Powered Unpacked: Activision Blizzard CMO Fernando Machado

Activision Blizzard's Chief Marketing Officer: Fernando Machado

"If you invest behind creativity, then unlock it, it can give you disproportional growth"
says Machado.

If you have the right relationships, and you are brave enough, together you will get your creativity over the line. Without that, brands will just continue to interrupt and in turn get ignored by their customers, suggests former Dove and Burger King marketing chief-turned-Activision Blizzard CMO, Fernando Machado. Nurturing ideas in a genuine partnership with your agency is critical – the team is everything. It’s an investment in time and it’s worth it. Get it right, like BK’s Whopper Detour did, and enjoy that 37:1 ROI.*

Invest in creativity

Anointed by Forbes as one of the world’s three most influential CMOs, Activision Blizzard’s Fernando Machado previously directed the fortunes of Burger King and Unilever’s Dove, unleashing some of the world’s best known brand campaigns and driving massive growth. But, talking to Nine’s Director of Brand, Michele O’Neill, he says he could not have done it without his creative agency partners. In some cases, he moved in with them. Literally.

Meanwhile, Machado thinks the rush for engagement and attention by marketers could backfire: too many brands are mistaking interruption for creativity. “It’s not enough to just push the message anymore,” says Machado. “It all starts with the idea – and an idea is not going to fall on your lap by accident.” Agencies, he says, must then help marketers get it over the line and win over an army of corporate stakeholders, or risk the idea never coming to life.

Creativity “can be a source of competitive advantage for businesses and brands”, says Machado. But it requires underpinning foundations. “If you have the right people in place, if you have the right relationships, and if you are brave enough, through creativity you will be able to unlock growth. That’s what I try to do.”

Those building blocks can then support great ideas – and nurture them to life through often-perilous infancy.

“It all starts with the idea, but you also need to understand the people you want to reach, you need to understand your brand and the history of the brand, understand culture, what’s out there, what’s on the zeitgeist, and then work with the right people, with the right process to unlock that creativity, which will prepare results,” says Machado.

Safe work never cuts through

Embedding those rules and structures means brands stand a better chance of unlocking creativity, he says, leading to disproportionate growth. Otherwise, chances are people will largely ignore whatever it is you’re trying to convey. Safe work never cuts through.

“In the world that we live in people have more important things to do than paying attention to your brand. So you may as well do something different, unique, engaging, that will earn people’s attention.”

But pursuit of attention – a metric the ad industry is investing massive sums in to develop – can be counterproductive if it doesn’t result in real engagement.

“It really doesn’t work anymore to just interrupt people. You need to create something that will stand out, something that gives me something back, not just pushing the message at people,” says Machado.

“It’s all about the idea. And the idea will lead you to how you are going to execute. Of course, if you have a powerful visual [he cites Doves Sketches campaign] that can be an amazing shortcut in terms of attention, in terms of engagement.”

Nurture ideas together

The idea is everything, especially at Burger King where Machado spent seven years as CMO. He executed memorable, award-winning campaigns, from the rule-breaking visual masterpiece of Mouldy Whopper to Whopper Detour, breathing creativity into their late-to-market mobile ordering app and payment system.

With Detour, Burger King geo-fenced 14,000 McDonald’s locations across the US and gave customers a coupon for a 1 cent Whopper – if they opened the app at (or next to) a McDonald’s. The results were 1.5 million app downloads in nine days and the highest foot traffic to Burger King stores in four years, with their most successful ROI in years.

“Back in the day, it was the best ROI we had in terms of bringing new users to our app,” says Machado. Not bad for the launch of something as potentially humdrum as mobile payment.

“That’s where creativity comes in. I needed an idea. An idea was presented – and it was not exactly what Whopper Detour was. But that is the other thing – when amazing ideas are presented, you need to nurture them."

“That’s why it’s so important to work closely with the creative team and the agency and be a real partnership, because we helped shape that together with FCB New York: ‘Hey, what if we did this? What if we did that? What if we use this idea to launch mobile order and payment?’ And honestly, it was love at first sight when we articulated it that way.”

The campaign generated mass press coverage. “You can now get a Whopper for 1 cent, only at McDonald’s. People are like, ‘No, no, no, Burger King, right? You mean Burger King?’ No, McDonald’s,” says Machado. “And that was the beauty of the idea, and people just went and had fun with it.”

The long game

Machado says he was able to build powerful brand platforms and campaigns because he also had closely aligned senior C-suite execs who understood the potential for disproportionate growth through creativity. Those relationships also contributed to his lengthy tenures – 18 years at Unilever and seven years as CMO at Burger King’s parent, RBI. The average CMO tenure globally is around 40 months.

Machado admitted that “if I were there for one or two years it would have been trickier. I would be much more short-term oriented because I would like to show results quickly”.

Being able to focus on key issues with a longer-term vision also enables brands to own and generate a legacy, says Machado, citing Dove’s leadership on female empowerment.

“If you concentrate in one area or in a few areas in your work consistently over time, you increase your chance of being able to own that. To this day, if I see an ad that is about self-confidence or real beauty, people watch it and they feel like, ‘Oh, that’s like Dove.’ Dove owns that.”

Live with the agency

Key to everything, Machado reiterates, is to partner with the agency genuinely and deeply. In some cases he moved in with them, literally – security pass, toothbrush and a desk. “I never treated the agency as a supplier. To me they are part of the team. I want them to understand how my business is doing, I want them to understand how difficult it can be to get things through with stakeholders. I want them to win and lose with me.

“When I was working with BBH New York my thumbprint would work to open the door because I was arriving so early. They gave me a desk. I had a phone number.

