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Pure Intel Executive Briefing

Business Intel

The Pure Intel Executive Briefing delivers high-signal market intelligence for leaders and decision-makers. Get across the critical macro trends and curated sector deep-dives spanning marketing technology, digital analytics, retail, and regulatory shifts. No fluff and no clutter, just the precise insights you need to stay ahead, updated daily.

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#20261006
October 5 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Tuesday 6 October
Executive Summary The media landscape is undergoing a significant shake-up with the formation of a new entertainment giant. Marketers face evolving challenges in content creation, with in-house production teams needing to address critical skill gaps as their scope expands. Furthermore, artificial intelligence is reshaping search discoverability and brand mentions, demanding new optimisation strategies, while digital twins present an underutilised tool for corporate crisis readiness. New Entertainment Giant Formed by Media Consolidation The merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery under Skydance is set to create a media conglomerate rivalling Disney and Netflix in scale. David Ellison will lead as Chairman and CEO, with Ynon Kreiz as Co-CEO, overseeing a vast empire that includes Paramount+, Pluto, and HBO Max under Casey Bloys, and film studios run by Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg. This consolidation significantly alters the competitive landscape for content creation, distribution, and advertising, presenting new dynamics for brands seeking partnerships or navigating audience reach across major platforms. Skydance has announced the senior executives who will run the combined entity. In-House Production Confronts Specialised Skill Gaps While in-housing is now a permanent fixture in Australian advertising, with 86% of brands valuing it equally or better than agency rates, internal teams often lack the specialised production skills needed for ambitious campaigns. Marketers and project managers are increasingly taking on complex responsibilities like talent contracts, insurance, and post-production, which traditionally fall to experienced producers. This capability gap creates significant risk when high-volume social or quick-turnaround work evolves into multi-market rollouts or paid campaigns, highlighting a need for investment in professional production expertise within in-house models. AI Reshaping Search Discoverability and Brand Mentions Google is intensifying spam updates, leveraging AI to combat the "growing flood of AI slop" and low-effort content, which now poses a greater problem than link spam. Simultaneously, a new discipline of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is emerging to track brand visibility within AI answers, as buyers increasingly compare vendors directly within these responses. Platforms like Omnia are designed to record brand mentions, cited sources, and competitor framing within AI answers, revealing a critical gap where traditional SEO focuses on clicks, but not on recommendations that bypass website visits. Google AI Mode, for instance, cites an average of 13.8 domains per answer, while AI Overviews cites 9.2 domains. Digital Twins Underutilised for Proactive Crisis Readiness Despite 70% of C-suite technology executives at large enterprises exploring and investing in digital twins for operations and supply chain optimisation, few are applying this technology to rehearse crisis scenarios. Recent incidents, such as a software update crash affecting 8.5 million Windows devices and a ransomware attack exposing personal health data of up to 1 in 3 Americans, have incurred documented losses exceeding $7 billion in the first half of 2024 alone. This highlights a significant strategic gap in leveraging digital twins for proactive crisis management, a capability that could mitigate billions in potential damages.
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#20261005
October 4 · 2 min
Executive Briefing: Monday 5 October
Executive summary This briefing highlights two key operational shifts impacting marketing and e-commerce. AI-driven profit recovery tools are emerging to help marketplace vendors and shippers reclaim significant revenue lost to invoicing errors and deductions. Concurrently, new marketing technology simplifies and centralises multi-channel product communication, boosting operational efficiency and customer experience. AI-driven profit recovery for marketplace vendors Businesses operating on platforms like Amazon Vendor Central or Walmart Retail Link, especially those exceeding $1 million annually, can now leverage AI-powered audit engines to recover significant lost revenue. A service named Margin Pro by Threecolts analyses vendor remittances, marketplace reimbursements, and parcel invoices to identify and file claims for deduction errors, which often go unnoticed as only 37% appear in standard reports. This approach typically recovers 1-3% of total annual revenue and can save most businesses 10-30% on parcel costs without altering carrier or delivery speeds. The fee structure is based on a percentage of recovered funds, ranging from 15% to 25% for vendor and FBA reimbursements, and up to 20% for parcel savings. Centralised multi-channel product messaging Marketing and product teams can now streamline multi-channel customer communications through integrated notification infrastructure. Platforms like Knock enable the deployment and automation of product messages across email, in-app, push, SMS, and chat from a single system, reducing reliance on engineering for routine updates. Product managers can change templates or in-app guides without shipping code, while maintaining version history. This centralisation handles lifecycle messages, promotions, and transactional mail, allowing users to opt out by channel, workflow, or category. One user reported a 27% improvement in first response time and 32% faster ticket resolution rates by implementing a new notification centre.
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#20261004
October 3 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Sunday 4 October
The media landscape is shifting significantly with the new corporate identity for the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery as Skydance, alongside Rogers Communications' consolidation of its extensive sports and media holdings. Simultaneously, Google is enhancing its Loyalty Customer Match program with AI integration and global expansion, while the events sector demonstrates substantial returns from unified technology platforms and first-party data strategies. Major media consolidation reveals new corporate identity David Ellison announced that the combined Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery entity will be named Skydance, with Paramount and Warner Bros. operating as sub-brands to retain their distinct identities. The new company plans to change its stock ticker to SKYD and move its listing from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange. Additionally, George Cheeks is expected to oversee Skydance’s television studios, including Warner Bros. TV and Paramount TV studios, post-merger. This restructuring creates a significant new player in the entertainment industry, necessitating that marketers understand the evolved brand hierarchy for future content partnerships, advertising placements, and media strategy as the entity focuses on revenue generation and operational rationalisation. Rogers Communications consolidates sports and media empire Rogers Communications acquired the remaining 25% stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) for CAN$4.35 billion (US$3.1 billion), becoming the sole owner of the company behind the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. Rogers will establish a new business unit, Rogers Sports, combining MLSE with the Toronto Blue Jays. Keith Pelley will return as president of Rogers Media, overseeing its extensive portfolio of 30 TV networks and over 40 radio stations, including Sportsnet. This strategic consolidation creates a unified sports and media powerhouse in Canada, offering brands enhanced opportunities for integrated sponsorship and advertising across major sports franchises and broadcast channels, driven by an experienced media leadership. Google Loyalty Customer Match expands globally with AI Google's Loyalty Customer Match program has expanded its capabilities to include AI Mode and Gemini, now available in 14 countries with the addition of India, Italy, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Spain. The program's updated guidelines clarify that loyalty participation is open to non-advertisers and explicitly defines eligibility criteria such as loyalty points and completed orders for free listings. It also specifies that free-to-join programs cannot mandate eventual payment, including certain free trials. This expansion provides retailers with broader tools to leverage their customer loyalty data within Google's ecosystem, enabling enhanced targeting and personalisation capabilities to better engage high-value customers across a wider array of global markets. Integrated event technology drives significant ROI Supanova Comic Con & Gaming expanded its partnership with Leap Event Technology, integrating its ticketing, event app, onsite capabilities, and marketing services with its first-party audience data. This strategic integration resulted in a 50x Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and a 32% year-on-year revenue increase. Supanova utilises Audience Republic to capture and analyse ticket purchasing behaviour, enabling the segmentation of communications for high-value customers, such as VIPs who are repeat attendees. This demonstrates how a unified technology stack and data-driven personalisation can significantly boost ad spend efficiency and overall revenue for large-scale events, as evidenced by a 70% EDM open rate for VIPs.
