Vinyl story rolls on; Google's AI contradiction; and Uncle Clive pays for everything
Welcome to the end of a very short but interesting week where the lid was lifted just a little on Australia’s fastest-growing media business, Google tried to own its own disruption and Clive Palmer continued to pepper Australia with yellow ads.
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Vinyl in the balance
Overnight, news dropped that former Brag Media head Jessica Hunter had brought a claim against Vinyl Group in the Fair Work Commission. It turned out on investigation that the claim had been resolved already, but it kicked the Vinyl story on.
I’ve been intrigued by Vinyl from the beginning of the year, when I caught the Tim Burrowes bug: how could you not be curious about a media business that is actually growing?
Vinyl, fuelled by $11 million from WiseTech Global’s Richard White, bought The Brag Media last year and Concrete Playground this year. People have departed, with some rancour. The share price has held up, with some volatility. The business is losing money but says it will break even this year. One of the unfair dismissal claims against the company has been resolved, the other is outstanding.
Everything is in the balance. As mentioned yesterday, the Luke Girgis claim is financially big, but it’s also narratively big: Vinyl’s allegations of misconduct against Girgis are pretty spectacular.
The wonderful thing about Vinyl being a publicly traded company is that come December, we will all know the end of these stories one way or the other.
Either AI Overviews wreck clickthrough, or they don’t
Paul Hewett, from In Marketing We Trust, told me this week that Google’s new AI overviews (AIO) in search had reduced ad clickthrough by between 15-25%. Hewett backed the claim up with hard numbers and references he sent to me later. I’d like to pass that information on, because I think it’s important, so I’ve pasted it below.
The curious thing is, Hewett’s data is flatly contradicted by a presentation delivered by Google the same day I spoke to him. Google Ads global VP Dan Taylor told Mumbrella’s Nathan Jolly (and others) that AI overviews were actually having a positive commercial impact because they were so much more efficient than normal search.
“In fact, with the launch of AI overviews, we’ve seen the volume of commercial queries increase.”
It all sounds a bit like the ad guy making the best of a difficult situation, but it’s hard to see that last statement as anything but unequivocal. The volume of commercial queries has gone up? I put in a query with Google for some numbers to back up Taylor’s statement, and received this statement:
“We’ve seen some speculation that any recent traffic change is due to AI Overviews, but the reality is traffic fluctuates for many reasons, including seasonal demand, interests of users, and regular algorithmic updates to Search. More broadly, the way people want to consume information is changing, and we're evolving Search to make it easy for people to get a quick answer and also dive deeper on the web.”
Additionally, Google said:
It is seeing an overall increase in search volume
It confirmed the overall increase in commercial queries (“source: Google internal data, Jan 2025”) but provided no numbers.
Paul Hewett’s data:
Organic Search Engagement
CTR dropped by 54.6% YoY for queries showing Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs).
Source: Seer Interactive
Cited by: Search Engine Land
Our observation is that we have seen smaller declines, but also bigger declines in the SEO community.
Paid Search Engagement
CTR dropped by 27% YoY for paid search in the presence of AI Overviews:
From 8.9% (Jan 2024) to 6.5% (Jan 2025)
Note: this is more nuanced based on the inclusion or exclusion of AIO
Source: Seer Interactive
Cited by: Search Engine Land
Google Ad Grants Forum reports similar declines across 20 non-profit accounts:
From 17% to 12% CTR, a 29% drop
Source: Google Support Forum (Official)
Uncle Clive is on the telly
Clive Palmer, the biggest ad spender of this federal election, is also the star panellist for Seven’s election night coverage. Palmer will appear alongside Tanya Plibersek, Bill Shorten and others, but has clearly stolen the hearts of Seven’s promotions department, who accompanied his full-frame picture with the sound of a ten-pin bowling strike in this ad.
It feels like Palmer – who continues to outspend all other parties on just about every medium and platform – has successfully transitioned from right-wing bogeyman to jocular inappropriate uncle in the media imagination. Of note in terms of Palmer’s digital election spend: it’s very light on Facebook, heavy on Youtube, and off the charts (relatively) on Snapchat. His Snapchat outlay of $780k this year - when I checked earlier today - far outweighs every other party combined.
Unmade Index
Very small movements in the Australian media market saw the gains made yesterday still holding today. News Corp (+1.29%) and Nine (1.09%) gained, while Domain (-.24%) and Ooh (-0.34%) slipped slightly. SWM went back up to 14c.
More from Mumbrella
Vinyl one down, one to go in unfair dismissal tussle
Teal MP launches truth in political ads campaign, with support from adland execs
Wendy's new CMO on building a beloved US burger brand in Australia
All news sites rise with election tide
Have a great long weekend!
Hal Crawford
Editorial Director - Mumbrella
hcrawford@mumbrella.com.au