Optus’ new roster: Why these agencies? Where are the brands headed? What does it mean for a new CMO? The impact for Telstra

good article

Fantastic analysis.

Also worth noting, DT had Optus Digital business too.

That was comprehensive! Well done.

Feel bad for Ogilvy, they needed a win. Also for M&C.

But, massive congrats to all the other agencies.

I’m sure Thrive love being referred to as vanilla.

So TBWA staff embedded in the MAUD office are privy to Monkeys Telstra work across the gyprock wall? That’s not going to work very well at all. Except if your are TBWA..

Edge also used to handle some of their social.

nice, quick, quality work guys

Great read. Glad it was a quiet Friday.

Fascinating article. The winning agencies have to sell something, but the Roy Morgan research shows that Optus doesn’t have a truly compelling price or coverage proposition. As a result, it’s hard to know what the company stands for. Maybe that’s why the Ricky Gervais ads work so well. It’s advertising for advertising’s sake.

Re: ‘in marketing terms, the main challenge for Telstra is that there’s not much wrong with it’, I think the bar you’re setting is way too low. If you were to ask Telstra customers, you’d learn a lot about what’s wrong. Even if the company’s Net Promoter Score improved significantly in the Thodey era, it couldn’t have gotten much worse.

All advertising people are all of a sudden all over the ‘narrative’ and ‘power of advocacy’… Something PR has been all over for the longest time. While I admire Eleven’s flashy work, which I think will really suit Virgin, this telecoms market is a long game and it’s not about making a splash for Optus, it’s about seriously challenging the market leader. A focused, methodical, (yet still creative) approach is what’s required to attract and sustain big customer groups that get upset easily. ESP at a local level, where issues can’t be dealt with by ads or stunts, but local relationships and hyper local responses and fostering social community. Good on you, Thrive. Not all of us that work on these big telecoms win our clients confidence with Cannes-coveting stunts… It’s often about impressing the everyday individual – and that impression is bankable. Also, with everyone being an ‘influencer’ these days, there will be a time when it reverts back to not buying this opinion, because many begin to lose authenticity. The management of all influencers will be the future of PR.

The Warren campaign you have mentioned here was great as was 5c the Rapper done by Matty and Dave. The Jason Donovan – remember that? That was great done by Matt and James. All of these campaigns of course we’re written at Glue Society under the watchful eye of JK. Then there was a bit of silence until The guys wrote Doug Pitt under Steve Coll. Then nothing. (Game of Phones is so/so in my book).
It’s a great brand – set up early on with innovative, PR led ideas – Glue were doing this how long ago – 15yrs?.
It’s time it got its mojo back. At the moment Amaysim is doing the kind of cut through work Virgin used to and there isn’t much else out there apart from Ricky Jervais in a bath tub.

Great summary Mumbrella team. Nice to have a bit of longer form to read on a Saturday morning.

That last comment is pretty ‘Vanilla”…… who do you think it was written by…..

In a category as volatile as telco, I would’ve thought M&C’s retention of any of Optus’ business was an amazing achievement. I think its the 5th time they’ve had to pitch for the business. I’d be interested to know of any other agency who’s been able to defend an account 5 times. So, regardless of whether their remit has diminished, or not, congratulations M&C for still being there.

Montague Tigg, Optus is rubbish and Gervais is not

@crossingthestreams

I get it. You know that TBWA and 3M work in the same building. How delightful you get to make this point.

But in reality, it’s a non-issue. No agency is interested to slipping ‘secrets’ (oooh advertising secrets, look out) to the other.

More importantly, no agency would really want to ask for them. It’s childish, could ruin your career and in all honestly doesnt really help that much. I don’t think either would care.

I’ve been in an agency where our bigger client’s competitor’s agency left important documents in a third party’s office that we were then in (for completely diff client). We picked it up, flipped through it, had a laugh then turned to the old Vogue magazines.

It’s just stupid to even think anyone cares about espionage. Not in the real world. It’s poor ROI.

“…adland’s most populist creative Ted Horton”

The advertising for Coles is some of the most hated in the country, so could you please point out Ted Hortens more ‘populist’ ads?

@I really hope that Virgin Mobile does some great work again,

I was there for some of the work you mentioned, and it was a real treat to work with respectful marketers who truly deserved the great work (and results) they got.

But like all great work, the briefs always included a clear benefit – our texts are 5¢ or we promise to treat you fairly. For me, their best ads were the ones you could imagine Richard Branson writing himself, cheeky, irreverent, played with a straight face. The latest crop of advertising has tried way too hard to be funny or cool. Way too hard.

Hopefully they get back on track as they’ve always been a shining light when it comes to Australian advertising.

@ Reader, the ‘digital business’ that sits outside brand marketing wasn’t part of the pitch. DT continue to play a role there.

Can someone please clarify who actually came up with the creative idea for the Gervais campaign – was it M&C or Emotive? This story infers it was the latter. I was always under the impression M&C came up with the creative idea and Emotive produced it and did the social strategy/implementation.

The Gervais campaign has an idea behind it?

I thought it was just another example of the old advertising maxim: ‘if you haven’t got anything to say, get someone famous to say it for you’.

@ hmmmm

The Gervais campaign has an idea?

I thought it was just another example of the old advertising maxim: “If you don’t have anything to say, get someone famous to say it for you.”

As Ted knows all too well, the other option is to sing the brief.

It’s not really fair to call Thrive a “vanilla” PR agency.
If you need to outsource somebody to ring journalists to ask if they got the press release, they’re the best…

you seem to have missed the part that the Optus account to UM makes no money. UM needed a win so badly, they accepted a contract from Optus that makes no money. Well done to UM.