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#20261003
October 2 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Saturday 3 October
Executive summary AI Overviews are significantly impacting branded search results, shifting brand visibility and requiring revised SEO strategies. Concurrently, AI is driving consolidation and efficiency across sales and content operations, while agencies are prioritising hybrid skills and AI maturity in major client partnerships. Marketers also face an opportunity to leverage social data more effectively across business functions through enhanced data storytelling. AI overviews reshape branded search dominance AI Overviews are increasingly dominating search engine results for branded queries, appearing for 83% of branded queries on US desktop as of September 29, 2026, a 12 percentage point increase since July. For brand-name queries, 76.2% of these AI Overviews appeared in position one. This trend, which also sees Google returning AI Overviews for brand queries and testing tracking URL parameters, fundamentally alters how brands are discovered and perceived. Marketers must now contend with reduced direct clicks to their own websites and greater influence from third-party sources in the initial search experience, necessitating a re-evaluation of branded SEO and reputation management strategies. AI drives consolidation in sales and content operations B2B sales teams are increasingly collapsing their outbound tech stacks into single AI platforms, streamlining processes from signals and data to qualification and outreach. This shift, exemplified by platforms that use AI agents to qualify leads before sending messages, has been shown to result in significantly higher reply rates on cold LinkedIn messages for customers compared to the average. Similarly, AI presentation tools are helping marketing and sales teams maintain on-brand consistency for sales decks, provided a clear process for content ownership and modular structure is in place. Furthermore, content intelligence platforms are integrating accessibility as a core content strategy from the outset, with AI agents scanning for compliance and optimal structure for answer engines, supported by extended ADA Title II web deadlines by the Department of Justice. Agencies prioritise hybrid skills and AI for client growth Major media accounts are undergoing rigorous reviews, with incumbents successfully retaining partnerships by demonstrating strategic leadership, innovation, and AI maturity. ANZ, for instance, reappointed PHD as its media agency partner in Australia after a 15-year relationship, following a comprehensive evaluation that heavily weighed AI capabilities. This reflects a broader trend where agencies are restructuring roles to be more hybrid, blending disciplines such as delivery with intelligence, or strategy with AI-driven search, to meet evolving client needs. This emphasis on integrated, technologically fluent talent aims to deliver greater effectiveness and innovation in an increasingly complex media landscape, as seen with Wavemaker expanding its partnership with the South Australian Tourism Commission for destination media. Untapped potential in social data storytelling Despite social media offering the freshest and most unfiltered view of market sentiment, only 36% of organisations effectively use social insights to inform decisions outside of marketing. This gap highlights a critical need for enhanced data storytelling, which merges data science, narrative, and visualisation to translate numerical insights into actionable business outcomes across departments. Concurrently, there is a growing imperative for brands to adopt more inclusive marketing practices, moving beyond mere translation to embed cultural relevance, context, and connection from the initial strategy phase. Successfully leveraging social data through compelling narratives and inclusive approaches is crucial for marketers to drive broader business impact and build genuine trust with diverse audiences.
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#20261002
October 1 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Friday 2 October
Executive summary: Meta's recent verification update caused unexpected ad account restrictions for Australian brands, delaying crucial campaigns. Concurrently, Google's ongoing spam update continues to impact search rankings, while Netflix's CEO acknowledged slowing growth, prompting a strategic shift towards live content. This comes as WPP signals a return to growth, rejoining the FTSE 100. Meta's ad verification update disrupts Australian campaigns Meta's expanded advertiser verification efforts have unexpectedly restricted some Australian ad accounts, leading to delays for time-sensitive launches. While Meta aims for verified advertisers to represent 90% of its advertising revenue by late 2026, agencies report a lack of clear communication and slow resolution times for verification issues. One director noted that ads continued to run, but critical optimisations, budget shifts, and new creative were halted until verification cleared. This rollout has created significant friction, impacting advertisers' ability to execute campaigns effectively and highlighting the need for clearer platform communication regarding compliance changes. Google's September spam update continues to impact search results Google's September 2026 spam update, announced a week prior, has entered a second phase, causing renewed volatility in search rankings. Unlike typical two-day rollouts, this update is expected to unfold over two weeks, leading to multiple impact cycles. Notably, AI-translated content from Reddit, which had previously seen a decline, appears to be surging back in Google search results across several international markets like Italy and Germany, raising questions about Google's quality assessment for AI-generated translations. This ongoing update underscores the dynamic nature of search algorithms and their influence on content visibility for publishers. WPP returns to FTSE 100 amidst improving performance Global advertising group WPP has been reinstated to the FTSE 100, signalling a rebound in market value from £3.1 billion to £4.06 billion since December last year. This return follows a period of strategic focus on organic growth and improved pitch momentum, with WPP Media securing approximately $US3 billion in new business year-to-date, offsetting $US2.81 billion in losses. The group's retention rate has also significantly improved to 43% from 16% in the previous year. While overall June quarter revenue still showed a reported decrease, the results surpassed analyst and company expectations, suggesting a positive trajectory in its turnaround efforts. Netflix seeks growth through live programming amidst engagement slowdown Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos acknowledged a slowdown in engagement growth, with viewership increasing just 2% in the first half of 2026. In response, the streaming service is strategically investing in live programming, including the NFL, which currently accounts for 5% of its content investment but only 1% of viewership. Sarandos noted that live content is particularly effective at generating new sign-ups, reducing churn, and attracting advertisers, aligning with the platform's focus on professionally produced content rather than user-generated content. This shift indicates a proactive approach to drive subscriber acquisition and retention in a competitive streaming market. France mandates complex e-invoicing for global businesses by 2026 France is introducing one of Europe’s most intricate electronic invoicing and e-reporting regimes, requiring global enterprises to use machine-readable e-invoices for domestic B2B transactions via state-accredited platforms or a public portal. Complementary e-reporting will capture data from cross-border B2B, B2C sales, and payment updates. This new digital tax standard, commencing September 1, 2026, presents a significant compliance challenge for multinational organisations with French VAT registrations, as it necessitates real-time digital adherence for virtually every transaction linked to the jurisdiction. Misinterpretation of the phased implementation timeline could lead to compliance traps for global firms.