“Still, when I go to the BBH New York building, the guy who is at the door is still the same guy from back in 2005. And every time I go there he remembers my name because he’s a massive ABBA fan, so he sings Fernando every time. I’m not joking.”

* Source: Effie Database 'Mouldy Whopper' Campaign

View more marketing insights from Powered By Nine

Powered Unpacked: new research into regional Australia unveils data brands shouldn’t ignore

New research into regional Australia unveils data brands shouldn't ignore

Shift happens: Australia’s regional centres overtake metro growth but marketers risk repeating strategic errors, crimping ESOV

For the first time in over 40 years, population growth in regional Australia is outstripping capital cities, the latest ABS data shows. But new research from Nine and Pollinate finds that brand marketers are failing to fully tap this growth opportunity and own markets that rivals are yet to reach. Here’s how to cut through to 35 per cent of the population – and rising.

New research unveils surprising data

Pollinate’s survey of 1,500 Australians in both regional and metro areas aimed to compare and contrast what they value and how that differs across markets. It found there are few real differences – exploding a common myth, according to Nathan Patrick, Commercial Director for Regional television at Nine. He thinks this has significant implications for brand marketing strategies.

“Over a long period of time there’s been a lot of misconception about the regional and metropolitan audiences, so it’s been really interesting to get this data to see where the similarities are,” says Patrick. “Finally we can go back to marketers and say ‘look, we’re telling the same story here – this is the audience and there is no difference’”.

Marjorie McBride, Insights Manager with Nine’s Group Audience Insights Division, agrees.

“What was most surprising to me was just how unanimous both metropolitan and regional Australians are in all aspects of life, but particularly when it comes to family life, friendships, social life and career aspirations,” she says of the research.

Graph_Metro Regional Similarities _ Pollinate

“Historically there has been this common misconception that regional Australians are vastly different to city dwellers, and that’s no longer the case. We need to acknowledge that there are large regional cities like Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Geelong, Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast, the Central Coast, all of which are quite metropolitan in nature These are the places experiencing the largest population growth.”

Toby Boon, Director of Strategy and Insights for Powered by Nine, questions whether brands are fully alert to that sustained trend. In response, Nathan Patrick suggests solid regional marketing strategic foundations have been laid via initiatives such as Boom Town, but building on those initiatives stuttered during the pandemic as brands grappled with shifting dynamics.

Unconscious underrepresentation

While media owners have recognised the sustained changes underway – The Block, Tree Change delivered record total television numbers, Shaynna Blaze’s Country Home Rescue recently hit our screens, and Byron Bay appears to be emerging as the new home of reality TV – Marjorie McBride points out that Pollinate’s research suggests there is more work to do.

“It found that all Australians think that regional Australians are under-represented in the media,” McBride says.

“Over half of the people we surveyed in metro and in regional markets agree or believe that regional Australians are actually a good representation of what it means to be Australian, and even more representative than a metropolitan Australian.”

Are brands conscious of that lack of representation? “I don’t know if they are conscious of it,” says Nathan Patrick. “But it is definitely coming to light in conversation.”

More broadly, he thinks the size of the regional prize is starting to land, with marketers increasingly cognisant of the demographic changes playing out.

“Northern New South Wales is now the third largest population in Australia. It goes Sydney, Melbourne, then Northern New South Wales – it is bigger than Brisbane There has been a lot of work, especially from our end, trying to educate people around that."

"It is finally getting a positive impact and we have definitely seen the advertiser pool grow” Patrick says.

Premium v peanuts

Despite the similarities between metro and regional audience values, Patrick warns brands not to take a one-size-fits-all approach, saying: “What works for McDonald’s or what works for Woolworths is different, and the education around that is really important.”

But he insists there is one underlying rule of thumb: Don’t buy junk inventory.

“You can’t just keep buying the cheapest CPM if you want to move the needle It’s just frequency, frequency, frequency. And from an auditing perspective, premium is where the audience is.”

Patrick points to the 'A Fire Inside' documentary made with Powered and Initiative for IAG, as an example of how brands can cut through to both regional and metro Australia by taking a more thoughtful - and premium - approach. The 90-minute film and associated advertising assets ultimately reached 12 million Australians and became Australia’s most watched documentary in the summer of 2021.

Toby Boon thinks the campaign’s success was due to its recognition and linkage of natural disasters in regional Australia and the huge impact of bushfires on metropolitan life – connecting people with Australian stories wherever they are from.

Patrick suggests brands can build on those connections through news channels regionally via the WIN network. “WIN news delivers great cut-through in those communities because it educates and gives something back. As brands you have to be ingrained in such communities.”

ESOV boost

Patrick thinks advertisers can also find greater cut-through in regional areas due to reduced clutter, “because a lot of their competitors aren’t advertising there yet”.

That view is backed up by marketing effectiveness rules such as ESOV (enhanced share of voice) which states that brands which spend above their market share – going hard on reach and long on brand – achieve higher growth than those that do not.

Which is why cutting regional spend when budgets come under pressure could be a disastrous recipe for brand strength, and ultimately sales.

“That is one thing we try and drill into the market. Don’t just cut regional because it is the easiest thing to do,” says Patrick. “It is actually 35 per cent of the population. There is an opportunity to own that space.”

View more marketing insights from Powered By Nine

Group of 9 beautiful people in front of a background

Cost of living crunch tops climate change, healthcare as top concern for Aussies – but here’s why pure price promotion won’t save you

Powered Unpacked: emerging travel trends marketers need to know

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Cost of living crunch tops climate change, healthcare as top concern for Aussies – but here’s why pure price promotion won’t save you

Thought Leadership

Cost of living crunch tops climate change, healthcare as top concern for Aussies – but here’s why pure price promotion won’t save you

Six in 10 Australians are kept awake at night by the rising cost of living, new Powered by Nine research has found, yet consumer spending remains strong. How should marketers navigate these uncertain waters? As Powered by Nine’s Toby Boon writes, reaching the consideration set while competitors race to the bottom on price can deliver market-share gold.

