in my mind. I’m over it as a platform from an advertising perspective."

Unmade Index Status. The Unmade Index finished the day flat on 447.5 points.

ARN Media Gains. Among the broadcasters, ARN Media had the best day, gaining 2.9%.

Skepticism Towards Platforms. Cath Brands, CMO of B2B pricing specialists FlintFox, raised a topic that has come up a number of times during Compass: growing scepticism towards the effectiveness claims of some of the global digital platforms.

Unmade Index Growth. The Unmade Index grew by 1.39% to 447.2 points, marking its third consecutive day of improvement.

Media Industry Risks. Principal media risks becoming the final straw for the media industry.

Digital Advertising Complexity. The rise of programmatic advertising has complicated the landscape and lowered the prices expected by advertisers.

Media Maker Challenges. Many media companies are producing less content due to financial pressures.

Market Value Overreport. The BVOD market is valued around $900 million instead of the reported $450 million, accounting for agency mark-ups.

Ad Agency Conflict. Media agencies profit from buying media cheaply on their own account rather than on behalf of clients.

Principle Media Concerns. Principal media represents a significant departure from traditional media trading practices.

Ad Dollars Leakage. By 2023, 64% of ad dollars were siphoned off to tech middlemen before reaching content creators.

SCA Share Price Surge. Southern Cross Austereo's share price jumped by 12.6%, reaching a three-month high.

Fast Customer Service. Their customer service team aims to answer calls within 6 seconds and resolve all questions without transferring or escalating.

Facebook Metric Change. Facebook Switches to ‘Views’ as Its Primary Metric.

TikTok AI Ads. TikTok plugs Getty Images into its AI-generated ads and avatars.

Threads Update. Threads Expands Custom, Keyword-Based Feeds to More Users.

Simplified Returns. Got the wrong dog food? Instead of going through the usual return process, Chewy refunds the customer and encourages them to donate the food to a shelter.

Condolence Gesture. Chewy even sends condolence flowers and a heartfelt note if they learn about a pet's passing.

Personal Touch. Each new customer receives a handwritten welcome card, a gesture that may seem small but goes a long way in creating a personalised experience.

Customer Experience. Chewy is one of the top online pet food sellers in the US, and they won through one simple thing: Customer Experience.

Customer Support. Award-winning 24/7 customer support.

Effective Data Alignment. Actionable tips on aligning marketing and product teams to harness data effectively.

Power of PQLs. The power of PQLs (product qualified leads) and how they can fuel faster growth.

AI in Marketing. How AI and data are reshaping the marketing landscape and how to stay ahead.

Webinar on Insights. Join us on December 4th to learn how to turn product insights into impactful marketing with HubSpot, Amplitude, and Aptitude 8.

Custom Discount Codes. Customizable discount codes to drive conversions.

Segmentation Benefits. Advanced segmentation for personalized campaigns.

Sales Recovery. Cart abandonment reminders to recover sales.

Marketing Automation Features. Effortless automation for email & SMS marketing.

Black Friday Offer. Take 30% off our paid plans with the code BFCM30OFF and enjoy email & SMS marketing that’s so good, it’s boring.

Bluesky Growth. As X is increasingly recognised as a tool in Donald Trump’s victory, the exodus to Bluesky is under way.

AI Advertising Transition. Coke turns to AI for a reboot of its Christmas ad, and Perplexity starts to monetise its search.

Parliament Timeline. A key fortnight for media law lies ahead in Canberra. The government will attempt to legislate around age limits for social media, and to force the platforms to take more responsibility for scam ads.

Bluesky User Surge. Why X users are jumping across to new platform Bluesky in the wake of US election.

Customizable Discounts. Customizable discount codes to drive conversions.

Sales Recovery. Cart abandonment reminders to recover sales.

Black Friday Discount. Take 30% off our paid plans with the code BFCM30OFF and enjoy email & SMS marketing that’s so good, it’s boring.

Offer End Date. Hurry—offer ends Dec. 6, 2024.

Effortless Automation. Effortless automation for email & SMS marketing.

24/7 Support. Award-winning 24/7 customer support.

Advanced Segmentation. Advanced segmentation for personalized campaigns.

Legislation Gridlock. With just eight more days of Parliamentary sittings this year, and only another 17 next year before a likely May election, it’s now impossible for the government to pass everything on its communications policy agenda.

TV Companies Rising. It was a good day for the major two TV companies, with Seven West Media rising by 6.5% and Nine up by 4.8%.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index had its best day in more than seven weeks on Friday, rising by 2.88% and outperforming the wider ASX All Ordinaries, which rose by 0.7%.

Media Influence on Policy. The media campaign spearheaded by Nova’s Michael Wipfli has driven the policy making.

Badly Written Laws. The danger is that a badly written law ends up on the books.

Policy Gaining Traction. Still, the policy has gained enormous traction. Refusing to be wedged on protecting teens, the Liberal Party is going along.

Policy Without Clarity. What has become clear though is that despite having had two-and-a-half years in government, the policy was announced without having been fully thought through.

New Digital Duty of Care. This week’s a new digital duty of care for platforms.

Social Media Age Restrictions. Last week’s was legislating a minimum age for social media access.

Government's Urgent Legislation. After two-and-a-half years of slow going, the government is suddenly in a hurry on communications legislation.

No Bad Ideas. In this channel, there’s no such thing as a 'bad' idea, allowing people to feel 100% comfortable sharing ANY thought, no matter how out there.

Team Collaboration Boost. Creating a #marketing-ideas channel on Slack/Teams invites colleagues from EVERY department to collaborate, which boosts teamwork and shows your readiness for new ideas.

Successful Campaign Example. After sharing a job board idea from a competitor, the author successfully launched their own 'Cloud Security Job Board' three months later.

Engagement and Collaboration. Coworkers feel valued and heard, you get a HUGE collection of new marketing ideas to work with, and your bosses get more engaged and collaborative teams.

First Month Success. Starting a #marketing-ideas channel will be the easiest quick win you ever land in your first month.

Idea Aggregator Benefits. When you become the idea aggregator, people start coming to you proactively with suggestions and projects, making you known as the one who’s always open to new ideas.

Struggles in Melbourne. The Kyle & Jackie O Show's share slipped from 5.2% to 5.1%, leaving it bottom of the pile in Melbourne FM.

WSFM Top Ratings. In Sydney, ARN's WSFM was the number one station for weekday share for the first time in its history.

Revenue Growth for Motio. Motio's stock rose by 7.7% after an upbeat presentation at the company’s annual general meeting, with revenue up by 61% in the first ten weeks of the financial year.

Significant Management Changes. Seven West Media has brought in former IPG Mediabrands boss Henry Tajer who has proposed 'steep rate discounting and eye-popping incentives to agency groups'.

Market Capitalization Decline. Seven's market capitalisation fell to $239m yesterday, close to the all-time low of $224m it briefly hit in August.

Seven West Media Shares Drop. Seven West Media's share price slumped by 6.1% yesterday on one of its worst days of trading of the year.

Complications Ahead for ARN. Ciaran Davis and Duncan Campbell get the big bucks to make the difficult strategic calls; the correct decision will not be clear for a number of years.

Brisbane Audience Growth. The Robin & Kip Show in Brisbane delivered Kiis an average audience of 45,000, compared to 40,000 for the Kyle & Jackie O Show in Melbourne.

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AI Company Growth. An AI-first company will grow 50x more!

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Task Automation. Automate daily tasks and increase productivity & creativity.

AI Decision Making. With AI & Chatgpt, you will be able to make smarter decisions based on data in seconds using AI.

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YouTube Comments Traffic. YouTube's hyperlinked comments could drive valuable traffic for Google Search.

Reddit Opportunities. Reddit's growth presents new opportunities for brands.

Instagram Post Boost. Instagram expands boosting to include more post types.

Extreme Conditions. Samsonite's Proxis suitcase went through every extreme condition, from freezing temps hitting lows of -85°F to a free-fall back to Earth.

Samsonite Stunt. Samsonite just did something completely wild to prove how tough their Proxis suitcase is, launching it up to 130,000 feet, right near the edge of space, then dropping it back to Earth.

Case Study Mission. Ross intends to make the actions of Dell and its media agency a case study of neglect towards trade media.

Financial Struggles. Ross revealed that he earned $22K last year, significantly less than the pay of an entry-level PR professional.

Call for Support. Ross is advocating for brands and media agencies to stop taking trade media for granted, stating the need for financial support.

Short-term Focus. The conversation with Dell reveals that ‘short term performance marketing has won. And brand building has lost.’

Publisher Frustrations. Ross highlighted the frustrations shared by many publishers regarding marketers and media agencies benefiting more than content creators.

Mental Health Impact. Ross disclosed that his struggles with the situation caused ‘severe stress, anxiety and depression’.

Anger Towards Dell. Ross declared war on Dell due to their actions perceived as undermining his website’s traffic and audience-building efforts.

Trade Media Crisis. Nick Ross expressed that ‘if the industry doesn’t support its trade media, then you don’t get trade media.’

Reaction to Publishing Model. The current publishing model supports the idea that ‘if everybody does that, then it leads to bland, undifferentiated mastheads.’

Impact on Careers. The shrinking trade press could have implications for PR professionals, as ‘if people like Nick Ross are all driven off the beat, what happens to your job?’

Consumer Trust Deficit. It rates lower than all other water brands on the statement 'is a brand I trust' (16% compared to FIJI’s 38%).

Target Audience Engagement. Liquid Death has become synonymous with cool to its target audience of millennial and Gen Z consumers who love the brand first, product second.

Brand Awareness Growth. Data from global brand tracking company Tracksuit shows that as a result, Liquid Death has had an impressive 8% increase in awareness over the last year.

Marketing Strategy Risks. When you overtrain on promotion, there may be some downsides. Think slower conversion down the marketing funnel, plus a consumer base that doesn't quite trust you yet.

Podcast Strategy Impact. One underplayed factor was the strategy of Donald Trump’s team to make him available on several podcasts including The Joe Rogan Experience.

Upcoming Events. We look forward to the ABC, Are Media and Seven’s 2025 scene setting upfront events.

Market Shift Consideration. With podcasts skewing younger and more male than most mainstream media, will Trump’s victory change how marketers see the medium?

Foxtel Subscription Decline. The number of Foxtel subs overall fell slightly, mainly because Kayo usually begins to dip in the first quarter.

Binge's New High. Binge hit a new high of 1.552m, up from 1.529m.

News Corp's Subscription Growth. The company is still growing its subscription revenue, even as the advertising market trends downwards.

Event Awareness. Compass rolls into Brisbane and Sydney this coming week.

Unmade Index Movement. The Unmade Index, which tracks local media valuations, hit new lows on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but gained 0.55% on Friday.

News Corp's Market Performance. News Corp's market capitalisation of US$17.2bn is the highest since the sale of most of the organisation's entertainment assets to Disney in 2013.

Future Challenges for Foxtel. There’s no indication of the looming challenges Foxtel faces in the coming months—losing HBO content for Binge and a battle to retain NRL for Kayo.

Foxtel's EBITDA Profit. The first quarter of the financial year is generally the most profitable for Foxtel, with an EBITDA profit of US$92m.

Ben Shepherd's Departure. Schwartz Media announced that Shepherd has left "to pursue other opportunities".

Pay-Per-Pitch Trend. This isn’t just another growth hack… It’s part of a bigger trend happening in B2B sales.

Shift in Approach. We’re witnessing a fundamental shift in B2B sales: From spray and pray with ads to pay to play with ultra-targeted direct compensation.

Consultant Value Exchange. With pay-per-pitch, you’re not buying a guaranteed outcome. You’re simply compensating someone for their time and attention — no strings attached.

Reaching Decision-Makers. The companies that get this right now will have a massive advantage.

Future Sales Model. The future of B2B sales isn’t about who can spend the most on ads. It’s about who's willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Clear Transparency. It’s transparent AF. No hidden agendas or fake LinkedIn connection requests.

Reason for Effectiveness. Money talks (literally). When you pay for someone’s time, they show up engaged.

Cost Comparison. Average LinkedIn ad spend: $15-50 per click; Yotpo’s method: $1,000 for a guaranteed intro; Success rate: Nearly 100% (they already agreed to talk!).

Pay Directly. Instead of burning money on LinkedIn ads and mass outreach — pay your prospects (or their network) directly for their attention.

Yotpo's Offer. Yotpo’s CEO dropped a bomb that got the entire B2B startup world talking: 'We’ll pay you $1,000 to introduce us to our target customers.'

Chairman's Lounge Influence. The Chairman's Lounge has been an incredibly effective lobbying tool, allowing Qantas more access to politicians than any other business in Australia.

Qantas Book Impact. Joe Aston's book on Qantas has dominated the political cycle for the last ten days.

Market Capitalization Changes. Nine's market cap grew slightly yesterday, up by 0.9% to $1.75bn, while Seven West Media lost 3%, landing on $239m.

Seven's Revenue Outlook. Seven said its revenues are likely to be down about 6.5% for the half.

Nine's Revenue Decline. Nine’s TV revenues have returned to the 10% rate of decline seen in the previous financial year.

Unmade Index Status. The Unmade Index lifted by 0.15% to land on 424.2 points after hitting another all-time low.

Aston's Future Plans. Aston hints that he may launch a newsletter of his own: 'Doing my own reader-funded content is something I’ve thought about.'

Critique of Qantas Board. Aston criticizes the board for failing to hold former CEO Alan Joyce to account as the brand deteriorated.

Cost Efficiency of Lobbying. Aston states: 'The operating costs aren’t that high compared to what it gets people to do, and that is spend millions and millions more than they otherwise would.'

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Bite-Sized Lessons. Brilliant offers bite-sized, interactive lessons that make complex AI concepts accessible and engaging.

Effortless Automation. Omnisend provides effortless automation for email & SMS marketing.

Engaging Panel Discussion. Our panel had a great discussion, reflecting on the year just gone and projecting into 202.

Compass Roadshow Launched. We kicked off our Compass Roadshow here in Hobart.

Additional Reading. For further insights, you can read more at the provided link.

Historic Venue. The Hope & Anchor may just be the oldest pub in Australia.

Glassdoor Importance. I fully believe that before you join any company, Glassdoor ratings do matter, so you definitely need to find that culture fit.

Job Experience Insights. I quit my recent job at Shopify due to questionable setups internally.

Offer for Collaboration. If you’re interested in working together on any activity, I can help.

Freelancing Interests. I’ve decided to take a bit more time off before looking for my next role.

Team Structure Issues. The main problems lie with how teams are structured and how you’re expected to work in a silo.

Investment in Retail. A total of 37% of retail media investors spent a significant amount of their media and marketing budget on retail media in 2024 – up from 26% in 2023.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index sank another 0.6% on Tuesday, falling to 432.2 points after hitting an all-time low.

Retail Media Principles. The IAB Australia’s Retail Media Council has released a new collaborative resource: Australian Retail Media Measurement Principles and Guidance.

Charges for Retail Partnerships. Barriers to retail media investment included measurement and reporting (45%) and complexity in the relationship between brands and retailers (41%).

Measurement Priorities. 69% of advertisers indicate that return on ad spend (ROAS) is now one of their top priorities.

Transparency Demand. There is a need for increased transparency on shopper data as advertising expenditure in retail media grows.

Shoppers Point of Sale. The most important driver of investment for agencies and marketers is the ability to reach shoppers at the point of purchase.

Retail Media Growth. In Australia, retail media is now an $850 million market and is forecast to reach $3bn by 2027.

ChatGPT Rollout. OpenAI is beginning its long-awaited ChatGPT search product – with a wider rollout in the coming months.

LinkedIn Boosting. LinkedIn rolls out post boosting for Lead Generation.

New TikTok Academy. TikTok Launches Updated 'TikTok Academy' Marketing Education Platform.

Shazam Partnership. They teamed up with Shazam and ran a clever TV ad, encouraging viewers to use the app, which would let them simulate Coke Zero being poured into a glass right on their phones.

Real-life Experiences. This campaign took sampling to a whole new level by turning ads into real-life experiences.

Sampling Success. According to marketingsociety.com, over 155,000 samples were redeemed in the campaign’s first weekend, making it one of Coke’s most successful sampling events ever.

Innovative Campaign. Coke kicked off its 'drinkable advertising' campaign during the N.C.A.A. Men’s Final Four, a super hype event.

Post-Peak Performance. The Index was never as high again. Since January 4, 2022, the Index never went above 1000 points.

Initial Index Predictions. When we kicked off the Unmade Index at the beginning of 2022 on a nominal 1000 points, I wish I’d written down some predictions.

Index Performance Tracking. The idea was to track the performance of all the ASX-listed media and marketing companies.

Unmade Index Decline. Yesterday the Unmade Index hit a new low point, landing at 434.8 points.

Compelling Evidence. The report presents compelling evidence, using Tracksuit's data alongside additional insights from Google.

Emotional Storytelling. Emotional storytelling outperforms rational approaches across all platforms, from traditional media to digital channels like YouTube.

Emotionless Advertising. Tracksuit explores the Seven Deadly Sins of emotionless advertising.

Event Membership Benefits. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to this month’s Compass roadshow, plus all of Unmade’s 2025 events.

Shareholder Rebellion. Today’s report in Capital Brief that Nine’s chair Catherine West faces a shareholder vote against her reappointment.

Myer's Christmas Campaign. With the Christmas retail season more crucial than ever for the advertising sector, Myer has launched its Christmas effort, featuring a bovver-boot wearing monster called Humbug.

Myer Pitches Creative Account. Myer Pitches Creative Account.

AI Search Insights. Can ChatGPT's new search offering see past paywalls?

AI Launch in Australia. Speaking of bovver boots, we also discuss Google’s local launch of AI Overviews and OpenAI’s decision to turn on web search.

Political Brand Damage. For Albo, it does. Being the party of the people is Labor's point of difference as a campaigning organisation that needs to fight an election in the next few months.

Campaign of the Week. Ogilvy, Glue Society, and The Beautiful and Useful Studio partnered with Sculpture By The Sea and La Roche-Posay to create a 20-metre-wide melanoma to highlight the importance of sun safety.

Unmade Index Change. A downbeat finish to the week saw the Unmade Index lose 0.3% to land on 439.7 points yesterday.

TV Advertising Challenges. TV likely faces the toughest challenge; 2025 will likely be the first year where streamers including Amazon Prime and Netflix extract significant upfront commitments.

2024 Advertising Growth. SMI is also calling overall growth for 2024.

Audio Revenue Growth. The motivation behind Southern Cross Austereo's decision to put out a quarterly update revealing 4.8% growth in its audio revenue is now more understandable.

Outdoor Advertising Growth. Yesterday's SMI numbers, covering September, were particularly good for outdoor, up by 15.8%.

Advertising Recession End. Guideline SMI called an end to Australia's advertising recession.

Regulatory Capture. Regulatory capture occurs when the regulator becomes so close to the regulated they stop doing their job properly.

Media Overreaction. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese felt that the media was overreacting to revelations in the book about his upgrade perks.

Direct Engagement. I’ll reply with a tailor-made marketing idea just for you.

Limited Time Offer. This is only available for one week (until next Friday), so don’t miss out!

Free Marketing Idea. Drop your website URL → Get a free custom marketing idea from me.

Subscriber Milestone. To celebrate hitting 25,000 subscribers (!!), I’m doing something special this week.

LinkedIn Link. Go to my LinkedIn post

Southern Cross Austereo Update. SCA revealed on Wednesday afternoon that its overall revenue for the July to September quarter was up by 1.5% compared to the same time a year ago.

Impact on Publishers. For publishers, the ability for the search service to summarise information right on the page will remove traffic. Zero click is here.

Challenge to Google. Today's move by ChatGPT's owner OpenAI creates the greatest challenge to its search that Google has yet seen.

Paywall Circumvention?. On a few experiments this morning, I cannot say definitely, but I have a hunch that depending on the paywall, ChatGPT can see more than it is letting on.

ChatGPT Live Search. Users of ChatGPT in Australia woke up to a new option this morning. For subscribers to the paid version of ChatGPT-4o, it now searches the live web.

SCA's Strategy. Having seemingly survived the ARN Media takeover bid, it looks like SCA is becoming more aggressive in making sure it has every scrap of good news out there in the market.

SCA Share Price Bounce. That helped drive a share price bounce of 3.1% by Wednesday's close, followed by another 3% yesterday.

Listnr Growth. SCA flagged particularly strong growth in its Listnr digital division of 48.2%.

CTV Measurement Consensus. In CTV (connected TV) though, in Australia and around the world, there’s no such consensus.

Data Provenance Importance. Data provenance will be the key phrase of 2025 and 2026.

Katsur's Conference Speech. Katsur will be speaking on standards at the IAB's Leadership Summit in Sydney on November 20.

Confusion in Measurement. There are companies that may believe that they're a walled garden, but they're not.

Positive Audio Player Growth. ARN Media gaining 2.8% and Southern Cross Austereo up by 3.1%.

Nine's Trading Status. Nine is now trading at its lowest point since April 2020.

Unmade Index Low. The Unmade Index slipped to within a fraction of a percentage point of a new all-time low yesterday.

IAB Tech Lab's Role. Being the boss of IAB Tech Lab, the standard setting body of the digital advertising industry, must be a frustrating experience.

Brand Strategy Shift. As inflation is calming, brands need to shift from price gouging to developing a new marketing strategy.

Inflation and Confidence. As inflation finally comes under control, a significant 30% of consumers expect to be in a better financial position in a year's time, up from 24% four months ago.

Need for Value. Brands that have raised prices during the inflationary period will need to refocus on delivering value to maintain long-term profits.