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#20261001
September 30 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Thursday 1 October
Executive summary The marketing landscape is rapidly adapting to AI, with service providers redefining their value proposition as clients bring more work in-house, while marketers significantly increase AI usage for content creation. Concurrently, new research offers specific insights into social media engagement, and small retailers are reminded of the untapped potential in existing POS data for loyalty programs. AI reshapes agency value and client relationships Generative AI is fundamentally changing the economics of outsourcing, allowing clients to perform high-level knowledge work internally and reduce reliance on external service providers, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of dollars. This shift is forcing agencies to move beyond expertise-based sales strategies and focus on improving unit economics by building infrastructure that produces work at scale, such as WPP’s agentic marketing platform, WPP Open. In response, the Australian Centre for AI in Marketing (ACAM) has launched an Accredited Advisors network, partnering with fractional executive community Maestro, to help organisations embed AI across teams and operating models, acknowledging the evolving workforce and the need for practical AI integration expertise. Marketers accelerate AI adoption for content and search visibility AI use in content creation is nearing ubiquity, with 93% of marketers now utilising AI, and 69% publishing more AI content than last year. The survey found 85% of AI users are producing content faster, with significant increases in using AI for data analysis (28% to 60%) and image creation (19% to 43%). Simultaneously, Google AI Overviews are increasingly appearing for large brand names, with one report indicating 93% of tested brands now have them, often showing up lower in search results pages. This dual shift highlights the accelerating internal adoption of AI for efficiency and the growing external impact on brand discoverability. Small retailers improve loyalty with existing POS data Many small retail shops overlook the potential of their point-of-sale (POS) data to foster customer loyalty, treating repeat customers as strangers despite collecting valuable information at checkout. Leveraging POS data to understand who buys, what they buy, when, and how, can enable retailers to create effective customer loyalty programs without needing new apps or agencies. Research indicates that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%, underscoring the significant commercial benefit of proactively using existing transactional data to identify and reward loyal patrons. Expertise cues outperform warmth in fast-food social engagement New research from QUT challenges common assumptions about social media content, revealing that fast-food social media posts signalling expertise and competence are shared more frequently than those focused on warmth and friendliness. The study found analytical language and blue-green visual cues significantly increased sharing on Facebook compared to emotionally expressive captions and warm-coloured imagery. This suggests that even in highly visual and competitive environments like the fast-food industry, consumers value evidence of credibility and expertise before sharing content, indicating marketers should consider complementing food-related words with explanations and using cooler colour palettes to drive engagement.
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#20260930
September 29 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Wednesday 30 September
Executive summary: A major regulatory decision impacts Google's European search experience and privacy. The online beauty market is undergoing significant transformation, driven by marketplaces, social media, and AI in product discovery. The retail media sector continues its strategic evolution with key leadership hires, and brands are increasingly leveraging external support to scale influencer marketing efforts. Google's European search impacted by DMA regulation Google reports that Digital Markets Act (DMA) changes are causing the "biggest reduction in search quality" in its 28-year history for European users, making their search experience "significantly worse." Nick Fox, Google's Senior Vice President of Knowledge & Information, expressed deep concern, noting the requirement to hand over search query data to competitors without sufficient anonymisation as a "massive violation of European privacy." This policy risks exposing sensitive personal information regarding health and finances. The regulatory enforcement is also leading to the removal of features like real-time flight pricing and hotel filters, alongside spam prevention measures, fundamentally altering the search landscape for European consumers and businesses Google's Nick Fox Feels Sad & Terrible For European Searchers After DMA. Online beauty market transforms with marketplaces, social, and AI Australia's online beauty market is rapidly shifting, with a 2026 report forecasting 47 per cent growth to $2.2 billion by 2030. Marketplaces are increasingly competitive; Amazon's beauty and personal care sales grew by $66.7 million year-on-year, capturing 19.9 per cent of the market share. Social media is a dominant force in product discovery, with nearly half of beauty buyers more likely to purchase after a creator recommendation across platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. AI is also shaping discovery, as 38 per cent of beauty buyers use AI tools more often to find products and 55 per cent trust AI-generated recommendations. Brands must ensure their products are discoverable and purchasable across all channels consumers use Beauty shock: Marketplaces, social media, AI are reshaping online beauty market. Retail media talent signals strategic channel growth The retail media landscape is maturing and attracting significant talent, as evidenced by Bec Penn's move from Coles 360 to a retail media leadership role at Omnicom Media Australia. Penn, who previously led product strategy for Coles 360's retail media suite and worked on Cartology's addressable audience proposition, will focus on strengthening Omnicom's retail media capabilities. Her expertise in proving incrementality and guiding brands in investing across retailers with consistent rigour highlights a key strategic priority for the evolving sector. This appointment underscores the increasing importance for agencies to consolidate expertise and help clients navigate the complex, rapidly growing retail media ecosystem, which now encompasses off-network, onsite digital, search, DOOH, and in-store marketing channels. Brands scale influencer marketing through targeted external support Despite 66.33 per cent of influencer marketing programmes being managed in-house, brands are increasingly turning to external support for specific tasks as budgets grow rapidly. The 2026 Influencer Benchmark Report indicates 87.49 per cent of brands expect to increase creator marketing spend, with many planning increases of 50 per cent or more. This growth often outpaces internal headcount, prompting teams to outsource functions such as sourcing creators, content production, contract management, fraud checks, and detailed reporting. This hybrid approach enables brands to maintain strategic control while leveraging external specialists to address capacity gaps and scale operations efficiently, particularly for new market launches or high-volume partnerships Why in-house marketing teams are turning to external support for influencer campaigns.
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#20260929
September 28 · 4 min
Executive Briefing: Tuesday 29 September
Executive summary McDonald's is launching a significant commerce media network, signalling a major shift in how quick-service restaurants leverage customer data for advertising revenue. Concurrently, a fundamental re-evaluation of WordPress as a foundational CMS is underway, driven by performance and governance concerns. Marketers are also urged to rethink traditional last-click attribution in retail and to capitalise on the high-quality, albeit low-volume, traffic generated by AI Assistants in Google Analytics. McDonald's launches billion-dollar media network McDonald's is entering the commerce media landscape with its new McDonald's Media Network, aiming to build a billion-dollar global business. This initiative, currently piloting across 450 US company-owned restaurants, leverages McDonald's extensive customer base, including over 70 million daily global customers and 220 million active loyalty members who visit 2.5 times more often and drive 30% of sales. The move signifies a broader trend in retail, with WPP Media forecasting Australia's retail media channel to reach AUD $2.3 billion in 2026, marking a 19.5% increase. This strategy transforms customer touchpoints like the McDonald's app, ordering kiosks, and menu boards into new advertising revenue streams, while doubling investment in longer-running brand programs. WordPress dominance challenged by technical debt and governance issues After two decades, WordPress's market dominance is facing significant challenges, prompting professional teams to seriously consider alternatives. The platform's 21-year-old codebase, designed for an outdated web architecture, is contributing to performance ceilings, SEO technical debt, and escalating maintenance burdens. Further compounding this are legal and governance disputes, such as the public conflict between Automattic and WP Engine in 2024–2025, which raised questions about ownership and control within the open-source community. This uncertainty, coupled with performance limitations, is accelerating a migration conversation for brands seeking more modern, scalable, and legally transparent content management infrastructure. Rethinking retail peak planning beyond last-click attribution Current retail peak season strategies are often built around last-click attribution, leading to a misinterpretation of demand capture as demand creation. A recent IAB Australia and Pureprofile report indicates that 92% of Australian online shoppers utilise search or online retail platforms during product discovery and evaluation, highlighting a multi-touchpoint journey averaging 4.8 touchpoints before conversion, with 71% of audiences exposed to more than four. This approach often leads brands to overinvest in performance channels when demand is already visible, driving up auction costs for existing customers. A more effective plan requires understanding a category's unique decision clock—such as four to eight weeks for electronics or one to three weeks for fashion—to align early media spend with genuine demand creation. High-value traffic from AI Assistants in Google Analytics Google Analytics has introduced new features, including an AI Assistant Channel, which automatically tracks traffic from answer engines. While this traffic currently represents a small fraction of overall sessions, typically 1% to 5%, its quality is significantly higher than traditional organic search. Adobe data from March 2026 shows conversions from AI Assistants are 42% better, traffic spends 48% more time on product pages, and yields 37% higher revenue per visit. Similarly, Shopify reported in May 2026 that AI Assistant traffic achieved 50% higher conversions on product detail pages and a 14% higher average order value. This highlights a critical opportunity for marketers to focus on margin growth by optimising for this valuable traffic source.
