Unmade: media and marketing analysis

Welcome to a midweek update from Unmade, dropping a little later than usual to accommodate the reporting embargo around this afternoon’s Amazon’s Upfronts.Further down, Vinyl Group shares sink to a 12 month low.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.‘We are ready now’: Willie Pang on Amazon’s entry into the Australian advertising environment What was most notable about this afternoon’s Upfront with Amazon Australia was not so much the content, but the fact that they decided now is the time to hold such an event.This week was something of a coming out moment for Amazon’s local operation. It seems like longer ago, but Amazon only launched its Australian website in late 2017, with a local Amazon Ads team starting a couple of years later.This week was the most industry-facing Willie Pang has been since becoming Amazon’s country manager two years ago. On Monday we recorded the podcast interview published alongside this post. Yesterday he presented the keynote at REmade, our retail media conference. And tonight he was on stage at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, talking to the biggest industry audience Amazon has yet addressed in Australia.As Pang put it in our interview: “It took us a couple of years there to build, to scale, and we feel like we are ready now.”The increased profile is a function of the inexorable progress being made by Amazon. Back in 2023 it passed the threshold as Australia’s most visited online retail destination. And last year, came the big move - the arrival of an ad tier on Amazon’s Prime Video.Unlike other streaming services, the default for users is that advertising tier. That instantly made Amazon one of the biggest players in Australia’s connected TV ecosystem.In our interview, Pang claims a five million total audience, although I think I detected a reticence to expand on where that number comes from. That was answered in this afternoon’s presentation, with the asterisk “Amazon internal”.Pang said there have been talks with ratings body OzTam. Good. I suspect the market will want independent audience verification.Amazon’s challenge now is to get that audience actually watching more Prime Video content.That was a shortcoming revealed at tonight’s event. It was an upfront with very few local upfront content announcements. We already knew that Amazon has the ICC cricket and NBA basketball rights. The only new local announcements were a second season of comedy drama Deadloch and an as-yet-untitled AFL documentary from the production team behind Netflix’s F1 series Drive to Survive.Prime’s content strategy is global rather than local.Not returning, by the looks of it is the Australian edition of workplace comedy The Office. The reviews for the first season were rotten.Instead, the focus was on Amazon’s claim to all parts of the marketing funnel, backed with some tech updates. “Full funnel” was the most frequently used phrase of the afternoon. Pang also appears to be coming to the market with more humility than some of the players Amazon is seeking to displace (Cartology in the retail media space, and Google in the online space spring to mind). Says Pang in our interview: “We would love for brands, marketers, agencies to perceive us as firstly, humble and hardworking. And second, that we’re here to deliver incredible results and value.”He repeated the words “humble and hard working” on stage this afternoon too. That’s a smart position. The message: ‘We can do the same stuff as Google and Meta but we’re nicer’ might well resonate locally.I suspect that the market will soon be talking about Amazon’s demand side platform Performance+ campaign optimisation tool and its audience discovery tool Brand+, in the same breath as Meta’s Advantage+ and Google’s Performance Max. The naming convention certainly suggests that’s the aim.Amazon’s DSP now extends across premium partners including Netflix along with Prime, the Amazon retail platform and the company’s live streaming platform Twitch.A decade ago, the conversation was what Amazon would do to the market when it finally arrived. Without a shadow of a doubt, Amazon is now here.Vinyl Group hits one-year lowMusic publishing and platforms company Vinyl Group took the biggest tumble on the ASX today as its share price fell to the lowest point in more than a year. Vinyl lost 4.4% to land on a market capitalisation of $119m.Meanwhile Southern Cross Austereo lost 1.7% and Ooh Media lost 1.6%.Among the broadcasters, Seven West Media had the best day, gaining 3.7%.The Unmade Index lost 0.21%, closing on 477.6 points.More from Mumbrella:* How Commonwealth Bank slowly became a national media network* ‘This is hate, pure and simple’: Muslim pork ad pulled from awards* Opinion: Why trust actors but not AI?* ASX-listed Lifestyle Communities launches new brand platformToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Time to leave you to your evening. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great nightToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led update from Unmade. Today we hear a fly-on-the-wall interview with marketing strategist Mat Baxter in which he unloads on premium brands seeking cheap media, and lays out the marketing strategy for his new luxury tattoo skincare brand.It’s your last chance to sign up for a paid membership of Unmade and lock in all of the current benefits. Next month, we’re going to stop accepting new paying members of Unmade. Instead we’ll be offering membership of an expanded Mumbrella Pro as we bring the two brands closer together.All Unmade membership perks will be carried across, including complimentary tickets to REmade, Unlock, and Compass for our annual paying members. These won’t be available to anyone else as part of the new Mumbrella Pro membership.Your paid membership also includes exclusive analysis and access to our content archive which goes behind the paywall six weeks after publication.Upgrade now or miss out.Baxter the iconoclastHal Crawford writes:Mat Baxter has launched a luxury tattoo skincare brand. After spending a career in agencies persuading others to do things, the brakes are off and “it’s time to put up or shut up.”“We are going to be the client that I always wanted. I wanted a client that didn’t want to go to pitch … I wanted a client who cut us in on the success we contributed to without caps or exception … and I wanted a client who, when I was in a meeting and gave a recommendation, they actually took that recommendation.”Baxter says that the Skingraphica brand he is launching (on October 1) is a new category. I spoke with him — for the news story I wrote in Mumbrella — right after his morning gym workout, and he was pumped. The words and numbers flow: tattoos globally are a $6 billion industry, a billion people around the world and one in four Australians sport a tattoo. Baxter discovered there are no scientifically formulated high-end products aimed at the market while he was preparing to receive his first tattoo in the Sydney studio of Swedish maestro Mikael Rämgård. The interesting thing about the venture is Baxter’s marketing strategy: 100% out-of-home in terms of brand spend, with a healthy whack of influencer in the form of the world’s top tattoo artists. “We recognize we have to engage with the best artists in the world … [of the world’s top 10 artists] we're working directly with two of them, and we know the balance.”“There will be no performance marketing … no low-end buys at all. Build a great brand, have great products. Customers will come and find you and buy you. We're not interested in cheap. We want quality.“Above the line, we're going a 100 percent out-of-home. Out-of-home is the last superpower brand channel, in my view, outside of digital.”Baxter, who led strategy for IPG Mediabrands in New York before becoming CEO of Initiative and then Huge, is caustic about the influence of finance on marketing.“ I purposely kept the company private because in my experience, bankers f**k brands. I'm not prepared at this point trying — as a frustrated marketer for years, not being client side, being agency side — I'm not prepared to make brand compromises because of money at this stage.“I want the brand to be looked after and executed and launched in the most pure and uncompromised form possible.”More from Mumbrella…* Clemenger BBDO wins MFA Grand Prix for Samsung campaign* Medibank appoints new chief marketing officer* IAB Australia unites the MMM world for how-to guide* Mumbrella Publish adds Nine’s Tory Maguire to lineup* Channel Seven sanctioned for on-air domestic violence jokes* Opinion: Bigger doesn’t mean better: How moving to a contractor-led model boosted my bottom lineToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Tim will be back with Best of the Week iun the morning.Have a great dayHal CrawfordEditorial Director, Mumbrellahcrawford@mumbrella.com.au This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we explore last night’s Foxtel announcements and a record breaking crash in Nine’s share price.