Market Capitalization Changes. Seven West Media's share price fell by 5.9%, leading to a market capitalization of $239 million as of Tuesday.

Merger Speculation. Spheria has increased its stake in Seven West Media to 9.8%, raising speculation about potential merger talks with ARN Media.

Consumer Stress Decline. NAB's consumer confidence survey shows the percentage suffering 'very high' financial stress down from 33% to 29% over the last quarter.

xAI Image Understanding. Elon Musk’s xAI adds image understanding capabilities to Grok.

X Ad Platform Update. X Updates Ad Platform To Optimise Performance for SMBs.

Instagram Video Quality. Instagram saves the best video quality for the most popular content.

Psychological Effect. Studies show about 70% of people do it and Café Pelé smartly linked that reflex to a craving for coffee, using psychology to steer people toward their product.

Yawning Billboard Campaign. This campaign tapped into something we all do- yawning when we see someone else yawn.

Historical Context. DeCeglie emphasized that the 'broadcast tax' was designed 60 years ago during an era of super profits that simply no longer exist.

Call to Action. DeCeglie is calling on the Albanese Government and the Dutton Opposition to vow to scrap the Commercial Broadcast Tax immediately in the name of journalism.

Impact on Journalism. DeCeglie argues that the so-called Commercial Broadcast Tax is actually just a tax on journalism and questions how many journalism jobs it could cost.

Broadcast Tax Costs. The cost of the Commercial Broadcasting Tax this financial year for stations like Seven, Nine and 10 will be a combined $45 million.

Emotional Storytelling. Emotional storytelling outperforms rational approaches across all platforms, from traditional media to digital channels like YouTube.

BFCM Email Insights. Omnisend handled the boring part of analyzing millions of emails for you, so now you get to geek out over some data.

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De Ceglie's Speech. The editor-in-chief of Seven West Media, Anthony De Ceglie, will attack platforms like Elon Musk’s X and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta for spreading lies.

Lobbying for Support. Seven West Media and News Corp lobby for government help on funding.

Government Action Needed. The government should try to force Meta to continue supporting the big media players it made deals with three years ago.

Funding Media Events. Today's edition of Start the Week examines the agenda of media events over the next couple of weeks.

Support for Media Jobs. Michael Miller argues that the government risks abandoning the engine rooms of Australian news, which is where the bulk of the jobs are.

Tax Break for News. De Ceglie will champion the idea of a tax break for producing news and current affairs content.

Ad-Supported Streaming Growth. Kantar suggests a big jump in household penetration of ad-supported streaming services - up from 10% of homes to 25% in just a year.

Campaign Brief's Decline. Publicis Group's individual creative agencies have ended their dealings with Campaign Brief, including no longer submitting campaigns and credits for publication.

Nine's Underwhelming Upfront. For the first time in well over a decade, I missed Nine Upfront… I found the crop of announcements underwhelming.

Marketing Immersion. Treasury Wine Estates' in-house agency launched the 'Possessed Wine Bar' to promote 19 Crimes' latest glow-in-the-dark wines, creating an immersive experience.

New Content at Nine. Interesting content announcements included the licensing of the BBC's channels which may help Nine catch up on its FAST offering.

Vinyl Group's Share Surge. Vinyl Group surged late on Friday, with the share price jumping by a third.

Stanton's First Misstep. Acting CEO Matt Stanton has had his first misstep after Seven News doorstepped him over the culture report.

Hijack the Trend. You can hijack this massive trend to generate buzz by creating a viral Wrapped-style campaign.

Industry Insights. Share insights about your industry as a whole from data you collected yourself or through big data analysis of your users.

Three Wrapped Styles. There are 3 different tactics you can apply here (choose one): Personal wrapped, Industry wrapped, or Funny wrapped.

Spotify Wrapped Launch. I’m estimating that Spotify Wrapped 2024 will drop on December 4th, because it typically releases on the first Wednesday after Thanksgiving.

Employee Engagement Strategy. Run a contest for employees like 'most creative caption wins'.

Bonus Article Reference. Bonus article: How successful companies find data to share.

User Activity Data. Give each user a customized 'Year in Review' based on their activity—with shareable images.

Join Industry Buzz. Comment on Spotify’s Wrapped posts: Use your brand’s account and your execs’ accounts.

Activate Employees. When your Wrapped goes live, share it internally and encourage employees to post about it on their personal social accounts.

Mimic Spotify's Style. Your Wrapped needs to match theirs; prepare in advance to mimic Spotify’s new design style as closely as possible.

Market Capitalisation Change. Vinyl Group rose by 4.35% to a market cap of $121m, while SCA lost 1.1% to land on $112m.

Market Movement. Vinyl Group has now moved comfortably ahead of Southern Cross Austereo and Enero for market capitalisation.

Brand Opportunities. Brands focusing on curating meaningful experiences for their audience could hold a competitive advantage.

Consumer Behavior. Consumers are craving meaningful experiences more than ever, yet they’ve become more risk-averse.

Role of Technology. Imagine an app that doesn’t just provide a schedule but curates your experience, helping you connect with like-minded people.

Event Experience. The real magic of an event isn’t just in the presentations; it’s in the connections formed between attendees.

Event Participation. SXSW left the audience feeling more like spectators rather than participants.

Podcast Feature. The panel will be moderated by Unmade's Tim Burrowes and the discussion will later be featured as an Unmade podcast.

Brisbane Compass Event. We can today reveal the leadership panel for the Brisbane Compass event, Unmade's annual industry meet-up, this year taking place in six states.

Change Causes Unrest. Frain is unapologetic. “Any change causes some unrest”.

Future Conferences. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events, including Unlock (October 31), Compass (across November), HumAIn (Q2 2025) and REMade (Q3 2025).

Vinyl Group Growth. Yesterday saw Vinyl Group grow by 4.6% to a market capitalisation of $111m, just behind Southern Cross Austereo's $112m.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index's slow stall has stretched into a week after losing another 0.74% yesterday.

VFC Membership. Alongside Foxtel, the VFC membership now consists of Amazon Advertising, Disney Advertising, Samsung Ads, SBS On Demand, Vevo and YouTube.

Foxtel's New Measurement System. Frain has gone it alone, with Foxtel building its own measurement system powered by Kantar, and inviting a coalition of streamers to join them in the Video Future Collective.

Impact on Traffic. The News Corp case argues that AI services like Perplexity provide answers directly on their pages, resulting in virtually no traffic to publishers' sites.

Unlock Conference Details. The final program for next week’s Unlock conference includes a session on Return on Experience (ROX) featuring notable speakers.

Legal Implications for AI. The legal challenge raised by News Corp against Perplexity may redefine how AI models treat or license news content, depending on the court's ruling.

Broadcaster Losses. Several broadcasters had a bad day in the market, with Seven West Media losing 2.9% and Southern Cross Austereo dropping 3.1%.

Market Capitalization Concerns. Nine's market capitalization has declined to approximately $1.958bn, closely trailing its majority-owned real estate platform Domain.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index, which captures the movement of all the locally listed media and marketing stocks, lost 0.73% to land on 448 points.

AI Legal Battle. News Corp has initiated a legal case against AI search company Perplexity, highlighting the threats from generative AI to news organizations.

Using ISO 42001. ISO 42001 was introduced to fulfill the need to help companies demonstrate their organization’s security practices around AI in a verifiable way.

Business Impact Focus. Driving business impact is what matters.

QA Efficiency. QA Wolf helps engineering teams get to 80% automated test coverage and ship 5x faster by reducing QA cycles from hours to minutes.

Test Coverage Importance. Bugs sneak out when less than 80% of user flows are tested before shipping.

AI Security Practices. As AI becomes more ubiquitous, so does the need to prove your AI practices are secure.

Product Opportunities. Discover product opportunities from deep customer insights.

X Keyword Analytics Expansion. X Expands Access to Its Powerful 'Radar' Keyword Analytics Option for Premium Users.

Carousels for Reach. Instagram Chief Recommends Posting Carousels To Improve Reach.

Instagram Reels Tips. Instagram is testing/showing on-screen tips for Reels: hooks, average duration, 'used text to build the narrative' etc.

September Surge Timing. This campaign took advantage of the job market buzz during the 'September Surge,' a key hiring season.

Original Resume Delivery. Instead of sending resumes the traditional way, Pizza Hut printed them on pizza boxes and delivered them with a pizza in New York City.

Unique Job Campaign. Pizza Hut came up with a fun way to help job seekers stand out with their unique campaign, 'ResZAmes.'

Membership Benefits. Unmade’s membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events, including Unlock and Compass.

Parliamentary Inquiry. The parliamentary inquiry into social media has flagged a levy on advertising on social platforms.

Compass Speakers. Tourism Tasmania CMO, SCA boss, Smart Company editor, award-winning creative, and Abe's Audio founder join the Hobart Compass lineup.

Registration Encouragement. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time.

Google vs Facebook. The interim report from Federal Parliament’s Joint Select Committee highlights Facebook and Meta with 229 mentions compared to only 31 for Google.

Upcoming Compass Events. Unmade’s Compass takes place across six states including events in Hobart, Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne throughout November.

Monetization Strategies. Monetization tactics could involve adding ultra-targeted logos under pricing plans and offering budget-friendly tiers as a 'foot in the door'.

Brand Awareness Techniques. Strategies for long-term brand awareness include sharing insights from your own data and praising big names in your industry.

Engage in Buzz Generation. Suggestions for buzz generation include placing ads in high-visibility areas like Times Square and coordinating major buzz days with micro-influencers.

Mission to Help Marketers. The mission is to help you catch those powerful marketing ideas that work and can be used immediately.

Unique Marketing Tactics. Over the years, I’ve gathered hundreds of unique marketing tactics while rubbing shoulders with some of the sharpest CMOs and entrepreneurs on Earth.

Bad Advice Online. Finding good marketing ideas is very difficult, with many guides recommending ideas that are costly or impossible to test quickly.

Two Marketing Paths. You can choose between traditional marketing strategies or embrace experimentation with new tactics.

Highlight Unique Features. Use recent interactions as hooks for personalized cold emails to increase engagement rates.

Creating Product Templates. Creating tons of product templates with SEO-rich descriptions can significantly boost engagement and search rankings.

Innovative User Engagement. Gamifying onboarding and surprising customers with small gestures can enhance user retention.

Recommendation to Upgrade. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time.

Membership Advantages. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of Unmade's events.

Campaign Brief Issues. The dominos have continued to fall for Campaign Brief after a backlash against its perpetuation of a creative club dominated by middle aged white men.

Nine's Allegations. A new challenge for Nine arises as The Australian breaks news of an alleged rape after a Christmas party.

Gender Representation Debate. Advertising's gender representation debate heats up as agencies boycott trade title.

Enero Shareholders' Disapproval. A total of 38.7% of Enero's shareholders voted against the management, representing a hefty vote of disapproval.

Alternative Showcasing Options. Little Black Book Online offers a less toxic alternative for agencies wanting their work showcased through a subscription model.

Enero's Management Changes. Enero's CEO, chief financial officer, and chair all departed following the AGM vote against management.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index lost 0.46% to land on 450.9 points.

Consequences of Bullying. The consequence of the 'truth telling' that has occurred at Nine remains to be seen as many unnamed perpetrators are still in the building.

Changes at Campaign Brief. Campaign Brief published an announcement stating it would no longer allow negative comments, a reaction to the backlash it faced.

Market Capitalization Comparison. Nine overtook its majority-owned real estate platform Domain for market capitalization, with Domain at $1.95bn and Nine at $1.97bn.

Nine's Cultural Report. The report into Nine's culture paints a picture of a place where bullying and sexual harassment were normalized.

Campaign Brief Under Fire. Campaign Brief is under fire, questioning whether there will actually be a reckoning.

Love vs Hate. Being on the ‘hate’ side is way better than being stuck in the neutral valley of death.

Hate as Engagement. Getting hate is generally a good thing. If your customers don’t hate/love you → they simply don’t care about you.

Adapt Playbook. This playbook isn’t just for customers — it works for internal work conflicts too.

Amplify Absurdity. Double down on the humor by overreacting to correct the wrong.

Acknowledge Feedback. Oatly acknowledged the hate, shared it where haters gathered, and infused humor.

Humor Engagement. Simply engaging isn’t enough — the secret sauce is humor.

Lighten Tensions. He replies with funny GIFs to lighten serious situations.

Positive Rep in Crisis. People really like a Sonos employee named Keith!

Engage Active Haters. Find where all your haters talk to each other; be present there.

Identify Pain Points. He summarized all the negative feedback to show he understands it.

Response Strategy. This level of transparency + action is exactly how you should admit your mistakes.

Narrative Control. Once you get attention (which can only be achieved on either the ‘love’ side or the ‘hate’ side), it is fairly easy to gain control of the narrative and “flip the script”.

Foxtel's Shift to CPM. Foxtel is becoming the first network to trade all of its inventory on a CPM basis rather than TARP, aiming for better alignment with digital trends.

Compass Adelaide Panel. Unmade's Adelaide event panel features prominent industry voices, including David Penberthy and Erik de Roos, sharing expectations and advice for the upcoming year.

Binge and Kayo Crossover. Foxtel revealed a low 10% customer crossover between its entertainment service Binge and its sports service Kayo.

Foxtel's Content Strategy. Foxtel's Binge will now include live news and some sports content, positioning it defensively ahead of Warner Bros Discovery's launch in Australia.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index, which tracks ASX-listed media and marketing companies, lost 0.25% to land on 452.9 points.

Audio Sector Performance. The audio sector on the ASX saw Southern Cross Austereo rise by 4.3%, ARN Media by 3.5%, and Sports Entertainment group by 4% in a strong day.

Foxtel's New Partnerships. Foxtel's Video Futures Collective now includes Amazon, Disney Advertising, Samsung Ads, and others, representing a shift towards an alternative measurement system.

Interactive Experience. Burger King made the experience even more interactive by creating a 'flee and run' route to guide customers to the nearest Burger King location.

Playful Campaign. To promote the release of 'It Chapter Two', Burger King took a playful shot at McDonald's with the #EscapeTheClown campaign.

Countdown Challenge. With a ticking countdown, customers raced against time to claim their one-cent Whopper.

One-Cent Whopper. Customers were greeted with a floating red balloon and a coupon for a BK Whopper for just one cent.

Geo-Targeting Use. They used geo-targeting to send McDonald's customers real-time messages on Facebook and Instagram.

Engagement Metrics. With over 2 million organic views, 7,000 Emilys signed up and the campaign gained engagement from the show’s star, Lily Collins.

Driving Engagement. It proved that topical campaigns, when done cleverly, can generate buzz and drive engagement in ways that traditional marketing might not.

Campaign Timing. The campaign ran for 48 hours, perfectly timed with the global premiere of season two.

Free Month Offer. Duolingo offered all Emilys a free month of their premium Duolingo Plus service to avoid language mishaps.

Topical Campaign Success. Duolingo's campaign, Calling All Emilys, became its most successful campaign by tying into the release of Emily in Paris season two on Netflix.

Video Campaign. Watch the video to see the campaign in action.

Campaign Visibility. They displayed the X-rays on billboards, using lightboxes to illuminate the X-rays, making it impossible to miss.

Innovative Marketing. KFC didn’t rely on traditional product shots or videos. Instead, they turned these X-rays into powerful communication pieces displayed on billboards.

X-ray Campaign. KFC teamed up with specialists to take X-rays of their fried chicken to scientifically prove their product’s authenticity.

Distrust in Advertising. People no longer trusted food ads. Most thought images of food in ads were highly edited and didn’t reflect the actual product.

Consumer Skepticism. Spanish consumers had growing concerns about the authenticity of the food they were consuming, especially in the fast food sector.

Chicken Myths. Many believed that fast-food chicken wasn’t 'real' chicken. Competitors' offerings had led to this perception, affecting KFC’s reputation.

Engaging Experience. Shoppers could take photos of unique codes displayed on digital billboards and claim rewards, guiding them through a digital journey to learn about HEATTECH's benefits.

Campaign Success. The campaign reached more than four million people and brought in 35,000 new customers.

Innovative Campaign. UNIQLO answered the challenge of educating consumers about its HEATTECH range with a sense of fun and intrigue.

SEO Breakthrough. Google recognizes content creators: A breakthrough for E-E-A-T and SEO.

LinkedIn Changes. LinkedIn removes its Top Voice Badges for Collaborative Articles.

Location Tagging. Threads now lets you tag your location.

Significant Buzz. The campaign generated significant buzz both online and in-store, boosting consumer interest in the HEATTECH range.

Video Views. The campaign videos garnered 1.3 million views.

Subscriber Growth. Over 25,000 new subscribers signed up for the UNIQLO newsletter as a result of the campaign.

Sales Boost. Over 8,000 people proudly sported their new ink, leading to an impressive 208% boost in sales compared to the previous week.

Innovative Engagement. They quite literally inked their brand into people's lives- temporarily, of course!

Whopper Tattoo Campaign. Burger King Korea introduced the 'Whopper Tattoo' campaign to promote the revamped Whopper.

Video Campaign. Watch the video to see the campaign in action.

Participant Feedback. 92% of participants said the campaign successfully spotlighted the Whopper’s latest upgrade.

Barcode Tattoos. These tattoos weren’t just cool flame-inspired designs. They came embedded with scannable barcodes that could be redeemed at kiosks for a free Whopper and drink.

Google Exclusions. Google brings negative keyword exclusions to Performance Max.

Threads Update. Threads Users Can Now Add up to 20 Photos and Videos per Post.

Privacy Awareness Campaign. Surfshark created a thought-provoking display in London: a truck with a see-through toilet and a person inside.

Reflecting on Behaviors. It prompted people to start reflecting on their online behaviours and how much they might unknowingly be sharing, while also considering the potential risks involved.

New X Feature. X will let people you’ve blocked see your posts.

Bold Message. The idea was to start a conversation about why we freely share our data online but wouldn't feel comfortable doing something as personal as using a public toilet in front of others.

Album Pre-save Link. Strategically placed on her lower back, this scannable QR code allowed fans to pre-save her upcoming album, 143, set for release on 20th September 2024.

First Position Ads. YouTube First Position Ads now available across Display & Video 360.

YouTube Pause Screen Ads. YouTube is testing pause screen ads on the YouTube app.

Instagram Feature Rumor. You might start seeing Instagram comments on Threads soon.

Direct Engagement Strategy. Fans in attendance, as well as those watching from home, could scan the code to access early album content, providing a direct and personal way for her to engage with her audience.

Interactive Fan Experience. Perry cleverly integrated the physical and digital worlds, turning a usually static appearance into an interactive fan experience.

QR Code Tattoo. Katy Perry grabbed headlines at the 2024 MTV VMAs with a unique and unexpected twist: a QR code tattoo!

Marketing Recommendation. Marketers should consider daring, unconventional stunts to gain significant exposure and engagement, as demonstrated by Krishnan's approach.

Transaction Limit. Krishnan's card likely reached its ₹3 lakh limit, meaning he funded around 300 microtransactions before the card was blocked due to excessive activity.

Organic Reach. BoldCare's name was in millions of conversations across social media and that kind of organic reach would typically require a much larger budget through traditional advertising.

Transaction Impact. Within just 24 hours, the post had racked up over 3.3 million views, with users flocking to platforms like Swiggy, Zomato and Amazon to make small purchases.

Viral Marketing Stunt. Rahul Krishnan, co-founder of BoldCare, took things to a whole new level by sharing his credit card details online, managing to capture the attention of millions.

Cost vs. Exposure. While ₹3 lakh might seem like a big cost, the exposure generated by this stunt far outweighed the expenses.

Extended Bus Shelters. Minute Maid made it a bit brighter by extending bus shelters so passengers could sit outside the shade and catch some sunlight while waiting.

Open Billboard. Minute Maid turned that around with their Open Billboard, which was essentially an empty frame.

Reflective Billboard. Minute Maid addressed this with their Reflective Billboard, designed to redirect sunlight into those darker spaces.

New Video Tool. X is testing a video conferencing tool.

Business Chats Labels. Meta Adds Labels to Business Chats in Messenger.

Interactive Features Update. Instagram Adds Stories Comments To Encourage Interaction.

Vitamin D Opportunities. It was a small change, but it turned a dull wait into a chance to soak up some Vitamin D.

Campaign Purpose. Minute Maid's campaign wasn't just about promoting their drinks – it was about making sure city folks could get some sunlight.

Creative Leadership Benefits. Jones emphasizes that many businesses are underpowered in having marketing brains at the top, noting, 'We valued these things that we might call brand leadership.'

Negative Market Trends. Most activity on the Unmade Index was negative yesterday, with Domain losing 1.3% and parent company Nine dropping 0.8%.

SCA Market Capitalization. Southern Cross Austereo moved back past Vinyl Group with a market capitalization of $111.5m, while Vinyl Group's market cap landed at $111.1m.

Unlock Conference Keynote. On October 31, Jones will deliver the keynote at Unmade's Unlock conference in Sydney where he will discuss the role of telling stories in building brands.

Book Release Date. Lessons from Gin will be published by Wiley on October 30 and is available for presale.

Compass Conference Updates. Unmade's Compass will for the first time take place across six states of Australia, with the Sydney panel featuring notable industry leaders.

Four Pillars Success. Four Pillars Gin co-founder Matt Jones has written a book about the business discipline behind the creation of one of the great Australian brand success stories.

Innovative Marketing. They put up a unique billboard named ‘Megh Santoor’ outside Vijayawada Railway Station.

Instagram Update. Instagram is adding a Myspace-like ‘song on profile’ feature.

LinkedIn Feature. LinkedIn Launches In-Feed Video Carousels.

Google Search Update. Google Search may now use OG title for title links.