Cost of living is the number one social concern for 60 per cent of Australians, ahead of climate change and healthcare, according to Powered by Nine’s latest Cultural Conversation research, 'The Revolution will be Advertised'.

The study is the latest to flag growing concerns over rising prices. In recent months the likes of Beyond Blue, Australian National University, JWS Research and consumer group CHOICE have all released survey results highlighting the pressures on everyday spending as the issue keeping Aussie consumers up at night.

That’s backed up by both the most recent ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence Index and the Westpac-Melbourne Institute Index of Consumer Sentiment dropping back from a September bounce.

Marketers might therefore be forgiven a degree of confusion, as consumer spending remains relatively strong against this less than rosy backdrop.

Toby Boon
Director of Strategy & Insights
Powered by Nine

But while the headlines may be sending mixed messages, marketers need only look a little deeper to find some degree of clarity. Consumer Pulse, Nine’s monthly survey canvassing the attitudes, purchase intent and mood of more than 2,000 Australians across our television, radio, print and digital audiences, has been tracking trends in consumer sentiment since early 2020.

The most recent Consumer Pulse found that while the majority of respondents (55 per cent) feel that they are in a comfortable financial position, for the key 18-54 demographic the average dips to 46 per cent – with consumers particularly feeling the crunch on groceries, utilities and fuel. Twenty per cent of that same audience are feeling under pressure financially.

It would be tempting, therefore, for marketers to rush towards tactical, price-based messaging. Of course, there are benefits to this approach – driving sales, and letting customers know that your brand has their back in tough times. But that is only part of the story. Beyond the need to manage their budget, consumers appear to be sending a signal that the next three months will be about cutting things back, not cutting them out completely. Meal delivery might be once a week, rather than twice. Trips to the cinema might be substituted for streaming the latest release on Pay-Per-View or SVOD.

Rather than denying themselves completely, Australians will become more selective in how and where they purchase. The survey showed 84 per cent are happy to pay more for quality, with a similar number (83 per cent) feeling more confident when they know that they are getting a superior product or service. There is a baseline “quality of life” that Aussies expect to enjoy, and most don’t anticipate that they will decrease spend on the essentials (e.g. groceries, utilities, telco, insurance).

Even on “nice to have” spending categories, such as holidays, pets and subscription TV, the majority of Nine’s audience have yet to reduce their financial outlay. In fact, more than one in five consider their SVOD subscriptions to be permanent “must haves” and one in four feel the same way about their news subscriptions.

As Australians leverage this selective spending power, key priorities for marketers must be growing market share and owning more space amongst the consideration set.

When competitors are racing to the bottom on price, the winning brands will be the ones achieving both reach and dominating the consideration phase in order to differentiate their products and make them memorable.

The temptation to play it safe in an unpredictable market is understandable, but when this becomes the universal response across an entire category we’re left not with impactful messages but tactical advertising as cultural wallpaper. There is an opportunity for brands that embrace deeper partnerships, bold creativity and integration to lead the pack.

In fact, brands might best succeed by mirroring the behaviour of their customer base – leaning into quality over quantity, and investing with media owners that can deliver big ideas via a full-funnel, cross-platform partnership at scale.

View more research insights from Nine

Powered Unpacked: the winning ad of Nine’s State of Originality million

Powered Unpacked

Menulog: the winning ad of Nine's State of Originality million

How to win audiences and a million dollars in media: Own your mistakes, solve them with creativity, move fast - and ask 'What would Wendell Sailor do?'

Vulnerability, wit and irreverence: Thinkerbell's Adam Ferrier and Nine’s Michele O’Neill unpack what makes a million dollar-winning ad after Menulog’s rapid readjustment won over State of Origin audiences – and the State of Originality judges.

The winning ad

How to win a million dollars in media? Shoot Wendell Sailor brushing his teeth. After a State of Origin campaign drew less than glowing feedback from some fans, Menulog quickly read the room – trusting Thinkerbell to deliver something fresher, fast.

Whilst the anthemic global ad was a hit with some fans, for others it lacked a clear cultural connection to a distinctly local event. But Menulog’s rapid response brought home the bacon – and the $1 million State of Originality media prize from Nine for best creative use of the platform.

The Katy Perry ad, aired on high repetition during Origin One, “received, er, mixed reviews”, per Thinkerbell’s Adam Ferrier. But the brand took the criticism on the chin and decided to do something about it before the second game in the series, 10 days later.

When in doubt, Wendell

The solution was to go back to basics and “re-instill Menulog’s brand proposition, which is around bringing unexpected moments of joy to people,” says Ferrier. How? Call in dual code legend Wendell Sailor – and hand him a toothbrush.

“We shot three ads with Wendell where he doesn’t do a whole lot. If we were accused of being a bit over the top in Game One, then we wanted to have a really restrained, creatively neutral ad for Game Two,” adds Ferrier.

“So in response to fans saying ‘What are you doing? [the Katy Perry ad] is completely over the top for State of Origin’, we put a State of Origin icon in the ad, showed him not doing too much, had a bit of irreverence and played that back to the audience – and they loved it.”

Menulog’s cheeky response to criticism was key to winning over fans, Ferrier suggests.

“It’s very rare these days for brands to lean into their foibles, dial it up and join in the conversation. Menulog was prepared to do that – and reaped the rewards in terms of changing consumer sentiment around almost immediately. It was great.”

Million-dollar question, answered

The rapid response was what set Menulog apart with State of Originality judges, according to Michele O’Neill, Director, Powered Enterprise.

