KPMG on the acquisition trail | Ten in trading halt | New ECD at DDB | Airbnb cleared by watchdog over equality ad | The challenges of Gen Z and declining revenues

[View Newsletter Online]( [Mumbrella Newsletter]( IAG’s first CMO to speak at the Mumbrella Finance Marketing Summit Recently appointed as IAG Group’s first ever CMO, Brent Smart, former CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi in New York and winner of more than 30 Cannes Lions and 40 effectiveness awards, will tackle the convention that the insurance and finance world is hampered by low interest products. There is less than one month to take advantage of earlybird rates – [book today.]( News [Ten goes into ASX trading halt as financial woes grow]( Financially troubled TV broadcaster Ten Network has this morning gone into a trading halt on the ASX. The move came after it was reported over the weekend that the three backers of Ten’s expiring $200m loan facility had declined to extend their backing beyond the end of the year. [READ MORE »]( News [KPMG seeks more agency acquisitions after purchasing Acuity and appointing Paul Howes to head up new division]( KPMG Australia has followed its fellow consulting firms into the marketing sector with the launch of a new specialist Customer, Brand & Marketing advisory venture, following the acquisition of North Sydney-based, Acuity Research and Insights. Former trade union official Paul Howes will head up the new division and said the consultancy was already ‘eyeing off’ more companies and was in the process of securing ‘more top talent’. [READ MORE »]( News [Stu Turner departs Havas to join DDB as executive creative director]( Stu Turner has departed Havas to join DDB Group Melbourne as its new executive creative director, following the departure of Darren Spiller in November last year. Turner joins DDB from Havas, where he was executive creative director for one-and-a-half-years. [READ MORE »]( News [ASB clears Airbnb of 'borderline sexualisation' after equality ad airs during children's show]( The Advertising Standards Board has cleared Airbnb’s ‘Until We all Belong’ ad, after a complaint suggested it targeted children in a way that was “clearly unacceptable” and “borderline sexualisation.” Airbnb’s equality campaign sees Australians trying on The Acceptance Ring – an incomplete ring symbolising the gap in marriage equality Australia needs to close. [READ MORE »]( News ['Clients are uncomfortable with the way their agencies approach them', agencies warned]( Agencies have been warned they may be nailing briefs, but they are failing to solve actual business problems, by a panel of former agency heads who moved on to head up big brands. “Universally clients say they feel uncomfortable with the way their agencies approach them,” said moderator Julia Vargiu, founder and principal of New Business Methodology, leading the Mumbrella360 panel that boasted a combined 70 years of client-side and 25 of agency-side experience. [READ MORE »]( News [Generation Z and declining revenues the key challenges facing marketers and media over next five years: PwC]( One of the key challenges facing the industry is the rise of Generation Z – those aged between 8 and 22 – who are safety conscious, privacy aware and hostile toward advertisers, “the product of the airbag generation”, warned Megan Brownlow, partner at PwC during the closing keynote of Mumbrella360. “The safety aspect is interesting as it’s going to present a particular marketing challenge. It will be hard to get their data as they know how to use their privacy settings, they are pretty smart in that regard,” she said, noting “they are also pretty hostile to interruptive advertising”. [READ MORE »]( SUPPORTED [Last tickets remaining for debate on whether Australia's commercial creativity is falling behind the rest of the world]( There are a few tickets available for a debate this Thursday in which four top practitioners will be arguing over whether Australia is slipping behind the rest of the world in terms of commercial creativity. As hundreds of Australians prepare to head off to the south of France for the Cannes Lions next week questions have been raised over whether much of Australia’s work is stacking up to that of the rest of the world. [READ MORE »]( News [Coca-Cola to replace Coke Zero with Coca-Cola No Sugar with plans to drive sampling through Shazam and OOH panels]( Coca-Cola is set to remove Coke Zero from Australian stores following the launch of its ‘No Sugar’ brand in Australia. Described as ‘the best-tasting no sugar cola yet’, Coca-Cola No Sugar has been in development for more than five years, and will eventually replace Coke Zero in the Australian market. [READ MORE »]( News [How agencies can build offerings against the consultancies which are 'gobbling up' agencies]( Agencies need to fill gaps around business and technology in order to provide an end-to-end offering like the consultancies which are “gobbling up” agencies, the director of research and insights at SapientRazorfish’s Washington DC office has said. Speaking to an audience at Mumbrella360’s session on digital transformation, Hilding Anderson said agencies need to grow skills in areas such as organisational design and minimum viable product analysis, to build their ‘back stage’ offering and provide an end-to-end solution like consultancies. [READ MORE »]( News [Brands 'throwing baby out with the bath water' in search for quick results as consistency continues to decline]( Changing creative direction does not mean an entire strategy should be ripped up, one of Australia’s most experienced creative minds has insisted, as brands were accused of putting short-term thinking ahead of a desire to build a consistent message. Discussing the decline of brand consistency at the Mumbrella360 conference, panellists blamed pressure to hit targets, a desire to win awards, the proliferation of marketing channels and endless pitching as reasons for a sometimes haphazard approach to branding. [READ MORE »]( News ['We are no longer talking to an audience' says US director of Google's The Zoo]( Creatives are no longer talking to audiences because the power and control has shifted to the user, the director of The Zoo Americas has said. Speaking about the new age of ‘hyper telling’ at Mumbrella360, Yapp said after stories are posted online, they become “malleable” and the control is handed to the user. [READ MORE »]( News [Michelle Guthrie rejects accusations of being a 'Murdoch-hatchet woman' and 'Google-ising' the ABC]( The ABC’s managing director, Michelle Guthrie, has rejected claims she is