Musical Feature. The billboard used 31 strings to play Raag Megh Malhar, a traditional Indian melody associated with the monsoon.

Guinness World Record. This awesome project landed the brand a spot in the Guinness World Records for having the largest environmentally interactive billboard.

Interactive Billboard. A billboard played a classical Indian tune whenever it rained.

Government Action. Today, the government makes a significant policy move around behavioural economics which will impact every marketing strategy.

Vinyl Group Growth. Vinyl Group jumped by 15% to $116m.

Market Capitalisation Shift. Yesterday saw Southern Cross Austereo slip down to tenth biggest stock on the Index after being overtaken by Vinyl Group for market capitalisation.

Dynamic Pricing Scrutiny. Another key proposal will be to address 'dynamic pricing', which the government described as where product prices change during the transaction process.

Legislative Changes. The federal government is going to attempt to legislate on 'dodgy' marketing ploys.

Travel Decisions. For tourism and travel brands, 1 in 3 people still haven't made up their mind on their upcoming travel - a perfect time to influence their choices.

Boomtown Travel. Boomtown remains the most popular place to travel over the Summer period, with more than half of metro audiences travelling to regional Australia.

Competitive Landscape. As exciting as it is, the problem is that everyone is doing it.

Cheat Sheet Benefits. Omnisend has a cheat sheet for you to digest and stand out.

Ecommerce Event Importance. Black Friday. The Olympics of the ecommerce world.

Download Resource. Download the Omnisend BFCM Lookbook here and prepare one step at the time.

Effective Texts. Real examples of texts that actually get read.

Promotion Timing. When to start your promotions.

Email Creation Guidance. What emails to create.

Checklist Contents. It has: A checklist on what to do (including the important business of when to drink coffee).

Storytelling for Brand Loyalty. With insights and case studies from industry leaders, delegates will learn how storytelling, music, events and other live experiences can build brand loyalty, engage audiences, and deliver measurable ROI outside traditional 9-5 marketing strategies.

Earlybird Ticket Deadline. Reduced price earlybird tickets to Unlock expire at the end of today.

Media's Role in Accountability. Australia's democracy has a similar system where media serves to hold entities accountable, similar to the example of the UK government scandal.

Four Corners Investigates Live Nation. Last night, Four Corners welcomed Live Nation to the PR spotlight.

Unlock Conference Announcement. Above the paywall, you'll find the program announcement for Unlock, Unmade's one-day conference exploring strategies for marketing within the night time economy.

Engaging Young Audiences. This session busts some simplistic myths and stereotypes of young people's attitudes and behaviours, and explores how brands can become relevant with this audience by adopting a simple principle: cooperate with culture, don't co-opt it.

SXSW Insights for Sydney. Colin Daniels, Managing Director, South by Southwest Sydney (SXSW) shares the challenges and triumphs of bringing SXSW to Sydney, highlighting its impact on the city's cultural and nighttime economy.

Complimentary Pass for Members. Below the paywall, at the bottom of this post, is a coupon code for Unmade members to get a complimentary pass to Unlock.

Nighttime Economy Growth. The nighttime economy is a rapidly growing sector, offering brands new and evolving opportunities to engage with hard-to-reach audiences.

Campaign Brief Controversy. The scandal of the last few days has been playing out on LinkedIn as the industry questions Campaign Brief's ongoing emphasis on the talents only of male creatives.

Thinkerbell's Distancing. Thinkerbell has not paid, created or had any part to play in the list that appeared in the latest edition of the Campaign Brief magazine or the BestAds ranking list.

Event Promotion. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time.

Membership Incentives. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events.

Brand Damage Evidence. Coles and Woolworths have seen tangible brand damage from the ACCC prosecution new data from Roy Morgan Research shows.

AI and Celebrity Resurgence. In today's podcast: AI can bring dead actors back to life; but should it?

Unanswered Gender Bias. Creative Jet Swain put it more succinctly yesterday: 'Shame on you Campaign Brief. Nothing has changed in the three decades I’ve witnessed this blatant misogyny. Your NZ lists had no women, and Australia only has Tara Ford.'

Nine's Potential Changes. Stan’s founder Mike Sneesby no longer running Nine, the service may no longer be such a protected species, which could include launching ads on Stan in the same way that Netflix, Prime and co have.

Evolving Media Strategies. It became clear that Anthony Albanese's government has already evolved its thinking: it will legislate for the principle, and make solving it a legally mandated problem for the social media platforms.

Screen Australia Critique. Funding bodies are by their very nature clubby. They have to pick winners and losers and end up backing the people with track records that they know.

KFC's Competitive Campaign. KFC poked fun at their top competitor McDonald's in the latest promotion from Special Group Auckland, 'KFCurrency'.

Pressure on Media Platforms. Penalties for users will not feature in our legislative design. Instead, it will be incumbent on the platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to ensure fundamental protections are in place at the source.

Broadcasting Audience Decline. The metro audience for RN Breakfast has never been lower, averaging just 47,000 listeners across the five metro capitals.

Youth Mental Health Discussion. Across the two days, a wide range of advocates, experts and politicians discussed the impact of social media upon Australians, and particularly on youth mental health.

Government Action on Social Media. The federal government is late to the party. It was only last month that it promised to legislate.

Hotel Key Sponsorship. Brex sponsored the room keys of the conference’s recommended hotel, designing them to look like Brex credit cards.

Race Car Sponsorship. Bitdefender and CrowdStrike sponsored Formula 1 cars, placing their logos on the 'halo'—the protective ring above the driver's seat.

Metaphorical Branding. The halo is the most critical piece for protecting the driver’s head—and these companies protect their customers' most valuable assets from cyber threats.

Creative Logo Placement. You put your logo where the location tells a story about your product.

Negative Associations. Places that add friction to any experience aren’t good for logo placement.

Context Matters. The location of your logo can create a beautiful association; find a story to tell by where your logo appears.

Avoid Poor Placement. Intel's 'Intel Inside' logo placement inside players' jerseys offers zero visibility.

Unexpected Logo Placement. Consider the most unexpected places where your logo can tell a powerful story about your specific product.

Engaging Public Spaces. Bumble sponsored benches in colleges with the phrase 'Make the First Move', facilitating potential connections among students.

Parachute Branding. Red Bull 'Gives You Wings', literally, by placing their logo on parachutes and wingsuits of extreme athletes performing stunts.

Impact of Redundancies. A wave of redundancies has left some of the most talented, senior professionals in the media and marketing industries searching for their next roles.

Long-term Costs vs Short-term Savings. Today, we ask the long term cost for the industry of the short term savings made by cutting senior staff.

Unmade Index Performance. Nine lifted by 1.6% while ARN Media improved by 1.4%, taking the Unmade Index up by 0.6%.

SCA Market Capitalization Decline. SCA lost 3.2% to land on a market capitalisation just below $110m.

Consequences of Burnout. Burnout doesn’t just cause short-term absences or decreased performance—it can lead to long-term attrition, especially among highly skilled workers.

Underemployment of Seniors. Seven out of 10 respondents would take more junior roles if offered, indicating a degree of distress.

Need for Experienced Talent. When the majority of teams are hybrid and have limited time in the same space to learn, what happens when you don’t have experienced talent in the Zoom room?

Ageism in the Industry. A report from the Experience Advocacy Taskforce highlights the significant departure of adlanders over 40, citing age bias and structural barriers.

Burnout Concerns. The added weight on employees leads directly to burnout, a significant risk that many employers are ignoring.

Delayed Hiring Risks. This wait-and-see approach is becoming increasingly risky.

Unmade Compass Events. The dates have been confirmed for this year's Unmade Compass series, expanded for the first time to six states.

Ecommerce Cheat Sheet. Omnisend has a cheat sheet for you to digest and stand out, including a checklist on what to do and what emails to create.

Black Friday Preparedness. Black Friday is referred to as the Olympics of the ecommerce world, emphasizing its competitive and exciting nature.

TV Advertising Advantage. With WonderAds, you can buy, measure, and optimize ads that reach your target audience across linear TV, streaming TV, and online video without a massive budget or upfront commitments.

Digital Advertising Challenges. Scaling on digital platforms like paid social has become increasingly harder, with rising CPMs and diminishing returns.

Brand Building Tools. WonderAds offers a smarter way to scale your business while reaching new audiences and maximizing your brand's results through the power of TV.

Diversity in Leadership. Minassian called out the need for more diverse voices at the table to shape the future of the industry, reminding women to apply for roles, even if they don’t feel they have the 'perfect' experience.

Younger Demographics. Lomas added: 'When you look at the way consumers are starting to shop, younger demos are rekindling the love of the store.'

Customer-Centric Approach. Ferguson said, 'We listen to our customers. They give us sharp and direct feedback, and it’s what drives our decisions.'

Collaboration Importance. Another key takeaway was the need for better collaboration and data sharing between brands, retailers, and tech partners.

Retail Media 3.0. Lomas argued, 'We are rapidly approaching Retail Media 3.0 where it’s no longer a separate entity - it's just media, seamlessly integrated across channels and treated the same as other forms of media.'

Unmade Index Change. The index closed up by 0.2% at 451.6 points.

Untapped Opportunities. The possibilities for brand engagement in the nighttime economy are enormous but largely untapped.

Audience Targeting. Advertisers can deliver impactful campaigns in minutes with contextual targeting based on audience, environment, and proximity to products.

Marketing Nighttime Economy. Cat McGinn expresses excitement about curating Unlock, a conference focusing on the nighttime economy's marketing opportunities.

Digital Transformations. Retailers can digitally transform their stores and influence consumer behavior through tailored messages delivered on in-store digital displays.

Leadership Transition. Peter Horgan, CEO of Omnicom Media Group, is stepping down after 21 years with the agency.

Retail Stock Changes. Nine lost 1.2% to land on a stock price of $1.22, while Southern Cross Austereo dipped by 2.1% to 47c.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index lost 0.56% as two broadcasting stocks dipped close to all-time lows.

Potential for Innovation. The nighttime economy offers a rich, exciting environment for innovation and creativity, and it’s time to explore it to its fullest potential.

Changing Marketing Strategies. The shift now is to an attention economy; audiences are overserved with content, requiring brands to facilitate and curate cultural moments.

Transparency in Reporting. Full transparency with real-time reporting.

Quality Backlinks Needed. You need quality backlinks.

Speeding Up QA. Their AI-native approach gets your team to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage and helps them ship 5x faster by reducing QA cycles from hours to minutes.

Bottlenecks in QA. If slow QA processes bottleneck you or your software engineering team and you’re releasing slower because of it — you must check out QA Wolf.

High Domain Ratings. We at dofollow.com deliver them from 70-90+ DR sites in your vertical.

CEO Resignation. The same day, Enero announced that CEO Brent Scrimshaw has resigned, also 'to pursue another opportunity'.

Stock Performance. On October 1 we revealed that Enero had been the worst performing company on the Unmade index in the previous quarter, losing 40% of its value.

Profit Decrease. On September 13 Enero published its annual report which revealed a crash in both profits and revenues, and that two new acquisitions had proved to be stinkers.

Management Departures. As Enero's CEO, chief financial officer and chair all depart, we examine how a couple of bad acquisitions have undermined the company’s decade-long recovery.

Board Changes. On September 16 Enero announced that chair Ann Sherry would step down and that chief financial officer Carla Webb-Sear has resigned ‘to pursue another opportunity’.

High Awareness Conversion. Specifically, high brand awareness advertisers drive 2.86x more lower-funnel conversions, like purchases, than low awareness advertisers.

Importance of Brand. If you want to drive business growth, brand matters.

Brand vs. Performance. New research from Tracksuit, a global brand tracking company, and TikTok reveals how once bitter rivals—performance and brand marketing—drive more conversions when used together.

REmade Conference Success. Welcome to Best of the Week, written in Evandale, Tasmania, on the post-event adrenaline comedown of a successful REmade conference.

Unmade Index Stability. The Unmade Index had a calmer end to the week, finishing almost flat on Friday, down by just 0.2%.

Softer Content Needed. The management must hope that Sandilands and Henderson’s egos are big enough to want to win, even if it means smoothing the edges off their content.

Market Index Challenges. The company currently owes $39.7m to Adevinta for the Gumtree Group purchase and has breached its debt covenants.

ABC's Campaign of the Week. Howatson+Company subverts audience expectations and pokes fun at the seriousness of a cost of living crisis in new ads for ABC iView.

Olympics Impact on 2GB. 2GB had a shocker in Sydney, losing 3.1 percentage points of share, dropping from 13.3% to 10.2% of the Monday to Sunday audience.

Sydney Audience Decline. In Melbourne, the average audience across the two cities was 162,000 in Survey 3. This time round it was 141,000, a decline of 13% since the start.

Headache for ARN Media. Five months since the Sydney show extended into Melbourne, we still don’t know if the K+J problem is strategic or executional.

Kyle & Jackie O Ratings Drop. The Kyle & Jackie O Show slipped again for Kiis with a 5.2% share of the 5.30am to 9am time slot, placing them as Melbourne's sixth FM show.

Career Game Changer. A staggering 93% of users say Sidebar has been a game changer in their careers.

Promotion Support. Advancing in tech isn’t just about hard work; it’s about smart support.

Industry Leader Insights. Hear insights from industry leaders at Fidelity, IBM, Google Cloud, and more on how they are making every customer interaction personal.

Personalized Engagement. At Twilio Segment's CDP Week, we’re bringing together experts to share their experiences from the frontlines to show you how it’s never been easier to deliver personalized engagement within the AI era.

Automate Business Processes. Airtable bridges the gap between AI potential and business reality.

AI Adoption Challenge. AI promises generational change, but are you seeing real returns?

Static Menu Logo Fix. Make your menu logo static on checkout and sign-up pages.

Clickable Logo Issue. Your own logo shouldn’t be clickable on checkout pages and forms because it tempts users to navigate away from completing the desired action.

Increase in Submissions. They changed customer logos to grayscale, resulting in a 34% increase in form submissions.

Social Proof Pitfall. Social proof on form pages is a good thing—but the colorful logos were actually distracting users from the form itself.

Color Grayscale Fix. On checkout pages and 'book a demo' pages → convert non-essential images and logos to grayscale.

Remove Distractions. When your users are ready to take action—like entering their credit card details or booking a demo—the last thing you want is to distract them.

Color Distraction. Colorful logos and images can overshadow your CTA. They might even look clickable when they shouldn’t be.

Website Design Impact. Your website's design could be hurting your conversions.

Design for Action. Design for action. Use A/B testing to see what works best.

Cato Networks Example. I counted 93 (!) exit opportunities on Cato Networks’ demo page.

Minimize Footers. Remove the footer entirely or minimize it on critical pages.

Footer Link Problem. Footers are packed with links that act as 'exit opportunities' = they invite users to explore (rather than convert).

Spheria's Market Moves. Spheria revealed to the market that it had upped its stake in ARN Media by a percentage point to 6.8%, and in Seven by a percentage point to 9.8%.

Competition Law Challenges. Google’s share of the search advertising market and of the programmatic chain have both been litigated in the US in recent months with a forced breakup perhaps the best outcome for both the market and shareholders.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index slumped on Thursday, dragged downwards by a 3.4% fall in Ooh Media’s valuation and a 0.8% dip for Nine.

Advertising Spend Decline. Printed newspapers were down 18.5%, but advertising against digital news was worse again, down 38.4%.

Market Regulation Suggestions. It might be better to rip [media ownership rules] up altogether and allow full consolidation, underpinned by competition regulation.

Media Economic Impact. Half as many dollars doesn’t simply mean half as many journalists; it means media businesses dramatically shrinking to remain profitable at all.

Impact on Journalism. If you accept that journalism has a role in keeping democracies democratic, then that’s a policy failure of its own - globally and locally.

Regulatory Failure. Viewed from the lens of public good, the table tells a story of global regulatory failure.

Global Platforms Dominance. In the US, Google and Meta have eaten the advertising market, taking more than half of all ad dollars in 2023.

Ad Spend Concentration. US data points to three global platforms now swallowing more than half of ad spend.

Mercha's Digital Innovation. Mercha can claim to be the first branded merchandise player in Australia to have fully digitised its processes in what remains marketing's arguably most analogue sector.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index slipped on Wednesday after Nine, the biggest locally listed media and marketing stock, lost 1.6% to fall back to a market capitalisation of $1.9bn.

Environmental Commitment. It is shocking to me that 66% of promotional products end up in landfill.

Ethical Product Selection. We turned it down. I draw the line on offering people crap that's going into the bin or offering people product that's not made fairly.

Sustainability Challenges. Promotional merchandise is also a sector facing headwinds as sustainability moves further up the agenda.

Impressive Turnover. Over just three years, Mercha has ramped up to a turnover of $2.9m in the last financial year.

Successful Seed Funding. Last month the company wrapped up a $300,000 crowd-funded seed round, valuing it at around $10m.

Future Prospects Indicated. Market capitalisation captures what investors believe a business will be worth in the future, implying they think Domain has better prospects than the rest of Nine put together.

Nine's Debt Comparison. Nine has a net debt of $489.2m to Domain’s $150.8m, indicating a larger enterprise value despite a smaller market cap.

Domain's Market Cap Milestone. Domain’s market capitalization rose by 2.2% to $2.06bn, surpassing its parent company Nine, which is worth $2.02bn.

SCA's Deal Reports. Southern Cross Austereo is reportedly close to finalizing deals with Paramount and Seven West Media to sell its regional TV licenses.

Takeover Target Speculation. ARN Media is starting to look as much a takeover target as a predator amid its failed stalking of Southern Cross Austereo.

ARN Media's Stake Increase. ARN Media's share price jumped by 9.1% after Samuel Terry Asset Management upped its stake from 7.4% to 17%.

Real Estate Investment Insights. News Corp’s real estate business delivered US$508m in EBITDA profits, significantly more than its news media segment, which only delivered US$120m.

Domain's Historical Growth. Domain began as a section of the Fairfax newspapers in 1996, with the domain.com.au website launching in 1999.

Job Market Timeline. Five or six weeks to lock in your next job before the hiring window closes until Australia Day.

Membership Benefits. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time.

Domain Growth. Domain won the quarter with a $100m growth in market cap.

Quarter Analysis. Today: With the first quarter of the financial year wrapping up, we’ve our first analysis of how our listed media and market companies are travelling in this financial year.

Christmas Countdown. 61 working days til Christmas.

Upcoming Events. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (today!), Unlock (31 October), and Compass (November).

Retail Media Networks. Can retail media networks succeed if they are non-retailer owned?

Bruce Gordon Retires. Billionaire Bruce Gordon retires from WIN as succession questions loom.

ACCC Concerns. Last week, the ACCC lit the fuse on a new battleground for retailers - does their ownership of retail media networks give them too much power?

Google's AI Tools. Google's AI Overviews are finally coming to Australia, which will alarm many publishers; and Google also unveils a powerful new research tool, Notebook LM.

Membership Benefits. Upgrading to an Unmade membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events.

Public Trust Erosion. The ACCC's actions have resulted in a loss of customer trust in the supermarkets, indicating an abuse of market power.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index lost 0.88% following a previous day's gain of 3.85%, indicating market volatility.

Foxtel's Measurement Departure. Foxtel's exit from OzTAM highlights Australia's shift away from unified media measurement, contrary to the UK which is progressing towards it.

Impact of Retail Media. For the first time, the ACCC has started looking into Coles and Woolworths' retail media networks, suggesting potential overreach in supplier relationships.

PR as Offensive Weapon. The ACCC's media release was crafted into a story that the media and the public would immediately understand, showcasing public relations as a strategic offensive weapon.

ACCC's Supermarket Attack. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission delivered a one-two punch against Coles and Woolworths, launching court action accusing both retailers of using dark patterns of price reductions.

LinkedIn Post Dynamics. The LinkedIn algorithm LOVES these celebration posts. Say you’re excited, humbled, or honored… → and LinkedIn will show your post to thousands.

Post Structure Mastery. Start from the middle: Delete fluff intros to get to the point faster.

Excitement Framing. Frame your excitements anti-professionally: 'Excited to share that I just got promoted. First order of business: A week-long Netflix binge. Who’s with me?'

Community Focus. Focus on others: Help juniors get work, offer real advice, and share resources.

Breaking Corporate Norms. When you break corporate rules and post about it on LinkedIn, you go viral.

Most Viral Post. This manager replaced her professional headshot with a casual no-makeup photo. She was anti-professional, and broke the LinkedIn norm, and everyone could relate. BOOM! Viral. 850K+ likes.

Effective Topics. If you talk about one of these topics on LinkedIn = jackpot.

Unrealistic Perfection. Don’t celebrate an imaginary perfect life. It only makes people cringe.

Viral Content Strategy. Instead, the people who actually go viral on LinkedIn are the ones who are purposefully 'anti-professional'.

Anti-Professional Approach. The #1 mistake I always see on LinkedIn — people try so hard to be professional.

Interconnected Ecosystem. Retail media has created an interconnected ecosystem of retailers, tech platforms, agencies, and advertisers in a way that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

Fragmentation Challenge. Retail media is presently highly fragmented: Advertisers face an array of networks, channels, inventory, budgets, and reports.

Retail Media Evolution. The retail media sector has evolved rapidly in Australia. It is no longer just a media channel for early adopters or a nascent new line of business for retailers.

Strategic RMN Investment. Retailers should get clarity about whether their RMN is primarily about creating opportunities to generate income, or if it’s a long-term strategy.

Unmade Index Surge. The Unmade Index surged by 3.85% to 466.6 points, well ahead of the ASX All Ordinaries which jumped just over 1%.