“We were looking at strategy, emotion, craft – and originality was a really big part of it. Not all the work that showed up was particularly original. But one thing that galvanised the judges was its agility – and the fact that Menulog was listening,” says O’Neill. “Another CMO could have just ridden it out. But instead, they really seized the moment.”

In other words, from Powered by Nine's Director of Strategy & Insights, Toby Boon, “it was a diamond made under pressure”.

Thinkerbell’s Ferrier agrees, but both agency and brand were aligned on the need to engage – and there was no option other than to move fast.

“There were 10 days between State of Origin One and Two. So from concept to execution for the three ads was really, really quick. It couldn’t have happened if we weren’t on the same page.”

Own your mistakes, win

Ferrier, a consumer psychologist, credits Menulog for leaning into its fears and owning its mistakes. “People love it when brands do that, there’s a real authenticity – we knew we were on a sure footing because the psychology behind the campaign is something people respect.”

He thinks more brands would benefit from showing vulnerability. “It’s a massive opportunity for marketers,” says Ferrier, pointing to the gains made by KFC in the UK when restaurants ran out of chicken, flipping its brand to apologise via an ad reading “Fck, we’re sorry”.

“When brands lean into the mistakes they make, consumers love it – and it’s amazing it doesn’t happen more often.”

That approach requires a strong foundation of trust between brand and agency, which can only be built over time, according to Michele O’Neill, who spent the best part of three decades as a global planning and strategy lead in London and Paris before returning to Australia. But when brands and agencies trust each other to experiment – and occasionally fail – the longer-term results, and partnership, are stronger.

Ferrier says that approach also fosters greater creativity, in turn raising marketing’s standing within corporate hierarchies.

“Marketers used to be desperate to try and understand the language of the board and the CEO – thinking they had to speak a whole different language to get their attention. Whereas now, I think the board and the CEO are looking at the CMO thinking, ‘In my entire organisation, that’s the person who understands consumer and brand intangible value and creativity. That’s the person I want to get to know’,” suggests Ferrier.

“That person is starting to have much more influence within organisations – and so we’re seeing businesses becoming more brand-led and using the secret weapon of creativity to make stuff happen.”

Brands: plan ahead

Brands keen to creatively harness major cultural moments – should plan ahead, urges Michele O’Neill.

“I’d suggest for everyone that they start thinking earlier about how they bring big ideas to the table, because there’s this moment in time when everyone’s going to be watching – there were over three million this year across linear and BVOD,” she says.

“Those sort of moments in time galvanise people, they give them conversations for days afterwards, and everyone will be watching again next year.”

Click here to explore more from Menulog's winning ad

View more marketing insights from Powered By Nine

Powered Unpacked: emerging travel trends marketers need to know

Powered Unpacked: the new wave of wealth

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Powered Unpacked: emerging travel trends marketers need to know

Powered Unpacked

The Future of Travel: Are you Ready?

‘Riches to be made’ in sustainable, niche travel, extended remote working holidays: Four key post-COVID travel trends marketers should understand.

Australians’ travel habits have irrevocably changed, as a 40 per cent remote workforce realises it can work from anywhere. But “Wandering Workers” are just one of the trends identified in Nine’s State of the Nation Travel report for 2022. There are “New Frontiers” and deeper levels of expertise Australians are searching for to spend tens of billions of travel dollars each year. One expert’s take? “Regenerative Travel” is where the riches are to be made.

Cultural shifts and emerging travel trends

At the peak of Australia’s COVID lockdowns it was possible to imagine a future of roving digital nomads, a large workforce that didn’t need to be in an office but could work from anywhere at any time. That hasn’t exactly happened.

Instead, travel experts at Nine and from the industry say, the cultural shifts have been more subtle – but they have nonetheless fundamentally changed how Australians roam and holiday around the world. It’s worth understanding them to understand how to reach those people.

Nine partnered with The Future Laboratory to take a closer look into the future of travel with detailed analysis and strategic insight, combining data from Nine audience intelligence with The Future Laboratory’s expert trends intelligence.

There were eight key trends identified as emerging in travel across Australia and the world – below are four of them.

Wandering Workers

Last year 40 per cent of Australia’s workforce were remote and mobile, The Future Laboratory’s Barry Mowszowski said. Those people are realising they can work from anywhere, too. “They’re not just people schlepping around the world avoiding going to an office from nine to five. How do we cater to that ecosystem of needs from a holistic travel point of view?” he asked. “It’s much more complex in terms of understanding their needs than people just booking a one-way ticket to a destination.”

But interestingly, the large digital nomad population hasn’t appeared. What has happened instead is the extended holiday. “Even just before the pandemic, the idea was that there was this group of people who didn’t have offices and who could travel around the world and work as they go,” Ben Groundwater, Nine Publishing travel writer and podcast host, said.

“Those people exist. But maybe they’re not going to be permanent digital nomads moving around the world their entire lives. It might mean that they can take six weeks rather than two weeks and go to another destination with their family, with their friends, just by themselves, and have a holiday, but also work at the same time.”

Those ones are the Wandering Workers.

Regenerative Travel

More Australian travellers are conscious of their footprint, both environmentally and financially, when they arrive at their destination. In fact, the idea of being conscious of their footprint was the second most important consideration after the destination itself, per Airbnb and studies by The Economist, Mowszowski said. “The whole idea is that you have a reduced footprint.” There’s a fashion brand in Portugal, for example, ISTO, that offers travellers tours of its factory to educate them on the supply chain and manufacturing process. “It’s really interesting when you think about regenerative travel through a holistic proposition of what’s happening globally,” Mowszowski said. “Because that’s where the riches are to be made from a travel sector point of view to cater to that appetite within Australia and globally.”