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#20260928
September 27 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Monday 28 September
Executive summary Recent developments highlight critical shifts in marketing strategy and operations. A Los Angeles jury found Meta and Google liable for product harm, sparking discussions on ethical design. Concurrently, new tools for strategic brand colour selection are emerging, alongside advancements in predictive media intelligence to forecast trends. Advertisers using Google Local Services Ads also faced a temporary discrepancy in call tracking. Ethical design under scrutiny after Meta and Google ruling A Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Meta and Google liable for causing harm to users due to the addictive nature of their products. This verdict shifts focus from content moderation to the companies' deliberate design choices. Research indicates that even well-intentioned user-centred design methods, such as design thinking, can inadvertently lead to ignoring potential harms or inadequate attention to ethical considerations, with features intended to increase engagement sometimes resulting in addictive behaviours or the amplification of extreme content. This raises fundamental questions for all companies employing user-centred design about managing blind spots and ethical challenges in product development, underscoring the need for a responsibility reboot in design thinking. Predictive media intelligence enhances trend forecasting Marketing teams are gaining a significant advantage with the rise of predictive media intelligence, which uses AI, real-time signals, and historical patterns to forecast emerging trends, stories, or potential crises. Unlike traditional media monitoring, which tracks what is already happening, predictive intelligence anticipates what is likely to happen next by analysing the pace and trajectory of conversations across social media, news, and the wider web. This technology allows brands to get ahead of fast-moving narratives, assess the potential impact of a negative review beyond a simple rise in mentions, and gain crucial time to react to shifts in audience attention or sentiment. Strategic brand colour selection tool launches A new brand colour tool has been introduced to help marketers and designers align their colour choices with desired brand perceptions, moving beyond subjective preferences. The application allows users to set a starting hue and then adjust it across five scales: Price, Warmth, Energy, Character, and Ground. This functionality is designed to ensure that a brand's visual identity communicates specific attributes, such as luxury (darker, quieter hues) versus bargain (brighter, more saturated hues), or calm (cold colours) versus urgency (warm colours). By enabling a more data-driven approach, the tool aims to prevent colour choices from creating visual contradictions with a brand's intended message, which can otherwise manifest as a logo or webpage that feels inconsistent with the brand's identity. Google Local Services Ads phone number discrepancy Advertisers using Google Local Services Ads (LSAs) encountered an issue where calls were being directed to the phone number associated with their Google Business Profile, rather than the Google Ads number designated for tracking. This discrepancy impacted call tracking accuracy for businesses relying on LSAs. While Google confirmed that ads featuring specific business locations might direct calls to those location-associated numbers over call assets, the issue was reportedly resolved for some users. This event highlights the critical importance for advertisers to regularly verify call tracking mechanisms, especially across integrated platforms, to ensure accurate performance measurement and attribution for their local ad campaigns.
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#20260927
September 26 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Sunday 27 September
Today's briefing highlights a significant shift in online visibility as AI search prioritises content citation over ranking. Marketers can also expect enhanced ad performance through improved conversion tracking, while new platforms offer smarter creative optimisation for media budgets and robust ROI validation for experiential campaigns. These developments underscore the increasing importance of data, AI, and integrated strategies across digital channels. AI search shifts focus to content citation Optimising for AI search now means improving pages to be cited by AI assistants rather than just ranked. Google's AI search features still rely on core search systems, but content needs to provide facts that AI systems can understand, trust, and cite. This includes ensuring content is crawlable, indexable, and useful, with important facts stated clearly and kept current. Tools are emerging to measure a site's "AI Visibility Score," assessing whether a crawler is allowed, HTML describes page content, and AI agents can discover tools. This indicates a shift in SEO strategies towards "GEO" – being cited, not only ranked – requiring marketers to adapt content creation and technical SEO for AI discoverability. Enhanced conversions boost ad performance Google has introduced Enhanced Conversions to improve the accuracy of conversion measurement by using consented first-party data. This feature helps fill tracking gaps caused by browser restrictions, signed-out sessions, and cross-device journeys, which often leave attribution models incomplete and bidding algorithms optimising on misguided data. Businesses linking a Google Ads or Marketing Platform account to Google Analytics have reportedly seen a 23% lift in conversions and a 10% drop in cost per conversion. The system hashes customer details like email addresses or phone numbers, matching them against signed-in Google accounts to recover conversions that cookies alone would miss, thus providing a more durable and privacy-resilient signal for campaign optimisation. Neural Intent optimises creative for sales Australian advertising technology company BigAds, represented by Digital Loop, has launched Neural Intent, a new optimisation platform designed to increase sales from existing media budgets. The platform works by analysing intent signals alongside campaign objectives, brand guidelines, and context to determine which creative is most likely to motivate consumer action before any budget is spent. Once live, it continuously measures performance, learns effective message and contextual combinations, and allows traders to allocate more weight to what works. A data partnership with Audience360 enables advertisers to activate first-party audiences, ensuring the message keeps pace with consumer buying intent across varied mindsets and touchpoints without requiring infrastructure replacement. Experiential marketing gains rigorous measurement World-leading experiential agency George P. Johnson (GPJ) has unveiled its Experience Intelligence System™ (EIS), a proprietary measurement methodology aimed at transforming event metrics into actionable strategic intelligence for global brands. Following two years of extensive testing, EIS is being rolled out to GPJ's full client portfolio. The system structures event analytics around three core pillars: Audience Participation, Brand Sentiment, and Business Impact, replacing static post-event recaps with purpose-built Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) tailored to overarching brand goals. This proactive approach integrates strategic measurement during initial creative development, offering CMOs the rigorous, standardised proof of impact needed to validate live activations and their return on investment.