Chinese Economy Influence. The Unmade Index had one of its best days in many months on Thursday after the ASX reacted positively to news of stimulation efforts in the Chinese economy.

Trust Erosion. Over time, click-through rates and conversions drop as ad saturation leads to diminished consumer trust and engagement.

Ad Load Trap. The simplest analysis of the problem is one of ad load – an increase in the number of advertising units per page.

Trade Teams Impact. Retail media today often pulls from trade marketing which isn’t incremental to retailers.

Talent Perception. The talent problem is not the problem: the problem is how you are thinking about the problem.

Skills Shortage. Retailers and advertisers talk of skills shortage with retail media hires. Retailers are good at retailing, not at selling media.

Sales Email Automation. Pipedrive’s one-click email creation saves you time and enhances your outreach.

Meta's AI Features. Meta's new AI features, showcased at the Connect conference, position it to compete with OpenAI and Google.

AI Demand Rising. With AI demand rising, Meta must prove its tech can live up to the demo—and that it can monetize these features without incurring steep operating costs.

Cost-effective Llama 3. Meta’s Llama 3 model is touted as cost-efficient, but scaling AI for millions of users may increase costs.

Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. The upcoming AI upgrades for Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses offer practical features, like real-time language translation and memory assistance.

Pipedrive AI Tools. Pipedrive's AI-powered CRM helps you streamline success and make data-driven decisions so you can focus on one thing: selling.

Unmade Index Growth. The Unmade Index bounced yesterday as the market absorbed improving inflation numbers, growing by 1.5% to 449.3 points.

Stock Performance. Among the larger stocks, Nine saw the biggest lift, up by 2.44%.

Successful Media Strategy. Our media company now is really the engine that allows us to invest in technology.

Vinyl Group's Market Position. Vinyl Group, with a market capitalisation of a little under $92m, is behind only Nine, Domain, Ooh Media, Seven West Media, ARN Media and Southern Cross Austereo when it comes to local ASX-listed media companies.

Future Acquisitions. Simons hints there are more media acquisitions in the entertainment space to come, including overseas.

Publishing Etiquette Lesson. Simons took charge of the Brag Media publishing operation and describes it as 'a masterclass in media', acknowledging he was 'naive' when he took control.

Departure of Luke Girgis. The less-than-amicable departure of Brag Media co-founder Luke Girgis occurred five months after the takeover.

Vinyl Group Acquisition. Simons was the architect of Vinyl's $8m+ purchase of the Brag Media group, publisher of The Brag and local editions of Rolling Stone and Variety among others, at the start of the year.

User Base Growth. Join over 100,000 users worldwide driving business growth with Pipedrive.

Cycle of Copying. Snapchat isn’t alone in this; Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube have all introduced TikTok-like features.

Survival Strategy. In the cutthroat social media world, innovation often means borrowing the competition's ideas.

Imitation Strategy. Simple Snapchat's layout and recommendation algorithm are clearly inspired by TikTok's For You Page.

CRM Efficiency. Pipedrive's easy and effective CRM lets you track your sales pipeline, manage deals and automate the whole process so you can focus on one thing: selling.

Snapchat's New Feature. Snapchat's latest feature, Simple Snapchat, merges its Stories and Spotlight into a single vertical video feed—looking suspiciously like TikTok.

AI-Powered Sales. Pipedrive's Sales Assistant spots patterns and recommends next-best actions, helping you stay one step ahead.

Unmade Index Recovery. The Unmade Index staged a mild recovery on Tuesday, improving by 0.78% to 442.7 points.

TV Sector Measurement. The audio industry’s next biggest challenge is to start delivering the sort of measurement the TV sector is getting to grips with.

REmade Event Structure. For the first time, we will be holding round table discussions during the lunch break, to give attendees the opportunity to take deeper dives into key retail media topics.

Incremental Reach Strategy. Switching in some podcast spend from radio or elsewhere becomes quite an interesting strategy if podcast listeners are people not being reached by radio.

Low Podcast Listening. The most common listening pattern (35%) amongst people who have consumed a podcast in the last month is just one to two hours per week.

PodPoll Sample Size. The online survey features 6,495 respondents, which makes it a decent sample size.

Podcast Growth. 8.2m people, or 39% of Australia's 15+ population, are listening to a podcast at least monthly.

Brand Damage. Getting on the wrong side of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has become an exceptionally efficient way to destroy brand value.

Keynote Speaker. Opening the conference with a keynote on leveraging the power of storytelling and brand experience in the 24 hour economy is communications strategist turned award-winning gin distiller, Four Pillars Gin co-founder Matt Jones.

Unlock Conference. Taking place on October 31, Unlock is co-located with the Neon Forum, organised by the NSW Government's Office of the 24-Hour Economy Commissioner.

Supermarket Crisis. Coles and Woolworths yesterday saw their worst ever headlines. This will not be a one-day embarrassment. This is a full on brand crisis that will reshape the supermarket sector.

ACCC Prosecution. Just as the reputation of Qantas is yet to fully recover a year on from the 'ghost flights' prosecution, Coles and Woolworths...will face over the ACCC's prosecution.

Storytelling Impact. The session will outline the benefits of investing in real-world experiences and culture within the 24-hour economy.

Community Connection. Despite the commercialization, personal connections remain central to these communities.

Ethical Accountability. Monet avoids promoting brands with controversial histories, such as Dolce & Gabbana, while others critique unethical ingredient sourcing practices.

Viral Success. For example, @perfumerism's TikTok review of Bianco Latte by Giardini di Toscana garnered 11 million views, making it a best-seller and sparking a trend for milky perfumes.

Influencer Impact. Creators like Funmi Monet, known as the 'fragrance auntie' with nearly 500,000 TikTok followers, are influencing trends and driving sales.

Brand Characteristics. Knowing the characteristics that can make your brand a cultural mainstay like Apple or Disney is half the battle of marketers.

Emerging Platforms. New platforms like the Sniff app are emerging, offering a more neutral space for recommendations and discussions.

Telstra's New Campaign. Telstra is among the first brands to reveal its plans for a big campaign launch timed around AFL grand final.

Upcoming Events for Members. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of Unmade's events.

LinkedIn's AI Training. LinkedIn admits to training its AI on user content.

Disrupt Radio's Situation. Disrupt Radio says it’s in a 'holding pattern' and is two months behind in staff payments.

James Warburton's Investment. James Warburton invests in Boost Media alongside private equity company CVC.

Outlook Security Changes. Microsoft Announces Outlook Security Changes.

ChatGPT's Article Selection. It's definitely interesting to see what type of articles ChatGPT chooses.

Japan Trip Cost Breakdown. I recently did a FULL cost breakdown of my trip to Japan.

Working From Holiday. Have you heard of the term working from holiday? Well, I made it up, but I did some sleuthing around and found many people who work while on holiday as well.

3D-Printed Glass Bricks. 3D-Printed Glass Bricks Could Revolutionize Construction.

Tech Ecosystem Overview. The episode aims to explore the current happenings within the tech ecosystem.

Diverse Topics. The selected articles cover space exploration breakthroughs, cybersecurity innovations, and developments in consumer tech.

Chosen Articles. ChatGPT is handpicking its 5 most intriguing tech articles.

Declining Journalist Numbers. In publishing, the number of journalists has halved in recent years.

Advertising Market Share. It’s estimated that the big tech platforms are hoovering up about $15bn in advertising each year in Australia, 70 or 80% of the digital ad market.

Increased Antitrust Scrutiny. The antitrust trial in the US has been putting on the record all sorts of allegations of anticompetitive behaviour which has hurt publishers around the world.

Weakening Negotiation Position. The dithering is already weakening the position of publishers currently renegotiating deals with Google.

Meta Designation Uncertain. The growing expectation among publishers is that the government will not designate Meta, instead edging towards a digital levy on the platforms.

Digital Levy Impact. If a digital levy happens it could fundamentally reshape the business model of public interest journalism.

Government Dithering. The government was allowing another Parliamentary sitting week to drift by without moving forward on its media reforms.

Specsavers Campaign Success. The Specsavers campaign features a comedic approach with a message that resonates with audiences.

Southern Cross Decline. Southern Cross Austereo's market cap fell to just $113m, losing 18% in the last month.

Ooh Media Growth. Ooh Media's market capitalisation moved back above $700m with an improvement of nearly 2%.

Seven's Legal Actions. Seven went legal over the return of Big Brother to Network Ten, showing its desire to protect its interests.

Control Over Domain. Nine only has three directors on a board of eight at Domain, and chair Falloon will exercise his independence.

Nine's Board Restructuring. Mickie Rosen's appointment to the Domain Board reinforces Nine's sharper focus on Domain.

Okta's Apps Report. Annual 'Businesses at Work' report with the fastest-growing and most popular apps across 17,000+ companies.

Internal Research Value. Pro tip: No interesting internal data? Create your own through surveys, like Asana did.

Programmatic SEO Strategy. This 'data bomb' strategy can also be used to automatically generate 1,000s or even 1,000,000s of webpages that get indexed on Google.

Asana's Work Data. Workers spend 58% of their time on 'work about work' instead of skilled labor.

Carta's Startup Insights. Rare insights into startup equity, like average founder ownership at each funding stage.

Wiz's Intelligence Resource. We made our internal cloud threat intelligence database public, creating an exclusive resource on cloud security incidents.

Gong Labs Sharing. Gong shares all data bombs on a dedicated website called 'Gong Labs'.

Spotify Wrapped Success. Spotify Wrapped campaign - personalized listening stats for 450M+ users.

Gong's Cold Call Insight. In cold calls, the opening line 'How have you been?' outperforms 'How are you?' by 6.6x!

Data Bomb Marketing. Leverage your internal data for viral marketing campaigns. I call it 'Data Bomb Marketing'.

Data Collection Gap. Most companies collect tons of data. Few do anything with it.

Alcohol Preference Shift. Last night was the first time I’ve been to an Upfronts party where not drinking alcohol was as easy as joining in.

Event Drink Options. At the DPA event, there were trays of beer and wine, but juices too.

Industry Event Observation. It’s often the case at industry events that it’s much easier to default to the alcoholic option.

Unmade Index Performance. Domain lost 1.7%, while its majority owner Domain slipped by 0.4%.

Alcoholism in Industry. This is an industry which has its fair share of people with difficult relationships with alcohol.

Social Norms Influence. Human behaviour is about nudges. That’s the whole idea behind behavioural economics.

Market Status. The Unmade Index slipped by 0.15% to land on 442.4 points.

Heaps Normal Introduction. The thing I really noticed was that tins of the no-alcohol beer Heaps Normal circulated all night.

AI Efficiency Tool. Save time and boost efficiency with Guidde, the free AI-powered tool that creates stunning, step-by-step video guides in seconds.

Micro-Influencer Impact. minisocial combines micro-influencer activations with UGC creation to deliver content that drives conversions, boosts engagement, and goes viral.

Use of QR Codes. Heinz added QR codes to their ads so people could quickly scan and find Heinz-serving restaurants nearby.

Google Image Recognition. Heinz used Google's image recognition technology to allow customers to take a photo of a Heinz bottle and get directions to the nearest restaurant that serves it.

Heinz Finder Initiative. In Canada, Heinz launched a campaign called the 'Heinz Finder' to connect customers with restaurants serving Heinz ketchup.

Engaging Content Ideas. Develop a list of engaging and SEO-friendly content ideas tailored for the specific industry/niche to attract, inform, and convert the audience.

SEO Tracking Tool. RankCaddy monitors your Google rankings and provides actionable insights at a lower cost.

Influencer Collaboration. Heinz worked with social media influencers who shared the campaign, making it a huge success.

Targeted Advertising. To spread the word, Heinz used a mix of digital ads in busy areas like Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia.

Unmade Index Update. The Unmade Index picked up 0.95%, moving to 443.1 points.

Authenticity in Advertising. Strategically, it’s a dead ringer for Google’s emotionally empty ad from July, in which a dad used its AI product Gemini to write a letter to an athlete purporting to be from his daughter.

AI Product Ads. This week, some of the greatest minds in advertising creativity took another swing and miss at selling the benefits of AI to a consumer audience.

Member Benefits. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (1 October), Unlock (31 October), and Compass (across November).

Apple's Campaign Failure. Apple, celebrated for the last 40 years as a wonderful custodian of its own brand, has released an absolute stinker of a campaign to promote the benefits of Apple Intelligence.

Event Announcement. Unlock - Brands x 24 Hr Economy takes place in Sydney on October 31.

SEN Radio Growth. SEN Radio’s owner Sports Entertainment Group gained 7.1%.

Creative Risk Aversion. These campaigns show the hallmarks of marketing by a risk averse committee, nervous of the backlash if they showed some of the truly powerful things generative AI is capable of.

Strategic Partnerships. Parallel has linked Venus Williams to protein drink Happy Viking, where Williams actively influences the brand's direction.

Recommendation for Audiio. Get 70% off your Audiio Pro membership today when you use coupon code 'curiouscreator'.

Authenticity in Endorsements. Florence insists authenticity is key: 'If a product can't succeed without a celebrity, it won't with one either.'

Successful Celebrity Collab. Recent hits include actor Busy Phillips joining low-sugar candy brand Behave as an investor and advisor, boosting their e-commerce by 300%.

Time-saving Music Tool. As an Audiio Pro subscriber, you can find the perfect music and sound effects for your videos in a fraction of the time.

AI Music Search. With Audiio's AI-powered search engine, LinkMatch, you can search their entire catalog in seconds.

Media Agency Spend. Early Guideline SMI data on media agency spend for August showed most sectors going backwards, despite hopes that the market had hit bottom.

Southern Cross Capitalisation. The market capitalisation of Southern Cross Austereo dropped below $120m for the first time after losing another 2%.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index slid back close to its low point on Tuesday despite the wider ASX All Ordinaries edging into positive territory.

Market Reaction. The ad industry went into paroxysms of schadenfreude on Monday night with the arrival of a 9pm announcement from Mutinex.

Baxter's Departure. After just four months, the APAC CEO of Mutinex, Mat Baxter, has left the business, unable to work happily alongside founder and global CEO Henry Innis.

Membership Benefits. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to all of Unmade's events, including HumAIn (2025), REMade (1 October), Unlock (31 October), and Compass (November);

Content Strategy. Big Brother will be live on Ten and streamed 24 hours a day live which is almost exactly the sort of content FAST was invented for.

Live Reality TV Investment. There’s a further investment in live reality TV alongside I’m A Celebrity.

Unified Theme. The global ownership structure of the company leaves Paramount as the best placed media company to argue that the sum of its parts adds up to more than the whole.

Advertiser Offering. Paramount is the only company locally that can offer advertisers audiences across SVOD, BVOD, FAST and FTA.

Paramount Upfronts Kickoff. Paramount yesterday become the first of Australia’s TV companies to show its hand during 2025 Upfronts season.

Future of Broadcasting. Southern Cross Austereo’s valuation will go up as soon as it finally offloads its fading regional TV licences and becomes a pure play audio company.

Index Recovery. The Unmade Index finally broke an eight day streak of declines to record a move upwards yesterday, growing by 1.36% to 443.3 points.

Declining Linear Audiences. The second fact is linear audiences are declining. I think none of us can have our heads in the sand about that.

Shift in Perception. Prosser acknowledges: “We don't see ourselves as a free-to-air business anymore. We see ourselves … as a premium video business.”

Bullying Claims. A slew of bullying claims have also been levelled against two senior women at Nine.

Historic Media Rights Deal. Paramount Australia and Football Australia agree to a historic multi-year, multi-platform media rights deal for Australian national teams through to 2028.

Nine's Valuation Decline. In recent reports, Nine's valuation falls below $1bn after losing $3bn in the space of three years.

NRL's Bid Discussion. The NRL is trying to talk up a bid from Paramount for its next round of rights negotiations.

Upcoming Upfronts. We get ready for another big week in Upfronts season, with Paramount sharing its plans for 2025 today.

Contenders for CEO. Acting CEO Matt Stanton's first challenge will be navigating the release of the report into the company’s culture.

Sneesby's Departure. Mike Sneesby may be on the way out for Nine, but the company still has months of dramas ahead.

Nine's Valuation Decline. Mike Sneesby becomes the first local media CEO to have deliver shareholders a decline in valuation of more than $3bn.

Advertising ROI Case Study. An Optus case study shared earlier in the day at the conference demonstrated the uplift in return on advertising investment once heavy users could be served different executions.

Unmade Index Status. The Index, which charts the performance of Australia's listed media and marketing companies was almost flat, drifting down by just 0.07% to another new low of 437.4 points.

Growth Story Needed. There’s a bigger prize for the TV industry to play for than a new logo.

VOZ Marketplace Explained. The key fact which had eluded me and at least some others is that the VOZ marketplace is not, in fact a marketplace.

Importance of CEO. Sneesby’s three years are a demonstration of how quickly a company can drift off course with the wrong CEO.

Competitor Strategies. The case for Nine as the ideal owner of news mastheads the Australian Financial Review, The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald gets weaker all the time.

Suitable CEO Candidate. The best person for the role is not automatically the one with the highest profile.

Sneesby's Departure. After Mike Sneesby’s departure, now we turn to the question of who’s the right choice to lead Australia’s biggest media company.

Kate Spade Strategy. Amanda Bopp, VP of marketing and ecommerce at Kate Spade, focuses on customer engagement, like online reviews, as a path to loyalty and sales.

Branding Merging. At Adweek's Commerceweek, execs from Kate Spade and Starface World discussed how brand building and performance marketing are merging to drive loyalty and sales.

AI Features. Streamline success and make smarter, faster decisions with AI-powered features.

User Growth. Join over 100,000 users worldwide driving business growth with Pipedrive.

CRM Benefits. Pipedrive's easy and effective CRM lets you track your sales pipeline, manage deals and automate the whole process so you can focus on one thing: selling.

Starface Engagement. Kara Brothers, president of Starface, explained how the brand uses humor on TikTok to promote its acne patches, engaging 2.5 million followers.

Reverse Engineering. Great marketers analyze successful campaigns to identify key elements and psychological triggers behind their success, which is the art of reverse engineering.

Effective Goals. A clear, achievable goal and a tangible reward were pivotal in the success of Morning Brew's referral program.

Real-World Application. The Viral Post Generator was built by scraping 100,000s of LinkedIn posts to analyze what makes the top 0.1% stand out.

Frequency of Remix. Hold monthly 'remix' challenges to reconstruct marketing ideas from different industries for your brand.

Skill Distinction. The #1 skill that separates good marketers from great marketers is the ability to break down successful campaigns.

Creative Theft. Reverse engineering is all about creative theft: finding amazing campaigns, deconstructing what works, and rebuilding it in new ways.

Morning Brew Example. Morning Brew's 'Refer 50, Get a Mug' campaign deconstructed traditional referral programs and identified key elements to create a viral loop.

SCAMPER Technique. To creatively rebuild ideas, consider using the SCAMPER technique: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.

Systematic Collection. Set up a system for collecting examples, whether it’s a folder, spreadsheet, or app.

Framework Habit. The best marketers have a process, a framework, and a habit of deconstructing greatness and reconstructing it in their own image.

Deconstructing Campaigns. Most marketers don't have a system for deconstructing successful campaigns; they merely admire a campaign and then move on.

Collecting Examples. Start by actively hunting and gathering examples of marketing brilliance in the wild; make it a habit.

Localized Campaign Effectiveness. Brands are finding that a localized approach can be just as effective—if not more so—than high-profile urban strategies.

Event Marketing Strategy. Willa's chose to launch in Target stores and promote the brand at the Minnesota State Fair, a prime spot for reaching a large, diverse audience.

Local Ads Impact. Belgian Boys noticed that their customers’ baskets also included everyday essentials, prompting a shift to localized ads and partnerships.

Market Presence. Now found in nearly 10,000 stores, including Target, Walmart, and Kroger, Belgian Boys has shifted its focus from trendy city spots to mass-market retailers.

Optimal Budget Split. Les Binet and Peter Field, global experts on marketing effectiveness, honed a formula to help you find your optimal budget split based on the unique characteristics of your industry, size, market and strategy.

Hyper-Local Marketing. Hummingbirds connects brands with local creators to run targeted campaigns in specific cities, helping brands like Olipop execute cost-effective, hyper-local promotions.

Mike Sneesby's Departure. Mike Sneesby becomes the first local media CEO to have delivered shareholders a decline in valuation of more than $3bn.

EBITDA Decline. Sneesby inherited an annual EBITDA profit number of $564.7m in the 2021 financial year; last month he delivered a number of $517.4m for FY24.

Nine's Valuation Decline. This week, Nine's market capitalisation fell below $2bn.

Market Sentiment. The much bigger fall in share price tells a story of a market that stopped believing in the company's prospects under Sneesby and his board.

Sneesby's Impact. The same market that assigned a valuation of $5bn to Nine on the day Sneesby was announced as CEO in 2021, concluded the company's future is now worth $3bn less.

Upcoming Events. Events include REmade - Retail Media Unmade on October 1 and Unlock on October 31.

Membership Perks. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events.

B2B SaaS Growth. dofollow.com helps B2B SaaS companies increase rankings and traffic, so they can bring more qualified leads to their doorstep.

Importance of Links. Without regular links from high-authority sites that tell search engines your site is worth showing, it won’t surface when buyers look for a solution like yours.

Content Is King. You can put out the best content in your industry.

Decline of Nine's Market Cap. Nine's market capitalisation declined another 2% on Tuesday, ending the trading day on a market capitalisation of below $2bn for the first time in Mike Sneesby's tenure as CEO.

Loyalty Programs Importance. Loyalty programs are vital for retail media, as they provide rich customer insights that enable more targeted, relevant advertising.