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.Foxtel Upfront: More sport, better techSo now we have the first proper look at what the new Foxtel will be like. Five months on from the sale to DAZN, last night’s Foxtel Upfront ‘26 event signalled that for the most part, it will be business as usual. Those of us who trooped across Anzac Bridge to Sydney’s old White Bay Power Station saw a show that (not surprisingly given the new owner) swung the emphasis towards the sport portfolio, with less focus on the Binge side of the entertainment portfolio.So far, more has stayed the same than has changed. Kayo, not DAZN, will remain the sports streaming brand, for now at least.Despite losing its HBO content when Warner Brother Discovery launched Max, Binge remains - now leaning on NBC Universal for content. The Paper, the spinoff from The Office, started streaming last week. Ahead of the event, CEO Patrick Delany told me: “It’s held its own and it’s far more profitable without the extraordinary cost of Warner Brothers in it.”Delany wasn’t at last night’s event, instead flying to London for a DAZN board meeting; he sent a video message. His absence wasn’t particularly jarring. The Foxtel Upfronts have always been more the domain of the boss of the Foxtel Media sales house, Mark Frain.As well as Delany, we also spoke to Frain ahead of the event. Highlights from both those conversations accompany this post as a podcast.Although the emphasis was on sport - with perhaps two-thirds of the presentation dedicated to that side of the business - there were entertainment recommissions announced too, including Colin from Accounts, High Country, The Great Australian Bakeoff and Selling Homes. And new content included Run, The Postcard Bandit, and Tough Love.But the direction is towards sport. According to Delany, they’ve never let a rights deal go that they wanted to keep. “We’ve never lost a sports rights content that we didn’t want to lose.” Apart from the English Premier League back in 2015, perhaps.Soon the platforms will slide across to DAZN’s platform technology. And, says Delany, subscribers to the original Foxtel broadcast service will eventually see their streaming service Foxtel Go move across too. (As a grumpy subscriber, that can’t come too soon for me.)Not that the company will be investing any more in the Foxtel hardware. IQ4 and IQ5 boxes will be refurbished or retired. There will be no IQ6.The other piece of hardware that will quickly fade from view is Hubbl. Delany confirmed in the interview that the push is over 18 months after it began. Hubbl is, as he puts it, “in maintenance mode”. That’s not quite send to the farm, but close. Given that the company sold more than 100,000 units (Delany revealed it’s “not tens of thousands” - they can’t just turn off the tap. So technical support for Hubbl will presumably remain for some time.And Frain’s push to create a new centre of gravity for the screen industry away from free to air continues to edge forward with the Video Futures Collection becoming an organisation in its own right.Director of customer engagement Toby Dewar told the room:  “All of this has brought us to a key milestone for the VFC. We are becoming an independent industry backed body. What started two years ago as an informal think tank led by Foxtel Media, it's now becoming something bigger.“With structure, governance and a simple mandate to go faster, to go broader, and to ensure we keep the customer at the center of how we push forward with the streaming revolution.”There was no announcement last night of one of the free to air players joining the VFC, which Foxtel has been pushing for. But Dewar did announce, slightly vaguely: “I'm excited to say that along with Seven, Nine and Paramount, we are exploring ways to collaborate and focus on shared research projects to better understand the outcomes across screens.”Other announcements included a move into gaming via a tie-up with Livewire; a push into retail media and a new brand-funded content arm with (I thought rather clever) name of Narratv. Is branded entertainment back?* Declaration of interest: Foxtel provided me with accommodation and covered some of my travel to the eventNine share price drops by a third after Domain exitNine’s share price went through a record 35.9% wipeout on Thursday, taking almost $1bn off its market capitalisation.However the change was expected, as the market revalued the stock after the sale of Domain to US real estate giant Costar. Yesterday was the date for Nine’s shares to go ex-dividend, which means that anybody who buys Nine shares from now on are not entitled to the special dividend from the Domain sale when it is paid out at the end of the month.Nine’s new market cap is $1.7bn.It was also a generally down day elsewhere on the Unmade Index, which monitors the performance of Australia’s listed media and marketing companies.Seven West Media lost 3.5%, Ooh Media lost 2.6% and Ive group lost 2.2%.In the lower reaches of the index, Sports Entertainment Group - owner of SEN Radio - lost 7.3% while research house Pureprofile lost 6.7%. Vinyl Group gained 15%.Thanks to Nine’s big drop, the Unmade Index also saw the biggest one-day fall in its history, losing 20.3% to land on 464.2 points.Time to leave you to your Friday.I’ll be back tomorrow with Best of the Week. I’ve been thinking about the Lachlan succession, and last night’s news of a potential Paramount takeover of WBD.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led update from Unmade. Today, Upfronts season gets under way, with SBS first out of the door.It’s your last chance to sign up for a paid membership of Unmade and lock in all of the current benefits. Next month, we’re going to stop accepting new paying members of Unmade. Instead we’ll be offering membership of an expanded Mumbrella Pro as we bring the two brands closer together.All Unmade membership perks will be carried across, including complimentary tickets to REmade, Unlock and Compass for our annual paying members. These won’t be available to anyone else as part of the new Mumbrella Pro membership.Your paid membership also includes exclusive analysis and access to our content archive which goes behind the paywall six weeks after publication.Upgrade now or miss out.An SBS winning streak? And so it begins.It’s spring and we’re straight back into Upfronts season.The Digital Publishers Alliance soft launched the season with the Independents’ Day Long Lunch on Tuesday, but SBS kicked things off properly last night with what will be for the media industry the first of a number of trips to the Hordern Pavilion in the coming weeks.Outgoing managing director James Taylor was in the room albeit not on the stage. It was a small example of how SBS may be commercial, but not that commercial. Imagine one of the networks allowing a departing executive to spend the night schmoozing advertisers, days before crossing the bridge to take the hot seat at Ooh Media.But the star of the show was chief marketing and commercial officer Jane Palfreyman, now acting MD. She opened and closed the presentation. She’s also the guest in the podcast interview that accompanies this post.As you might expect for a year when SBS is in transition (there’s also an acting chair in Christine Zeitz) the announcements were mainly about evolutions: The countdown to an expanded soccer World Cup; an extension to the Tour de France rights; an expansion of the ability for viewers to opt out of betting and booze ads; a fourth season of Alone Australia; better functionality for SBS On Demand.The presentation itself was tight, and strong. One buyer, who wasn’t throwing shade, described it as “substance over style”. The prominent signs at the door warning full frontal nudity preceded a cameo appearance from the streaker who formed the basis of the new “We go there” brand position.And the sizzle reel for the World Cup was among the best editing I’ve seen at any Upfronts. I predict it will win some kind of award.Afterwards, the feedback was that Palfreyman had done a good job; a strong pass mark was the consensus at the drinks afterwards. I’d agree with that, but add that in our podcast interview she was not as strong on the detail of the content as I would have anticipated. A wobbly pass mark there, I’d say - but you can form your own view when you listen.In the short term, I’m fascinated to see how The People vs Robodebt performs on SBS later this month. The trajectory of the Robodebt scandal reminds me of the one involving the Post Office in the UK. This scandal - in which a defective IT system led to hundreds of subpostmasters being wrongly accused of stealing - bubbled along for years on the edge of British national consciousness. But it was only when an ITV drama - titled Mr Bates vs the Post Office - aired, that it exploded to the front of people’s minds. We may (hopefully) yet see senior people go to prison.Similarly with Robodebt, even after a public inquiry, it’s not at the forefront of Australian consciousness in the way it should be.The People vs Robodebt launches on September 24. It’s a three part docu-drama made by CJZ. The choice of title suggests to me they see the same parallels.But will enough people see the show via SBS channels for it to create the sort of cultural consciousness Mr Bates vs The Post Office did in the UK?Listening to Palfreyman’s bloodless answers when I asked about The People vs Robodebt in the interview, I didn’t get the impression the top levels of SBS see the potential. If it’s any good SBS should be preparing to unleash a PR blitzkrieg to get the public to see it, and to get angry about it.In the interview, I asked whether Palfreyman will be a formal candidate for the job. She gives a well workshopped no comment: “It’s an excellent job; I’ll think about it in the coming months. I’ve really had Upfronts on my mind.”Elsewhere in next year’s slate comes 2.6 Seconds, which tells the story of another scandal: the death of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker, who was shot three times in close range by police officer Zachary Rolfe. The main point of the Upfronts is to persuade advertisers that SBS is the place to spend their money. Hopefully they’ll come for the football and stay for the cultural relevance.Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today, we talk to both buyer and seller in Hardie Grant’s deal to buy PR agency Keep Left, and find out what boss Nick Hardie-Grant thinks of the AI tech lobby’s push to weaken Australian copyright law.We’ve announced the schedule for this year’s Compass series. Our panel-in-the-pub, end-of-year tour kicks off in Sydney on November 3 and concludes in Hobart a fortnight later. Reflecting on 2025 and projecting into 2026, please hold the date for your city:* November 3 – Compass Sydney* November 5 – Compass Brisbane* November 10 – Compass Adelaide* November 11 – Compass Perth* November 17 – Compass Melbourne* November 18 – Compass HobartUnmade’s paying members get a free ticket to Compass. Your annual membership also gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; and to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy.Upgrade today.‘Complete b******t and a blatant attack on the industry’ - Publisher Nick Hardie-Grant on the AI industry’s push to loosen local copyright protectionThe M&A pipeline in the independent sector has been flowing fast in recent weeks.Last month Private Media revealed its purchase of Pinstripe Media in what was a major piece of consolidation in the publishing sector for small and medium sized businesses. Then Solstice Media bought Australian Traveller Media, adding to other purchases including The New Daily and The 7am Podcast.This week came news that Hardie Grant Media has added PR agency Keep Left, which has 25 staff, to its portfolio. Hardie Grant’s roster of agencies already includes digital media agency Reload, content agency Heads and Tales, production house Sherpa, and PR and influencer agency Tide Communications. It’s rapidly becoming a local holdco, and is still on the acquisition trail.The wider Hardie Grant group is best known as a book publisher although more than half of the 220 staff work for the communications agency arm.Today’s podcast interview features Hardie Grant Group CEO Nick Hardie-Grant and Keep Left founder Caroline Catterall. Nick Hardie-Grant’s mother Fiona Hardie started the communications arm while his father Sandy Grant started the publishing business. Catterall launched Keep Left 24 years ago. The deal was chased by Hardie-Grant after he got to know Keep Left through common clients.According to Catterall: “We got a feel for that cultural alignment, which from both sides of the fence was really, really important. And one of the other things that was really important to us is that Hardie Grant Media is an independent agency. We've been proudly indie for a long time.”During the interview with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Nick Hardie-Grant also discusses the book publishing side of the business, and the call from the Productivity Commission to consider changing local laws to make it easier for AI companies to mine content to train their large language models. Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, chair of the Australian Tech Council, has been arguing that Australia should make it permissible for AI companies to use published content without paying for it.According to Hardie-Grant:“It's a pretty obvious answer for someone in the publishing industry that it's complete b******t and that it's a blatant attack on the industry.“It's extremely one-sided transparent, laughable approach has no real upside for the industry apart from the potential short-term benefits for the tech companies to gain a whole lot of copyrighted, a whole lot of information for free.”More from Mumbrella…* Mumbrellacast: Inside Hardie Grant’s Keep Left acquisition, OOH’s big week, and ex-Paramount owner talks Skydance and Trump* Hardie Grant acquires Keep Left in a deal a year in the making* Out-of-home industry rises across all categories* ‘I was blown away’: Former Paramount owner believes settlement with Trump was a good deal* This just in: News bulletins are the latest podcast trendToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back with more tomorrow, with a four year anniversary update on Unmade.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today, we talk to the architect of AI-led ad agency Cuttable. And Nine’s shares sink as the market awaits a plan for life after Domain.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.Betting on Meta - How Cuttable is targeting SMEsIn today’s audio-led edition of Unmade we talk to the co-founder of AI-powered ad agency, Cuttable.Cuttable, founded by creative agency exec Jack White, former Swisse marketer Ed Ring, and tech entrepreneur Sam Kroonenburg, was initially serving some of the biggest brands in the country – Medibank, Wesfarmers, and Nando’s, to name a few.But over the past 12 months, the Melbourne-based startup has pivoted to the smaller end of town. Now focused on the “97%” of brands that have grown up entirely in the social media era, it has turned its attention to those relying on Meta for growth.The shift wasn’t just a tactical decision, it was a bet on where the future of brand building is heading. White believes the next decade will belong to businesses born and scaled on social media, and he wants Cuttable to be the engine that powers them.“It was a hard decision, we had good revenue. We nearly hit one million [dollars] in ARR (annual recurring revenue), but we made that choice to hand back some of the money to the bigger brands.”He says smaller businesses, founder-led businesses, benefit most from Cuttable’s capabilities. The entrenched processes of larger brands – strict brand guidelines, layers of approval, disjointed agency villages – slow down testing and learning too much. In comparison, the nimble nature of smaller brands means they are able to iterate at speed, and they are far hungrier for the immediate impact Cuttable can deliver.That hunger, White says, is driven by necessity: “They’re doing their best to keep up with the volume and pace [of advertising] but they’re struggling, because they’re not advertisers. They care about their brands, they’re literally spending their nights and weekends making ads.”Across Cuttable’s client base, 80–90% of ad budgets are funnelled into Facebook, Instagram, and Marketplace. White notes that these channels demand constant “creative variation” – a steady stream of fresh ads that keep the algorithm engaged. It’s a requirement that overwhelms small marketing teams but plays to Cuttable’s strength: generating high-quality, high-volume creative without human bottlenecks.While some might see a risk in focusing so heavily on one platform – especially as Meta invests in its own AI ad tools – White is confident Cuttable’s edge lies in combining tech expertise and automation with advertising know-how. The team includes talent from TBWA, Ogilvy, Medibank, and Meta itself, all working alongside top engineers to blend industry craft with cutting-edge tech.“Anyone can spit out content,” he says, “but making something people actually want to click on still takes a good idea.”That blend is also what’s attracting investors. Cuttable has raised $10m on a valuation of $44.5m, with backers including Square Peg and The Brand Fund. The capital is fuelling not just product development but an ambitious expansion into the US, where White sees an even larger market of small and medium brands battling the same challenges.Nine fades as market awaits annual updateNine’s share price continued to sag today, losing another 0.6%. The company has now lost more than 5% in recent days as its most keenly anticipated full year results announcement in some years approaches.On August 27 - just under a fortnight from now - the company will receive the $1.4bn proceeds from the sale of Domain on the same day it releases its FY25 financial update. Shareholders expect to receive a share of the cash, along with some of the company’s debt being paid down. However, just as keenly anticipated is for Nine CEO Matt Stanton to share a new vision for the TV-led business, including any potential new acquisition strategy.On Tuesday Seven West Media set the tone for results season with a downbeat set of numbers, albeit with a slight improvement in the second half of the year. SWM shares improved by 7.1% today, after losing 6.7% on Tuesday.The two major audio players both had down days, with Southern Cross Austereo losing 2.5% to land on a market capitalisation of $140.3m, just ahead of the $139.3m of ARN Media, which lost 3.2%.Ooh Media lost 0.6% to land on a market cap of $924m.The Unmade Index closed on 571.4 points, down 0.68% for the day.More from Mumbrella…* McDonald’s split: Longest client-agency partnership in Australian advertising comes to an end* 'We're renowned as a difficult partner for the production sector, but that's going to change': ABC boss Hugh Marks* Droga5 chief strategist departs for new gig at the ABC* Australian Olympic Committee communications chief departs* Government ‘considering AI training disclosure laws’* Opinion: We must fix the fan experience for football broadcasting* Paramount stocks soar after UFC deal and ‘meme stock’ commentToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great nightToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we talk to Christian O’Connell about his plans to (sort of) take his radio show national. Plus a big fall for Seven West Media on the Unmade index.We’ve announced the schedule for this year’s Compass series. Our panel-in-the-pub, end-of-year tour kicks off in Sydney on November 