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#20260926
September 25 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Saturday 26 September
Marketers face urgent privacy compliance demands as new laws introduce significant data broker registration fees and bans on sensitive data sales, compounded by widespread website consent failures. A major agency acquisition of identity infrastructure raises concerns over data neutrality. Meanwhile, social media strategies are shifting to prioritise discoverability and authentic, unpolished content, and CMOs continue to grapple with flat budgets while trying to scale AI investments. New Privacy Laws and Widespread Consent Failures Demand Urgent Action The recently enacted New Jersey A5328 law introduces a "data collector" category, compelling companies selling or licensing personal data to a data broker to register and pay annual fees, ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million. This law also bans selling sensitive data outright, with no consent exception, impacting data monetisation and sharing agreements involving categories like precise geolocation or health information. These new mandates highlight persistent industry challenges, as recent audits show 79% of 450 US websites loaded targeting or advertising tags even after users opted out, despite having a Consent Management Platform. Such widespread non-compliance, also evident in specific sectors like healthcare, underscores the critical need for robust, auditable consent management and precise tag governance to verify compliance and mitigate legal exposure. Publicis Groupe's LiveRamp Acquisition Raises Data Neutrality Concerns The planned acquisition of LiveRamp by Publicis Groupe is set to reshape the ad tech landscape, sparking concerns over data neutrality and advertiser control. LiveRamp’s identity resolution services, including RampID and Authenticated Traffic Solution, are fundamental across the ecosystem, supporting critical workflows in platforms like DV360. With a major media buying entity now owning this core identity infrastructure, questions arise regarding the objectivity of independent verification for media effectiveness, audience definitions, and attribution logic. This consolidation reflects a broader trend where agency holding companies integrate media execution with data infrastructure, potentially impacting the transparency and objectivity of campaign measurement for brands that rely on independent data solutions. Social Media Shifts to Discoverability and Authentic Content Social media strategy is fundamentally changing, with algorithmic feeds increasingly prioritising relevance over follower count. Over 70% of content views often come from non-followers, indicating brands should focus on creating highly discoverable content rather than solely growing their existing audience. Moreover, authentic, unpolished Instagram Reels are outperforming highly produced content, driven by a consumer preference for relatable, behind-the-scenes experiences. This shift is evident even among major brands, which are now using creator-shot vertical videos for commercials, underscoring the value of genuine enthusiasm and continuous content testing over polished production. CMOs Grapple with Flat Budgets and Untapped AI Potential Chief marketing officers (CMOs) are navigating persistent pressure with marketing budgets holding largely flat, despite increasing program demands. While an average of 15.3% of marketing budgets is now allocated to AI initiatives, a key challenge is that many organisations lack the maturity to effectively scale these investments. A significant majority of CMOs report insufficient budget (56%) and resources (54%) to deliver their 2026 strategies. This scenario highlights the urgent need for enhanced workforce planning and project portfolio management to ensure marketing teams can efficiently staff programs and maximise their return on AI investments amid ongoing resource constraints.
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#20260925
September 24 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Friday 25 September
Executive summary AI is fundamentally reshaping both consumer engagement and operational structures, with video authenticity now critical for brand trust. Agencies are adapting, evidenced by new business models and significant account movements in the market. Meanwhile, privacy regulations continue to evolve, demanding sophisticated, ongoing tag governance. Video authenticity becomes critical for brand validation In an era of easily faked digital content, authentic video has emerged as a crucial tool for establishing brand trust and validation with consumers. Research indicates that 63 percent of people prefer to watch a short video to learn about a product or service, compared to 12 percent who prefer text, with 85 percent of people having been convinced to buy by watching a video. Furthermore, 89 percent of consumers report that video quality impacts their trust in a brand. This underscores the need for a robust video marketing strategy that prioritises genuine content, as evidenced by the success of unpolished Instagram Reels that foster a sense of connection. Maintaining an official presence on platforms like YouTube serves as a public record that validates a business's existence and provides authentic engagement. AI transforms B2C buyer journeys and agency models Artificial intelligence is increasingly serving as the primary interface for consumer product discovery, comparison, and recommendations in the B2C journey. Journeys that integrate AI with traditional search mechanisms achieve 84 percent higher conversion rates than those relying solely on AI. Marketers must therefore engage in "Generative Engine Optimisation" to ensure their brands are cited within AI-driven answers, especially as Google's AI Overviews appeared on 24 percent of shopping queries by September 2026. Concurrently, the agency landscape is evolving with models like THE VIRTUAL AGENCY, which combines AI-powered creative systems with senior human judgement. This approach aims to provide small and medium-sized businesses with access to strategic and creative capabilities without the traditional overhead, leveraging technology for repeatable tasks and concentrating talent on strategy and ideas. Agency landscape sees major account shifts and recognition The media and creative agency market is undergoing significant shifts, highlighted by major account movements and industry awards. In New Zealand, Publicis Media and Together led new business in the first half of 2026, tracking an estimated $US180 million in media spend, with Publicis Media recording $US22.8 million in net new business and retentions, and Together at $US50.8 million. Domestically, social-first agency Kill Boring Dead expanded its portfolio with SavourLife and Toscano, while The Media Store retained the RMIT University media account after a competitive pitch. Further demonstrating market activity, My Kitchen Rules announced new advertisers for its returning season, where sponsors historically outperformed industry benchmarks. These movements, alongside the MFA Awards recognising outstanding media strategy, underscore an industry adapting and re-wiring for new challenges. Evolving privacy regulations demand continuous tag governance California's new Senate Bill 690 (SB 690) amends the state’s Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) by shifting enforcement for "pen-register" violations from private lawsuits to the Attorney General. However, this change does not eliminate private litigation risk under CIPA's Section 631 for wiretapping and eavesdropping claims, which represent approximately two-thirds of CIPA filings. Consequently, continuous tag auditing and maintaining a historical record of consent proof remain critical to mitigate legal exposure and prove compliance to regulators. Tools like Tag Inspector are enhancing capabilities for granular consent condition auditing and server-side Google Tag Manager support. Furthermore, Enhanced Conversions leverages consented first-party data to improve conversion tracking accuracy and media audiences, offering a practical solution to measurement gaps caused by evolving privacy measures, potentially yielding 23% more conversions and a 10% drop in cost per conversion.
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#20260924
September 23 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Thursday 24 September
New Jersey imposes strict data broker obligations New Jersey has enacted A5328 into law, creating a new "data collector" category that impacts marketers operating within the state. Companies that sell or license personal data to a data broker may now be required to register as a data collector, incurring annual fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million depending on user data volume. Critically, the law also bans the sale of sensitive data entirely, without a consent exception, affecting data sharing agreements, monetization, and co-ops involving attributes like precise geolocation or health conditions. The public launch of New Jersey's data broker registry is targeted for April 1, 2027. Social media ad spend inefficient in low-attention formats Australian advertisers are reportedly losing 63 cents in every social media dollar on ads not actively watched, according to research from Amplified. The study found 70% of the average social media budget is concentrated in formats where about two-thirds of viewers disengage within three seconds of an ad appearing. Across social feeds, active attention averaged 2.4 to 2.8 seconds per impression, representing 21% to 24% of ad duration. The research indicates that placement has more impact on active attention than creative, with Snapchat delivering the highest levels at 7.8 seconds per impression. Agency models evolve with AI and consolidation The agency landscape is undergoing significant transformation, marked by both major infrastructure investments and a shift towards consolidated media solutions. WPP has opened Devon’s Point, a flagship 34,000 sq ft production hub in East London, integrating AI-powered virtual production and post-production to accelerate content delivery for global clients. Concurrently, Publicis Media led global new business rankings in H1 2026, generating $US3.24 billion, reflecting a broader trend where holding groups increasingly assign media business to bespoke, centralised solutions outside their global agency brands. Nine in ten US marketing agencies now use Generative AI, primarily for internal productivity and cost-cutting, though human accountability remains crucial for strategy, brand voice, and media spend. Google Ads expands AI-driven campaign capabilities Google Ads is enhancing its AI capabilities, with AI Briefs expanding globally to support audience targeting in Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. This feature, powered by Gemini, allows marketers to guide AI in their native language before campaigns launch. Additionally, Google is introducing new AI Max reporting for the Search Ads journey, offering a unified view to evaluate the strategic value of AI Max campaigns. Advertisers are also now guided on how to test AI Max against Dynamic Search Ads using experiments, signalling the latter's retirement in favour of AI Max.