Unmade Index Low. The Unmade Index, which tracks all the ASX-listed media and marketing stocks, closed on another new low, dropping 0.12% to land on 443 points.

Future of Advertising. In the case of the age crackdown, the government appears to be taking on the burden by funding the research into the best way of doing it, rather than legislating for the principle.

Effect of Privacy Regulation. The decision not to proceed with the hard bits of the Privacy Act reforms - removing exemptions for smaller businesses and creating a 'fair and reasonable' test for what information about the public - is consequential for the industry.

Medium Article. I talk about my writing hiatus and why I'm back!

Podcast Relaunch. I'm finally excited to re-launch my podcast.

Airbnb vs Hotels. Here's one recently I released around my thoughts on Airbnb vs Hotels in Japan.

YouTube Content. I've started to create a ton of content surrounding my experiences in Japan.

Google Focus. In this week's podcast, we're be taking a look at some recent news around Google especially its anti-competitive positioning.

CEO Valuation Report. Mike Sneesby becomes the first local media CEO to have deliver shareholders a decline in valuation of more than $3bn.

Valuation Decline. Nine's valuation falls below $2bn, after losing $3bn in the space of three years.

Market Capitalisation Dip. For a while yesterday, Nine's market capitalisation dipped below $2bn, before recovering slightly to finish the day at $2.006bn.

Privacy Reforms Delayed. The most consequential reforms to the Privacy Act have been moved to 'the too-hard basket', and are likely to be dumped to the other side of the election.

AI Regulations Consultation. The government has kicked off a fortnight-long consultation period around a new set of voluntary rules on AI usage.

Crackdown on Scam Ads. The government is announcing a crackdown on scam ads with fines for the digital platforms that carry them.

Membership Upgrade Offer. This is the perfect time to upgrade to an Unmade membership to access events and members-only content.

Disrupt Radio Challenges. Disrupt Radio staff have gone unpaid for nearly two months, emphasizing struggles in the startup environment.

Startup Realities. Ben Roberts, founder of Disrupt Radio, highlighted that 'Start-ups are not for the salaried and superannuated.'

Google News. In this week's podcast, we're be taking a look at some recent news around Google especially it's anti-competitive positioning.

Telegram and Crypto. We'll also take a look at Telegram and crypto news!

Marketing Spend Comparison. None of the companies who shared numbers came close to the marketing spend benchmark of 5-10%; SCA on 2.2%, SWM on 2.1% and Ooh Media on an insipid 1.2%.

Media Companies' Advice. The advice that media companies give to marketers about investing in their brands is good, but it takes boards and managements who are incentivised to invest in the long term.

ARN Stake Details. Activist investment firm Samuel Terry Asset management has become the biggest shareholder in ARN, with a 16 percent stake.

Unmade Index Drop. Nine lost 1.5%, leaving it teetering only just above a $2bn market capitalisation.

Disrupt Radio Financial Loss. Disrupt Radio lost nearly $5m in its first year on air and needed to find $400,000 per month to cover its costs, having just $5,000 left in the bank.

Disrupt Radio Status. Disrupt Radio, a loss-making company, went off air from its DAB+ broadcast frequency after being locked out of its studio by Sports Entertainment Network.

Southern Cross Austereo. In percentage terms, Southern Cross Austereo trimmed the most from its marketing costs as it dialled back on the launch phase marketing of its digital platform Listnr, with a cut of 26.2%.

Seven West Media Cuts. In absolute terms, Seven West Media cut the most out of its marketing budget between the 2023 and 2024 financial years, cutting it by $5.6m (or 19.2%).

Media Marketing Spending. Every ASX-listed media company that shared a number in their annual reports cut their own marketing spend, even as they were telling their own clients that this was a bad idea.

Successful Creative Entry. I put a link to a YouTube video instead. I didn't write a name.

Key Lesson Summary. Remember: It's not about the carpet, it's never about the carpet. It's about the stars who walk on it.

Customer Advisory Board. Build a customer advisory board: Invite top users to join. Quarterly video calls with your CEO. Make them feel like VIPs.

Creating Exclusive Merchandise. Design insider swag: Create exclusive merchandise. Only for customers.

Engaging Customer Events. Host a 'Customer Oscars' event: Annual online awards ceremony. With categories like 'most innovative use case'. Let the community vote for winners.

Marketing Tactics. Create a customer hall of fame: Dedicate prime real estate on your homepage. Spotlight one customer every week.

Mastercard Competition. I won a Mastercard promotion! An all-expenses-paid trip.

Customer-Centric Marketing. It rarely matters what your product (=the red carpet) is made of. What matters is WHO is using it (=the celebs and superstars walking on it).

Presence of Celebrities. Tom Hanks was right there with me as we strutted down the red carpet for the world premiere of his movie 'Elvis'.

Cheap Feeling of Carpet. This is the cheapest piece of fabric I've ever felt.

Cost of Red Carpet. It costs $15,000 to walk [the Cannes red carpet] (if you can find a ticket).

Cannes VIP Experience. Two years ago, I got invited to Cannes Film Festival as a VIP guest.

Creative Promotion Strategy. I produced an impressive quick answer video. Filmed it at a green screen studio near home and pulled an all-nighter to edit it.

Ooh Media's Dominance. Ooh Media's claims to be number one on all the key metrics including market share, audience share and profitability.

Event Reset for Ooh Media. The event felt like a reset for Ooh of the back of a poor half: A reminder to the market of the company’s scale; a promise to be easier to deal with; a reworked plan for retail media.

AI Adoption in Briefs. Ooh Media will respond to briefs faster was the promise, including using AI to do so.

Emerging Competitors. Another agency person observed that Ooh Media can't claim to be number one for ease of dealing with, as that belongs to rival QMS.

Nine's Market Capitalization. Nine was hammered, losing 5.5%, leaving its market capitalisation only just over $2bn.

Unmade Index Decline. The Index landed on 444.7 points, its worst ever, and the first time the index has been below 450 points.

New Contracts Announcement. What Ooh did announce was new contracts including Waverley Council, more of the northern beaches in Sydney, and the Eastlink Motorway in Melbourne.

Retail Media Strategy. Ooh Media's retail media play ReOoh, announced last year, is now REO, with the central part being an outsourced media sales house for retailers.

Ooh Media's Upfronts. Last night Ooh Media kicked off Upfronts season with a bash on a beautiful Sydney evening at the Overseas Passenger Terminal.

Streamlining Use Cases. Practical Insights: Real-world use cases to streamline processes.

Actionable Prompts Offered. Discover how to leverage ChatGPT for efficiency and innovation with 100 actionable prompt ideas.

Expert Tips Provided. Best Practices: Expert tips for maximum effectiveness.

Free Guide Availability. Transform your workday with HubSpot's free guide, 'Using ChatGPT at Work.'

Understanding ChatGPT. Demystifying ChatGPT: Understand its full potential.

Legislation Drift Risk. The temptation is to let it drift until the election. Neither dead or alive, it’s Schrodinger’s legislation.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index closed on 462.9 points, up by 0.56% for the day.

ARN and SCA Stock Trends. Southern Cross Austereo and ARN Media both gave back some of Monday's big jumps, yesterday losing 2.7% and 1.7% respectively.

Advertising Levy Consideration. Alongside this comes the possibility of a much bigger move: Introducing an advertising levy on the digital platforms.

Short-Term vs Long-Term Impact. I say short term because in the long term, the market will reset; in the next rounds of sports rights negotiations, networks will be able to bid less because if they factor in less betting advertising in the future.

Public Sentiment on Ads. Every survey shows that the public thinks there are too many betting ads.

Political Lobbying Impact. The television networks in particular have been really good at lobbying for their own interests via Free TV Australia.

Historical Legislative Delays. In the 18 years I’ve been covering the media beat in Australia, there has been no moment when media owners haven’t been complaining that the legislation is out of date.

Media Regulation Complexity. There are few areas of public policy that are more complicated to navigate than media regulation.

Membership Benefits. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events.

Advertising Trends. The numbers for July, released by Guideline SMI, were rotten. Again.

Market Movement. SCA and ARN both see spikes in their share prices.

Event Schedule. Upcoming events include REmade on October 1 and Unlock on October 31.

Results Season Insights. We look back upon a results season full of lots of bad news but few nasty surprises.

Podcast Report. We also discuss a separate half yearly report into podcast listening habits from Commercial Radio & Audio and Triton Digital.

Revenue Growth. In today's episode of Start the Week, we cover off the new 2024 financial year data from the IAB, revealing video streaming growing by an impressive 18.6% while connected TV is taking the biggest slice of that.

Audio Streaming Boom. Meanwhile, online audio has just had its best quarter.

IAB Revenue Data. The Internet Advertising Revenue Report FY24 & June Quarter can be accessed at https://iabaustralia.com.au/resource/internet-advertising-revenue-report-fy24-june-quarter/.

Further Reading. The Australian Podcast Bi-annual report is available at https://commercialradio.com.au/RA/media/General/Documents/Podcast%20Ranker/CRA-Podcast-Half-Yearly-Report.pdf?ext=.pdf.

Upcoming Upfronts. We look forward to Upfronts season which kicks off with Ooh Media's Outfronts on Wednesday.

TV Revenue Drop. The biggest fall in revenue was in SCA's TV arm which shrank from $107m to $98m.

Bupa Campaign Success. Thinkerbell is not only celebrating the Australian Paralympic Team with Bupa, but ensuring them that their care will always be present.

Unmade Index Recovery. The Unmade Index recovered a little on Friday after hitting a new low point earlier in the week. It finished up by 0.83% for the day, landing on 456.1 points.

SCA's Future Control. Could SCA’s management instead take control of their own destiny by looking at other ideas that see it become the audio component of a bigger whole?

The Monkeys' Transition. The most successful local creative agency startup of the last two decades, The Monkeys will become part of the Droga5 network from December.

Consultancy Retreat. With one notable exception, the consultancies are in retreat from adland.

Declining Marketing Spend. SCA’s falling expenditure on promotions and marketing, which dropped from $15m to $11m across the year.

Local Revenue Increase. Local revenue for SCA actually increased over the year - from $175m to $176m.

Agency Impact Speculation. I’ve a growing hunch that a factor that needs to be examined more closely when it comes to declining revenues for traditional media is the role being played by agency groups in accelerating their process thanks to their own self interest.

Annual Results Decline. SCA's EBITDA profits were down to $66m (they were three times that just a decade ago) and revenue fell below the half billion dollar threshold, landing at $499m.

Reasons for Popularity. 'Instantly shareable results' and 'just the right amount of snark and humor' contributed to its success.

Example of Mini-Tools. Examples of successful mini-tools include Copy.ai's cold email generator and Wix's QR code generator.

Launch Recommendations. 'Launch it on Product Hunt, Reddit, HackerNews, etc.' to create buzz.

Pro Tip for Mini-Tools. 'Make it 100% free. No email, no sign-up, nada.'

Growth Hack Within Growth Hack. 'You probably already have the perfect mini-tool hiding in your product.'

Common Mini-Tool Feature. Mini-tools 'create free value while subtly bringing attention to the core product.'

Marketing Strategy. 'Build a free mini web app or tool that solves a super-specific problem for your target audience.'

Viral Tool Success. Twitter Roast is 'one of the most successful products on Product Hunt in years.'

Quality of Life Focus. We're a free, open, easy, sporty, home-focused people, quality of life-focused people, and it ain't going away.

Call for Awards Entries. Our call for entries for the REmade Awards is live only until the end of the weekend.

Nine's Market Capitalization. Nine finished the day up by 0.75% to a market capitalisation of $2.1bn.

Unmade Index Stability. The Unmade Index stood still on Wednesday with the market offering a sigh of relief that Nine's annual financial results were no worse than expected.

Consumer Mindset Shifts. The conversation also covers how consumer mindset changes depending on life stage.

Permanent Change Post-COVID. As the lockdowns of Covid fade in people's memories, some of the changes in trajectory are permanent.

Staff Consider Action. Staff - some of whom are part of a WhatsApp group called Dis Fucked Radio where they have been discussing their missing pay - have told Unmade they are considering taking their concerns to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Flat Audio Stocks. Southern Cross Austereo and ARN Media both slipped to the lowest valuation in their histories.

Record Low Index. The Unmade Index hit a new record low of 456.6 points.

Company Trading Insights. Company directors who allow insolvent trading can face civil proceedings including financial penalties, or being disqualified from being a director.

Insolvency Risk Flagged. In the obligatory disclosures within the Birchal document, Disrupt Radio had flagged an 'insolvency risk', saying: 'The Company is not yet profitable.'

Low Audience Reach. Yesterday's radio ratings also contained more bad news for Disrupt Radio which sank to an official weekday reach of just 4,000 people across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Crowdfunding Shortfall. A fund raising initiative on the crowd funding platform Birchal which closed on July 1 raised just $24,500 of Disrupt's $1m target.

Heavy Financial Loss. In July, Unmade revealed that Disrupt Radio had lost $4.6m in its first year on air, and was burning $400,000 per month.

Staff Pay Delay. Unmade has seen a series of memos to staff from the management of Disrupt Radio saying that their July salaries were late because an anticipated new round of investment is yet to arrive.

Disrupt Radio Issues. Startup digital station Disrupt Radio has started filling its airtime with old episodes after staff downed tools because they have not been paid.

Mobile Shopping Dominance. Expect over half (54%) of online holiday sales to come from mobile devices.

AI's Future Predictions. AI tools predict a continued shift towards mobile and personalized shopping experiences, along with a growing focus on sustainability.

Faster Shipping Impact. Portless cuts shipping time from China to the U.S. down to just six days, which could leave more of your customers feeling happier.

BNPL Growth. Buy-now, pay-later options are expected to account for 9% of holiday sales as shoppers lean into flexible payment options.

Social Commerce Rise. Gen Z is set to drive social commerce this season, with about 40% planning to shop directly through social platforms like TikTok.

Email Marketing Surge. Expect a 25% increase in email marketing as retailers try to capture consumer attention without breaking the bank.

Modest Sales Growth. A more realistic expectation is a modest 5% growth in holiday e-commerce sales.

Power of Senses. McDonald's reminded us that smell is a powerful tool that can evoke strong emotional responses and create lasting impressions.

Smell Advertising. McDonald's installed scented billboards in the Netherlands, which effectively triggered memories of past visits to their restaurants.

X Testing Changes. X is testing the removal of like, comment, and repost buttons from replies.

New Instagram Metric. Instagram is making views the primary metric for content.

Instagram Carousel Update. You can now share 20 slides in one Instagram post.

Consultancies' Decision. The consultancies are starting to make up their minds about whether they want to be all in.

Read More.

Marketing Services. The attraction for the consultancies was in finding adjacent territory where they could offer new marketing services, and charge for them.

Consultancy Experiment. One of the curiosities of the Australian economy is that we’re small enough for experiments, but large enough for them to be meaningful.

Membership Benefits. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events.

Consultancies Retreat. With one notable exception, the consultancies are in retreat from adland.

Advertising on News Sites. Juhl testified to Congress that just 1.28% of brand spend goes to online news.

Brand Safety Issues. Media companies are starting to push back against buying agencies' brand safety policies after the admission of Group M boss Christian Juhl that by default most of his clients are kept off news sites.

Perplexity's New Direction. We look at Perplexity's plans to take on Google in search with an advertising offering.

OpenAI and Conde Nast. Conde Nast's deal with OpenAI was highlighted as part of the discussion.

Fake AI Imagery. Donald Trump's sharing of fake AI imagery was mentioned as a significant issue regarding misinformation.

Further Reading Links. The Australian reported on 'Brand suitability myth busted' which reflects critical industry insights.

Media Unmade Events. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events.

Member Benefits. Upgrading to an Unmade membership includes access to members-only content and paywalled archives.

Senior Staffing Decline. From 44% of vacancies in the space being for people with more than six years' experience just one year ago, that's halved to 20%.

Talent Drain Concern. With only five percent of the digital advertising and ad tech employees now over 50 years of age, the long-term problem is the knowledge that is leaving the industry.

ABC Leadership Transition. Both men said exceptionally nice things about each other. I doubt it would have stayed that way if Anderson stuck around.

ABC's Future Needs. The ABC needs to not only make the case for more funding, but to spend it effectively.

Market Capitalization Low. Australia's two major audio companies both hit all time low market capitalisations yesterday, with Southern Cross Austereo landing at $134m.

Unmade Index Drop. The Unmade Index hit its own new low point yesterday too, dropping by 0.9% to 460.3 points.

Southern Cross Update. ARN Media isn't giving up the chase for Southern Cross Austereo despite a $4.3m setback.

Job Market Shift. The proportion of ads seeking cheaper people with one to three years of experience has jumped from 13% to 34% in the space of a year.

No Real Role Needed. You don’t actually have to give the influencer ownership or a real role in creating your product.

LinkedIn Profiles. Create an actual LinkedIn profile for them using the wacky ‘Chief’ title.

Influencer Titles. Instead of just paying influencers to endorse you, try this: Give them a fancy ‘Chief’ title that implies they co-created your product.

Successful Examples. Virgin Voyages made Jennifer Lopez their ‘Chief Entertainment Officer’.

Psychological Impact. The Parasocial Interaction Effect: People develop imagined personal connections with influencers they follow.

Halo Effect. When people admire an influencer, they transfer positive feelings to anything directly associated with that person.

Creative Titles. The weirder and more personalized to the influencer’s persona, the better.

Kyle & Jackie O Show Launch. Despite there being no early breakthrough in the ratings, The Kyle & Jackie O Show's Melbourne launch is still a key part of the networking strategy.

Failed Takeover Costs. ARN Media's bill for the failed takeover bid for Southern Cross Austereo was $4.3m.

Dividends Slashed. That was mainly, I suspect, down to the decision to slash the size of the shareholder dividend from 3.5 cents per share to 1.2 cents this year.

Unmade Index Recovery. The Unmade Index recovered slightly on Thursday, up 0.3% from Wednesday's all-time low to land on 464.5 points.

Stock Price Decline. The ARN Media stock price slumped. It closed yesterday down by nearly 10%.

AI Podcast Targeting. The company will soon tap into a new AI-driven capability referred to by Davis in his presentation to analysts as "conversational targetability" of podcasts.

Digital Profitability Shift. The company was keen to talk about how (like SCA's Listnr) it will soon no longer be losing money on its digital efforts.

Mixed Revenue Results. The actual numbers were a little better than I’d been anticipating. Metro radio was down 2.5% in the half. Regional was up 15.3% and digital streaming was up 34%. Overall, audio revenues were up 1%.

Cost Cuts Announced. There will be another $10m in cuts across ARN Media, representing more than 5% of the company’s cost base.

Marketing Investment. ARN has so far spent around $3m on marketing the show’s Melbourne launch.

Unmade's Membership Benefits. Unmade's annual paid membership will now include a ticket to all of our events.

Diversifying Revenue Streams. The repeatable revenues of paying subscribers is where our long-term future lies.

Transparency in Data. I’d rather be transparent. And, less altruistically, I hope it inspires a question from trade marketers to some of our rivals.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index fell a further 0.46% into its most negative territory since its launch.

New Upcoming Event. Unlock takes place in Sydney on October 31.

Event Successes. REmade has also been a commercial success with strong sponsorship and ticket sales.

Email Database Changes. On August 9, we hit 22,468 email addresses on our database for our daily email.

Revenue Growth. As you’ll see, revenues have now reached just over $550,000.

Unmade Index Low. The Unmade Index hit a new low point yesterday, dropping by 1.06% to 465.2 points.

Declining Market Cap. The Unmade Index began at the start of 2022 on a nominal 1000 points. Yesterday's number marks a fall of more than 53% of their collective value.

Independent Media Growth. Through persistence and participation, Many of Many has become a significant voice within the publishing ecosystem.

Man of Many Origins. Neither of its two founders Scott Purcell and Frank Arthur came from a publishing background.

Recognition in Media. Man of Many has been a long time entrant (and sometimes winner) in Mumbrella's Publish Awards.

Digital Publishing Challenges. Purcell argues that lifestyle journalism is a form of public interest journalism that deserves funding.

Future of Funding. If the government does decide to create a digital levy on the platforms, Man of Many will inevitably be one of the voices arguing for funding.

Man of Many's Milestone. Tomorrow is Unmade’s third birthday and we'll be sharing a post with some updates on how we’re travelling.

Simplified Influencer Activation. Seamlessly activate 10, 25, 50, or 100 micro-influencers without any of the lift.

Unbiased News Delivery. Join millions who start their day with unbiased news delivered straight to their inbox with 1440.

Unlimited Creative Assets. For just €14.50/month, you get unlimited access to over 19 million assets from Envato.

Amazon Affiliate Insights. Discover the detailed conversion rate lift Amazon sellers experienced from affiliate marketing, broken down by product category.

UGC Creation Success. minisocial has helped thousands of brands create UGC that converts, goes viral, and drives engagement.

Impressive TikTok Results. TikTok ads are performing in the top 1% CVR, with a 50% decrease in costs per add-to-cart, a 92% increase in organic video views, and over a 30% increase on ROAS.

New Retail Media Scorecard. REmade delegates will get an exclusive first look at the new Retail Media Scorecard, with highlights from the third edition to be shared on stage.

Earlybird Discount Expiry. The earlybird discount ends tonight for this year’s REmade conference.

Ooh Media's Leadership Changes. This is the first time we get a snapshot of three years of relatively consistent leadership and market conditions for Ooh Media.

Ooh Media's Revenue Decline. Revenue was down by 2.8% to $288m for the half, compared to the high point of 2019, when revenues were $305m.

Industry Metrics Discussion. The session will explore the right metrics, the impact of ad creative on measurement, and how better data can unlock more investment.