It’s “a bit of a reset”, Groundwater added. “The pandemic gave everyone two years to basically sit back and consider the way they travel and the way they want to travel in future, and the effect that their travel has been having in the past on the world,” he said. “It’s driven by the brands at the moment, by travel companies, by tour companies, by media as well. This is becoming very important as we look towards the future.”

New Frontiers

There are some wild adventure holidays and experiences out there. A new one that’s coming is the ultra-luxury, ultra-wealthy blimp ride. OceanSky cruises, for US$210,000 dollars (A$301,000), offer multi-day expeditions to the North Pole – without a carbon footprint. “But juxtapose that with space travel. So at the Kennedy Space Centre there is an air balloon lift. For US$120,000, slightly cheaper, you can join one of 300 people going into space from 2024,” Mowszowski said. It’s part of the New Frontiers trend, which is changing the idea of luxury from a high-end place to a niche experience.

“Although those high-end luxury experiences do tend to hog the headlines and really sound amazing, for everyday travellers, there’s all sorts of stuff you can do out there that will cater to exactly what you want to achieve and experience,” Groundwater said.

“If you look at your social media feed right now, everyone’s in Italy or France. We’ve realised that our opportunities to travel are finite and that we may not have the chance to go to these incredible places, to go to Machu Picchu, to Antarctica, to the Galapagos.”

Educated Expertise

With new frontiers, more sustainable, regenerative experiences and wandering while working comes a need to understand places in more depth – Educated Expertise. There’s been a shift away from artificial intelligence and chatbots, Mowszowski said, towards “travel strategists” – another term for travel agents – and deep research.

“There’s so much emotion that goes into travel for people. This is something that you plan for and save up for years, and you want to get it right, and you want to enjoy yourself,” Groundwater said.

“That human interaction is just invaluable, really.”

Click here for more research from
Nine's State of the Nation Travel event

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Powered Unpacked: the new wave of wealth

Cultural Conversation Series; Unboxing Christmas 2022

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Tourism NT x Powered

How Tourism NT leveraged a high-impact, cross-media partnership with Nine, to bring Aboriginal culture to the forefront of travel.

In 2022, Tourism NT briefed Nine to drive a connection between our audience and the cultural landscape of the Northern Territory, with key events such as the Darwin Festival, Barunga Festival, Desert Mob and Desert Song Festival at the forefront of the campaign.

The objective was to encourage an audience interested in arts, music and culture to consider travelling to the NT, by harnessing the power of Nine’s ecosystem to excite them about the opportunities.

Powered by Nine’s Kath Solly, Group Creative Solutions Manager, and Bradley Johnston, Content Producer, developed a high-impact, cross-media approach to allow Tourism NT to reignite Australia’s appetite for travel and appreciation for the Northern Territory’s rich Aboriginal history.

Over the last few years Australia’s tourism industry, along with the rest of the world, has been struggling to stay afloat. With back-and-forth border closes, restriction changes and last-minute cancellations now a thing of the past, getting back into travelling has never felt so good.

Today, more than ever, tourism bodies are fighting for audience and visitors to encourage them to take their saved-up annual leave and spend travel budgets to visit somewhere on their doorstep – in Australia.

The key challenge is being heard above all the noise. Travel-related advertising is EVERYWHERE right now, with international and interstate tourism bodies flooding the media with enticing offers and experiences to put their destinations on the map in 2022.

Kath Solly,
Group Creative Solutions Manager,
Powered by Nine

Bradley Johnston,
Content Producer,
Powered by Nine

How did Tourism NT stand out in such an over-saturated travel market?

In 2022, Tourism NT and Nine, in partnership with Atomic212, joined forces to bring Australian Aboriginal culture to the forefront. Tourism NT focused less on reaching travel intenders and those looking for a holiday destination and more on culture, art, music and event lovers, by making a trip to the NT a key drawcard.

The Northern Territory’s events have something totally different to offer than any other destination in Australia. The campaign proposition to the culture seeking audience explores how it is entertainment but not as you know it. Because events in the Territory allow you to connect with your passions on a deeper level. From art and music to food and cars, the Territory puts on events like nowhere else. Here you can get closer to, touch and immerse yourself in your passions, forming a deeper connection with arts and culture. There will be an overarching message that these events are all unique to the NT and different in every sense.

We wanted to ensure that the cultural and artistic preciousness of the Northern Territory was brought to life across all our assets. With that in mind we created a cross-platform campaign employing Nine’s Total Audio and Total Publishing platforms to drive cut-through and reach with unique creative executions. The campaign shone a light on “Stories Worth Travelling For”, putting the rich culture of the Northern Territory at the forefront of every content piece.

The power of audio came to the fore. By harnessing the scale and reach of Nine Audio, aligned to the beautiful sounds of the Northern Territory, Nine created audio-immersive content that spoke directly to the key events in the NT to entice our culture-loving audience.

These immersives were peppered with the rich sounds of music and nature that are so special to the Northern Territory. All you have to do is close your eyes and listen to these audio clips to feel instantly immersed in the culture of the place.

Alongside radio, a high-impact campaign spanning digital and print ensured that culture, art and music was the main feature of the campaign. Tourism NT wrapped Nine’s art-focused, newspaper-inserted Spectrum magazine with powerful imagery putting Aboriginal culture at the forefront of the campaign and reminding our audience of Australia’s rich cultural heritage.

Through further online immersive and native content with Traveller, our Powered Studios team produced content that highlighted the beautiful imagery and dreamy landscape of the NT. Content across Traveller was aimed directly at the discrete culture-loving audience, while also appealing to the older travel-intender audience with art and culture in mind when planning their travel destinations.