3 and concludes in Hobart a fortnight later. Reflecting on 2025 and projecting into 2026, please hold the date for your city:* November 3 – Compass Sydney* November 5 – Compass Brisbane* November 10 – Compass Adelaide* November 11 – Compass Perth* November 17 – Compass Melbourne* November 18 – Compass HobartUnmade’s paying members get a free ticket to Compass. Your annual membership also gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; and to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy.And you also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.When is a radio show not really national? When it’s on DABI have something of a confession.When I recorded this week’s podcast with Christian O’Connell on Monday morning, I didn’t have all the facts. When you listen, you’ll hear me miss what is now an obvious question.ARN Media had just announced O’Connell’s Melbourne-based Gold FM breakfast show was going live nationally. After last week’s announcement that Brendan Jones and Amanda Keller were vacating their Gold FM Sydney breakfast show for a shift to drive, it was clear that O’Connell would be networking into both cities, but the national move was a surprise.I took the announcement at face value. The technical problem I focused on was that of the time difference.Depending on time of year, when the show kicks off in Melbourne at 6am, that would be 3am in Perth. Or 5am in Queensland. Or 5.30am in Adelaide. But the announcement was unequivocal (and, as I’ll explain further down, misleading): “This is the first time a commercial radio breakfast show will go live across the country.”For a show that thrives on the conversation with callers, that would, I assumed, have to mean a longer show. Stay on air longer, until at least 11am Melbourne time perhaps, in order to be genuinely live. There’s precedent for running long. Over on Kiis FM, stablemates Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson usually stay well beyond their official finish time.Alternatively, as a half way house (and admittedly not properly live), shortly after 9am in Melbourne, record a bunch of talk breaks to cover the next two hours.The practicality of time zones is already a reality for broadcasters. The likes of ABC Radio National, and the TV networks, broadcast their shows as live, on a time delay. But when something big enough is breaking, they go fully live for their west coast audiences.But the assumption that I - and the rest of the industry - made was that ARN Media was planning to put The Christian O’Connell Show to air in each market on one of their existing stations. That had been the plan when ARN was looking to capture Triple M in its failed Southern Cross Austereo takeover bid.The new national plan was most intriguing in Perth where ARN’s 96FM leads the market with a 14.8% audience share. However, 96FM is more closely aligned with ARN Media’s Kiis network branding than Gold. ARN shares a second licence in the city with Nova Entertainment.And the existing 96FM breakfast show, featuring Dean Clairs and Lisa Shaw, underperforms compared to the rest of the station, sitting third in its time slot. Dropping in The Christian O’Connell Show would be a bold move but plausible.At the very least, with one licence in the market, ARN Media appeared to have selected O’Connell over the Kyle & Jackie O Show to lead its national networking strategy. To use the Formula One analogy, where each team has two drivers, ARN had chosen O’Connell as its number one driver.But the plan appeared anything but fully formed.As you’ll hear O’Connell concede during the interview: “The Perth side, we’re still working out the best way to do that. It might sound like ‘If you’ve been talking about this for seven years, why haven’t you sorted that out?’”In truth, it’s not going to be a national show. Or at least not on radios nationally. Outside of Sydney and Melbourne the show will be DAB only. Disingenuously, the word DAB did not appear in the announcement.Almost nobody listens to DAB. And for fans of O’Connell in other cities, they can already stream the show anyway.DAB ratings are so low that Commercial Radio Australia doesn’t even publish the average listening numbers, only cumulative audience - the number of people who merely tune in at some point across the week. On DAB, the station 96FM 80s has a cume of just 61,000. That’s compared to a cume for the main 96FM of 506,000. So why pretend the show is national when it is not?That’s where ARN has made a hash of its communications.They were bounced into it after Jones and Keller decided to tell their listeners they were being moved to drive time. Reading between the lines, it’s clear the duo would rather have stayed in breakfast.As O’Connell says in the interview: “Things have been jump started a bit. We were meant to be announcing this in a couple of weeks time.”ARN should have waited until it got its story straight.The mere fact of Christian O’Connell broadcasting live into Sydney was interesting enough, and a credible first step to a national audience.But that’s not what this move represents.Instead, it potentially sets him up for failure.If ARN had presented it to the market as a two-city show, then Sydney and Melbourne would have been seen as the battleground - and, incidentally, one where O’Connell has the craft, talent and work ethic to win.It could even have been accompanied by the supplemental message that the show will additionally be available on DAB in those other markets. But it can’t pretend that the show is fully in each of those markets - advertisers won’t accept it anyway.Now, unless ARN rapidly changes its messaging, each survey will be accompanied by terrible comparisons in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane.Presented as a national sell, it will cause confusion about what should be a simple buy. Marketers and media agencies won’t buy the national story until it’s a genuine national story.What a waste of what should have been good news from ARN.Seven share price decimatedSeven West Media and Vinyl Group both took big hits on the ASX today, losing 10% and 7.6% respectively.SWM’s price of 14c is close to its low point of 12c it briefly hit in April. Vinyl Group is at its lowest point since May.Meanwhile Nine, which is currently the biggest locally based media and marketing stock, rose by 1.2% to a market capitalisation of $2.7bn.The Unmade Index rose slightly by 0.15% to 586.2 points.More from Mumbrella…* Call for AI compensation fund in copyright fight* Sports marketer Marissa Pace switches lanes, joins Guide Dogs NSW/ACT as CMO* Opinion: The loneliest place on earth (for a creative)* New York Post goes west with daily California Post newspaperToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Time to leave you to your evening. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. After this week’s news that Solstice Media is buying Australian Traveller Media, we talk to founder Paul Hamra about the 20-year run up to the company’s growth spurt.We’ve announced the schedule for this year’s Compass series. Our panel-in-the-pub end-of-year tour kicks off in Sydney on November 3 and concludes in Hobart a fortnight later. Reflecting on 2025 and projecting into 2026, please hold the date for your city:* 3rd November – Compass Sydney* 5th November – Compass Brisbane* 10th November – Compass Adelaide* 11th November – Compass Perth* 17th November – Compass Melbourne* 18th November – Compass HobartAnd Unmade members get a free ticket. To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership also gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; and to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.‘If they were as concerned about the media as they say they are something would have happened by now’ To the outsider, Solstice Media’s national expansion may look like a sudden development. Last year, Solstice took ownership of The New Daily. This month it took control of Schwartz Media’s 7am podcast. And this week Solstice took a majority stake in Australian Traveller Media.In truth, the expansion of Solstice - which now has 87 staff - has been more organic. Solstice started life as the publisher of South Australian newspaper The Independent Weekly, before taking on News Corp in Adelaide with InDaily.Solstice’s national footprint grew when it was hired by some of Australia’s industry super funds to launch the New Daily more than a decade ago, and recently bought the masthead from the funds.In the wide ranging conversation, Hamra discusses his shareholder base of impact investors, and tries to avoid answering how much he paid for Australian Traveller. He explains: “The reason why we liked Australian Traveller is because of the cultural fit, that we were like-minded in terms of our attitude towards publishing, our attitudes towards independence and quality.”The intention for the company’s lifestyle publications is to help fund its journalism: “If you look over history, you'll see that in any media outlet, it's not the news that funds the business. It's actually other verticals that have funded the business.