Marketing speaks with Lachlan Feeney the founder and CEO of Brisbane-based blockchain innovation agency, Labrys.

Blockchain started receiving a lot of hype around 2017. Now in 2021, interest in cryptocurrency seems to be at an all time high following the pandemic. Perhaps due to the technology maturing, conversations entering the mainstream or because COVID-19 accelerated trends across the board. Regardless, it has been estimated that it will hit over $23.3 billion by 2023 and $176 billion by 2025. Forrester predicted that this year alone 30 percent of blockchain projects will make it into production.

While we are starting to hear that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is “here for good”, it is still in its infancy in Australia. Feeney founded Labrys in order to help guide businesses from the “old world of legacy technology” into the “new world”.

“The reason why I founded the company is I’ve always been, for the better part of the last decade, very heavily interested in blockchain technology personally. I believe we’re still very early on in the space. Ultimately, this technology is going to have as big an impact on everyone as the internet or the computer,” says Feeney.

Labrys works with small startups dipping their toes in blockchain technology, through to large-scale enterprises who are leading innovative projects. The company assists with conceptualisation and helps to build and design the required systems, websites and apps to support the technology.

Applications in marketing

Blockchain can be complex in its many applications and its tendency to rapidly evolve. In a nutshell, IBM defines Blockchain as “a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network”. As a decentralised and unchangeable source of data, the implications for digital marketing are evident. 

Blockchain eliminates intermediaries like Google and Facebook. Feeney says that it “brings trust into the equation” because customer profiling for campaigns is fully reliable and incorruptible. It also means that traffic secured can be verified as real people, not fake accounts or click farms. This keeps marketing costs low and engagement high.

Greater privacy

While there are many ways to approach it, there is also a case to be made for this technology putting data and trust back into consumer’s hands. Feeney explains that the Basic Attention Token (BAT) system evenly distributes advertising money between publishers, advertisers and the actual readers or audience. It gives consumers privacy and greater control over data.

“It’s basically a browser that blocks Google ads, Facebook ads, etc. So you don’t get any ads displayed to you that you’re not interested in, no one is mining your data or showing you things you haven’t consented to,” explains Feeney.

“And if you do have ads enabled they’ll slot BAT ads directly into your browser. They will come up and you actually get paid a token every time you look at one of the ads.”

The project is a major win when it comes to privacy.

“We don’t own that data. We don’t store it. The data is stored on the blockchain, which nobody owns. It’s a public infrastructure, the same as the internet itself. And so rather than storing your data on company servers, it’s stored on this public infrastructure. We will pay you to access that data or we’ll pay you if you’re going to access our ads.”

Major trends to watch

Another important trend to pay attention to is non fungible tokens (NFTs). In other words, a unique property that cannot be traded for anything else. They are a ‘one of a kind’ asset that exists in the digital world. According to the BBC they can “be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but which have no tangible form of their own”. Currently people are excited about using NFTs to sell digital art.

Feeney believes that NFTs are a major trend to watch in terms of incentivising consumers, and will be a valuable tool in the marketers arsenal. 

“The whole blockchain industry has been sort of finance heavy, but with the introduction of NFTs has brought art, creativity, culture and marketing opportunities to the blockchain space.”

He points to Coca-Cola, who recently sold NFT collectibles to a winning bid of $575,883.61 in an online auction. A NFT denotes digital ownership and originality. As such, they prove hyper-useful to digital marketing campaign creative

“What we’re really seeing with NFTs is sort of creating these digital communities and digital cultures around your brand that were previously hard to sort of create online.”

While it can seem overwhelming or complex to get started, Feeney believes that the opportunities are massive and it’s a good time for the industry to begin exploring. Those who are educated in the space  will be well positioned to create better marketing campaigns in the future.

“The space is moving a lot faster than a lot of people think. I think it’s a very exciting technology and if you want to learn more about blockchain you’re not too late.”

Lachlan Feeney the founder and CEO of Labrys.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels.

