Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade, taking in the Melbourne edition of Compass. And below, a down day on the Unmade Index.
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‘We should be prepared for rage’ - Compass Melbourne on the rise of activism
The final stop on Unmade’s six-state Compass tour of Australia was Victoria, for a feisty conversation around the state of the industry, the Campaign Brief imbroglio and the state of the Melbourne radio wars.
Today’s podcast features highlights. The speakers were Gold’s breakfast host Christian O'Connell, NAB’s CMO Thomas Dobson, CHEP’s executive strategy director Nomfundo Msomi, and Kimberlee Wells, CEO of TBWA.
As has been the case in several states, the topic of Campaign Brief’s all-male coverage of the creative industry was nominated as the industry’s worst moment of the year. Wells told the audience: “The industry's biggest loss, controversial, I know, is Campaign Brief.”
In October the publication experienced a fierce backlash after publishing a review on Australia and New Zealand’s top creative talent featuring 20 men and no women. It triggered a debate about the masthead’s behaviour over many years.
Many agency groups took the decision to stop submitting their work for publication on the Campaign Brief blog. The controversy appears to have given momentum to the local operation of Little Black Book to fill some of the void.
Wells, also a board member of industry association the Advertising Council, went on: “And it is not because of the changes that are being made, but I think there's a lot of questions being asked at the moment around what becomes the central dialogue for creativity in the industry.
“And it's something that I know we're certainly grappling with at the Ad Council. So there are a lot of changes that needed to be made, but we need to make sure as a result of that, we're not actually losing creativity and a space for creativity to be elevated and to be celebrated across the board.”
Msomi added: “As far as our biggest gain, it's the opportunity to have difficult conversations as an industry. So we've been talking about representation and opportunities for women, minorities, people from different ethnic groups, diversity within our industry.
“I'm really hoping that after we go away for the two mandatory weeks where Australia shuts down, that we come back with that same fervor in place.
“This is an opportunity. It's uncomfortable for some people, and for others, it is exhausting. We've gained the chance to really talk and to be vulnerable if we want to save the industry.
“We've lost, and we continue to lose women. Let's acknowledge that it's happening under our watch. But more than just losing women, I think we're losing the trust of women as an industry to make change.”
On the topic of advertising creativity, Melbourne was another edition of Compass where panellists nominated Telstra’s work this year as a plus for the industry. Msomi told the room: “I'm going to take the biggest win as being Telstra. I think there's a lot of lessons in that for all of us around the importance of brand, the importance of craft the importance of getting back to creativity - and the importance of not listening to everyone in your organization who wants to have a point of view on the work, but actually backing your own gut.”
Melbourne has also been home to the biggest radio story of the year - ARN Media’s decision to network the Sydney-based The Kyle & Jackie O Show into the city on Kiis. While maintaining its lead in Sydney, the show has failed to find an audience in Melbourne.
ARN stablemate O’Connell, whose own show on Gold has regularly topped the FM ratings, argued that while the battle has been great for drawing attention to radio, some stations have been wasting money on short term promotions rather than focusing on the quality of their shows. He said: “It's just really interesting - people are talking about it. Breakfast radio still matters to people which I think is really great for my industry.
“The loss for the industry is how a lot of the other shows I go up against are chucking so much money at buying listeners - big, noisy cash giveaways. I understand why they do that; I've never done that - I think it's about deepening the connection you have with the audience. I think it's transactional and I think actually it's hurting radio.
“The big noisy cash giveaways to me is dumb, moronic radio.”
The panel also tackled the rise of retail media (Dobson was sceptical); rebuilding business confidence in a tough economy, the next wave of agency consolidations, and predictions of a rise in consumer activism.
In prescient comments which she made before the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thomson in New York, Msomi warned: “I think we should be prepared for rage. I think the bubbling under, and now bubbling over, of the real palpable rage that we feel in our industry and in our society, I think it's not going to die down.
“With anger comes activism, and with activism comes change.
“There's this misnomer that people who are activists and people who are trying to change things are always upset and that their anger is not productive. But that's how you get International Women's Day, that's how you get Black History Month, from organizing and from actioning that rage into something more.”
The next stop for Unmade’s Compass roadshow is Auckland on Tuesday February 18, at NZME’s iHeart Lounge on Graham Street. Tickets are on sale now.
How Unmade’s 2024 Compass tour has unfolded:
Unmade Index sinks
The Unmade Index retreated by 0.48% yesterday, to land on 431.7 points.
Among the worst performers was Nine’s real estate platform Domain, which lost 1.2% yesterday. Domain’s market capitalisation has sagged by 17% since the ousting of CEO Jason Pellegrino two months ago
Audio stocks Southern Cross Austereo and ARN Media both went backwards yesterday, by 0.9% and 0.7% respectively.
Ooh Media beat the wider trend, rising by 1.7%
Time to leave you to your Thursday.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.
We’ll be back with more tomorrow.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media
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