“Hamra is also refreshingly honest about the post-rationalisation many publishers go through when they build their businesses. “We end up growing a little bit like Topsy until we fall into a strategy. And that's kind of what's happened to us. We actually had an audience and we bolted things onto that audience over time. And then 15, 16 years down the track, you go, oh, hang on… all of a sudden we've got this fabulous audience and we've actually got a strategy.”Solstice had been a beneficiary of Facebook funding, and had to make redundancies when it dried up. Like all publishers, Hamra also has a view on the unavoidable need to do business with platforms like Google, and a more sceptical view on whether the government really wants to help Australia’s media owners:“They sound desperate to help, but the reality is we know they're not because they would have done something by now. If they were as concerned about the media as they say they are, something would have happened by now.More from Mumbrella…* Clock ticking for loss-making Aspermont* Union boss slams News Corp’s use of AI in newsrooms* On the road again: Compass event series dates announced* Opinion: Marketing measurement is having a moment, but can it deliver?* ‘Callous and punitive’: Rosie Waterland launches own podcast network after battle with SCA* Dr Mumbo: Is Youtube social media? Just Google it* Google cancels Parliament House party after Youtube ban* Christian O’Connell’s national move ‘to begin in Sydney’Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more soon.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.We’re a day earlier than usual in our weekly podcast cycle, after last night’s announcement that Eric Beecher’s Private Media has bought the David Koch-founded Pinstripe Media. Today’s interview features Private Media CEO Will Hayward and Pinstripe’s MD AJ Koch.And further down, there were big swings in both directions on the Unmade Index.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.‘We’re trying to build a mass product’This week saw a major consolidation in the publishing sector serving small businesses, with Private Media, owner of Smart Company, buying its biggest rival Pinstripe Media. Pinstripe, founded by former Sunrise presenter David Koch, publishes Startup Daily, Flying Solo and Business Builders.Private Media has been examining its options to grow through acquisition for some time. In conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Will Hayward explains why, of 30 potential acquisitions, Pinstripe was the deal to do. And AJ Koch explains why now was the time to sell the family firm.David Koch will continue to front Business Builders for now, but will not be coming across as a member of staff.In the conversation Hayward acknowledges the view of investor Warren Buffett that acquirers are usually on the wrong end of any acquisition. He argues: “We think media is different, and I would argue that the trend in media has been positive.”On the exit of his father from managing Pinstripe, AJ Koch says: “He's not a spring chicken anymore and we know he needs to retire at some point. We'd always talked about being open to an exit at some point. But we weren't actively looking.”Hayward says that the logic of the deal is centred on the close competition between the two organisations in targeting an audience of small and medium sized businesses. But he claims this new found pricing power will not be used to put up prices for advertisers and sponsors, but to make it easier to advertise in the sector.He says: "The first step to building a really sustainable business in which the majority of revenue comes from advertising is to make sure that you're making it really easy for your advertisers to grow their spend year on year. If I was a CEO of a publicly listed business where I was incentivized on the next 12 months of revenue, absolutely pricing power matters a great deal. I'm not.“We're not too focused on the next year. We're focused more on the next three to five years. And the first step on that journey will be making it as easy as possible for the marketing team at Big Tech Inc to say ‘That's a great buy. Let's just keep doing that buy'.”Red and green on the Unmade IndexThe Unmade Index crept up on Tuesday during a day with no clear direction.Southern Cross Austereo and Seven West Media both saw upwards jumps of 3.4% and 3.5% respectively.And Vinyl Group and Enero saw larger falls of 8.7% and 4.1% respectively.The Unmade Index closed on 586.6 points, an improvement for the day of 0.18%.More from Mumbrella…* Nine Radio loses Sydney and Melbourne as listeners switch to FM* The case of the smoking bullet point: Qantas admits to ChatGPT use ‘for formatting’* Omnicom confirms Nick Garrett to lead new Oceania structure* Exclusive: Paul Bradbury quits in wake of Omnicom changes* Why are readers fleeing from Australia’s top news sites?* Opinion: No CMO is an island: Why collaboration is more important than ever to marketing leadershipToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more soon.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today we dive into one of the fastest evolving marketing opportunities - connected TV - with Alex Spurzem, boss of Samsung Ads.Plus, a record-beating day on the Unmade Index for marketing and print player IVE Group.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.‘The trap is to underestimate the capacity viewers have to want different things at different times’In today’s interview we talk streaming TV with the man who claims to be reaching 7m Australian viewers, Alex Spurzem, MD for Samsung Ads in Australia, NZ and SE Asia.Thanks to the prevalence of Samsung televisions, the company now has what it claims is the world’s biggest FAST - free ad supported television - service.According to Spurzem, the opportunity of streaming TV in all main screen forms is being underestimated. For brands, particularly those with access to their own content, that includes the ability to spin up their own channels.He argues “Barriers to creating a TV channel are lower than ever. Now you can have a TV channel up and running in 24 hours.” He observes: “You need about 100 hours of content to make the channel worthwhile.”As opposed to the lean-forward nature of subscription streaming, FAST represents a return to the TV habits of the free to air era. According to Spurzem: “TV had been for many decades what became scrolling through content, TV channels you can zap through.” FAST works on the same principle.Spurzem made an early decision to join the Video Futures Collective and joined Foxtel Media’s Toby Dewar on stage at last year’s Upfronts to back the initiative, which represents a break from the media establishment centred around the FTA-owned OzTAM.He says it was because VFC filled a gap. “There was a lack of evidence for marketers of how streaming could fit in.”Spurzem argues that VFC is not set up in opposition to OzTAM, which he suggests may be less relevant in the future anyway. “As time goes on, measurement that’s based on samples and panels and streaming meters will become less robust.” He points out: “Say both of us watch the same show… even though you and I are watching the same content there’s a decent chance we’ll see different ads during the ad break. The idea of content as a proxy for ad measurement will become less robust.”“Sooner or later we’ll get to the point where the majority of TV is just digital. Once the majority of TV is traded digitally through fit-for-purpose advertising technology. When that takes place around impressions and frequency caps, at that point is a reach currency as valuable as it used to be? I can’t help but think that in other areas like online display advertising there’s never been demand for a reach currency.”However, Spurzem does not rule out following Netfix in becoming an OzTAM subscriber, conceding: “There are areas we can collaborate on”.And on the topic of AI, Spurzem offers a case for optimism as far as the TV industry goes: “You’re not going to get an AI agent to watch TV for you.”IVE Group’s charge up the Unmade Index continuesPrint and marketing business IVE Group led the way at the top end of the Unmade Index, rising by 1.3% on a day when most Unmade Index stocks sank. The company is trading at the highest share price in its history and closing in on a half a billion dollars valuation.Among the larger stocks, Seven West Media had the worst day on the Index, losing 3.3% while Southern Cross Austereo dropped 2.7%. Ooh Media, which lost its Auckland Transport contract yesterday, sank 2.6%.The Unmade Index closed on 579.1 points, a loss for the day of 0.75%.More from Mumbrella…* Telstra’s ‘Wherever We Go’ voted most unforgettable ad – and most hated* Havas’ James Wright formally expands remit in wake of Virginia Hyland exit* Opinion: Happy World PR Day: The earned revolution is here* 6,000 downloads enough for ABC News to top Podcast Ranker* Opinion: Qantas breach: In a crisis, you need to reach people where they are* Retail media outgrows its shell: ‘Structure and collaboration are essential’Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Time to leave you to your evening. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. On the day the annual Infinite Dial results exploring audio adoption patterns in Australia are released, we discuss the planning and buying of podcast advertising.Sign up for an annual paid membership of Unmade before June 30 and you’ll receive a huge additional benefit - a complimentary membership of Mumbrella Pro, usually priced at $790. It’s our best ever end of financial year offer.Along with all of our paywalled content, your annual Unmade membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.And Mumbrella Pro contains an extensive archive of presentations from Mumbrella’s conferences, including last month’s Mumbrella 360, along with the industry’s most detailed database of brand and agency rosters.