Alcohol Ads on TikTok. TikTok is now allowing alcohol ads in the U.S., targeting users aged 25 and up.

Cautious Brands. Many alcohol brands are holding back despite the green light from industry groups like DISCUS.

Concerns with Age-Gating. TikTok's inability to age-gate organic content is a major concern for brands like Josh Cellars.

Opportunities for Brands. With TikTok's huge user base, the platform offers a unique opportunity for alcohol brands to reach new audiences.

Wait-and-See Approach. For now, the industry is in a wait-and-see mode regarding TikTok's new policy.

Affiliate Marketing Report. Discover the detailed conversion rate lift Amazon sellers experienced from affiliate marketing, broken down by product category.

Media Watch Host Search. It tried to interest Justice Michael Lee in replacing Paul Barry as Media Watch host.

Stat on FTA Advertising Market. Financial markets say FTA advertising market won’t improve until consumer confidence lifts.

Digital Levy Likelihood. A digital levy for platforms now looks likely.

Earnings Season Check-In. We check in on earnings season with Ooh Media reporting a down half this morning.

Lifestyle Publishers Value. Lifestyle publishers are arguing that what they do had a value too.

Publishers Sensing Opportunity. Publishers smell money in the air, and they’re launching a landgrab before the dollars drift to the ground.

ABC's Media Watch Plans. The ABC has been rebuffed in what would have been a wonderful casting move.

ARN and SCA Update. ARN likely to update the market on its SCA takeover ambitions when it does its half yearly update on Thursday.

Ooh Media's Profits. Clues from earnings season as Ooh Media's profits slip.

Tech Tax Rumblings. In today's audio-led edition, rumblings about a tech tax get louder.

Google Search Console Update. Google Search Console launches recommendations.

LinkedIn Verification. LinkedIn Adds Verification for Company Pages.

AI Product Discovery. Google Adds Enhanced Product Discovery Options Powered by AI.

Volvo's Unique Strategy. Instead of joining the fray with a multi-million dollar ad, Volvo launched a unique social media contest.

Media Impact. Over 80 articles were written about the campaign, generating 230 million media impressions valued at $44 million.

Social Media Success. With more than 55,000 tweets during the Super Bowl, #VolvoContest became the most-tweeted automotive hashtag of the day, even trending globally.

Website Traffic Surge. Volvo's website saw over 116,000 visitors in two weeks.

Sales Growth. The campaign led to a 70.7% increase in sales for the featured product, the Volvo XC60, the highest in its category for February 2015.

ARN Media's Acquisition Plans. ARN Media is looking for outcomes to take SCA's five metro capital Triple M network and expand its Kiis FM network to five cities.

CHEP Campaign Success. CHEP has played on the type of car chase scene seen in all action movies, and turned it into a display of the efficiency of the Mobil fuel range sold at 7-Eleven forecourts.

Gambling Revenue on Sports Rights. If the TV networks anticipate no gambling revenue in the mix, they will all have to bid less.

Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index crept upwards for a third day in a row after an improvement in Nine's valuation lifted the market.

Media Moguls' Influence. Eric Beecher published his book 'The Men Who Killed The News,' in which he argued that media moguls have too much hidden power.

Labor and Gambling Ads. Labor has got itself into a political pickle just months before an election. Does it make a law change for which there appears to be widespread public support? Or does it back the TV networks who will influence that election in their news coverage?

Regional Consumer Growth. Demographer Bernard Salt made the argument that regional consumers are growing faster than their city counterparts.

Brand Engagement Strategy. Brands like Thrive Market and Bobbie are turning to podcasts as a powerful tool to build deeper connections with their audiences.

Investing in Podcasts. While launching a podcast requires significant investment and effort, it’s proving to be a valuable tool for brands looking to differentiate themselves.

Authenticity in Marketing. The move to podcasts highlights a shift toward storytelling and authenticity.

Email Marketing Success. In 2023, Omnisend merchants earned an impressive $72 for every $1 spent.

Immediate Customer Satisfaction. Discovering the secret discount page makes them feel like they’ve hit the jackpot which leads to higher retention.

Backlink Opportunities. You may earn additional backlinks from coupon websites that link directly to your discount page.

SEO Benefits. With a dedicated URL, you can outrank those pesky coupon sites for '[your company] discount' searches.

Streamlined Support. You can streamline support by directing discount requests to this page.

Extra Push for Buyers. Hesitant buyers get the extra push they need to convert.

Customer Psychology. Customers feel like they've hit the jackpot, even though it’s not really a secret.

Control the Narrative. Build a discount page, even if it just says 'Sorry, no discounts here.'

Other Discount Strategies. Recommend your free trial instead, offer an extended free trial, or limit discounts to students only.

Wix's Strategic Move. With their 10% coupon page, Wix is capturing potential customers early on, right at the start, before they even have a chance to be tempted by competitors.

Quick Purchases. Yosi told me that hundreds of people have made purchases with this coupon, without any additional promotion.

Organic Ranking Advantage. Don’t link to this page from anywhere else on your site! Instead, let it be discovered organically by customers searching for '[Company] discount' / '[Company] coupon code'.

Create Discount Pages. Make your own ‘secret’ discount page and be the hero they’re looking for.

Expired Coupon Frustration. More often than not, they only find expired or fake codes from random sketchy sites.

Customer Discount Search. When people want to buy your product, they often look for discounts.

Retail Media Conference. The final session for REmade will feature a Leadership Q&A with key retail media figures discussing the industry's future.

Foxtel's Streaming Success. The rise of Kayo and Binge saw each platform pass more than 1.5m paying subscribers for the first time.

Kayo's Evolving Focus. Ogrin implies a subtle repositioning of Kayo to emphasize domestic sports in response to losing major international rights.

Potential Price Increases. Kayo's entry-level price of $25 per month may rise towards $50, according to industry predictions.

Market Capitalization Threat. Seven West Media's market capitalization of $224m is now in danger of being overtaken by ARN Media at $218m.

Streaming Growth Strategy. Julian Ogrin claims that in the next 12 to 24 months, Foxtel can be number one in digital advertising.

Earlybird Ticket Sales. Discounted earlybird tickets for the REmade conference are available until Tuesday, with a $185 saving.

Influencer Marketing Risks. As influencer marketing becomes more popular, it’s easier for brands to blur the lines between personal recommendations and paid promotions.

Celebrity Financial Ties. The ads featured Steven Bartlett, a well-known entrepreneur and social media influencer, praising their products, but did not disclose his financial stake in both companies.

Importance of Disclosure. The rules around advertising, known as the CAP code, are pretty clear: if someone is making money from the product they’re promoting, they need to tell you.

Need for Trustworthy Ads. We need ads we can trust, and that starts with full transparency from the people promoting them.

Call for Transparency. A simple '#ad' tag can make all the difference, making it clear when someone is being paid to promote a product.

ASA's Ad Crackdown. This isn’t an isolated incident; it’s part of a bigger crackdown by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) on misleading ads, especially in the world of influencer marketing.

Misleading Ad Practices. Recently, two health-focused brands, Huel and Zoe, found themselves in hot water over misleading ads.

Flat Share Price. Seven's share price was flat yesterday which suggested there were no surprises for the market.

New Leadership Style. New Seven West Media boss Jeff Howard finally said something publicly yesterday, fronting the company's annual results announcement.

Significant Revenue Decline. Revenues were down a bit (by 4.9%). Profits were down a lot (by 33.2%).

High Net Debt. Net debt ($301m) is now bigger than those annual EBITA profits (and bigger than the company’s market capitalisation of $239m too).

Cooperation Suggestion. There will be 'a change in the go-to-market strategy coming to the market in the next month or two.'

Market Speculation on SVOD. Howard said: 'There been a lot of speculation on SVOD in the past. I don’t think we’re more desperate or less desperate to get into the space.'

Fluctuating Ad Revenues. We drove our BVOD minutes by 39%, but the BVOD revenue was up 10.

Change in Leadership Compensation. Warburton's final year netted him remuneration of $1.3m. He’s now SWM’s eighth biggest shareholder with a 1.5% stake in the company.

Long-term Revenue Goals. The scale of SWM’s reduced short term ambitions could be best illustrated by Howard's response: 'Is it possible to achieve a low single digit revenue decline? Yeah.'

Rough Day on Index. It was a seriously down day on the Unmade Index yesterday, with a drop of 3.57% to 474.3 points.

Sports Rights Issue. The biggest factor is a problem of the own networks’ making. They’ve bid up the cost of sports rights even faster than their advertising base has shrunk.

Major Network Losses. Seven West Media had the worst of it, falling by more than 10% at one point, before landing on a daily decline of 8.82%.

BVOD Growth. The wider BVOD numbers are a case for optimism - from $93m in FY18 to $441m this time round.

Revenue Decrease. Five years ago, the networks had a $4bn industry. Now it’s worth $3.3bn.

Advertising Spend Decline. Advertiser spend with the networks was down 8.1% to $3.4bn.

TV Network Crisis. The TV sector is in "diabolical trouble", argued Bill Shorten as he made the case for keeping betting ads on air.

Event Announcement. REmade returns as a full-day event in Sydney on October 1, featuring an emphasis on empowering marketers in retail media.

Pressure on Management. There seems to be an attempt by players within Nine to put pressure on Domain's chairman, Nick Falloon, regarding his leadership.

Market Cap Comparison. Domain has lost 10.8% of its market capitalisation so far this year, while REA has gained more than 10%.

Critique of Domain. The Australian Financial Review published an article hinting that Nine's majority-owned real estate platform Domain is being badly run.

Buy Foxtel Plans. Nine is gaming out a way to buy Foxtel, as discussed in the update.

Cross-Functional Collaboration. Growth marketing often involves collaboration between different teams, such as product development and management, sales and business development, and customer support.

Growth Marketing Institute. There's more where this came from at the Growth Marketing Institute.

Push for Rapid Growth. Companies and organizations looking for significant, rapid growth lean more towards growth marketing.

Confusion in Approaches. The confusion between growth marketing and traditional marketing often arises because both disciplines share common goals.

Growth vs. Traditional. Traditional marketing is more about building a brand over time, while growth marketing is about achieving fast, measurable results.

Scalability Importance. Successful growth marketing strategies are exponentially scalable, meaning they can be expanded to reach more customers without a proportional increase in costs.

Full-Funnel Focus. Growth marketers work on improving every stage of the customer lifecycle, from acquisition to retention.

Customer-Centric Approach. Understanding customer behavior, needs, and preferences is central to growth marketing.

Rapid Prototyping. Growth marketing involves constant testing to identify the most effective tactics for driving growth.

Data-Driven Decision-Making. Growth marketers rely heavily on data analytics to make informed decisions and understand what strategies are working and what are not.

Key Growth Metrics. If you can easily say that your marketing is directly and measurably leading to these results, that's great! Keep on keeping on.

Distinguishing Growth Marketing. Many companies and organizations think they are doing growth marketing, when in reality they are doing traditional marketing.

Serious Companies Grow. Today, the companies and organizations that are serious about growing all do growth marketing.

Applicability to All. This type of marketing has become increasingly more applicable to all types of companies and organizations, larger and smaller.

Growth Marketing Emergence. Growth marketing is a relatively new type of marketing that has emerged in the last 10-to-15 years.

AI Disillusionment. In the world of AI, have we hit the trough of disillusionment?

Share Buyback Failure. There are suggestions that Nine's share buyback program has been a fizzer.

Domain's Leadership Issues. There is a subtle hit on the management team at the Nine-aligned Domain in the Australian Financial Review.

Nine's Absorption Talks. Nine talked to News Corp about buying Foxtel.

Cosmo Returns. Six years after Bauer Media killed it off, Cosmopolitan Australia is back on the newsstands.

Further Reading Links. For more insights, refer to additional resources including 'Nine and News Corp deal talks add to Foxtel intrigue.'

Declining Profits. In the face of higher costs and the continued decline of high value broadcast subscribers, Foxtel's profits declined to $310m from $347m in FY23.

Foxtel Sale Discussions. Reaction to yesterday's News Corp financial year results announcement was dominated by talk of a sale of Foxtel Group.

Subscriber Growth. Sports platform Kayo and entertainment service Binge passed 1.5m paying subscribers each in the last quarter.

2DayFM Breakfast Changes. Southern Cross Austereo pulled the plug on another failed 2DayFM breakfast show, marking the seventh failure since Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson defected.

Foxtel's Future Risk. Binge will be a much weaker product without HBO.

Structural Changes. The toughness of the environment faced by News Corp Australia is there in the numbers. Advertising revenue in Australia was down 11% for the year from US$412m to US$366m.

Reader Revenue Surge. Significantly more of News Corp's revenue now comes from readers (US$419m in circulation and subs) than advertisers (US$366m).

Urgency for Sale. There’s an urgency about the deal. News Corp will never get a better price than now.

LinkedIn's Puzzle Games. LinkedIn has launched a series of puzzle games that provide a short mental break at work.

Mini-Game Design Principles. The trick is to take an existing game model and twist it to fit your audience with their specific lingo, pains, and inside jokes.

Startup Simulator Launch. In 2016, Toggl launched 'Startup Simulator' - a simple web game where players build a startup while avoiding employee churn and bankruptcy.

Engagement Hook. Drop new challenges daily (like Wordle and LinkedIn), and people will get hooked; it’s also a great conversation starter.

Wizlympics Launch. At Wiz, we launched 'Wizlympics' - just in time for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Educational Mini-Games. Toggl's 'Startup Simulator' teaches founders how to cope with extreme situations.

Viral Potential. Great games spread organically; players share high scores, challenge friends, and talk about them on social.

Mini-Games Marketing Benefits. Games keep users on your site or app longer than any other content, which is wild for SEO.

YouTube Playables. YouTube introduced 'Playables' - interactive ads that let users play a mini-game before watching a video.

Mini-Games Trend. Fast forward to today, and it seems like everyone is jumping on the mini-game bandwagon.

Musk's Lawsuit Humor. Elon Musk's decision to sue former Twitter advertisers is laughable, but the legal case raises a real issue about brand safety doctrines.

Market Movement Overall. The Unmade Index finished flat for the day on 477.8 points, thanks to positive moves from larger stocks including Nine and Ooh Media.

Enero's Share Drop. Shares in Enero fell by 5.6% to land the company on a $99.4m valuation.

Challenge Advertising Norm. It is time to challenge the collective avoidance of news advertising by agencies, which limits brands’ reach and drags down return on investment.

News Advertising Budget. Brands prefer to avoid advertising next to the news; not much more than 1% of client budgets go into online news environments.

Agency Laziness Costs. Agency laziness of avoiding all news, not just the places where there’s a genuine risk of brand damage, costs their clients money if they have to pay more to be elsewhere.

Impact on News Media. For the advertising ecosystem, the end of GARM may be no bad thing, as serious news publishers often miss out on advertising in the name of brand safety.

GARM Lawsuit Causes Closure. WFA is closing GARM as a result of the X lawsuit, presenting the move as being about GARM lacking the resources for the fight.

Advertising Rationality. Choosing not to advertise on X is an entirely rational thing to do; continuing to advertise on X is the dumber move for most brands.

Enero's Market Capitalization. Enero falls below a $100m market capitalisation for the first time since Covid.

Beecher's Critique. Eric Beecher published a book condemning the power of media moguls.

Enero's Decline. Enero dropped to a market capitalization of $106 million after hitting its own four year low.

Market Performers. Among larger stocks, IVE grew by 3.4% while Seven West Media was up by 3%.

Unmade Index Recovery. The Unmade Index improved by 1.08%, recovering slightly after drops of 3.6% and 1.2%.

Democracy Loophole. Beecher describes the unregulated influence of owning a media company as 'the loophole in democracy'.

Public Interest Journalism. Beecher believes public interest journalism should focus on scrutinizing power and government, not lifestyle journalism.

Murdoch Family Lawsuit. Beecher was unsuccessfully sued for defamation by Lachlan Murdoch.

Media Moguls' Influence. Beecher has a major focus on the Murdoch family in his book, highlighting how media moguls use their influence for their own ends.

Diverse Asset Range. Envato Elements has everything you need to bring your ideas to life, offering an unrivaled range of quality assets and templates from global artists with one simple subscription.

Commercial License. Every download comes with a lifetime commercial license, allowing use in any project without restrictions.

Unlimited Access. For just €14.50/month, you get unlimited access to over 19 million assets.

Consumer Commerce Survey. Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia, will present a first look at the findings of IAB's latest consumer commerce survey, offering a comprehensive look at customer behaviour and preferences across Australia and, for the first time, New Zealand.

REmade Awards Entries. Entries for the REmade Awards are now open, with an early entry deadline of August 23 and a late entry deadline of September 1.

Early Bird Ticket Sales. Early bird tickets to REmade are on sale for another 14 days, with a saving of $185 on the full conference price.

Omnichannel Strategies. The session titled 'Mastering Retail Media: Integrated Strategies for Omnichannel Success' at REmade will provide insights on leveraging data-driven approaches and customer insights.

Market Capitalisation Drop. SWM lost nearly 3%, landing at a market capitalisation of $254m, while its net debt was $257m.

Seven West Media Valuation. Seven West Media hits a concerning milestone with its market valuation falling below the size of its debt after its share price slumped yesterday.

Customer Behaviour Insights. Unilever, Cartology, and IAB will reveal insights into changing customer behaviour across the buying journey, focusing on first-party data in retail media.

REmade Conference Details. REmade returns to Sydney for a third time on October 1, expanded to a full day event with round tables, workshops, and more structured networking time.

Focus on Social Media. Instead, the target for most of the restrictions will be social media, which is a much safer target for the government to have a war with.

Read More on Betting Ads. The leaks are comprehensive enough to be credible.

Voucher for REmade. Below the paywall, you’ll also find the voucher code to save 40% on tickets to REmade.

Event Discounts. Members receive discounts on tickets to our events, including our AI conference humAIn, our retail media conference, REmade and a free ticket to our annual Compass series.

Unmade Subscriber Benefits. Unmade's paying members support our analytical journalism.

Market Crash Impact. Yesterday's market crash batters media and marketing stocks.

Ad Industry Advice. The ad industry would be wise to clean up its act on gambling anyhow.

TV Ad Inventory Impact. Granted a dispensation to carry two betting ads per hour on each network, that would create a scarcity value that would produce high value ad inventory in a less cluttered environment.

Gambling Ad Regulations. The government is watering down its plans to ban most forms of betting ads from television.

Apparel Buyer Trends. Apparel buyers are the easiest to identify, with a 27% rate, leading to a 20% repeat purchase rate.

Retention Woes. Long-term loyalty is rare, with only 6% of customers buying again after three years.

Identify E-commerce Visitors. The more you know about visitors—like email addresses and phone numbers—the better you can strategize.

Essential Visitor Understanding. For e-commerce retailers, understanding who's browsing isn't just a nice-to-have—it's essential.

Boost Repeat Purchases. Businesses with higher visitor identification see a 53% boost in repeat purchases.

Visitor Identification Rate. 85% of e-commerce site visitors are basically ghosts, unidentified and out of reach.

3x Revenue Growth. Lockstar achieved 3x revenue in a competitive Amazon category exclusively through affiliate marketing using Levanta.

Government Betting Ad Regulation. The government seems to be watering down its threat to ban betting ads from TV, limiting gambling brands to two ads per hour.

Offers for Unmade Membership. Thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership offers member-only pricing for upcoming conferences and events.

Media Access Fee Discounts. Networks are asking for another discount on what they pay to access the public airwaves amidst the proposed changes.

Digital Levy Consideration. A major new intervention around digital platforms is looming, including the possibility of a digital levy.

Rex Airline Intervention. The government is weighing up what intervention might be needed to save regional airline Rex, questioning if the airline should have stayed focused on the country.

Proactive Service Importance. Proactive customer service (or what we call 'content as customer service') is the ability to foresee people's questions, concerns, hesitations and problems related to your business and/or industry before they bring them to your attention.

Customer Satisfaction Gap. 80 percent of businesses think that they are providing great customer service, yet only eight percent of customers actually agree.

Retention Opportunity. Be mindful to realize the unprecedented and even lucrative opportunity that proactive and reactive customer service affords businesses to have a two-way conversation with customers, which can increase customer retention.

Customer Communication Preference. We have seen an influx of customers (of all ages) who prefer to communicate with our clients via social media, as opposed to the more old-fashioned way of contacting them through their websites or otherwise.

Service vs. Sales. Most businesses are not all that interested in serving through their digital marketing; they mostly want to use it to promote and sell.

SMI Advertising Data. If the numbers seen in the week's data from SMI Guideline continue for another month or two, we may look back upon June as the month where the advertising market finally hit bottom for traditional media.

Cautious Government Approach. They’re being extremely careful to follow a process least likely to face legal challenge.

Potential Media Funding. A digital levy could assist in financial support for public interest news production in this country.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index's trip back above 500 points has come to an end after just two days, thanks to wobbly global markets.

Government's Digital Levy Work. What became clear this week is that the government has done far more work on a digital levy than anybody realised.

Advertising Revenue Decline. A month where advertising revenue was down by just 1.1% is certainly an indicator that the decline might finally be slowing.

Digital Platforms Levy. The planets are aligning on a digital platforms levy - could it head off a war over the News Media Bargaining Code?

Podcast Ad Growth. The report reveals a 22% year-over-year increase in podcast advertising spending, highlighting the medium's growing popularity across the U.S, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Australia.

Simulcast Ad Insights. Podcasts simulcast on YouTube had a higher share of host-read ads and direct response advertisers but a slightly lower ad load compared to traditional RSS-fed podcasts.

Podcast Genre Popularity. Genres like True Crime and Society & Culture had the highest ad loads, while sports podcasts were particularly popular among new advertisers.