The campaign started a month prior to the program of events to drive ticket sales and long-weekend travel planning to the Northern Territory.

“Tourism NT can’t outshout and outspend other destinations in the highly competitive tourism advertising market, to cut through we have to be innovative and rely on media partners who share our vision to make the NT the premiere destination for Aboriginal cultural experiences and to be truly ‘Different in every sense'. Nine is one of those partners who consistently support our messaging and provide return on investment that grows the value of the holiday market in the Northern Territory.”

- Tony Quarmby, Executive Director Marketing, Tourism NT

View more marketing insights from Powered by Nine

Powered Unpacked: the new wave of wealth

Powered Unpacked

Millennials set to defy the economic roller coaster and build their wealth

Most Millennials consume finance media but not confident about money, despite a $3.5 trillion inheritance coming – brands can help

There’s an unfair image of Millennials out there that paints them as poor financial managers, economics journalist Jess Irvine says. But they’re hungrier for information and advice than any generation before them. Despite this, a new survey from Nine has found that they’re becoming less sure of themselves. And with more than seven million Australians aged 18 to 39 set to inherit $320,000 each over the next 20 years – that’s $3.5 trillion in total – the brands that share smart information that doesn’t oversimplify things can help these Millennials – and themselves.

The new wave of wealth

Australia’s biggest and most valuable cohort, the seven million 18-to 39-year-olds known as Millennials, are unsure about how to invest their money but hungry for information, presenting huge opportunities for brands.

A new study from Powered by Nine, in partnership with The Lab, interviewed people in that cohort and conducted social listening and quantitative research through Nine’s Consumer Pulse audience panel to understand Millennials’ approach to finance.

The proportion who feel “extremely confident” about their financial skills has plummeted to just 14 per cent – down from 20 per cent a year ago. Seventy-two per cent listen to business and money podcasts, while 28 per cent follow a “finfluencer” online.

“These audiences are still incredibly ambitious, they are progressive and they're diverse, but ultimately what they see as success is being redefined, and it's probably different to what it was with their predecessors,” Nine’s Client Director for Finance, Tech and Telco, Ben Thomas, says.

Hunger for information

“They're looking to other things than purely financial success, such as job satisfaction, but they're still incredibly focused on growing long-term wealth and setting themselves up for retirement. So actually, in that sense, they’re not that different.”

Jess Irvine is the Senior Economics Writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, and she reckons the 18-to 39-year-olds have some of the deepest “hunger for information”.

“But as for getting access to trusted information that is credible, that is looking at your whole financial situation, I think that's a real gap in the market,” she said.

“People are so scared, but money is really quite simple - it hasn't changed. You earn an income, you spend less than you earn, and then you have some savings to nurture you when you are in retirement and you can't work anymore.”

Finding new pathways to wealth

Nine’s research found that Millennials will inherit $3.5 trillion over the next 20 years as a massive intergenerational wealth transfer takes place. That’s $320,000 per person. Yet there’s a sense that Millennials are not necessarily good with money – too busy eating smashed avocado to save it – that is inaccurate, Irvine says.

“There's a real boomer hate session happening with Millennials and I think it's completely unfair,” Irvine said.

“Younger Australians in this demographic are caught in some tectonic shifts in our economy. Housing affordability is a huge challenge - it is just so much harder to save a deposit and get on the home ownership pathway. At the same time, ultra-low interest rates have meant that it's very hard to save, to get a return on your money in the bank.”

And so those younger people have done the logical thing, which is to investigate other investment areas – like the share market and cryptocurrencies. Finance brands can take lessons from the “finfluencers” to make smart, helpful information available to them.

“The reason that finfluencers have had such a fast rise in profile is because they're relatable, and provide easy-to-access information in the channels and platforms where this audience already is,” Ben Thomas said.

“For brands, that doesn't mean oversimplifying things. I think that's the key thing as we work through this for brands. What's the right tone? What can they bring to the conversation which really adds to what this new wave of wealth is looking for?”

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Nine's State of the Nation Finance event

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Cultural Conversation Series; Unboxing Christmas 2022

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Content Marketing: Using the power of long-form content to tell a brand story

Cultural Conversation Series; Unboxing Christmas 2022

Powered Unpacked

Cultural Conversation Series;
Unboxing Christmas

Black Friday eclipses Boxing Day sales, and different marketing approaches now required – but 79% of Australians think brand Christmas ads off the mark

Brands are missing the mark on Christmas advertising, with four in five Australians calling for more reflective ads, not just diversity-washing. Meanwhile, Black Friday sales in November have eclipsed Boxing Day sales – and marketers need to rethink the kind of products they are promoting as a result.

Black Friday versus
Boxing Day

Latest research from Nine shows the cultural and commercial tides are turning, and the balance of power between pre and post-Christmas sales has flipped.

“Perhaps the biggest shift we’re seeing in spending is the momentum behind Black Friday as the premium sales event of the season. 58 per cent of Australians bought during Black Friday sales versus 56 per cent during the Boxing Day sales last year,” says Toby Boon, Director of Strategy & Insights, Powered by Nine.

“The difference is even greater for people aged 18 to 34. Black Friday is now where the Christmas shopping season kicks off in earnest.”

Boon was speaking at a Nine-hosted panel session at The Big Ideas Store, alongside Lisa Day, Director of Content Partnerships – Publishing, Powered by Nine, Jane de Graaff from Honey Kitchen and the Today Show, Steph Winkler, Director with Nine research partner Crowd DNA, and Jack Bavin, Nine Melbourne’s Head of Strategy.

Changing Christmas climate

The research underlines how Christmas spending is changing. “Australians spent roughly $23.9 billion last festive, equivalent to a 38 per cent increase on the previous year,” says Boon.