‘Too many brands are still thinking about reach when they're thinking about podcast advertising, and a successful campaign being about cheap CPMs.’A year on from the launch of Australia’s first, and to date only, media agency specialising in the planning and buying of podcast advertising, we check in with the team at Earmax - Andy Maxwell and Ralph van Dijk.Maxwell and van Dijk linked up to launch Earmax a year ago. Prior to coming to Australia, Maxwell spent most of his career in the UK, working within marketing and podcasting, while van Dijk is adland’s elder statesman of audio, having run specialist radio agency Eardrum for 35 years. During the podcast conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, the duo discuss the high engagement levels of podcast listeners, why reach isn’t everything, and the challenges of the specialist agency cutting through in the market.According to Maxwell: “As a podcast listener, you hear how much wastage there is, you hear how you get served the wrong ads in the wrong environments. When you do get served the right ads it’s powerful.”Maxwell argues that one of the major errors being made by marketers and planners is making conversations about podcasts one of reach rather than specialisation. He argues: “One of the big issues itself is that people are still thinking about reach and incremental reach, when actually the podcast medium should be about driving consideration and conversions.“These big brands, you can get your reach from everywhere else, but podcasts, because of the environment, because of how engaged the audience is, you have such a massive opportunity, whether the reach is 100,000 or a million.“You can find a specific audience interested in a specific subject and get them in an environment where they are so leaned in.”He adds: “Too many brands are still thinking about reach when they're thinking about podcast advertising and a successful campaign being about cheap CPMs. Five podcasts of 50,000 listeners is more effective than one podcast of 250,000.”Meanwhile, van Dijk is frank about the pace of adoption of Earmax in the market, saying it has gone more slowly than he anticipated. He says: “I just thought that word would catch on and they'd all be telling their mates and there would be people banging down the door to have us look at their campaigns.“The reality is that there's structures, processes, arrangements, partnerships in place for both the creative and the media, which a tough decision has to be made to go around that.”He adds: “There's a lot of politics.”Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.In the meantime, don’t forget to join us for The Infinite Dial Australia, in a couple of hours.I’m hosting a conversation with ARN Media’s Lauren Joyce, Thinkerbell’s Margie Reid, and Edison Research’s Larry Rosin about the state of play in audio. Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today’s edition contains highlights from the finale of Mumbrella360, with our Compass panel reflecting on FY25 and projecting for FY26. Plus, Vinyl Group is the worst performer on the Unmade Index for a second day in a row.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.AI b******t; agency ageism; and finding reasons for optimism - Compass live from Mumbrella360It was a strong finish to Mumbrella360, with our Compass format coming to the conference for the first time.In a panel moderated by Tim Burrowes, we heard from Josh Faulks, CEO of the Australian Association of National Advertisers, Natalie Harvey, CEO of Mamamia; Jacquie Alley, chair of the Independent Media Agencies Association and John Schoolcraft, the brains behind the Oatly brand.In a fast-paced conversation, the panel romped across topics including the benefits and perils of LinkedIn, the state of the market, and the permanent staple of the effectiveness versus creativity debateSchoolcraft, who earlier in the day had delivered Mumbrella360’s opening keynote, focused on the sweeping changes being caused by generative AI: “The moats are gone now - AI just leveled the playing field.”Faulks was slightly more sceptical and argued that concerns about job losses in the industry are overblown: ”We’re hitting the peak of the AI hype cycle. There’s a lot of b******t. I don’t think it’s about job losses. We spend way too much time talking about the bad things that could happen with AI and not enough on the opportunities.”Alley nominated a topic that requires more discussion: “The ageism that sits in this industry. My prediction is that strategic thinking is only going to get more important. I’m hopeful the more experienced employees will finally start to be valued. They (clients) want the head of strategy in the retainer… Experienced people aren’t billable, and that’s a problem.”And Harvey urged publishers and platforms to seek a peace process: “With the globals, the challenge is, it’s not about creativity, it’s about mass reach and getting things cheaper. That’s what’s weird about the fight with Australian publishers - we make their platforms better.”More from Mumbrella…* Schwartz Media to sell 7am podcast* Ten names The Project’s replacement news show: Ten News+* Adam Sadler to lead Scentre Group’s Brandspace retail media push* M+C Saatchi kills off Bohemia brand* Starcom appoints Matt Houltham as CEO* Mumbrellacast: The Project and Q+A get the boot; Challenges women face in media; and Greg Hywood’s verdict on NineUnmade Index grows as Vinyl falls againVinyl Group saw the biggest fall on the Unmade Index for the second day in a row on Wednesday. It lost 4.2% to land on a market capitalisation of $144m.Vinyl had briefly traded on a bigger valuation than audio companies Southern Cross Austereo and ARN Media. SCA gained 1.6% to land on $152m; ARN lost 1.9% to land on $158m.Elsewhere on the Unmade Index, Ooh Media gained 2.5% and Nine gained 1.6%.The Unmade Index closed up 1.1% on 564.1 points.Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more soon.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.Today, we talk to Clive Dickens, one of media’s innovators, about what he’ll be doing next.To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.Clive Dickens unveils his plans for Meliora, something that’s a little more than a typical media consultancy After some big digital roles at Southern Cross Austereo, Seven West Media and Optus, Clive Dickens launching a media advisory service seems a logical next step. Particularly when you factor in some big radio jobs in the UK along with proximity to some successful audio startups.But Meliora appears to be a little more than your typical one-person, stay-occupied-until-something-else-comes-up advisory. Dickens says that he’s recurited another five partners to eventually join the business, and in the meantime identified another 10 “associates” to fill the gap in the mean time.He also plans an investment arm which will focus on startups, and additionally a creative IP fund to put money behind interesting creators.Dickens expands on his plans in the podcast interview with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes.He says: “They're not just investments. They're partners. The significant number are in the AI space. And we want to bring and leverage some of those products and services to our clients as well to help them unlock that AI value.”The conversation also touches on his plans around media equity - working with media companies to offer distressed inventory in exchange for stakes in busiensses that need to build their profile. It was a model he successfully applied on behalf of Seven West Media with Airtasker.And he says that his plan to invest in creative work is in part at least a response to the disruption being caused by generative AI. “In a world where there's going to be less traditional jobs because of gen AI, we wanted to invest in jobs that we believe only humans will be able to do.”More from Mumbrella…* Getting ahead and the importance of progress to brands* Brittany Higgins joins Third Hemisphere* Free TV chair Greg Hywood steps down* Is the PR industry still a great place to work?Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.Time to leave you to your evening. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade, recorded earlier today live on stage at Mumbrella360. To get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.Radio salaries; the rise of LinkedIn video, Google’s AI video magic and the Mumbrella360 origin storyToday’s podcast was recorded live on stage at Mumbrella360 this afternoon.In a panel anchored by Abe’s Audio’s Abe Udy, editorial director Hal Crawford, head of curation Cat McGinn and Tim Burrowes were joined by Genero marketer Christie Poulos.We chewed over highlights from Mumbrella360 including creator Rob Mayhew’s assertion that LinkedIn and YouTube provide the greatest opportunity for B2B video creators. We also discussed this week’s ranking of radio salaries, the impact of Google’s new video generation offering Veo 3, and the development of Mumbrella360 over the last 14 years.More from the Mumbrella departure lounge…* David Droga steps down as Accenture Song CEO* Justin Graham to step down as APAC CEO of M+C Saatchi Group* Coles' chief customer officer Amanda McVay to depart amid overhaulToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. Time to leave you to your afternoon. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s Unmade podcast was recorded at last month’s AI conference HumAIn, with a panel of practitioners exploring the evolving role of AI chatbots in media and marketing, highlighting the wide spectrum from chatbots as utility, and chatbots as personality.Today is a good day to upgrade to a paid membership of Unmade. Your annual membership includes:* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including our retail media conference REmade (September 23), Unlock (October), and Compass (across November)* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;* Your own copy of Media Unmade.Upgrade today.As a member of the Unmade community you have unlocked exclusive ticket savings to attend Mumbrella360, taking place at Carriageworks Sydney next week, May 27-29.Simply enter code 20UNMADE360 to save 20% on any ticket type, whether that's the all-access pass or the 'conference only' two-day pass.From sludge to snark: the divide between form and function in AI chatbotsCat McGinn, curator of HumAIn, writes:With generative AI finally giving brands the opportunity to roll out chatbots that work, we tackled the topic at HumAIn.The discussion features Foxtel’s head of marketing operations and strategic programs Aaron Mitchie, Bastion’s AI consultant Shaun Davies, columnist and strategist at Agency C, Parnell Palme McGuinness, and creative director Emma Barbato. McGuinness and Davies discussed the development of “Yell At Parnell”, a chatbot trained on McGuinness’s published columns, and designed to replicate her editorial tone and views. The aim was to extend engagement beyond the limitations of comment sections and to experiment with scaling an opinion columnist’s voice. Davies noted that prompt engineering required over 4,000 words to capture not only factual grounding but also the columnist’s personality, including humour, tone, and political perspectives.“There is a desperate desire to engage, and this is another opportunity for people to engage. I think that they would also like that opportunity to be supported by the media outlets they're engaging with; I think that it would reverse in some degree the decline in users,” said McGuinness, pointing to closed comments as a missed opportunity for newsrooms.Creative director Emma Barbato took it further, introducing Bruce Ryder, Australia’s first fictional AI celebrity, a 1970s larrikin launched as a synthetic brand ambassador (see video below). Audiences bought into Bruce rather than the product: “The intrigue was the storytelling, and him as the product,” she said. Barbato highlighted the creative opportunities available to brands when working with immersive, character-led AI tools, particularly in environments unconstrained by conventional briefs.In contrast, Foxtel’s Aaron Mitchie outlined a strictly functional approach. His team is rolling out a bot to eliminate internal admin, trained on corporate policies. “We’re purposely trying to be boring,” he said. “The idea is eventually everyone's going to get back a day in their week back from admin.”The panel also raised questions around the ethics of disclosure with users, synthetic identities, emotional attachment to bots, and the future role of anthropomorphised AI in consumer engagement. Barbato ended the panel with a rallying cry for the creative industries, saying, “For the first time in my time in the creative arts, we have no hierarchy of anyone being better. We have zero gatekeepers, and it has attracted a brand new creative. And that's what I'm the most excited about: the community that is coming together. I don't know how long we've got. But right now, it’s a garden of Eden with no weeds.”More from Mumbrella…* Mumbrellacast: ABC, SBS and the gender pay gaps data; inside outdoor media; marketers and Google’s AI Mode; Resolution Digital’s new chapter* SBS beats ABC as gender pay gaps revealed* Catalano slams SCA activist investor over vote meddling* Tropfest organisers hint at ‘epic comeback’* Google launches AI Mode, marketers ponder impact* M+C Saatchi CEO Michael McEwan joins Droga5 MelbourneToday’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.We’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow or on your podcatcher next week. Adios amigos,Cat McGinnCurator - HumAIncat@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. In today’s edition of The Unmakers we talk to creative legend Chas Bayfield about his new venture 21 Madison, fixing the mistakes made by AI. Plus, Seven West Media shares continue their surge on the Unmade IndexTo get maximum value from a paid membership of Unmade, sign up today.Your annual membership gets you tickets to September’s REmade conference on retail media; to October’s Unlock conference on marketing in the nighttime economy; and to Unmade’s Compass end-of-year roadshow.You also get access to our paywalled archive.Upgrade today.Introducing 21 Madison: Fixing ads knocked up in Canva by the business owner’s talented nieceIn today’s audio-led edition of Unmade, we talk to an adland legend who quietly slipped into Australia under cover of Covid and now does global work from his home in Hobart.Bayfield has a world-beating portfolio. His work is still instantly recognisable to anybody who grew up in the UK. Blackcurrant Tango’s 1996 90-second epic, ‘St George’ won most major advertising awards.Now a freelance creative, Bayfield lives in Tasmania with most of his work for overseas brands.This month Bayfield has launched a new business, 21 Madison. Recognising the fact that AI and tools such as Canva have made it possible for anyone to create an ad, even if they lack the skills to write a message that sells, Bayfield aims to overlay his human talents onto the machinery.In the podcast interview with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Bayfield describes his target market as those who cannot afford to commission an ad agency: “It's people who, for whatever reason, are self-generating their advertising. Potentially AI, potentially Canva. It might just be that they've got a talented niece or nephews, knocked something up in their year seven graphics class. Largely, I'm guessing it's going to be AI.”Bayfield sees 21 Madison’s role as stepping in to turn the copy into something that sells. Recognising that these are not the big budget players, he adds: “These are people who are going to be putting ads out on Facebook and Instagram.”According to the 21 Madison website, prices start from a $79 “quick fix” to $999 per month for a virtual creative director helping create eight ads per month.Bayfield says 21 Madison is his attempt to make the best of the disruption being wrought by the likes of ChatGPT:“We can sit around and shake our fists at the system and the way it is, a bit like blacksmiths in the early 1900s, just angry at cars. And where does that get you?“So you have to work out, what can I do to move it on? I've never been one just to sit back and go, ‘this is always going to be the same forever.’”During the interview, Bayfield also tackles the most controversial period in his career, when he and a colleague won a sex discrimination claim against ad agency JWT alleging that they lost their roles because the agency wanted to lose its reputation as “a boys club”.Despite winning the case, Bayfield suffered a brutal social media backlash.He reveals: “The backlash that came afterwards was off the scale.And I got a monstrous amount of social media hatred and people telling me that I wasn't going to work. And I certainly wasn't going to work in Australia.“I won a works tribunal. It was all I had done.“It was nasty. That was pretty tough. Especially as I've always felt that I've been the one looking at what's next in advertising. To be cast as this washed up dinosaur was horrible.”Seven extends its ASX chargeSeven West Media continued its charge on the Unmade Index, rising another 6.9% yesterday to a market capitalisation of $247m. The stock has now risen by more than 10% over the last week. However, in the bigger picture the stock is still trading close to a historic low.Meanwhile it was a down day for the two major audio stocks with Southern Cross Austereo losing 5.9% and ARN Media losing 1.9%.The Unmade Index, which tracks the performance of media and marketing stocks, lost 0.6% to land on 551.5 points.More from Mumbrella…* Stop calling us influencers, says influencer* GroupM workforce braces for major restructure impacts* AI is no longer a disruptor, it’s part of the process: D&AD report* CNN and Fox take on their own legacies with new streaming services* SBS goes fully nude in streaker ad campaignTime to leave you to your Friday.We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great dayToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we hear from Getty Images’ global creative boss Rebecca Swift, on the impact and risk of AI on creative industries. Today is a good day to upgrade to a paid membership of Unmade. Your annual membership includes:A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including tomorrow’s AI conference HumAIn (May 6), REmade (September 23), Unlock (October), and Compass (across November)Member-only content and our paywalled archives;Your own copy of Media Unmade.Upgrade today.‘Business loves bargains’: Rebecca Swift on how generative AI could undermine creativity and consumer confidenceThe growing wave of low-quality, mass-generated imagery is threatening both brand trust and the long-term viability of creative industries, warns Rebecca Swift, senior vice president of creative at Getty Images. Dr Swift warns that what she terms “AI slop”is on the rise.In the podcast conversation with Unmade’s Cat McGinn, Swift said the deluge of generative content risks homogenising brand expression, eroding legal safety, and discouraging future talent from entering the creative workforce.