Ad Spending Shift. Direct response ads accounted for 44% of spending, while brand awareness campaigns represented 54%, a 15% increase year-over-year.

Influencer Tool Usage. Modash is the tool that 1,400 brands like Bolt, NordVPN, and Mixtiles use to find nano & micro influencers.

Top Spenders. Top spenders included BetterHelp, Amazon, and Shopify, with the gaming industry showing the most significant growth in ad spending.

Ad Load Trend. The average ad load increased to 7.19% in Q2, contributing to an overall average of 9.11% across sampled episodes.

Brand Entry Increase. The number of brands entering the podcast ad space grew by 1.9% from Q1, with 1,516 new advertisers.

Creator Profile Access. It lets you search & filter every public creator profile on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. That’s over 250 million social media creators!

Musk's Ambitions. Musk claims that this year is the year he will finally complete his self-driving mission.

Bard's Release. Google decided to release Bard despite the criticism from its employees.

Bard Criticism. Current and former Google employees are calling Bard ‘useless’ and not safe for public release.

Internal Employee Feedback. An investigation of Google's launch on Bard sparked internal confusion as employees themselves stated they did not want Bard to be launched.

Podcast Episode Announcement. EP8 JUST released: 10 minutes of tech news with me.

Micro-Car Startup. Startup of the week: Many new electric cars are out but have you heard of a micro-car? Kate (the car manufacturer) will produce cars that fall between middle-distance trips, like taking your kids to school.

Uber Eats Robot Launch. Uber Eats launches this cute robot to deliver your food in Virginia City.

Tesla's Self-Driving Claims. According to a conference call, Elon Musk says Tesla will likely launch full self-driving technology this year.

Snapchat's AI Release. On the topic of ChatGPT and Google's Bard, Snapchat releases its own AI chatbot for free.

Employee Criticism. According to a new report, Google employees call their own AI bot 'worse than useless.'

Subscriber Growth. Definitely got me over the 1K hurdle and I will continue to try new methods to grow my channel.

Quarterly Newsletter. I’ll be trying to release a ‘marketing learning’ newsletter every quarter just because it’s hard to come by actual learnings on a weekly or even monthly basis.

Interview Process Difficulty. In short though, Google has a much ‘thorough’ process and is, in my opinion, a lot harder.

Required Marketing Skills. I wrote an article last year about some of the marketing skills that are required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Marketing Skills Importance. From starting a side project to any startup, marketing is a requirement to getting your business off the ground.

YouTube Shorts Challenge. I decided to do a challenge: Post a Short daily for 4 months straight.

Sponsorship Details Link. For all the information including stats, price etc. please click this link here.

Sponsorship Opportunities. I am currently taking in new sponsorships for my newsletter, Youtube or Medium.

Shopify Layoffs. Shopify is laying off 20% of its staff.

Google Flip Phone. Google announced their first ever flip phone.

Pixel Fold Announcement. Google announces its first fold phone - The Pixel Fold.

Ad Spending Growth. Ad spending on digital videos looks to top 55.2 billion this year.

TikTok's Creator Fund. TikTok is expanding its creator fund - requiring 10K followers and longer videos. Perhaps a play to take on Youtube?

Instruqt Funding. Netherlands-based startup Instruqt raises €15M Series A to allow businesses to test new software in the organization before purchasing.

Bluesky's Ambition. Curious about Bluesky - the app looking to displace Twitter (launched by previous founder Jack Dorsey)?

Shopify Layoffs. Shopify just laid off 20% of its staff and sells logistics arm to Flexport in a bid to focus in more.

Newsletter Structure Change. I have now separated tech and marketing reads into two sections which makes it easier to track both sections separately.

Google Announcements. Recent announcements from Google's Keynote Day have been noted as interesting developments.

Podcast Content. The podcast discusses all the recent announcements that were interesting to the host.

New Innovations. Highlights include Bard, Google Maps, and Duet AI.

Google Find My Device. Google's Find My Device will soon use billions of other devices to help better locate your device.

Google Announcements Podcast. I dive deep into all of Google's recent announcements at their Keynote Day!

Marketing Powerup. Become a smarter marketer in just 10 minutes.

Advertising Spend Stalling. Advertising spend will stall this year as inflation continues to drag on.

Airbnb Marketing Success. After posting its first-ever quarterly profit, Airbnb says its 'full funnel' approach to marketing is paying dividends.

Petal Startup. I'm excited to see this startup, Petal redefine the credit score and help customers better manage it with their card solutions.

Musk Steps Down. Elon Musk has finally stepped down as CEO of Twitter and has found someone for the role.

Humane Wearables. Humane's demo looks at projector base wearables that don't require any smartphone or device to pair with.

Bard Release. Google also announces they are releasing the waitlist for Bard (their ChatGPT competitor) and that it's available for all now.

Duet AI Launch. Google introduces Duet AI for their workspace combo (Docs, G-mail, etc.) to combat Microsoft's Co-pilot.

Twitter Activity. I’ve decided that I will start being active on Twitter again so give me a follow and a hello on Twitter!

Long Emails Article. My latest article on Medium around sending long emails and how to best approach it.

Marketing Powerup. Become a smarter marketer in just 10 minutes.

AI Search Implications. Some interesting opinions and thoughts around AI powered search and the future of marketing.

YouTube Ad Changes. Youtube is announcing unskippable TV ads that go up to 30 seconds.

Supply Chain Startup. Check out their new supply chain startup (also if you’d like to advertise your startup reach out to me!).

ChatGPT iOS App. OpenAI launches a ChatGPT app for IOS (sad days for Android users like me).

Elon Musk Interview. This is an interesting interview in which Elon Musk ranted about work-from-home workers.

Gmail Account Alert. Ok if you have an inactive G-mail account for the last couple of years, make sure you log back in. Google might be deleting these soon at the end of the year!

Subscriber Welcome. We have a huge amount of subscribers coming in from the Substack network so wanted to welcome everyone to the newsletter.

Budgeting Startup. Nymbus raises $70 million to help replace this legacy technology.

Google AI Search. Google launches a new AI search engine and there are limited spots to join the test.

Logo Simplification Trend. Why brands are simplifying their logo and visual identity.

App Recording Users. This Android App secretly recorded you for a whole year, after being listed on Google Play.

Zuckerberg's Opinion. Zuckerberg shares his thoughts on Apple's new headset.

Tech News Highlights. The podcast covers the headlining topics in tech news this week.

Apple Headset Price. Apple's new headset is priced at $3499.

Mercedes beats Tesla. Mercedes just beat Tesla to a massive milestone in self-driving technology.

Podcast on Vision Pro. I take a look at Apple’s Vision Pro headset - especially Zuckerberg’s feedback on it.

Most Hated Brands. 7 most hated brands in the USA (Elon Musk's Twitter is no.4).

Google AI Impact. Is Google AI Plan with its search engine about to destroy the Media?

Kickstarter Project. Not a startup, but I’ll be releasing a Kickstarter Project in the coming months.

Reddit API Changes. Reddit API changes are coming, and big apps are being affected.

Apple's Vision Pro Price. Is Apple’s new ‘Vision Pro’ going to revolutionize computing with its $3499 price tag?

AI-Powered Search. Brands must prepare themselves for the future—the era of AI-powered search.

Startup Funding. This startup recently raised $9.3 million and allows businesses to build their own computer vision no-code apps.

Content Recommendation. I’ve actually released an opinion piece on this, so take a read below if you’re interested.

Market Opportunity. I think how Reddit is treating the whole situation, there is an opportunity in the market for something similar to come by and take market share.

AI in Advertising. How AI is impacting search advertising results.

Competitive Outlook. Threads will become a massive competitor and will definitely take the fight to Musk's Twitter.

Threads Downloads. Instagram's Threads has over 100+ million downloads, beating ChatGPT as the fastest platform to reach one million active users.

Twitter Ecosystem. While Threads is gaining traction, Twitter still has the more robust ecosystem of users.

Threads Guide. A Beginner's Guide to 'Threads' provides everything you need to know about Instagram's new platform.

YouTube Subscribers. An article discusses how many subscribers you need to start making money on YouTube.

Elon Musk's Prediction. Elon Musk believes Tesla will have Level 4/5 self-driving this year.

Free Video Offer. MotionDock is offering a FREE video for startups or companies for Cornertech and Marketing readers.

Cortana Shutdown. Microsoft is closing down Cortana - Will Siri meet the same fate?

Massive Riot. Influencer Kai Cenat Sparks Massive NYC Riot with PlayStation Giveaway! He has actually been now arrested as well.

Ad Market Softness. Is the ad market going soft? Are advertisers spending or not? Here’s the answer.

Twitter Renamed. Twitter renames to X, and the user with ‘X’ for their Twitter handle (455K followers) gets their handle taken away.

Google Alerts. Google will now alert you if your private contact information goes online.

Threads Momentum. Threads has got a whole heap of momentum but will lose it like Clubhouse did if they don’t release new updates and contain the hype.

Spotify's Podcast Spending. Spotify invested heavily into podcasts over the last few years, but they found out recently they were paying $38 million a year for ‘white-noise’ podcasts.

Big Oil on TikTok. Big Oil companies are apparently trying to use TikTok to make themselves look ‘better’ to younger generations.

AI Engine Optimization. 'AI Engine Optimization' will disrupt SEO.

Self-Driving Taxis Approved. California regulators voted last week to allow self-driving car companies Waymo and Cruise to offer 24/7 paid taxi service in San Francisco.

Linus Tech Tips Controversy. Linus Tech Tips is engrossed in controversy after controversy, from sexual allegations to inconsistencies.

Google Tech Growth. There is a more significant trend evolving in 2023 - that is, Google’s ever-evolving growth in the physical tech space.

YouTube Ad Blockers. There is speculation if this will be the end of ad blockers for YouTube.

Ad Toxicity Concerns. There are concerns that X’s ads are about to become even more toxic.

Chromebook Improvements. Richard remembers getting a Chromebook in 2016 and thinking how bad it was - but things have changed.

AI in Wearable Tech. Google’s new watch will have a ton of AI capabilities - will it be as good as Samsung’s lineup?

Google Pixel 8 Pro. Google will launch with a thermometer and seven years of follow-up updates.

New Hardware Releases. Richard mentions some of the latest hardware tech Google has been releasing or will be releasing soon.

Kickstarter Launch. Richard is busy working on his Kickstarter that’s about to launch in a couple of weeks.

Market Research. It’s also a great gift idea from the market research I’ve done!

Book Details. It’s a 3-in-1 Activity Dog Book, that links activities, a photo album, and a diary all in one.

New Project Launch. I’m excited to announce today that I’m launching my first-ever Kickstarter!

Job Redundancy. I was made redundant quite recently.

Share the Project. If you own a dog, or know someone who owns a dog, the biggest thing that can help me right now is if you check it out or share it with a more relevant person.

Newsletter Shift. I plan to make this newsletter more about things I'm doing and updates that are happening with me than a generic tech newsletter.

YouTube Milestone. My Travel Youtube Channel hit above 1k subscribers!

Book Launch. I launched my pet book project on Shopify (how uncanny is that)! We managed to kick our Kickstarter goals, and I'm selling a book now.

Positive Perspective. In a way, being made redundant was a blessing in disguise!

Rebranding Plans. I will eventually re-brand this newsletter as it doesn't make sense calling it 'CornerTech and Marketing' anymore.

Job Change. I started a new job at Shopify. It's one of the leading e-commerce platforms for a reason, and it's been a blast so far especially working in a completely different industry than what I'm used to.

Add-ons Impact. ALWAYS include add-ons, people will buy them if they relate to your product.

Cookie Tracking Changes. Google's plan to turn off third-party cookies in Chrome is dying.

Wiz Acquisition Rejection. Wiz the wonderkid cybersecurity startup rejects Google's offer of $23 billion USD.

Crowdstrike Outage. Crowdstrike (and Microsoft) causing a global outage.

Ambassador Program. I also kickstarted a new ambassador program for those who have a dog or know someone with a dog and would like to join!

Shopify Perk. Did you know a great perk of working at Shopify is the ability to create your own store on the paid plan for free?

Pre-registration Importance. Start early with your pre-registration page (We had around 100 followers with 5 of them converting immediately once we launched)

Marketing Results. The answer was, not much but also enough to get us over the line.

Kickstarter Strategy. Instead, I went - what if I just aimed for a lower amount with no marketing outside Kickstarter? How much would Kickstarter help market for us?

Update Process. Once a month-ish, I send an update to the marketing team on Slack about new prompts that I’ve added.

Dozens of Prompts. I then built dozens of prompts (based on the structure I showed above) and organized them on a Notion page.

Focus on Repetition. I started by asking the team, what are the most repetitive tasks we do (at all roles) that require creativity but can be replicated and ChatGPT can assist us with?

Standardization Benefit. No one has to edit the prompt to use it.

Prompt Template. Just remember to fill in the blanks (the placeholders) in length before you send the prompts over to your team.

Prompt Structure. Each of our prompts is 2,000+ words. They all have the same structure, no matter the goal (content writing, idea brainstorming, etc).

Successful Prompt Strategy. The secret to winning with ChatGPT is being ultra, ultra, ultra-specific.

Adoption Challenges. Despite the magic that ChatGPT (and AI in general) can do, many teammates just never used it at all.

Exploring Custom GPTs. The capabilities of Custom GPTs are insane, and they in fact remove the need for a prompt library.

Efficiency Issues. Many of us in the marketing team have independently used ChatGPT, created our own copy & paste prompts, and never shared them with the entire team.

Real-World Integration. Put your brand logo/slogan in everyday places, like KitKat with their park benches, to make it super easy for people to choose you when that moment strikes.

Key Moment Strategy. Win customers by owning a key moment in their day.

Practical Application. It's all about becoming an integral part of someone’s routine in a meaningful way - by being there in the right moment.

Slogan Strategy. Your slogan or visual should lead people to your identified moment - nudging them toward your product.

Physical Reminders. They even placed public benches shaped like KitKat bars to remind you to seize the moment for a break.

Targeting Gen-Z Trends. They have targeted specific Gen-Z search keywords on Google and YouTube, such as 'bad hair day' or 'I hate Mondays,' and advertised advice to just take a break.

Moment Marketing Defined. Identify a specific moment in your customer's day when your product or service is most helpful — and own that moment.

Own the Break Concept. KitKat has an actual mission to OWN the concept of taking a break.

AI Performance Breaks. Google's latest research shows that breaks can actually improve AI output.

KitKat's New Campaign. KitKat just dropped a genius campaign linking their iconic slogan 'Have a Break' with a surprising way to boost ChatGPT's performance.

Skyscanner Technique. Skyscanner works by adding search results live, making users appreciate the work of the algorithm.

Operational Transparency. Update your users on what is happening after they buy your product.

Founder Marketing. A great way to achieve labor illusion is through 'Founder Marketing' by sharing internal insights on social media.

Nespresso Marketing. Nespresso shares the stories of those who harvested the coffee beans that ended up in the capsules.

Schlitz Beer Success. By highlighting standard practice, Schlitz beer quickly became the most popular beer in the country.

A/B Testing Result. People share the result more when there is a longer waiting time, even if it's artificial.

Successful Marketing. Showing what your product is doing 'behind the scenes' will satisfy people.

Visible Effort. People perceive products that involve visible effort as more valuable.

Labor Illusion. People value things more when they see the effort behind them.

Show Labor. When people see the effort behind your product, they're more likely to assign it a greater value.

GPT-4 Perception. People overvalue the results of GPT-4, compared to GPT-3.5, just because GPT-4 writes slower.

Evidence Button. We added some artificial friction and hid the evidence behind a button to increase user engagement.

Fake Friction. If your service is lightning-fast, consider adding a bit of theatrical delay (fake friction).

Customer's Wish. The best copy completes the customer’s sentence: ‘I wish I could _______.’

B2B Buyer Motivation. B2B buyers never really care about your product; they care about job security. Show people why buying your product will make them look good in front of their boss.

Engaging Headlines. Turn the stolen ‘Responsibilities’ into a headline with power words and emotions. The headline must scream ‘Now you can...’ not ‘What we do is...’.

Target Responsibilities. Go to LinkedIn. Find a job description of the role you are targeting. Steal the words you see under ‘Responsibilities’.

Effective Messaging Examples. Examples include, 'Convert 30% more with high-performing landing pages' (-Unbounce) and 'Secure everything you build and run in the cloud: Trusted by more than 40% of Fortune 100 companies' (-Wiz).

UserGems Example. UserGems is my favorite example of a perfect B2B copy.

Competitor Subversion. Head to competitor websites. Don’t copy – subvert. Without naming competitors, describe their common flaws in a way that highlights your strengths.

Job Security Focus. Job security: Trusted by the best revenue teams + [Logos].

Engagement Success. JupiterOne created follow-up riddles that took place in the event itself, with around 90 people attending out of 110 who solved the first puzzle.

Audience Perception. Your audience feels special for being selected, and they gain confidence in the event's quality.

Play to Attend Model. Design a puzzle-based challenge with a hidden registration page as the reward.

Quality Engagement. This powerful one-word switch ('Apply' instead of 'Sign Up') creates excitement, boosts registration rates, and increases the quality of attendees.

Targeted Attendees. An application process can scare some people off, but it attracts engaged, interested, and valuable attendees.

Data Collection. You can now collect much more data about your audience by requiring relevant details beyond name and email.

Exclusive Invitations. Instead of simply letting people sign up for your event or webinar, invite them to apply.

Improving Registrations. By including an 'application' format or 'play to attend' challenge, you can significantly improve your event registrations and attract a more engaged audience.

Home Gym Service. A service that connects you with neighbors who have home gym setups. No gym memberships, just workout spaces right next door.

On-Demand Laundry Service. On-demand laundry service where users can have their laundry picked up, cleaned, and delivered back.

Dream Interpretation AI. An AI app that interprets your dreams based on descriptions or voice recordings.

Free Ride-Sharing Bikes. A network of bikes for urban areas, free if the rider agrees to carry advertisement banners.

Earth Archive Concept. Like Web Archive, but for the real world. Experience it with the Apple Vision Pro.

Conversation Starter App. Users tell the app who they’re meeting with; the app scrapes the web for data to provide smart & personalized things to say.

Motivational Workout Drone. A personal workout drone with speakers that captures epic shots and offers motivation/coaching during outdoor workouts.

Side Hustle Networking App. A networking app for finding or offering tiny side gigs based on skills.

Branded Fitness Challenges. A fitness app where users join brand-sponsored fitness challenges for discounts or rewards.

Silent Garbage Trucks. Introducing silent garbage trucks for streets where residents are willing to pay more.

Elevator Pitch Displays. Install screens in the elevators of office buildings with tech companies & VCs, that display the elevator pitches of startups on every ride.

Karaoke Matchmaking. Connect with people based on your karaoke song choices, and meet offline to sing together.

B2B Influencer Marketplace. Connects businesses with industry influencers for targeted marketing.

Live Cooking Platform. A live streaming platform where chefs cook in real-time, allowing viewers to follow along, ask questions, and even request dishes.

Collaborative Novel Writing. Users collectively write a novel, one line at a time, voted on by the community.

Targeted Podcast Recommendations. This app knows what you love and recommends specific episodes of podcasts.

Mystery Dinner Delivery. A service delivering surprise meals from local restaurants. The twist? 1 out of 10 deliveries is a jackpot, worth 10x the price you paid, that comes with a collectible & shareable golden ticket.

B2B Music App. Office music democracy! Employees suggest, upvote, and pay to hear their song pick in the entire office.

Confidence Boosting Tool. A Zoom extension that makes everyone naked with AI when you're presenting something. Massive PR for free.

Unique Startup Ideas. Here is a special edition I’ve scheduled in advance: 19 startup ideas, each with a unique marketing twist.

Engaging FAQs. Answer commonly asked questions in a chat screenshot format. Much more engaging & personal than the usual web page with collapsable bulks of text.

Testimonial Screenshots. Happy customers speaking with your CSMs? Their words = your win! (Get permission)

Behind-the-Scenes Ideas. Create a fake conversation between 2 employees about an upcoming product launch or event.

Staging Conversations. Don’t have a genuine opportunity? Consider staging the perfect chat.

Screenshot Marketing Rule. Whenever you have an ethical chance to publish a real screenshot from iMessage/Teams/Slack/WhatsApp—you should.

Tweet Engagement. Our most viral tweet ever was a censored private chat from the leak discovered by Wiz researchers from a Microsoft AI team.

Viral Screenshots. When a leaked DM or group chat screenshot appears on our social media feed, we stop and read.

Popular Graphics Types. 1. Nostalgic content 2. Oddly satisfying visuals 3. Private chats (i.e. iMessage / Whatsapp screenshots)

Effective Graphics. Based on my experience, there are 3 types of graphics that, when shown, immediately make people stop scrolling their feeds.

Honeymoon Location. I’m writing this week’s newsletter from our villa at Four Seasons Koh Samui, where HBO just finished filming season 3 of The White Lotus.

Curiosity Factor. Curiosity is a powerful motivator, and personal conversations can be your secret weapon.

Example of Success. Tomer Dean did ‘Brute-Force Marketing’ with his startup Lychee — a SaaS for automatically turning podcast episodes into YouTube Shorts clips. He simply created clips with his app and sent them to podcast hosts.

Viral Marketing Example. Here is a viral post from Nico Ferreyra, the CEO of Default.com, showcasing the value of his platform to Deel.

Success Stories. Christina Cacioppo, one of the co-founders of Vanta, heard that the Segment team was struggling with SOC-2 compliance. She proactively sent the team a spreadsheet outlining steps to take to ensure compliance, for free.