“It’s not just how much money we’re spending, but how we are spending it. We are being influenced by broader cultural considerations like climate change and sustainability.

“80 per cent of Australians are concerned about the amount of waste in gifting, and 68 per cent believe that sustainable gifting is increasingly important, so we’re finding ways to approach the traditional in modern ways,” says Boon, pointing to surging sales of sustainable Christmas crackers, “bon bons”, in recent years, with plastic trinkets now firmly out of favour.

Rethinking the strategy

Black Friday versus Boxing Day: Different product approaches required

Honey Kitchen’s Jane de Graaff believes marketers must now rethink product promotion strategies, adopting different approaches for Black Friday versus Boxing Day.

“Black Friday sales are positioned before the season, so people tend to get in earlier, thinking ‘This is going to make my Christmas easier, so I’ll buy it now’,” she says. “Not that the Boxing Day sales are redundant, but I think the timing of Black Friday changes what people are looking for. We buy a lot more practical stuff at Black Friday time,” she says, citing things like kitchen products or items children will need for school.

“Then Boxing Day is more about, okay, I got through that period, what’s my reward? What do I want as opposed to what do I need?”

Christmas ads missing the mark

While brands globally and locally traditionally reserve a significant chunk of media budgets for the big Christmas campaign, Nine’s research suggests marketers may in fact be risking unintended consequences.

“In line with society more broadly, Christmas is becoming more inclusive. The extended Christmas period is being embraced by all Australians as a universal time of celebration – and we want to see that show up in comms,” says Boon.

“Just 21 per cent of us see our Christmas experience reflected in advertising and 71 per cent of Aussies want to see a more honest depiction of what Christmas really looks like.

“More than half of Australians believe that Christmas advertising needs more diverse cultural representations. Australians don’t want tokenism. They simply want to see people like themselves reflected through marketing and messaging.”

But that doesn’t mean “shoving as many diverse characters as possible into a 30-second ad,” says Nine Melbourne’s Jack Bavin.

“Our research shows that if advertisers do that, it has a negligible impact on building brand equity and short-term sales lift. So in other words, it does nothing. You’re ticking a box, sure, but you’re not actually doing much for your business.

“Yet if you show those under-represented groups in a positive way, a more engaging, more meaningful, more deliberate way – and probably a more long-form way – it has a huge uplift on both of those metrics. So marketers need to get that right.”

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Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Content Marketing: Using the power of long-form content to tell a brand story

Powered Predicts 2022

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family – a call for brands to represent modern Australia

Powered Unpacked

Cultural Conversation Series; We are Family

The nuclear parent trap: 54% of Aussies say brands failing to reflect modern families, pushing traditional mum, dad, 1.8 kids over reality; Maltesers, Target nailing it

The marketing and advertising sector is alienating a quarter of Aussies by primarily showing traditional – mum, dad and two children – families, new research shared by Nine shows. One in four people feel their family is poorly represented, and even though single parents make up 10 per cent of our population, only 12 per cent of the public recognise one adult and a child as a family. What brands should focus on is honesty, realism and rawness, Nine’s Toby Boon says.

The Australian family

Marketers are using an outdated model of the Australian family in advertising, sticking with a mum, dad and two kids, and alienating vast swathes of the public, new research from Nine and cultural insights agency Fiftyfive5 reveals.

More than half of Australians – 54 per cent – feel that brands are failing to reflect the reality of family life in their marketing, while one in four people believe their own family is poorly represented in advertising. The concept of mum, dad and 1.8 kids has been “a really, really powerful shortcut”, Nine’s Director of Strategy and Insights, Toby Boon, told a session of Powered by Nine’s Big Ideas Store.

“But the reality is that Australia is shifting. We’re quite conservative in the way that we portray family groups in some ways. There are big changes in the ways that families are showing up,” he said.

Realism required

Families make up 71 per cent of households, but they’re comprised of traditional families, same-sex families, unmarried couples, blended families, co-habiting parent families and grandparent families. Dr Klara De Wit, Fiftyfive5 consultant, said portraying different types of families was an important way to improve representation and public perceptions.

“There was quite a sad percentage where only 12 per cent of people recognise one adult and a child as a family, but in reality, single parents make up 10 per cent of Australia's population,” Dr De Wit said.

“What Australian consumers love to see when it comes to families and parenting is realism and acknowledgement of what it means to be an Australian family today, and the difficulties and the hardships of that as well.”

Maltesers, Target get it right

The Massive Overshare campaign by Maltesers, which published intimate thoughts from mothers about motherhood, was one example that resonated, as did a Target ad that showed men and women doing chores with children around in a non-congratulatory way.

“It wasn’t necessarily about family life. It wasn’t necessarily talking overtly to a mother’s experience or a father’s experience, it was just showing a family home,” Dr De Wit said.

“There was a dad vacuuming with a baby strapped to his chest, and they loved it because there was no glorifying and ‘Oh, wow, you’re doing such a great job.’ Or, ‘Oh, look at the dad. He’s babysitting his kids.’ It was just assumed to be normal.”

Almost nine in 10 mums (89 per cent) want brands to show more honesty about the challenges of family life.

But it's a tightrope for brands

There is a tightrope to walk, however. The research found that 46 per cent of Australians want brands to represent traditional family dynamics.

“There was a really interesting piece that came through in the research that compared the amount of time dads spent with their kids per day to the 1960s,” Boon said. “I can't remember at the top of my head what the number is today, but I know the average amount of time that fathers spent with their children in the ’60s was something like 16 minutes a day. Anything’s got to be an improvement on that.”

The answer, according to Boon, is to listen to the audience and understand their purchase cycle and habits.

