The Campaign for Real Media
Welcome to a Monday update from Unmade.
Today: The momentum grows for a single organisation to promote Australian media.
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What will it take to build a CAMRA for Australian Media?
Half a century ago, a quirky organisation sprang up in the UK: The Campaign for Real Ale. It was both a consumer protest against the mass production of beer, and a homage to bespoke craftsmanship.
Australia’s media, in danger of being entirely overtaken by the global platforms, could draw some inspiration from CAMRA.
In The Australian today, media and marketing consultant Jen Davidson makes a simple proposition: “The industry lacks a dedicated, co-ordinated effort – a ‘Boomtown for Australian Media’.”
I agree. Indeed, I made a similar point when I reported on a Boomtown event hosted by its chair Brian Gallagher last year: “All of Gallagher’s points could have been made about media in the capital cities too. The argument is one worth prosecuting more fiercely by the locally-based media companies, rather than medium by medium, but speaking with one voice.”
Davidson points out that of the $25bn being spent on Australian media every year (most of it through advertising), $18bn goes to the platforms, with Google and Meta taking the lion’s share.
Yet marketers hold the platforms to a lower standard when it comes to issues like brand safety and independent measurement of return on investment.
Not to mention that with most of the global platforms’ revenue being offshored to be laundered through low taxation regimes, there’s less benefit for the local economy.
Instead, argues, Davidson, the local players should band together to make the case for spending more marketing dollars with local players.
Davidson argues: “Prioritising Australian media doesn’t mean abandoning global platforms, but rather ensuring local media receives appropriate consideration when allocating marketing budgets. Every time media budgets bypass Australian publishers in favour of Meta or Alphabet, we chip away at local journalism, creative talent and our industry’s foundation.”
However, shifting that spend should not just be out of some altruistic intent. The sort of high engagement content that only local players make - everything from reality TV to local news - offers an advertising environment that deserves to be more valued than it is. And if advertisers do not support it then it won’t be there when they need it.
Davidson proposes: “The time has come for C-suite and marketing leadership to take direct ownership of media investment decisions. If every organisation prioritised Australian media channels by redirecting just five per cent of their digital investment into local media, this would represent a $1.1bn influx supporting Australian journalism and content development.
An all-media trade marketing (and lobbying) body at a national level feels necessary.
As Davidson - who spent a decade in media agencies and nearly a decade brandside at Commonwealth Bank before taking the advisory route - points out, the equivalent model exists. While the television industry lost its way with the implosion of Think TV and the loss of consensus around OzTAM, Boomtown has been a case study in getting stakeholders to work together and grow share for regional media.
Davidson’s proposal belongs alongside that of Ben Shepherd, who called last month for a locally owned premium content exchange. In my view this should not just be for video content but expand to the wider local publisher ecosystem. Like the Ozone Project in the UK, but more so.
There are a number of possible starting points to create such a Campaign for Real Media. I suspect that much of the awkward silence about the moribund Think TV is because its stakeholders are trying to figure out a face-saving means of closing it, and turning their attention to a multi-media option.
Such an organisation will need to be excellent at stakeholder management - that loss of unity, driven by short term interests (in a nutshell, the managements of Seven and Nine at the time hated each other; and everyone ganged up on Foxtel), is what effectively killed Think TV.
To adopt Shepherd’s proposal - which is what would make this organisation into more than a talking shop - it would also need to have serious technical chops to build its own exchange.
And if it made a dent, the platforms would organise against this new body. There would need to be high level lobbying to ensure it could navigate competition laws.
Not that they’e publicly put their hands up, but three candidates immediately spring to mind to lead this hypothetical new organisation: Davidson, Gallagher and Shepherd.
There is an urgency to this. No doubt the vacuum at the top of Nine (now filled by Matt Stanton as CEO and Matt James as head of sales) has contributed. The new financial year is approaching. What would it take to get things off the ground on July 1?
More from Mumbrella:
Time to leave you to your day.
We’ll be back tomorrow with a post for Unmade’s paying members
Have a great day
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade + Mumbrella
tim@unmade.media
Good opinion piece Tim. Makes a lot of sense for the industry to unite. “Think local media” is a nice evolution from TV. How strong would STAN be now if it was Seven, Ten and Nine taking on the globals. Leverage the emotional movement of made in Australia!
I agree with Jen's opinion. But it is not like the industry was back in Clem's. I sure as hell hope that you can get the various industry leaders to jump on board. Oh ... and agree to pay their fair share. Fingers crossed.
John Grono