Victoria Bitter

One of Australia’s best selling beers, Victoria Bitter, recently released a new campaign encouraging Australians to “roll up your sleeves, and get the jab”. The campaign features VB’s famous anthem and classic footage from VB ad campaigns. Created by Clemenger BBDO, the video incorporates some humour alongside nostalgia, with lines like, “A hard earned thirst comes from being all over town. Not from being in lockdown.”

Telstra

Telstra recently called upon its millions of customers to unite in the “battle against COVID-19”, as the telco gets behind Australia’s vaccination push. Telstra CEO Andrew Penn has announced vaccinated members will receive 2,500 Telstra plus points, among other benefits like prize draws. There has also been a change to the mobile network name – Telstra #LetsVaxx – and a social media campaign featuring 5G Chief Investigator Mark Humphries to bust myths around vaccines. 

Business Australia

Profit for purpose member-owned organisation, Business Australia, released its pro-vaccine campaign across audio and video channels. It features a dramatic rendition of Irving Berlin’s ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ to the backdrop of empty businesses from a variety of industries, highlighting the devastating effect that the pandemic and lockdowns have had on businesses and jobs. Filming took place across Sydney and featured 20 businesses, including major tourism and event operators Sydney Theatre Company and Bridge Climb as well as a local hairdresser, tavern and gym. 

oOh!media

oOh!media has launched a new data-led Out of Home campaign, encouraging the public to get vaccinated so they can get back outdoors. Leading with the tagline ‘Getting back outdoors, it’s worth a shot’, the location-based campaign uses data from the Australian Government to highlight state and territory vaccination rates, as well as dynamic creative tailored to local suburbs. Designed and implemented by oOh!’s in-house creative team, the campaign is running across classic and digital signage nationwide, visually updating the public on vaccination progress as momentum builds over the coming weeks.

MCG

The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) has joined forces with 13 of Victoria’s most recognisable footy faces in a call-to-arms for Victorians to book and receive their COVID-19 vaccine. Conceived and delivered by the Melbourne Cricket Club, manager of the MCG, Victorians have been called on to #BePartOfTheTeam. Mick Molloy is joined by media personality Rebecca Maddern, Melbourne AFLW captain Daisy Pearce, TV presenter Shelley Ware, AFLW all-time leading goal kicker Darcy Vescio and the Collingwood cheer squad.

TAB

Last weekend, Australia’s racing and sports betting website TAB became ‘JAB’ in order to create awareness and encourage Aussies to get vaccinated. The ‘JAB for your Local’ campaign created with agency M&C Saatchi that captures stories from local venues

Live Industry Venues and Entertainment (LIVE)

Live Industry Venues and Entertainment (LIVE) alliance have joined forces with 400 of Australia’s biggest artists, performers, promoters, festivals, venues, ticketing agencies, record labels, associations and more. With the music amd live entertainment industry one of the hardest hit by lockdowns, the #VAXTHENATION campaign asks people to play their part to help stop the interruptions. Conceptualised by adman Russel Howcroft and starring Tim Minchin, Jimmy Barnes, Amy Shark, Paul Kelly and Hilltop Hoods, the campaign has been released via television, social, digital and outdoor media.

While the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo captivated audiences around the globe, discussions about authentic representation of people with a disability also captured the public zeitgeist.

The community of people with disabilities is one of the largest groups in the world, with 1 in 6 people in Australia living with some form of disability. However, very few visuals in marketing and advertising reflect this reality.

Show inclusive stories

People want to see inclusive stories and they want the media and advertising that surrounds them to accurately capture their world. Our iStock Visual GPS research revealed that over 80 percent of ANZ consumers expect businesses to be consistently committed to supporting diversity and inclusion efforts. Yet, businesses and the media still largely leave people with disabilities out in their communications

Of the images and videos downloaded from iStock in the last 12 months for Australia, only 1 percent includes people with disabilities. When they do try, the representation of the community isn’t as seamless as it could be, with over 70 percent of the visuals focusing on people in a wheelchair or with a prosthetic limb.