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#20260923
September 22 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Wednesday 23 September
AI Reshapes Content Discovery and Ad Strategy Artificial intelligence is fundamentally altering how consumers discover content and how brands should approach advertising. Over one in four AI-generated answers to Australian consumers now cite YouTube content directly, positioning it as the sole video or social platform present across every tracked product category. This indicates AI models are becoming new gatekeepers of discovery, rewarding structured and authoritative content over mere follower counts. In advertising, research shows AI-generated ads perform better when they align with campaign intent and theme, with unnecessary AI use leading to consumer backlash. Meanwhile, Google continues to "AIfy" its Ads platform, increasingly automating controls via tools like PMax and AI Max, shifting the marketing focus from granular manual optimisation to setting goals and providing diverse assets. Despite this, AI referral traffic remains low for publishers, suggesting the immediate value lies in earning citations as a trusted source rather than direct clicks. Google's Deepening Role in Online Commerce Google is significantly expanding its direct involvement in online purchasing, automatically enabling native checkout for eligible products through AI Mode on Google Search and Gemini for merchants using Universal Commerce Protocol. This means retailers with compatible platforms, like Shopify, will have their products included by default unless they actively opt out, though Google states retailers retain full ownership of customer relationships and sales. This move coincides with the broader trend of retail media extending beyond retailer-owned properties onto the open web, leveraging first-party data for audience activation across display, connected TV, and social platforms. This evolution necessitates marketers to understand fragmented commerce journeys that span multiple digital environments, not just retailer sites, when planning retail media investments. Additionally, Google Discover is testing a "Dive deeper" feature that provides AI-generated topic overviews, which may further intermediate the path to publisher content. New Regulatory Pressures and Persistent Consent Challenges The regulatory landscape for data privacy continues to intensify, with new laws creating complex compliance requirements for marketers. California's Senate Bill 690 amends the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), shifting the authority to prosecute "pen-register" metadata tracking from private lawsuits to the Attorney General, yet wiretapping claims remain active, requiring continuous tag auditing and pre-consent proof. In New Jersey, a new data broker law introduces a "data collector" category, mandating registration and fees (from $5,000 to $1.5 million annually) for companies selling or licensing personal data to data brokers, and notably bans the sale of sensitive data entirely without exception. Despite the widespread use of Consent Management Platforms (CMPs), a study of 450 US websites found 79% still loaded at least one targeting or advertising tag after a user opted out, highlighting persistent issues with misconfigured CMPs, unmonitored tags, or incorrect firing sequences that expose organisations to compliance risk. AI Drives Evolution in Agency Value and Partnerships Artificial intelligence is set to dramatically reshape the agency business model, with automation potentially reducing fees for traditional Statement of Work (SOW) execution by 25-75% from July 2026, while increasing the value and cost of strategic work by 15-25%. This shift encourages agencies to embrace AI for efficiency and refocus on strategy, judgment, and governance. The acquisition of LiveRamp by Publicis Groupe further highlights this consolidation, raising concerns about data neutrality and advertiser control, especially for brands running Google Marketing Platform operations in-house, as the company controlling both media execution and identity infrastructure could complicate independent verification. This mirrors a broader commercial trend, exemplified by McDonald’s renewed investment in human customer service alongside digital ordering, suggesting that while AI drives efficiency, the strategic human element remains critical for true value delivery and addressing complex business problems beyond automated reports.
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#20260922
September 21 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Tuesday 22 September
Disney+ is now including ads in its Premium tier, signaling a major shift in streaming monetisation. Concurrently, marketing agencies face heightened pressure to prove direct commercial impact, moving beyond creative awards. Mergers and acquisitions continue to reshape the industry, with IVE Group acquiring place-based media company Motio. New research also highlights the emotional drivers in B2B purchasing, while warnings emerge about AI's potential to erode genuine human capabilities. Disney+ Introduces Ads to Premium Tier Disney+ has updated its subscriber agreement to incorporate "promotional content, sponsorships, and advertisements" before and after content playback across both its Standard and Premium subscription tiers. While mid-roll ads will be exclusive to the Standard tier, this move represents a significant pivot in the streaming platform's monetisation strategy, impacting the consumer value proposition. Previously marketed as ad-free, the change began impacting subscribers from June 2026, though Junior Mode content will remain exempt from advertising. This development creates new advertising inventory and alters audience expectations, potentially shifting advertiser strategies in the competitive streaming landscape. Agencies Must Prove Commercial Impact Client-side judges for the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards are strongly emphasising the need for agencies to demonstrate tangible commercial outcomes, rather than just creative brilliance. Senior marketers and CMOs are looking for campaigns with clear business objectives, sharp strategies, and hard evidence of results such as customer acquisition, loyalty, sales, market share, profitability, or long-term brand value. This focus extends beyond individual campaigns to how agencies invest in talent, build future skills, and ensure media strategy investment acts as a lever for growth. The demand for measurable impact underscores a critical shift towards accountability in agency partnerships. Marketing Firms Diversify Into Media Ownership The marketing services landscape continues to evolve with significant consolidation, as diversified marketing company IVE Group acquires place-based media company Motio for $20.7 million. This acquisition extends IVE's capabilities beyond the traditional creation and production of marketing communications into the direct ownership, delivery, and monetisation of media assets. Motio operates over 1,300 digital screens across approximately 1,000 national locations, providing IVE with a channel previously inaccessible to its clients and offering Motio's network access to a larger advertiser base. This move highlights a trend of marketing firms seeking to integrate media channels directly into their offerings to provide more comprehensive solutions. B2B Buying Driven by Emotion, Not Just Logic New research challenges the long-held belief that B2B purchasing decisions are purely rational, driven solely by product features and pricing. The study indicates that B2B buying is far more emotional and socially influenced, mirroring the cognitive biases and affective triggers that shape B2C consumer choices. This insight suggests that marketers often misunderstand their business customers by failing to leverage these human drivers in their professional lives. CMOs across industries, even those with mixed consumer and enterprise segments, should adapt their B2B marketing strategies to acknowledge and harness these emotional and social dynamics for more effective engagement and conversion. AI Risks Creating an Organisational 'Mirage' Experts are raising concerns about a potential "capability mirage" emerging from the rapid adoption of AI within organisations. A joint study warns that workplaces may appear highly competent due to polished AI-generated output, while the underlying real skills of employees quietly erode. This illusion of competence, where it becomes difficult to discern genuine understanding, can also lead to a breakdown of interpersonal trust essential for team functioning. Leaders are cautioned to actively avoid this mirage effect by focusing on cultivating true human capability and critical thinking alongside AI integration, rather than solely amplifying output.