Labor Illusion Effect. When your ideal customers see the effort invested, they perceive your company & product as more valuable.

Tangible Outcomes. People resonate better with tangible outcomes than vague promises.

Personalized Outreach. Everyone is sending generic cold messages. But you will show personalized value.

Effective Acquisition Strategy. Brute-Force Marketing requires a lot of manual, non-scalable work, but it’s a bullet-proof way to boost your acquisition rates.

Brute-Force Marketing. Use your own product on behalf of potential customers → gift them the results (as if they were already using your product).

Viral Engagement. Ideally, you should think of a problem your ideal customer has and craft a funny & impossible job around solving it.

Successful Rebranding. Fiverr posted a series of real jobs with funny titles, such as 'Someone Who Always Picks the Right GIF and Software Engineer.'

Fake Job Post. Example: Beehiiv’s 'Remote Office Manager' position isn’t an office manager supposed to be... well, in the office?

Viral Job Posts. Using quirky, weird, and funny job posts can go viral.

Under-Leveraged Marketing. Your careers page gets tons of traffic but is probably the most under-leveraged.

Traffic Source. The career page is often the second most visited page on a website (after the homepage).

Culture Signal. Using funny job posts attracts top talent and shows you're fun.

Cost Effective. No realistic job offer is needed (see tactic #1), allowing for buzz generation for $0.

Buzz Generating Jobs. Funzing hired a real-life 'Pokemon Master' to travel the world playing Pokemon Go.

Creating Insider Terms. Create insider lingo. Prove you're the category king by inventing a new language.

Example of Inclusivity. Basecamp, a project management software, is famously anti-meeting. This house rule is reflected in their product - which lacks any meeting features.

Community Engagement. This shoe policy instantly creates a sense of a community with 'house rules' that visitors must follow.

Becoming Advocates. Nail this and you won't just keep users around – you'll turn them into advocates.

Customer VIP Treatment. The ultimate customer retention boils down to treating them like absolute VIPs.

Proactive Support. These tactics require a lot of manual work—but their effect on retention is huge.

Serving with Respect. In Thailand, you'll always be given things – money, food, gifts – with two hands. It's mindblowing. Full focus always. 100% respect.

Retention Tactics. My biggest takeaway wasn't the pad thai or elephant feeding... it was the genius retention tactics weaved into Thai culture.

Playful User Rituals. Create weird rituals that users 'must' participate in to use your product.

User Customization. By switching toggles on & off, visitors can clearly see how your product fits their specific needs.

Read More Here. I wrote a full article about visualization last year - read it here.

Recommendation for Homepage. Take toggles outside of your product’s UI/UX and onto your public facing homepage.

SEO Benefits. Longer visits = better SEO = more organic traffic.

Visual Engagement. It’s like giving people a personalized demo before they even sign up.

Toggles Enhance UX. Homepage toggles can be a game-changer for user acquisition.

Casual Email Tone. The only rule of thumb that always worked for my cold emails: Make the email extremely casual.

Boost Reply Rates. I've seen this boost reply rates by up to 35% with no other changes.

Example Cold Email. Here's an example of a perfect cold email: Subject: re: optimizing {{Company}}'s onboarding.

Power of P.S.. The P.S. is the most-read part of any email — hands down.

'Sent from my iPhone'. Always end the email with 'Sent from my iPhone' (even if not).

Permission Opener. Kicking off any question with 'May I...' hits hard. Really hard.

Conversational Closing. Close your email by asking a question the recipient can answer in <1 minute: Opinion, tech stack, advice, or pain points.

Using Fake Referrals. Include a fake forwarded message from one of your colleagues recommending that you reach out to this person.

Lowercase for Casualness. Kill the corporate vibe with nonchalant lowercase.

Impact of Subject Lines. Make your subject line read like an internal email from their boss.

Stealth Demo Drops. ‘Leak’ a sneak peek demo video of your upcoming release to build hype.

Emotional Communication. The only rule is that you must be personal and share your emotions, just not too many emotions.

Content Engagement. After publishing, engage and react to ALL of the comments, and obsessively comment on other founders' posts.

Common Marketing Hesitations. The most popular reasons silent founders don’t engage in marketing are 'No time', 'I don’t know what to post', and 'No one will care what I have to say'.

Feedback Power. It's surprisingly powerful yet underrated; don't be afraid to put your product out there and ask for honest feedback.

Company Milestones. Sharing news about funding rounds, ARR, and # of users = the easiest tactic for LinkedIn.

Product Updates Importance. New releases, upcoming features, customer news are essential as a founder.

Daily Posting. Post on LinkedIn every single day, in the morning hours where you live.

Founder Marketing. Yes, you absolutely should do 'Founder Marketing' (=share thoughts, expertise, and startup updates on your personal social media).

Contrarian Hot Takes. Share a spicy, counter-intuitive opinion on your industry, backed up with data or experience.

Avoiding Gimmicks. Viral tactics like the 'magical' dot prey on our biases as marketers - our desire for quick wins and silver bullets.

Experiment Recommendations. Run your own controlled experiments. Test the tactic with a small subset of your audience. Measure downstream impact, not just surface-level engagement.

Critical Assessment. Some marketing ideas are designed to go viral on social media, but they rarely move the needle on metrics that matter.

Temporary Boost Effect. The dot got more people to click, but not to buy.

Data Monitoring. The only concern I had about it was monitoring the quality of the clicks you get from this tactic (as it might also increase your bounce rate).

Short-lived Results. He later told me it had zero impact on actual conversions and revenue stayed flat.

Viral Idea Impact. One founder claimed their click-through rate (CTR) skyrocketed by 41% after implementing this tiny change.

Understanding Audience. True marketing magic is rooted in deeply understanding *your* audience and delivering real value.

Cultural Importance. Employee advocacy simply won’t happen without the right company culture.

New Hire Engagement. Connect new hires with as many Wiz employees as possible during their first month.

Engagement from Company Page. Whenever an employee posts about Wiz, we always comment from the company page.

AI Tools for Content Creation. I have also created the Wizard Post Generator: an internal AI-powered tool I built for employees to auto-create personalized LinkedIn content.

Custom Posts for VIPs. High-impact employees like hiring managers need extra-special support for crucial posts.

Workshops on LinkedIn. I’ve been running 15-minute “10 Rules for Going Viral on LinkedIn” sessions for various internal teams.

Employee Recognition. When we write posts for Wiz's main LinkedIn page, we make a point to always include and tag our own people.

VIP Advocate Club. We have created a private Slack channel where these 'Wizfluencers' get exclusive access to weekly LinkedIn growth tips from our team.

Content Contests. We organize limited-time contests that challenge employees to create specific content for LinkedIn.

Time-Saving Strategy. Feed employees with a spoon. You won’t regret it!

Celebration Automation. Our HR system sends employees a custom GIF on their Wizversary.

Engagement Gamification. We even started a ‘Treasure Hunt’ game: Before some events, we hide a secret item in 5 employee images.

Personalized Graphics for Events. Before each big conference, we create personalized graphics for each employee attending, complete with multiple post options.

Spoon-Feed Employees. Don’t expect them to spend time on your marketing goals.

Receptive Audience. Content shared by employees often reaches a more receptive audience.

Potential Reach. With 1,200 team members and an average of 2,000 LinkedIn connections each, we have the potential to reach 2.4 million people.

Employee Advocacy Impact. Wiz employees have successfully become a powerful buzz-generation engine.

Homophonic Priming. 'Homophonic priming' is the clever use of words that sound like other words (=homophones) to influence thoughts.

Subconscious Influence. The brain considers both meanings simultaneously, even if only for a split second, which is enough to plant a subconscious seed.

Inner Voice. When people read stuff, their inner voice ‘hears’ the words.

Application Opportunities. Look for opportunities to use homophonic priming, especially in website copy, email subject lines, and ad headlines.

Activation of Information. When we read, the phonological (sound) information is activated alongside the semantic (meaning) information.

Power Phrases. A few homophonic power phrases to consider including in the copy include 'Buy' = Bye, 'Sale' = Sail, and 'Access' = Excess.

First Experiment Ideas. Candidates are expected to propose quick win recommendations and thoughtful experiments grounded in research for their potential role.

Audience Building Importance. The question 'Have you ever built an audience from scratch?' is the most important in any marketing interview, revealing a candidate's understanding of audience growth.

Unconventional Interview Questions. The top 10 uncommon job interview questions aim to uncover exceptional talent that might slip through the cracks of a traditional interview.

Company Research. If a candidate hasn’t done any research on the company, it is an immediate red flag in the interview process.

Bias for Action. Candidates must demonstrate a bias for action, making decisions quickly and adapting fast even with incomplete data.

Event Planning Skills. Organizing an event reveals much about a candidate's project management abilities, including their resourcefulness and grit.

Viral Marketing Experience. The question about a candidate's viral moment seeks specific examples and an understanding of the factors that led to virality.

No-Code Experience. Experience with no-code platforms shows a candidate's technical orientation and ability to automate processes.

Passion for Marketing. A candidate's excitement about their favorite marketing resource indicates their passion for marketing rather than just seeing it as a job.

Outsourcing Capability. Asking about experience with Fiverr or Upwork tests a candidate's ability to solve problems creatively by leveraging external resources.

Initial Interview Question. The first question asked in any interview is 'What should I know about [NAME]?', aiming for a concise and compelling pitch about their successes and skills.

Domain Ownership Signals. How many domain names a candidate owns serves as a great indicator that they truly understand the internet.

Competitive Landscape Awareness. Asking what it would take to become the 'category king' invites candidates to think in terms of market dominance and competitor research.

Content Playbook. Make incredible content, pick scroll-stopping visuals, run fun contests, engage like your life depends on it, get your team on board.

Team Engagement. Employee advocacy has been one of our best strategies. Run internal contests for the most creative comments on company posts.

Giveaway Strategy. Our top-performing posts are often giveaways for Wiz swag or cybersecurity toys. The key is making it stupid-easy to enter the giveaway: Comment, tag a friend, and you’re done.

Visuals Importance. After the hook, your graphic is the next most important element. We’ve tested this to death (trust me), and here’s what works: GIFs > photos > videos.

Engagement Practices. We make engagement a daily non-negotiable: Respond to every comment you get (even just to say thanks).

Post Engagement. The LinkedIn algo doesn’t care how good your post is. It cares how many people are tapping the like button and comment.

Single Main Idea. Assaf Rappaport, our CEO, happened to sit next to me as I finished up my draft. He took one look and said: “What are you trying to say here? Pick ONE main idea. Just one.”

Content Strategy. The honest truth is that we don’t have some magic growth hack or a fancy AI tool that does all the work for us. We just focus on creating really f*cking good content, every single day.

Follower Growth. When I joined Wiz as Head of Growth Marketing in November 2022, our LinkedIn company page had 30,000 followers. Fast forward to today, and we’ve just hit 200,000 followers.

Nudging Actions. By inspiring users to think about their identity, you can nudge them towards desired actions and create a stronger sense of community and loyalty.

B2B Opportunities. I haven’t seen this emoji trick on LinkedIn yet... Could be a goldmine for B2B.

Corporate Identity. All employees of Beehiiv use a bee emoji on Twitter/X to reinforce their identity as Beehiiv supporters.

Community Building. Students use a ship emoji in their Twitter/X names, creating a sense of community and shared identity.

Emoji Identity Signal. One of the coolest identity hacks is to encourage people to add emojis to their names on social media.

Voter Turnout. Voter turnout increased by 15% when individuals were asked to be voters.

Helper Effect. A preschool study showed a 50% increase in children cleaning up when asked to be a helper.

Power of Identity. People are more likely to act when it aligns with how they want to be seen.

Identity Marketing. ‘Identity Marketing’ leverages this by transforming actions into identities.

Testing New Methods. Change your copy (add 'er') when you need people to act. Worth a test!

Feedback Importance. Many of them run raffles or contests where you can win a chance to pick their brain.

Waitlist Strategy. I built a waitlist. I threw up a simple Wix landing page and collected emails.

Email Engagement. I have a strong suspicion that this double opt-in requirement makes my emails pop up in the primary inbox more often, increasing my open rates which stand at about 45%.

Product Hunt Launch. I won the #1 Product of the Day, Week, and Month awards, which quickly led to 5,600 new subscribers almost overnight.

Sponsorships ROI. While the ROI wasn’t amazing (around $6-10 per subscriber), these were ultra-relevant subscribers who were a perfect fit for me.

Effective Posting. Currently, I spend 90% of my writing time deleting words.

Design Regrets. Neglecting to post on LinkedIn was a big mistake, as I barely touched LinkedIn for the first year of MarketingIdeas.com.

Growth Strategy. Running a newsletter is like playing an addictive video game... I’m obsessed with testing creative growth tactics and discovering new channels.

Article Production. I’ve published 52 articles, attracted over 17,800 subscribers, and reached more than half a million website views.

First Year Success. Today marks the first birthday of MarketingIdeas.com, and it’s been the best year of my career.

Welcome Experience. My promise is 'The world’s most powerful marketing ideas, delivered every Friday'.

Low Cumulative Reach in Brisbane. In Brisbane, Disrupt Radio has a cumulative reach of 1,000 people per week, last of the 32 stations surveyed.

Future of Disrupt Radio. Disrupt Radio claims significant growth in advertising revenues is expected as it builds out and hires a dedicated direct sales team.

TV Advertising Market Decline. The TV market took another hit, down by 12.3% for the month.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index lost another 2.56% yesterday to drop to just 460.7 points.

Sponsorship and Advertising Plans. Disrupt Radio plans to syndicate its content as well as pursuing on-air advertising and sponsorship.

Cumulative Audience in Sydney. Disrupt Radio's cumulative audience in Sydney is 5,000 people, placing it 32nd out of the 33 DAB+ stations covered in the survey.

Funding Status. Disrupt Radio is looking to raise up to $1m ahead of an even bigger raising of $5m.

Significant Financial Loss. Disrupt Radio spent $4.9m in its first 11 months of operations and brought in just $308,028 in advertising revenue.

Disrupt Radio Burn Rate. With a burn rate of nearly $400,000 per month, Disrupt Radio needs investors with deep pockets.

Stock Market Movements. Nine recovered by 1.52% to a market cap of $2.1bn while IVE Group was up 2.57%.

Unmade Index Recovery. The Unmade Index improved from Tuesday's all-time low, bouncing back by 1.28% to 466.5 points yesterday.

Value of Live Radio. O'Connell emphasizes that 'The magic of radio for me is live. I always has been.'

Radio Industry Evolution. O'Connell states that 'Radio needs to change. It has to build a different model.'

Future Networking Plans. O'Connell wants the show to be more widely available and has expressed interest in networking into markets like Sydney.

O'Connell's Market Position. Christian O'Connell, host of Melbourne's top FM breakfast show, represents a significant voice in the FM market.

Distraction Warning. O'Connell warns against letting the arrival of rival shows distract from their own program, stating, 'You’ve got to be really careful that you don’t let other shows and their mindsets bleed into your own.'

Podcast Content Focus. The conversation in today's podcast revolved around the launch of O'Connell's mentoring service, 'Finding Fire.'

Brand Experience Deterioration. Every aspect of the Qantas brand experience is said to be slightly worse than five years ago, at a much higher price.

Qantas Remediation Payments. Qantas has agreed to pay back 86,000 passengers a total of $20m following legal proceedings brought by the ACCC.

Declining Airline Ranking. According to the annual Skytrax rankings, Qantas has fallen from a top ten airline pre-COVID to number 24.

Customer Communication Issues. Qantas outsourced the communication of the remediation to Deloitte, which many customers found impersonal and lacking in genuine apology.

Ghost Flights Scandal. The ghost flights scandal at Qantas led to CEO Alan Joyce's early departure after it was discovered that the airline sold bookings for 8,000 flights it had no intention of running.

Superhero's Communication. Superhero has been sending out slippery communications regarding undisclosed kickbacks when customers buy US shares, accompanied by a party popper emoji.

Apology Deficiencies. Customers noted that the apology from Qantas felt 'narrow and legalistic,' lacking a sincere acknowledgment of their negative experiences.

Advertising Regulation. The way that the Australian Communications & Media Authority regulates every platform differently makes no logical sense in 2024.

Optus Sport Moves. Optus Sport, which already has the English Premier League, also picked up the rights to the FA Cup knockout tournament.

Media Stocks Decline. All but three of the 14 local stocks we track have lost value for their investors in FY24.

Index Performance Data. The Unmade Index almost stood still for a second day in a row on Friday, slipping by just 1.2 points to 465.9.

Cultural Significance. That list should be slimmed down to only the events that are genuinely culturally significant.

Sports Broadcasting Concerns. The most notable thing about the legislation that went through this week is that it did not extend protections into the streaming world.

Local Media Crisis. Without policy intervention, the collapsing business models in TV and publishing will result in a grievous hit on Australian culture.

Policy Failure. The result is a policy failure which is actually a bad outcome both for them, and the public.

Public Interest Focus. Next time round, the policy needs to start with the question of what is in the public interest, not networks’ interests.

Legislation Outdated. The government’s latest media legislation cleared Parliament on Thursday, and it’s already out of date.

New Advertising Opportunities. The convergence of retail media with connected TV (CTV) is incredibly exciting.

Need for Standardisation. The lack of standardised measurement and reporting across RMNs is a significant hurdle for both agencies and brands.

Agencies' Role Significance. Agencies are now more crucial than ever for brands navigating the increasingly intricate world of retail media.

Inherent Market Challenges. Overcoming inherent challenges like measurement, standardisation, and platform aggregation will be crucial to unlocking this potential.

Retail Media Growth. Currently, retail media accounts for roughly 4.9% of ad spend in Australia, a stark contrast to the US's 15.1%.

New Award Categories. Two new categories - recognising the Retail Media Team of the Year and Best Use of Data in Retail Media - will be added alongside last year’s categories.

Awards Program Expansion. The REmade Retail Media Awards program is returning in expanded form for 2024.

Commerce Index Tool. Our Commerce Index is a powerful tool that we are beta testing with brands to develop more effective commerce capability and strategies.

Concern Over Title Closures. Allowing the archives to disappear from the web would be cultural vandalism.

Disrupt Radio Financial Struggles. Disrupt Radio closed its crowd funding investment offer, which aimed to raise $1m, with just $24,500 raised.

Facebook News Surge. Over the last three or four days, the Facebook feed has been flooded with news links, local and international, from news brands previously liked on Facebook.

Paramount Ownership Change. Paramount’s dominant shareholder Shari Redstone finalized a deal with Skydance to take control, with David Ellison becoming the new proprietor.

Mediaweek Allegations. The AFR published allegations that people at Mediaweek had complained about the behaviour of its owner and publisher Trent Thomas.

Disrupt Radio Zero Ratings. In Melbourne, Disrupt Radio's cumulative reach dropped from an already awful 6,000 to an asterix - which appears when the number is too low to measure.

Nine Publishing Cuts. Most of the titles within Nine's youth-focused digital publishing arm Pedestrian Group, with the exception of Pedestrian itself, have been closed.

Cultural Loss in Media Cuts. The closures are a microcosm of the growing loss to Australian culture from the crisis facing advertising-funded media.

Mediaweek Owner Situation. The AFR reports today that owner Trent Thomas, subject of sexual harassment claims by staff, is considering selling the business to Brag Media owner Vinyl Group.

Olympics Revenue. Nine has booked $135m against the event, which CEO Mike Sneesby says will deliver a profit.

Nine's Olympic Profit. Nine says it's made it into profit with its Paris Olympics sponsorship packages.

Lacklustre Upfronts. This year's Upfronts are shaping up to be a lacklustre affair, with media bosses reluctant to be seen to be hosting big parties while staff lose jobs.

AI Call Centers. The other day I had a phone call from an AI trying to sell me some wine. It wasn’t very good, but it still felt like a part of every consumer’s future.

AI Sales Experience. The AI seemed as though the ocker salesman had recorded a series of pitches, and the AI was playing responses depending on what I said.

REmade Awards Open. Entries are now open for the REmade Awards.

Consumer Future. As you’ll hear, it wasn’t the full generative AI experience of conversations being generated on the fly.

Curation Matters. The thing worth preserving is curation.

Stock Performance Highlights. Seven West Media was the only stock to improve, up by 2.86%.

Quality as Differentiator. Excellence and curation is the point of difference when it comes to news.

Future of Newspapers. My guess is the latter: Will newspaper presses stop rolling before the TV transmitters turn off?

Mixed Reader Reactions. The reaction was a mixture of nostalgia from readers who have already moved away, to resignation from those who will miss newspapers as part of their daily habit.

Digital Focus for Publishers. To remain part of the daily habit, they still need to deliver a curated package.

Murdoch's Prediction. Rupert Murdoch gave the printed medium of newspapers 'fifteen years, with a lot of luck.'

Digital Audience Engagement. One thing they need to do though is pivot those editions towards that digital audience.

Experience of Reading. Reading a printed newspaper is still a better experience.

Weekend Newspaper Readership. Where I suspect that newspapers will last longest is at weekends, where readers have more time and inclination for longer, curated, crafted reads.

Unmade Index Decline. The Unmade Index broke its four-day upwards trajectory yesterday, losing 0.77% top land at 484.4 points.

AI's Impact on Journalism. The conversation also discusses how AI will change journalism.

Monitoring Media Landscape. The wide-ranging conversation also covers the tough publishing environment and The Australian's battles with its rivals at Nine.

News Corp's Market Capitalization. News Corp rose by 3.35%, to close at an all-time high market capitalisation of AU$24bn.

The Unmade Index Performance. The Unmade Index rose again yesterday, increasing by another 1.28% to 490.6 points.