The best way a company can demonstrate its commitment to diversity and inclusion is by consistently including authentic and accurate representations of people with disabilities. It’s not about tokenising, or what Australian comedian and disability rights activist Stella Young called ‘inspiration porn’ – using people with a disability as inspiration for people that don’t have a disability) – it is about truly showing their lifestyles and different cultures in everyday life across all different and intersecting identities.

So, how do we begin addressing these findings and start being more inclusive? Using our unique insights and research, we have developed a series of tips for SMBs to keep in mind when selecting inclusive visuals to ensure authentic representation of people with a disability in their marketing and advertising.

Showcase the full spectrum of human experiences

Disability is intersectional – it’s important for businesses to intentionally include experiences that make up everyday life, across age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic status, religion and cultural lines.

Ask yourself:

• Am I  showing the whole range of life experiences that a person with disabilities may have?

• Am I representing people with disabilities alongside other intersections of their identities?

Represent real people

Use imagery and videos that portray real people with disabilities instead of actors portraying persons with disabilities. By using authentic visual content which includes people with disabilities, you also include them in the conversation and allow them to help shape the way they are represented, which in turn may also influence how they view themselves within our broader society.

Ask yourself:

• Am I only featuring people in wheelchairs or with other easily identifiable differences? What about people with intellectual disabilities or a disability that is not visible?

• Am I  focusing on the disability, rather than showing the whole person and what they are doing?

Stay away from the narrative of ‘overcoming’ disability

Instead, focus on joyful moments, as well as relationships between people who are living with disabilities and those living without. The visuals traditionally used in the media typically reflect ‘heroic’ concepts or suggest ‘pitiful’ stereotypes of disability, missing the mark as to how disability is a natural part of someone’s identity.

Ask yourself:

• Am I portraying disability as something that needs to be ‘cured’, ‘fixed’ or ‘overcome’, or have I  embraced and celebrated it as a part of our everyday lives?

Use video to provide deeper connections to the audience

Video is no longer a nice-to-have marketing tool – it’s essential. Video is great when trying to establish a connection with the audience, with 92 percent of marketers saying that video is an important part of their strategy. When it comes to representing people with disabilities, video allows businesses to authentically capture the nuances of the individual’s lived experience and enables audiences to gain deeper insights into how your business is actually engaging with this community.

Ask yourself:

• Are images enough to accurately capture the life experiences of a person with a disability, or would the narrative be more holistically served via video?

Kate Rourke is the head of creative insights, Asia Pacific, at Getty Images and iStock.

Images from iStock/Viktorcvetkovic, Alex Liew.

Found this article interesting? Read this interview with Rachel Worsley (Neurodiversity Media) about the distinction between diversity and inclusion.

These announcements follow the launch of a local Reddit HQ in Australia. The Conversation Placement sits within a conversation thread, under the original post and above the first comment. According to Reddit, this placement has a high level of engagement and has a “proven track record for advertiser success”. This placement allows access to an “untapped” audience, many of which land in conversation threads directly from SEO searches and are unreachable anywhere else on the platform. 

Reddit has beta-tested Conversation Placement with more than 600 advertising partners for almost 12 months. Data says that Reddit users contribute to more than 350,000 conversations on the platform every day. 42 percent of the average Reddit user’s time spent in a conversation thread. 

In aggregate, beta test partners saw a 9 percent average increase in clickthrough rate (CTR), 10 percent higher downstream conversion rate (CVR) and 23 percent lower cost per click (CPC) rate when using both Conversation Placement.  

“Reddit users thrive on conversations and are highly engaged in unique dialogues around their passions. Conversation Placement is an opportunity for all Reddit advertisers to drive engagement on the platform, positioning themselves right where people are connecting with one another, in a way they can’t on any other platform,” said Reddit Global EVP and President of Advertising, Harold Klaje. 