“One of the really interesting developments for me has been around the involvement of grandparents,” he said. “We know from research we’ve done previously that obviously older Australians are active for longer, are working for longer, are more involved for longer. And grandparents are one of these groups that are now super, super-actively involved in helping to support bringing up children.”

Which is why the smart brands are now reflecting grandparents in their family-focused campaigns – and recognising their influence on big-ticket purchases. Explore.

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Powered Predicts 2022

Powered Unpacked – Audio Advertising Effectiveness

Unpacking all things data, cookies, privacy and impending legislation change.

Powered Unpacked

Unpacking all things data, cookies, privacy and impending legislation change.

"Marketers need to 'test and invest' as cookie cull 'resets' digital ad industry, and privacy law overhaul goes further than we thought" - IAB CEO Gai Le Roy

Incoming privacy changes and Google’s moves to phase out cookies on the web and tracking across mobile devices will fundamentally change how digital marketing functions. IAB CEO Gai Le Roy, Resolution COO Phil Pollock and Nine commercial product & data chief Ben Campbell unpack what’s coming down the track, and what marketers need to do now as the age of hyper-targeting comes to an end.

Marketers need to "test and invest"

IAB CEO Gai Le Roy has urged marketers to quickly get their heads around alternatives to cookies ahead of a “reset” of the digital ad industry. Publishing and media agency execs also warn brands to prepare for major disruption to the way they plan ad campaigns, and incoming restrictions on how they collect and use consumer data.

Google’s phasing out of 3rd party cookies and announcements to later cull Android ad IDs follow Apple’s removal of its ID For Advertisers and make brands and publishers gain explicit consent to track people across 3rd party websites and apps.

The upshot is that advertisers have already lost a lot of the things they took for granted in terms of ad planning, targeting and attribution, with further changes coming as regulators globally and locally tighten data privacy laws.

Tracking, targeting: prepare for impact

Apple’s manoeuvres have had a “huge impact”, said IAB CEO Gai Le Roy, with brands finding the majority of people do not opt in to tracking, making it hard to track across apps.

She said marketers must now prepare for Google’s changes with third-party cookies set to be removed next year, and get to grips with alternatives – such as Topics, a way of audience segmentation via browsers, and FLEDGE, a solution for retargeting without cookies. Google is also working on new APIs for attribution.

“So there are lots of challenges for marketers to actually ascertain what's working, how they should be spending their money,” said Le Roy.

Marketers must “educate themselves and create a plan … they really need to formulate the impact in their own business,” urged Phil Pollock, Chief Operating Officer at Omnicom-owned Resolution Digital.

“Do a full audit, really understand all the different touch points [within their digital marketing supply chain], and the different ad tech vendors they're utilising,” he said. “And it is really important to communicate those impacts to all stakeholders internally. [Tell them] ‘This will have an impact on measurement, it will have an impact on the campaigns that we are running’ – that needs to be clearly articulated throughout the organisation.”

Is connected TV immune to upheaval?

While most digital channels are disrupted, connected TVs and BVOD don’t use cookies, and so are “largely immune” from the incoming changes, according to Nine Director of Advertising and Data Products, Ben Campbell.

“So a lot of the targeting that exists on connected TVs will likely continue into the future, for now at least,” he said.

While Google and Apple’s changes make cross-site and cross-app tracking harder, Campbell thinks Nine is in a “pretty unique position, because we own that first-party relationship with users when they come to our site”. Because first-party cookies will still be allowed, that means vertically integrated publishers like Nine “will still be able to track within our ecosystem”.

Hence Nine is working to enrich its first-party data to understand more about its audiences and expanding its single sign on strategy to capture more identity data – essentially, gathering more email addresses by asking people to log-in to stream video or read news. Brands can then match those emails with data from their own CRM systems. Nine now has upwards of 14 million unique IDs.

“That’s really important for us, to try and build up that identity data set so that we can help advertisers find more of their customers who might have signed into one of their services when they surface on Nine,” said Campbell.

Privacy changes "go further than we thought"

Australia’s privacy laws are under review, with major implications for advertisers in terms of the kind of data that can be collected and used. While “nothing is yet set in stone”, the Attorney-General’s proposals “took everyone by surprise by going a little bit further than we thought they were going to”, IAB’s Gai Le Roy said.

A key proposal is a “fair and reasonable” test for collection and use of data. “That’s quite a hard thing to do because [the definition of what is fair and reasonable] is quite subjective,” she said.

“We’re still working with the government to work out exactly what that looks like, making sure Australia can operate with other markets, that we’re not too different and that we can work in a global economy.

“There’s definitely a lot more power on the consumer side, which is great. The challenge for us as an industry is to articulate to consumers what we are doing with their data.”

Do data restrictions herald return of mass marketing?

Failure to win consumer trust will mean fewer people will agree to allow brands and publishers to use their data, and both Nine’s Ben Campbell and Resolution’s Phil Pollock think the privacy overhaul will put a stop to many current digital advertising practices.

“I think that the landscape is fundamentally going to change over the next two years,” said Pollock.

Campbell agreed there are “big implications” for how data can be used. The days of hoovering up every crumb of data about who and where people are, what they are looking at, what they like and dislike, is over, he suggested.

“Technology has evolved at such rapid pace that whenever there was a capability to go out and micro-target particular audiences, people just went ahead and did it, rather than taking a step back and asking, ‘should we do this’?”

The probable upshot is a swing back from hyper-targeting towards mass marketing, Campbell suggested, and a return to panels for attribution.

All of which means marketers must prepare to go back to a fast approaching future.

“It’s a bit of a reset moment,” said IAB’s Gai Le Roy. “It’s time to test [post-cookie, post-privacy approaches] and really invest in understanding what’s going on.”

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