Effective?
Welcome to an end-of-day update from Unmade. Today: Is head of effectiveness the hot new job title? And Gumtree puts HotCopper on the block.
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Head of effectiveness, or head of winning Effies?
If two’s a trend, then today we saw the emergence of a hot new agency fad: Having a head of effectiveness.
The agency formally known as The Monkeys - and these days known as Droga5 ANZ - today announced the promotion of planner Kit Lansdell from business strategy director to head of effectiveness.
Lansdell is not the first to be given that role in an Australian agency. That seems to have been Hannah McHard, who’s been BMF’s head of effectiveness since 2022.
And on the media owner side, Nine flirted with the role, appointing Jonathan Fox as its head of effectiveness in 2018. He’d previously had the same job title at media auditor Ebiquity. Fox left for Mutinex a year ago, and as far as I can tell, Nine didn’t replace him.
It’s a job title slightly more common in the UK, and one that I can understand would be attractive to marketers. Who wouldn’t want to work with an agency committed to delivering effective marketing campaigns? Similarly I was a fan when Zenith Optimedia rebadged itself as The ROI Agency back in the day. It’s a great north star.
But is that what the role is really about? Today’s press release from Droga5 had something in common with the 2022 BMF announcement: both boasted about how the person given the title had previously won Effies awards.
That’s the question: Will the role be about delivering effectiveness for clients, or winning effectiveness awards?
Domain improves as Unmade Index stabilises
Normal service was resumed on the Unmade Index today with media and marketing stock movements less influenced by the wild swings of global markets of earlier in the week.
ARN Media had the best day, growing by 4.4%, while Nine was off by 3.2%.
Domain’s share price crept back upwards to $4.01 as investors began to hope that the market’s gyrations may not blow up the $4.43 offer on the table from CoStar.
Meanwhile, the market appeared unimpressed by Gumtree’s announcement today that its capital markets division including HotCopper may be on the block. Gumtree claims that it “has been approached by several parties” wanting it to sell the businesses.
The market gave little weight to the announcement, with Gumtree’s price remaining static, leaving its market capitalisation languishing at $29m. The company, then known as The Market Herald, was worth $110m when it agreed to buy Gumtree in 2022.
Read more about today’s Gumtree announcement on Mumbrella
The Unmade Index closed down slightly for the day on 491 points.
Time to leave you to your Friday. I’ll be back with Best of the Week in the morning.
If you’d like to hear more from me, we go to air with Medialand on ABC Radio National in a few moments time. From 5.30pm, Vivienne Kelly and I will be discussing the first televised debate of the election; the legal action Nine is facing from Dawn Singleton’s family over their use of her social media images after her death in the Bondi Junction attack; and media’s gender pay gap.
Have a great night.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media
Tim, I liked your lede of "Effective?" An accidental pun of "affecctive"?
JG