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#20260921
September 20 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Monday 21 September
Today's briefing highlights significant shifts in data control and marketing strategy. The acquisition of LiveRamp by Publicis Groupe introduces new considerations for data neutrality and advertiser oversight, impacting Google Marketing Platform users. Meanwhile, Google is escalating its efforts to block data scrapers, affecting competitive intelligence and SEO tools. Marketers can enhance conversion tracking and bidding performance by leveraging Google's Enhanced Conversions with consented first-party data, while successful brands like Owala demonstrate how effective product design can fuel organic short-form creator marketing. Publicis acquisition reshapes data independence Publicis Groupe's acquisition of LiveRamp is poised to alter the landscape of data independence and advertiser control within the marketing ecosystem. While Publicis and LiveRamp assert continued neutrality, the integration of a critical identity resolution and audience definition provider into an agency holding company raises practical control concerns for advertisers. LiveRamp's RampID and Authenticated Traffic Solution support key workflows across the ecosystem, including Google PAIR clean-room matching in DV360. This consolidation means the same company could control both media execution and the underlying identity infrastructure, potentially complicating independent verification and influencing budget allocation through reporting paths and attribution logic. This mirrors prior regulatory scrutiny of large agency combinations focused on competitive concerns arising from agency scale and data infrastructure. Google intensifies blocking of data scrapers Google appears to be increasing its success in blocking AI scrapers, search scrapers, and third-party tracking tools, with notable changes observed around September 13th. This shift coincides with recent Google updates and methods to counter non-human behaviour in search results. Certain data collection tools have reported significant drops in data availability, with one vendor noting an 80% reduction in data from Google Search. While some major tools like Ahrefs and Semrush show signs of adapting, others like Sistrix are operating at a reduced data collection rate. This ongoing challenge for data providers suggests marketers relying on these tools for competitive intelligence or SEO analysis should exercise caution and verify data accuracy. Enhanced Conversions improve first-party data utilisation Marketers can leverage Google's Enhanced Conversions to bridge gaps in conversion tracking caused by browser restrictions and cross-device journeys. This feature uses consented first-party data, such as hashed email addresses or phone numbers, to accurately measure conversions that cookies alone might miss. When linked with Google Ads or Marketing Platform accounts, properties have reportedly seen a 23% lift in conversions and a 10% drop in cost per conversion. Enhanced Conversions also improves media audiences by enabling the building of Customer Match audiences in Google Analytics, providing a privacy-resilient approach to optimising bidding algorithms and attribution models. Product design fuels short-form creator marketing Owala's success in short-form creator marketing demonstrates how thoughtful product design can become a powerful marketing asset. The brand's FreeSip water bottle, developed over seven years, features easily demonstrable elements like dual drinking modes and a push-button cover, which are ideal for short-form video content. Creators naturally showcase these features, turning product education into engaging content. Beyond functional demonstrations, Owala builds a continuous creator system through colour releases, limited editions, and collaborations, giving creators ongoing reasons to feature the product. This strategy, combined with ambassador programmes and social listening, generates sustained attention and community engagement, moving beyond isolated sponsorships to a consistent presence across feeds.
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#20260920
September 19 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Sunday 20 September
Meta is mandating greater reliance on its AI for ad placements, reshaping campaign control for marketers. Simultaneously, new privacy regulations in New Jersey introduce significant data collector registration fees and an outright ban on selling sensitive data, demanding immediate re-evaluation of data sharing practices. In retail, AI-driven product matching is emerging as a critical tool to combat choice friction and boost e-commerce conversions. Meta Mandates Automated Ad Placements Meta is removing advertisers' ability to exclude individual placements at the ad set level on Facebook and Instagram, pushing for greater adoption of Advantage+ Placements. This change is rolling out universally for most accounts, compelling marketers to rely on Meta's algorithm to decide where ads appear for optimal delivery. While account-level controls for excluding networks (like Audience Network) remain, the shift reduces granular control for the majority of advertisers. Categorised industries such as enterprise healthcare and financial services retain more placement options due to compliance requirements, but others are encouraged to embrace Meta's AI, which the company claims consistently yields better results and higher-quality leads than manual selection. New Jersey Introduces Data Collector Registration New Jersey's new A5328 law creates a unique "data collector" category, requiring companies that sell or license personal data to a data broker to register. This includes brands with direct customer relationships, with registration fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million annually based on user data volume. Critically, the law also imposes an outright ban on selling sensitive data—including precise geolocation, health, or financial information—with no consent exception, impacting existing data sharing agreements and monetization strategies. Marketers operating in the state must assess their MarTech stacks against data broker registries and re-evaluate practices to avoid significant compliance costs and legal risks. AI-Guided Discovery Boosts E-commerce Conversion New AI tools like GuidelyPro.AI are emerging to address "choice friction" in e-commerce, where extensive product catalogues overwhelm shoppers and lead to bounces. This product match engine for Shopify and WooCommerce stores uses short, guided flows of three to five steps to ask relevant questions, match answers to live inventory, and return a tailored shortlist with explanations. By transforming product discovery into a conversation, the platform aims to increase engagement, add-to-cart rates, conversion, and average order value. Analytics track attributed revenue within a session-based window after interaction, offering a tangible solution for merchants struggling with conversion leaks in preference-led or complex product categories. Quality Over Quantity Critical Amidst Social Media Saturation The social media landscape is reaching a saturation point, with over 5.5 billion global users and declining engagement rates highlighting audience overwhelm. The rapid pace of trend culture and a flood of AI-generated "slop" content contribute to this challenge, making it impossible for consumers to engage with all they see. As human screen attention spans have dropped significantly, marketers are pressured to produce more content across more platforms, often exacerbating the noise. This environment necessitates a strategic pivot from creating content for content's sake to focusing on high-quality, relevant content that genuinely earns audience attention and cuts through the unprecedented volume.
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#20260919
September 18 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Saturday 19 September
The retail media landscape is expanding beyond owned properties onto the open web, requiring marketers to understand fragmented commerce journeys. Concurrently, social media engagement is shifting towards private, authentic interactions over public follower counts. Regulatory scrutiny on data usage intensifies as new data broker laws in New Jersey introduce registration requirements and outright bans on selling sensitive data. Retail media extends to the open web Retail media is no longer confined to retailer-owned platforms, with audiences now activated across display, connected television, and social channels. Marketers face the challenge of navigating fragmented commerce journeys where discovery and conversion occur across multiple environments. The value proposition of retail media is increasingly tied to the first-party purchase data used for audience selection and linking exposure to subsequent commerce activity, rather than solely where the advertisement appears. This evolution means that while retailer data remains valuable, understanding broader commerce touchpoints beyond proprietary websites is critical for planning, blurring lines with conventional programmatic advertising. Social media shifts towards private and authentic engagement Social media is witnessing a significant shift from public, performance-driven feeds to private, connection-led spaces. Snapchat's "Reset Velocity" model indicates a movement, particularly among Gen Z and Millennials, towards genuine sharing in trusted, smaller environments. This trend is further supported by the growing importance of content discoverability over traditional follower counts, as algorithms increasingly prioritise relevance. Brands must adapt by building bonding capital in private channels and optimising for genuine connection, recognising that a majority of content views can now come from non-followers based on algorithmic recommendations. Google ad tech faces behavioral remedies and oversight Following a monopoly ruling, Google will implement significant behavioural changes in its ad tech business, under the supervision of a third-party Monitor and Technical Committee for a six-year term. These remedies include mandatory data-sharing provisions to level the playing field, a ban on discriminatory bidding practices favouring Google's own products, and a requirement to integrate its ad exchange with rival publisher ad servers. This outcome, which avoids a structural breakup of Google’s ad tech division, aims to open the market to fair competition and prevent monopolistic tactics. Generative AI integrates into commercial production Commercial filmmakers are increasingly incorporating generative AI tools directly into live production pipelines for agencies, production companies, and post-houses. Specialists like The Fourthe are using AI to execute full-service campaigns, including character animation and stylised product environments, and to solve versioning challenges by extending existing footage to create new variants without reshoots. This integration supports high-risk creative concepts, rescues shots, and enables flexible, embedded generative units for complex demands, demonstrating a shift towards more efficient and adaptable commercial content creation processes. New data broker laws increase compliance burden New Jersey’s A5328 introduces a novel "data collector" category, impacting companies that sell or license personal data to data brokers, including brands with direct customer relationships. This law mandates registration, with annual fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million depending on user data volume. Crucially, the legislation also enacts a ban on the sale of sensitive data, such as racial origin, religious beliefs, or precise geolocation, without any consent exception. Marketers must reassess data sharing agreements and monetization strategies involving sensitive attributes to ensure compliance.