a “Murdoch-hatchet woman” and is “Google-ising the ABC” in her first in-depth television interview since she started in the role. Guthrie was CEO of Murdoch-owned Star TV in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2007, before working at Google from 2011 to 2016. She joined the ABC in April 2016. [READ MORE »]( News [Leave your inner-city bubble of wine and food festivals and see the real world, advertising industry is told]( Members of the advertising industry have been urged to leave their hip inner-city world and take a trip to outer-lying suburbs to get a grasp of how most Australians live. Creatives and marketers were told to “immerse yourselves in your customer” amid fears they are out of step with vast swathes of the population. [READ MORE »]( News ['You need the wisdom of Yoda and the strength of Chewbacca': How to fix today's broken marketing management]( Australian marketing managers are not confident about their work in a changing and challenging corporate environment, according to corporate trainer Rob Pyne. “Good managers make more impact that bad leaders,” Pyne, a director of Sydney-based management training company Realizer, said. “They are the one that keep clients happy, keep staff happy and make things happen.” [READ MORE »]( News [Nine's True Story with Hamish & Andy beats Seven's House Rules for second week]( The second episode of Nine’s True Story with Hamish & Andy was the most-watched non-news program on Monday night, with 1.078m metro viewers tuning in, according to OzTAM’s preliminary metro ratings. Nine’s new show beat Seven’s House Rules for the second consecutive week, as House Rules collected 999,000 metro viewers in the same time slot. [READ MORE »]( News ['95% of brands could disappear and Australians wouldn't care': Havas Media's Maria Garrido]( Brands are being urged to inject more meaning into their offerings in order to ensure consumers actually care about the product and are engaged. Speaking at Mumbrella360 on ‘The Science of Creating Content That Matters’, Havas Media Group’s chief of insights and analytics, Maria Garrido, said consumers are having difficulty identifying how brands are adding meaning to their lives, and would’t care if they disappeared. [READ MORE »]( News [What the collision of adtech and martech means for marketers]( The marketers’ holy grail of a single customer view is still some way off, attendees heard at the panel, When World’s Collide: The Impact of The Collision Between Martech and Adtech at Mumbrella360. While the martech and adtech worlds are coming together in the view of Adroll’s Toby Gabriner, he believes it is more helpful to consider marketing and advertising data as three groups by splitting what’s normally considered marketing data into personally identifiable data and more anonymised cookie information. [READ MORE »]( News ['Don't sit your social media strategist in the corner': Mozilla Firefox's Maura Tuohy]( Brands need to be looking at social media as a behavioural tool rather than just a content platform and product, says head of social marketing and influencer relations at Mozilla Firefox, Muara Tuohy, especially when shaping brand strategies. “There are rich human insights in the social media behaviour.” [READ MORE »]( News [Supercheap Auto announces Big Break ad competition winner]( Supercheap Auto has announced Drew Kendall as the winner of its Big Break competition, with his ad to run through the rest of the 2017 Supercar season. The competition, which challenged consumers to make an ad for the brand, was announced in March. [READ MORE »]( News [Media agencies to become increasingly important during the rise of AI: PHD strategists]( In a world of developing technology and artificial intelligence, a panel of PHD strategists has agreed there will be an increasing, rather than a decreasing, need for strategists, Speaking at Mumbrella360, Mitch Hunter, head of strategy at PHD Sydney, argued strategists will still have a huge role to play in connecting with humans. [READ MORE »]( News [AIME goes global to address inequality in campaign by M&C Saatchi]( Australian charity AIME is expanding globally, kicking off the launch with a short film which aims to address inequality in society. The animated piece of work, by M&C Saatchi Sydney, Academy Award winning director Laurent Witz, and his team at Zelit productions, aims to illustrate the unfair system the world is build upon. [READ MORE »]( News [Australians challenged to ‘go dry’ this July with Australian Bitters]( Coca-Cola Amatil’s Australian Bitters has partnered with Dry July, to help raise funds for those affected by cancer. Now in its 10th year, Dry July – the fundraiser challenging people to go without alcohol for the month of July – has recruited Andrew Atwell, a New York based mocktail creator, who will develop and share Australian Bitters based mocktails with the public. [READ MORE »]( News ['Oh the places you'll go!': Dr Seuss helps Qantas launch credit card]( Qantas has launched its own credit card with inspiration from Dr Seuss’ poem ‘Oh the places you’ll go.’ The ad features a poem, which explains to consumers how far everyday spending with Qantas’ Premier credit card can take Qantas Frequent Flyers. [READ MORE »]( Sponsored Post “Find your voice” and win a trip to New York Do you have what it takes? Everyone has a story, so find your voice on LinkedIn and zip off to the Big Apple. Proudly supported by Mumbrella, Agency Influencer is back in 2017 with a new category of Newcomer of the Year. Don’t miss out on your chance to be heard – [register now.]( FYI FYI • [Yahoo7 launches content and technology offering Yahoo7 Storytellers]( • [Magnum & Co appoints Amber Dermoudy to head of social and digital]( • [Seven wins Sunday night thanks to news programs and House Rules]( • [Thrive PR wins electronic company ASUS]( • [Former national rugby star’s influencer agency HooZu adds video production unit]( • [Nine’s True Story with Hamish & Andy most watched show, but Seven wins the week]( Jobs [42 New Jobs]( MOST DISCUSSED [Foxtel rebrands and officially launches Foxtel Now after conceding brand was seen as ‘aggressive’]( [Adland out of touch with ‘real Australians’ and doesn't understand their media habits]( [SCA's Hit Network 'a disaster around the country', says Nova's Paul Jackson]( [Industry associations branded self-serving social clubs who are 'peddling crap']( mumbrella.com.au Sent By Focal Attractions Pty Ltd 46-48 Balfour Street, Chippendale, NSW, 2008, Australia If you would rather not receive this newsletter, you can [unsubscribe]( or [manage subscriptions here.](