Opinion

What the industry wants to talk about right now

In this outtake of The Weekend Mumbo newsletter, Mumbrella's Damian Francis takes a deep dive into this year's Mumbrella360 submissions, and what the industry wants to hear.

Each year I get asked about Mumbrella360 submissions. What were they like? What do they suggest about the industry? How many were there? So here is some insight into the 2023 Mumbrella360 submissions. Let’s dive in.

The stats are in

I’ll back up and explain what I’m talking about for those that don’t know.

Mumbrella360 has been running for more than ten years now. It’s the largest media and marketing conference in Australia, attracting handfuls of international speakers and local talent.

Each year, towards the end of the year, we put the call out for session submissions from the industry and duly receive a substantial amount of entries.

We have about 60 spots for industry submitted sessions. This year we received over 200 submissions.

Each submission consists of a detailed summary and snappy headline. Some are more detailed and snappy than others.

From this, it’s possible to get a very good idea of what the industry thinks is an important topic currently and whether they have any findings to share or just want to highlight the issue. The former is always more interesting, of course.

Furthermore, it’s always fascinating to see which sectors of the industry are currently more vocal than others. It chops and changes. From one year to another it could be creatives, buyers, media owners or platforms. I’m waiting for the day it might be consultancies. Not this year, alas.

This year was the year of the brand and agency, particularly creative agencies. By far the most submissions came from them. We also had a lack of submissions (comparatively speaking) from media owners. If anyone in media owner land would care to let me know why, please drop me a line.

Below are some of the trends that could be found in the submissions for this year’s Mumbrella360 conference.

The death of the metaverse and the rise of AI

Thankfully for Mark Zuckerburg, success in technology investment is not determined by the session submissions for Mumbrella360. Only two submissions were received around the metaverse. US$5 billion per submission?

They focused on the fact that the metaverse that was promised doesn’t exist yet and how to launch a brand into the metaverse. Moving on.

Artificial intelligence, however, did feature heavily, rather unsurprisingly. Thankfully not every one of the 13 sessions submitted on the topic featured ChatGPT in the headline. The term ‘AI’ itself was used 89 times through submissions.

Photo by Rolf van Root on Unsplash

The key ideas around AI which flowed through the majority of these sessions where the fact that the industry has not mastered it, mass take up won’t result in mass redundancies, there will be cost efficiencies for agencies, and that AI will change the game for marketers but it requires our industry to become more accomplished in using it.

DE&I is important, demographics not so much

Prior to the pandemic the portal would be flooded with session ideas on the demographics that brands were ignoring. Or how to attract the biggest crowd in a particular demographic which the submitting agency, brand or media owner argued was the most important at the time.

From silver surfers to Gen Z and millennials, migrant cohorts to advertising to children, there was always a demographic where someone had found the golden key to grabbing their attention.

Not so much this year. Just two submissions. One of which contained the alarming fact that apparently there’s a 94% chance you’re not marketing to Gen-Z correctly.

Photo by Shingi Rice on Unsplash

Diversity, equity and inclusion, however, is where the conversation has flowed to, with 14 session submissions on the topic.

On a positive note, the sessions that were being submitted were very much about action and results of action as opposed to another conversation about how the industry needed to think more about DE&I – although we did have one or two of those submissions.

Again, positively speaking, the conversation has spread into a variety of areas of DE&I, including accessibility and ability, First Nations Australians, LGBTQIA+ topics and more.

In 2018 we heard Mat Baxter talk about ditching the pitch. There is a chance (we’re still crunching the numbers and sifting through the sessions) that we will hear about tearing up the brief this year if it doesn’t have inclusivity baked in.

Podcasting is still the flavour of the month… or year

In late April, Mumbrella is running its Audioland conference. As the name suggests, it’s a day dedicated to the audio sector of the advertising industry. By far, the highest number of pitches come from industry execs that want to talk about podcasting.

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Perhaps not surprising. Depending on who you talk to, the business model around podcasting is growing (at varying rates depending on who you talk to), but it’s growing nonetheless. The latest statistics from the Podsights Benchmark Australian Report (disclaimer – that is done by Magellan AI in conjunction with the iHeart Podcast Network Australia) showed ad spend up 53% year on year.

We received nine submissions on podcasting. Everything from creating great ads to sit next to podcasts to creating podcasts that are “less shit.” Being less shit is good.

Our sustainable behaviour

To round out, the final two big topics come as no shock. Sustainability and behaviour. I’ll focus on the latter first.

When I first started doing event content at Mumbrella, there were perhaps two people who regularly wanted to talk about consumer behaviour. Adam Ferrier and Dan Monheit. Of course there were other experts, but they were the two that pitched some mighty good ideas for various events. Ferrier, of course, curated the Mumbrella MSIX (Marketing Sciences Ideas Exchange) conference for a number of years.

Now though, it seems the industry has bought into the importance to the extent that they are willing to share the findings on stage. Seven session submissions for this topic.

One in particular focused on behavioural economics, asking the question, “Should behavioural economics be weaponised against consumers?” I enjoyed the final part of the summary, admitting that should the session get up and this speaker have to deliver it in public, their employer would likely take quite a dim view of it.

Mumbrella360 is apparently worth ending your career for.

As for sustainability – colour me shocked. Eight session submissions.

Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash

“Did you know that a single digital ad impression produces around one gram of CO2?” wrote one submission. “When you multiply that by the trillions of ad impressions generated each year it is having a devastating impact on our climate.”

A fair point if that fact is indeed true. Hearteningly, the majority of session pitches around sustainability drew it back to business opportunity and revenue growth. Because let’s be honest, it’s much easier to get sustainability drives past the CFO if there is a growth or revenue strategy behind them. Call me a cynic.

To bad, so sad

When there are winners, there are also losers. A few years ago these topics would have been attracting submissions in the double digits. Alas now, the most they have is two.

Could this be the death of conference conversation on big data, SEO, influencers (yes, only two submissions focusing purely on influencers) and programmatic advertising (OK, to be fair, it is somewhat amazing people still want to dedicate an entire session to programmatic)?

If submissions are anything to go by, then yes.

The fact that even the most popular topics topped out around the 14 submissions mark shows that there is significant breadth in discussion this year. Our industry is diverse, if nothing else.

Damian Francis is editorial director at Mumbrella.

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