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#20260918
September 17 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Friday 18 September
Executive summary Generative AI is redefining marketing roles and content strategies, demanding new skills and quality outputs amidst increasing social media saturation. Simultaneously, marketers face escalating data privacy compliance needs with new regulations and platform shifts in ad placement and integrated commerce experiences. Australia's creative sector also sees a shift towards multi-skilled talent. AI reshapes marketing roles and content strategies Marketing has changed more in the past year than in the decade before it due to generative AI, impacting the buyer's journey, tools, and job roles. The shift from content creation to content engineering is evident, moving from content creation to designing systems that produce good articles. New AI-native marketing job titles like 'ai marketing director' and 'marketing ai engineer' have appeared since 2025. 80% of marketers now use AI for content creation, employing it for tasks like drafting copy, brainstorming ideas, and personalising messaging at scale, though results still require reality checks and testing. Intensified data privacy compliance demands New regulatory landscapes are emerging, with New Jersey's new data broker law creating a "data collector" category. This requires companies that sell or license personal data to a data broker to register and potentially pay annual fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million. The law also bans the sale of sensitive data, including precise geolocation and financial information, without a consent exception. In Australia, upcoming privacy reforms will mandate transparency for automated decisions and introduce stronger consent standards, placing marketing teams at the centre of data governance. Despite many websites having a Consent Management Platform, 79% of audited US websites still loaded targeting or advertising tags after a user opted out, highlighting persistent compliance challenges from misconfigured systems or unmonitored tags. Platform control shifts in advertising Meta is increasingly moving advertisers towards Advantage+ Placements by removing manual placement controls at the ad set level, with tests showing this typically leads to better results and higher-quality leads, and approximately 60% of ad spend flowing to Instagram. Concurrently, Amazon is consolidating its media ecosystem, integrating premium entertainment (such as Prime Video, which reaches 5.5 million ad-supported Australians monthly, and live sport) with commerce, first-party audience data, and AI-powered tools. This push aims to simplify the advertiser experience and enhance measurability, offering new formats like Dynamic TV Creative and location-based interactive CTV ads to bridge content with shopping behaviour. Social media saturation demands quality over volume The social media landscape is marked by significant saturation, with over 5.5 billion people worldwide using social media and average attention spans for screen content dropping to 47 seconds in 2023. Brands are posting an average of 9.5 times daily across networks, intensifying content production pressures. This saturation is exacerbated by a flood of AI-generated "slop" content, with platforms like LinkedIn seeing over 1 million flags for such content in under a month. To break through this noise, marketers must pivot from creating content for content’s sake to focusing on quality, attention-earning strategies that resonate with audiences. Australia's creative sector talent needs evolve Australia's creative industry is undergoing a significant talent shift, characterised by a reduction in available roles alongside an increase in candidate supply. There is a growing demand for multi-skilled talent proficient across brand, digital, design, and motion, while traditional, non-hands-on creative director positions are seeing the sharpest drop. The market favours performance marketers who own spend and revenue, content leaders capable of end-to-end strategy and production, and graphic designers with animation skills and AI fluency. This indicates a broader move towards leaner, broader-skilled teams and flatter organisational structures, with some finished art roles decreasing by 2.3% year-on-year.
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#20260910
September 9 · 3 min
Executive Briefing: Thursday 10 September
Executive Summary Today's briefing highlights significant shifts in marketing automation, agency operations, and privacy compliance. Google is further automating search campaigns with AI Max, while Havas is bolstering creative production with a new AI-powered arm. New Jersey's data broker law introduces complex compliance requirements, and Halo Collar's retail expansion provides a blueprint for D2C brands leveraging first-party data. Additionally, OpenAI's latest image generation advancements offer immediate efficiencies for creative teams. Google Ads AI Max automates search campaigns Google is automatically migrating eligible Search campaigns to AI Max, reducing marketers' direct control over keywords, creative, and landing page management. This evolution suggests a future where granular, manual optimisation tasks are increasingly handled by AI, compelling marketing professionals to shift their focus from tactical execution to overarching strategy. Mark Ritson posits that this automation is the natural progression of digital marketing, effectively freeing marketers to concentrate on higher-level strategic thinking rather than routine operational duties. This change necessitates a re-evaluation of team skill sets and budget allocation in search marketing, as campaigns are increasingly governed by algorithmic decision-making rather than human intervention. Havas launches AI-powered creative production arm Havas has established POP Australia, its first Asia-Pacific centre for the AI-powered global production network Prose on Pixels (POP). This initiative integrates traditional craft with advanced AI capabilities, including proprietary Gen-AI platform Vermeer.ai and Havas' Converged.AI system, to enhance creative output within existing budgets and tighter timelines. The move directly addresses client pressure to scale creative work across diverse audiences and markets without increasing complexity or cost, enabling ambitious ideas that were previously constrained. Raoni Lima, appointed Head of Creative Technology, emphasises using technology selectively to extend creative and commercial possibilities, while maintaining human oversight of craft and intent. New Jersey's data broker law expands compliance obligations New Jersey's new A5328 data broker law, largely effective immediately, introduces a unique "data collector" category that requires businesses selling or licensing personal data to a data broker to register and pay annual fees ranging from $5,000 to $1.5 million. Critically, the law bans the sale of sensitive data entirely, without a consent exception, impacting existing data sharing agreements and monetization strategies involving categories like precise geolocation or health information. While enforcement for registration is paused until spring 2027, companies are advised to inventory their MarTech stack against data broker registries and re-evaluate data processing terms to mitigate significant legal and financial risks. Halo Collar details D2C-to-retail expansion strategy High-tech pet collar brand Halo Collar is rapidly expanding its physical retail footprint to over 2,000 stores next year, leveraging a sophisticated first-party data strategy to drive both awareness and sales. The brand analyses customer data, including pet movements and owner demographics, integrating it with third-party data sources like Equifax to create tailored ad campaigns on platforms such as Amazon and Meta. With a current unaided brand awareness of 17%, Halo Collar plans substantial investment in live sports advertising and doubling its monthly creator partnerships to 200, aiming for 25-30% awareness to support its retail growth and increase in-store product demand. OpenAI boosts ChatGPT image generation for creative workflows OpenAI has released ChatGPT Images 2.5, significantly enhancing creative capabilities with up to 50% faster generation times, improved image fidelity, and more precise editing. New features include a Sketch tool for drawing directly in ChatGPT and templates for popular image formats like posters and product photos, alongside comment-based editing for focused revisions. For developers, two new API models, GPT-Image-2.5 Flare and Sunburst, offer similar quality and speed improvements, with Sunburst providing extra precision for detailed creative work, directly impacting the efficiency and quality of creative asset production for marketing and design teams.
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