“AI slop” refers to the easily created, highly distributed output from generative AI tools, which is often divorced from original intent, training data transparency, or creative integrity. While acknowledging that the issue predates AI, Swift argued that the explosion in tools has made the problem more visible—and more dangerous.Swift said Getty has deliberately kept its content library free from AI-generated assets to ensure provenance, avoid contamination of training sets, and protect creator rights. “It would be easy to follow the money. But we chose to follow our values.”She also warned that some large models are now training on content that is itself AI-generated, compounding quality and IP risks.“For global brands, there’s no guarantee that marketers in different regions aren’t using content that breaches trademarks or contains copyrighted elements,” Swift said. “There are real legal and reputational implications.”Consumer trust is also on the line. Getty’s research shows that while AI-generated content has become harder for the average consumer to spot, the appetite for disclosure has increased. More than 90% of survey respondents said they want to know when an image is AI-generated.“We’re seeing consumers approach images with a default mindset of distrust,” Swift said. “That has implications not just for media, but for any brand that trades on authenticity.”Unmade’s AI conference for media and marketing, humAIn, takes place tomorrow. Tickets are still available. Correction: Dr Swift refers to Getty’s consumer research as beginning in 2003; the research began in 2023. Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.See you at HumAIn - or in your inbox - tomorrow.Have a lovely day,Cat McGinnCurator - HumAIncat@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we hear from adland satirist Rob Mayhew about making it in the creator economy, why he loves TikTok and LinkedIn, and how Facebook is just too greedy.Today is a good day to upgrade to a paid membership of Unmade. Your annual membership includes:A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (May 6), REmade (September 23), Unlock (October), and Compass (across November)Member-only content and our paywalled archives;Your own copy of Media Unmade.Upgrade today.‘We need a new playbook’ - Rob Mayhew on how agencies are failing to make the most of the creator economyIn the extremely niche specialty of advertising industry satirist, Rob Mayhew is the leading light.The agency creative turned TikTok and LinkedIn creator has amassed a dedicated following in the English-speaking marketing world.Mayhew started his career in the UK in a below the line agency, before cutting his teeth as a social media strategist. He found his place as a content maker during Covid lockdowns by satirising adland and agency culture.He now mainly works with B2B brands including Adobe, WeTransfer and Sitecore looking to tap into his burgeoning followings particularly on TikTok and LinkedIn.In the podcast conversation with Tim Burrowes, Mayhew discusses his forthcoming keynote at next month’s Mumbrella360, what marketers are getting wrong when they jump on social media trends, and why he is no fan of Facebook.He explains: “I'm a huge fan of TikTok. It's my favorite platform, closely followed by LinkedIn and then YouTube. Meta, Instagram, I'm kind of not really a fan of… I just feel like they're greedy.”* Mumbrella360 is from May 27-29. Find out more here.Time to leave you to your day. Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.If you’d like more from me in your ears, last night’s edition of the Mumbrellacast is now in your favorite podcatcher. Hal Crawford and I discuss Facebook’s ghost stores; Ben Shepherd’s proposed walled garden for premium advertising; and Albo’s love of newspapers.I’ll be back on Saturday with Best of the WeekToodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Mumbrella + Unmadetim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an end-of-week update from Unmade.In today’s audio-led post we share the panel discussion from the launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer. And further down on the Unmade Index, three minnows see price jumps while Enero slumps some more.Unmade’s AI event for the media and marketing industry, HumAIn, is coming fast. Our annual paying members are entitled to a free ticket. It’s just one of the benefits of a paying membership. Upgrade today.‘Is it fragmented? Absolutely. Is it going to improve? I can’t see it.’In today’s podcast we share the panel discussion that accompanied the launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer.In a key statistic, of the four key Australian public institutions surveyed, public trust in media is the worst, with just 37% now saying they trusted the media. That was behind government (47%), business (54%) and non-governmental organisations (56%).The podcast features the event’s introduction from Tom Robinson, CEO of Edelman Australia, ahead of the panel led by Unmade’s Tim Burrowes.The discussion featured:* Terry Flew, Professor of Digital Communication and Culture, The University of Sydney and Co-Director, Centre for AI, Trust and Governance;* Kim Portrate, previously CEO of industry body Think TV;* Gen Z strategist Milly Bannister, founder and CEO of the ALLKND charity focusing on mental health for young Australians;* Jared Mondschein, Director of Research at the United States Studies Centre. The questions tackled included the challenges to societal cohesion as trust in institutions fades, geopolitical headwinds, and why the next generation is losing trust so badly.Portrate, who departed Think TV at the end of the year amidst obvious divisions between her TV network stakeholders, told the room: “Is it fragmented? Absolutely. Is it going to improve? I can’t see it. Not in the current environment and not when you’ve got the competitive pressure and don’t abide by any of the legislation that protects the population at large.”Read more on the barometer:A good day for the little guys of the Unmade IndexThree of the smaller stocks on the Unmade Index enjoyed sources in their price yesterday, although none of them released new updates to the market.Out of home advertising company Motio saw its share price jump by 18.5%, taking it up to a market capitalisation of $8m. Boss Adam Cadwallader is due to give a trading update on Tuesday.Sports Entertainment Group, owner of radio network SEN, rose by 13.6% to a $70m market cap. And Pureprofile rose 9.1% to a $47m market cap.Enero Group, owner of agencies including BMF and Hotwire, continued to tank, with the price losing another 4.3% to what is its lowest point in almost a decade.The Unmade Index, which looks at the movements of all the locally listed media and marketing companies, ended the day in equilibrium, remaining on 526.2 points.Declaration of interest: My travel and accommodation to take part in the Trust Barometer event were covered by Edelman. Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.Time to leave you to your Friday. We’ll be back with Best of the Week tomorrow. Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - Unmade + Mumbrellatim@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio edition from Unmade.Today: humAIn curator Cat McGinn talks to Jodie Sangster about her new co-venture aimed at upskilling CMOs with AI, the Australian Centre for AI in Marketing, and what’s stopping marketers from getting on board with AI transformation.If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (6 May 2025), REmade (23 Sept), Unlock (Oct 2025), and Compass Australia (Nov 2025);* Member-only content and our paywalled archives; * Your own copy of Media Unmade.Are marketers being left behind on their AI journeys?A new industry initiative, the Australian Centre for AI in Marketing, snappily abbreviated to ACAM, has been launched by four senior marketing leaders, including former ADMA CEO and IBM CMO, Jodie Sangster. In today’s audio-led post, HumAIn curator Cat McGinn sits down with Sangster to find out more about ACAM, its purpose, and whether success means being out of a job for the four founders. According to Sangster, despite the increasing availability of AI tools and investment in AI infrastructure, most marketers are not ready to implement AI in practice. Common barriers include a lack of time, limited understanding of how to apply the technology, and a general sense of scepticism after marketers have been burnt by years of overhyped digital solutions.ACAM’s founders claim it has been designed to address these issues by offering education, peer learning, and access to practical tools. Its structure includes a Pioneers Circle—a group of CMOs from a range of industries and AI maturity levels—created to facilitate open sharing of implementation experiences, challenges, and outcomes. The founders also offer a consultancy arm, but are at pains to distinguish the “for-purpose’ initiative, which Sangster describes as “a calling,” from the for-profit division. Sangster is clear that ACAM will not act as a policy maker or regulatory body, but will focus on translating evolving frameworks into practical guidance for marketers. “Our role is to help marketers understand how AI applies to their work and how to use it responsibly,” she said.Sangster doesn’t see the risk of ACAM putting itself out of business as an imminent threat. “We’re still at the very start of AI adoption,” she says. “This is about making sure marketers don’t get left behind.”Time to leave you to your Thursday.Good luck at tonight’s CommsCon Awards, for those who are in the running.We’ll be back with more soon.Have a lovely evening.Cat McGinnHead of Curated Content - Unmade cat@unmade.media This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe