Mumbrella360 live blog: Thursday, June 5
Welcome to Mumbrella’s live blog, coming to you today from the Hilton Hotel Sydney, with rolling coverage of everything you need to know from day 2 of Mumbrella360. Refresh the page for the latest updates.
Top stories:
- The Australian editor takes aim at Fairfax and will retire when he has a successor
- DDB global creative chief says Matt Eastwood will miss creative culture when he moves to JWT
- Marketers pissed off by undisclosed media rebates and jargon
- Outdoor bosses tell agencies to move beyond the gimmicks
- What is the best way to measure PR value?
- Australia more like Russia than US in social video space
- Essay: Advice form a P-plate practitioner
6:02pm – And that’s a wrap. Tim Burrowes draws the conference to a close and we’re all off to The Star for the Mumbrella Awards. Follow @mumbrella @nicchristensen @adnh103 and @mirandaleigh30 on Twitter to find updates of the winners and all the gossip.
Thanks for everyone who came along, and all the speakers on what’s been an entertaining couple of days.
6:00pm – Who has the greatest potential to disrupt your business?
Scott: Our competitors are now anyone with stories to tell. Our opportunity is to tell Australian stories better than anyone else.
Bateman: Google.
Horgan: Technology and data companies and research companies have the ability to change our tack.
Gohil: Management consultants, they’re a lot smarter than agencies.
5:58pm – What jobs are going to become obsolete in next 5 years and which created?
Gohil: Digital departments in creative agencies
Horgan: Administrative departments
Scott: Our production areas, there are a lot of people who now come with all the skills
Bateman: Rely on people who work to collaborate with people.
5:57pm – Gohil: “You’ve got to lead by example. It’s one thing say to people have flexible hours, but if you never do it you’re not setting an example.”
He points to the Comms Council research on it, and the programs they have put in place ike Male Champions of Change.
5:54pm – Horgan: There is an imbalance in our corner of the industry. “At the MFA there’s not a board meeting that goes by without talking about promoting the gender balance. It’s actually skewed to the female side, even in executives, but of major agencies there is only one CEO who’s a woman.
“That period through your 30s where your career does rocket coincides with choice to start a family or not. We’re in a service business and at the beck and call of clients.”
5:52pm – Bateman admits “I do it badly. When I’m at home I’m often on the phone and email, but then so are they. There’s no such thing as work life balance, that’s bullshit. Today I worked from home, I can choose to do that. But you’ve got to be able to turn off.
“We can only do one thing at a time, and I’m not very good at it, but I try and turn the phone off when I’m at home and put it in a cupboard. Do one thing at a time, trying to balance is the wrong idea.”
5.51pm – Scott says he has more flexibility in his career in where he needs to be and what he needs to do, says his wife runs a school in Sydney, and adds “we’ve just muddled our way through”.
On diversity in the industry he says 4 of 5 divisions delivering ABC content are run by women, but says you need to give people “flexibility to deliver the outcomes you have agreed in the way they can”.
5.50pm – Next question from the floor is how the all male panel balances home and family life?
5:48pm – Horgan points to the anti-siphoning laws restricting Foxtel’s growth and says it is less about linear and more about micropayments, but we need a way where people don’t get bill shock.
But, “in a subscription world where does advertising live?”
5:47pm – Gohil looks at strategy problem, points to like of Australians to stick it to the man, but says there needs to be more accessible ways to get content, and it ends up with the “American style model of the haves and the have nots, but not in healthcare, with GOT, which is kind of sad”.
5:45pm – Scott rebuts: “Foxtel is making far more money than the free networks combined, they’re being aggressive in their acquisitions and it’s the most expensive subscription service in the world. You need to pay $700 a year to watch Game of Thrones, if people could pay $3 per view people would pay it.”
5:42pm – Bateman talks about Telstra, which half owns Foxtel, as being in the TV business. “You’ve got to serve your customers. If Game of Thrones becomes available, and the highest pirating is in WA, the time delay shows the demand is there. People don;t want to cheat. They would prefer if it was free, and the challenge for media providers is to create the perfect triangle of the right content on the right network and devices at the right time.”
“They need to see it through a consumer lens and put the content where people want it when they want it”.
5:40pm – Scott cites example of Doctor Who and how they lost viewers by having to wait 12 hours, and overcame it by striking an online deal with the BBC to broadcast it instantly. “When audience demands are met, monetisation strategies will follow”.
5:39pm – First question from the floor is about torrenting and streaming of video content – and how people can still monetise it.
5:36pm – Horgan talks about the race to the bottom and servicing models which do not hold credibility. “You can go on one of two paths during the race which will not have you in a good position, and working with entities that will try and bleed you financially”.
He says the agencies must focus on existing relationships, “make themselves more indispensible” and be selective about who you go after, while offering more services.
5:34pm – Gohil looks at competition from the agency perspective, and points to amount of criticism in the industry which breeds a “toxic competitive spirit”. Salutes M&C Saatchi for its Clever Buoy idea.
5:31pm – Scott talks about “loud critics” of the ABC, and points to surveys showing they are most trusted organisation in the country. “When you have some newspaper columnists and talkback announcers wanting to say you are not working in the public interest one of the things we have to think is how much we want to engage with that. And by and large we don’t want to engage too much. It’s important for us not to dictate to someone else’s agenda.”
“No editor of News Corp has ever gotten into trouble for going too hard on the ABC”, but says they must stick to the charter, not criticism.
On hiring of two The Australian journos in the corporate affairs department recently Scott said that is to do with having good stories which need to be told.
5:28pm – Andy Bateman talks about competition, describes a “disturbance in the force” as Optus upped its data limits. “It caused me to reflect on the market for data. We’ve all got smartphones not really phoning all that much. Data consumption is growing at 150% a year – we can’t monetise that. So what does leadership around data look like?”
“We’ve got to be constantly on the balcony and the dancefloor,” as they have to look as a retailer and service provider.
5:24pm – Scott talks about yesterday’s agreement with China, describes it as a landmark deal with them, and gives the ABC a .cn site in China. They Chinese are looking to Western Markets to understand how to make entertainment content.
Says there are no restrictions on what content they can show in China, and describes it as “one of the biggest deals we’ve been able to do in 80 years” of trying to get Aussie content to other countries.
“I think they drew the line at Rake”, he said.
5:23pm – Same question to Gohil – Pitching, lots of pitching, planning and mapping the next 3-5 years, and talking to new clients.
5:22pm – What have you been thinking about this week? Peter Horgan has been thinking of his holiday, had a meeting with his regional bosses from Singapore.
5:19pm – Sudeep Gohil tackles the question, and cites his move to properly being the CEO of Droga5. He argues against Tim Burrowes planners do make CEOs because “all their career has been about understanding problems, and you have to care about people”.
5:16pm – Same question to Peter Horgan – “We’ve seen an acceleration of budgets moving to performance always on strategies, and that allows us to move the conversation on. Media agencies lament we’re undervalued, it allows us to move the conversation to the application of data and not revenue.” “Th rate of acceleration has been notable this year”.
5:13pm – Same question to Mark Scott – “We now the budget cut is coming, and it focuses the mind”. “People who face cuts need to know you have a sense of the direction you’re going in, and I find the organisation has to keep staff plugged in and tell them as much as you can.”
5:12pm – Andy Bateman talks about what the biggest changes are this year. “I don’t have to be right anymore, I don;t have to solve the problems myself, I have to bring the right people in to do that.”
5.10pm – The final session of the conference is Question Time, and we’ve got Andy Bateman (Telstra), Mark Scott (MD- ABC), Peter Horgan (MFA and OMD) and Sudeep Gohil (Comms Council and Droga5) on the stage.
4:45pm –Earlier today ProBlogger Darren Rowse gave a talk on Blogging for Brands to a packed audience in the main room, setting Twitter into a frenzy of blog love.
4:35pm – Some of the last sessions are on stage now, with Adam Ferrier talking about whether consumer psychology is ready for advertising, and Merrick Watts upstairs talking on radio promotions.
4:28pm – Earlier today we had the Live Pitch, pitting agencies against each other on a brief for Screen Australia. However fashion choices and comparisons between judge Claudia Karvan and Todd Sampson were some of the main talking points, according to Dr Mumbo. RAPP won the competition, but you can find out more here.
4:02pm – Earlier today Travis Johnson from Mnet outlined the state of the mobile market. So here we detail The Future, and What You Need to do About it.
3:19pm – Nic Hodges takes to the stage to explain why agencies shouldn’t act like startups.
2.09pm – Well the panel has hit the stage for our session on ‘How to talk to Women’. Below you have L:R Mindshare’s Katie Rigg-Smith, Commbank’s Monique Macleod, Priceline Amanda Connors, Bauer’s Deborah Thomas and Women’s Weekly editor-in-chief Helen McCabe. 
1.41pm – This is a big story here at Mumbrella360. Nielsen and the IAB has given its first insight into its mobile and tablet panel data. Read all the results here.
1.34pm – The ABC has dismissed criticism of its deal with China’s Shanghai Media Group (SMG) after the two organisations signed an agreement to establish an online portal for its content in China. Full story here.
12:42pm – In the most interactive session so far of 360 Rob Pyne got the audience talking to collaborate on how to be better at collaboration. Excellent.
11:51am – Today also sees the GroupM MGrad program happening, introducing students to the world of media and marketing. They’ve been breaking the ice with Tim ‘Rosso’ Ross, and some pretty interesting revelations.
11:23am – We grabbed a quick word with DDB’s global creative head Amir Kassaei after his keynote this morning, and he said outgoing DDB New York chief, Aussie Matt Eastwood, will “miss the creative culture” at the agency as he moves to JWT.
11:02am – Ray Kloss from SAP delivered a talk this morning on the New Rules of Customer Engagement, and how to manage it at scale.
10:41am – PHD has created Nextival, a comedy panel show looking at what we can expect from the future, using planners and celebs to give their insights into what’s coming down the track.
(l-r) Sam Mac, Al Crawford, Sarah Wilson, Chris Stephenson, Paul Murray, Stewart Gurney, Russ Mitchinson
10:38am – TV ratings are in, and Seven’s comedy The Goldbergs held up ok on its first outing, but When Love Comes to Town bombed for Nine, getting just over 500,000 viewers.
10:22am – The Yahoo!7 Digital Stars got to spend some time with Amir Kassaei after he gave his keynote and quiz him on the industry, and why we should do good.
9:48am – One of the most revealing sessions yesterday was The Australian’s editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell talking about when he will retire, the papers place at News Corp, and having a massive swipe at rivals Fairfax. See the full story here.
9:16am – DDB’s Amir Kassaei has been on stage entertaining and educating the audience this morning around why influence trumps everything for brands.
9:05am – In non-Mumbrella360 related happenings Mike Spirkovski has been unveiled as the new ECD for Saatchi & Saatchi, replacing Damon Stapleton.
8:37am – Media agencies came under fire for rumoured magical rebates being offered to clients from TV execs and a panel of top marketers yesterday. That panel, which featured Westfield’s John Batistitch, Michael Burgess of Weight Watchers, Mark Reinke from Suncorp and James Sykes of Beam Global, had some harsh words for agencies doing that.
8:27am –Yesterday one of the final sessions looked at measuring PR value, and how that is best achieved. We’ve knocked together a summary of the talking points from the session which featured some of the top PR practitioners in the country.
8:10am – Morning all, and welcome along to day two of Mumbrella360. Yesterday had some great speakers, and today we’ve got highlights including DDB’s Amir Kassaei keynoting, gameshow Nextival Live and some fascinating insights from the new IAB Mobile study. And that’s all before 10.30am. Stay tuned.
Many thanks to Mark Scott [5.31pm] for explaining to the Government, the ABC Board and Australian taxpayers why the only agenda that is important to our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster is his.
Very reassuring to hear that Mr Scott is at least accountable to himself.
User ID not verified.
Well said Jock. The “most trusted organisation” line is starting to wear a bit thin – he keeps rolling that one out so he doesn’t have to talk about viewing figures.
And why is it when he’s asked about the ABC he always ends up talking about News Corp? Is this his only vision for the Corporation – that it should aspire to be an antidote to News Corp?
User ID not verified.