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash.

The change also allows secondary carers to a maximum leave entitlement of four weeks, to provide extra support for employees who have started a family.

Clemenger says the new policy is designed to support modern-day parents who require realistic parental leave policies which offer a healthier work and life balance. This change will also help address the marketing and communications industry’s talent shortage, as companies continue to look at new ways to capture and retain the best talent.

The new policy states that employees that have completed three years’ continuous service or more are entitled to 20 weeks of leave, those who have completed two years are entitled to 10 weeks of leave and those who have completed one year are entitled to eight weeks of leave.

The policy for partners is those who have completed three years’ continuous service or more are entitled to four weeks of paid partner’s leave, those who have completed two years are entitled to two weeks and those who have completed one year are entitled to two weeks of paid partner’s leave

Robert Morgan, executive chairman of Clemenger Group, said the new parental leave policy is just the start of what is to come in a new wave of companies extending support for working parents.

“Having or adopting a child is a wonderful, life-changing moment. Balancing parenthood with work, can be challenging. This competitive offer from Clemenger Group shows we are listening and adapting to give our employees the best possible chance to succeed in the workplace, and at home,” Mr Morgan said.

“Equality is the cornerstone of our people strategy at Clemenger Group, and this change to our parental leave policy is just one step in improving our efforts to create and nurture meaningful professional pathways for all of our people.”

The parental leave benefits will also be supplemented by broader support programs. These will nclude parent groups and mentors, a Keeping in Touch program designed to keep employees feeling connected, childcare referrals and further support for parents at home.

Melanie Spence, senior account director at Clemenger BBDO Sydney is expecting her second child in late September said: “Going on maternity leave can be terrifying and I felt worried last time with my first child whether I’d be able to make it work given the financial pressures. This time is different. This new policy gives me much more reassurance.”

Jake Ford, managing partner at Traffik will be taking secondary carer’s leave in November said: “As a first-time dad, it’s a special time and knowing I can take extra leave to support my partner is really valuable.”

In this interview, Marketing speaks with brand strategist and storyteller Scott Oxford about the tactical and strategic value that brand can bring. We also discuss how putting an emphasis on brand can allow a business to be more connected with its customers than ever before.

As a partner at creative agency New Word Order, Oxford has headed up creative and brand strategy for nearly 20 years. In fact, he is so passionate about the topic that he launched BrandJam, a podcast dedicated to “getting under the hood” of all things brand. After speaking with recognisable Australian brands of all sizes and across all industries, he has come to see brand as something much more than visual expression. For Oxford brand is a story that impacts every part of what a business does. 

“​​I see brand very much as the way someone answers the phone, the way we behave when a customer interacts with us, the text that’s on a box that arrives – all of the touchpoints. I think we have learned more and more that brand needs to be informed by a story at all levels,” says Oxford. 

Brand as a central source of truth

Early in his career Oxford became fascinated with the link between psychology and storytelling and how it could impact consumer behaviour. 

“Learning that we all respond subliminally to these things really got me thinking about how brands are all in the business of creating connection and that if you want to create a connection with someone, you need to be able to relate to them on the things that matter to them and on all of those sort of conscious and unconscious details.”

He says that strategy is useful for getting everyone internally (the people that work for a business) and externally (customers) agreeing on “one central source of truth”. 

Listening to customers

The key function for a good brand strategist is to understand customers. After much research, Oxford realised that people make decisions and judgements on brands based on little details. And brands can actually control those details if they care to listen. 

Instead of presuming, the best brands are utilising tools like social listening to understand customers and gain feedback. Oxford says best in class are listening to customers in private and public realms. “And that’s not just hiring a market research agency. That’s putting mechanisms in place to really create those conversations. Whether it be online or over the phone, or in groups in those classic research methods. They’re creating opportunities because everybody loves to feel heard and understood.”

He tells me a story from a few years back when he was sitting at the doctor’s office with his sick baby, waiting to be seen. After waiting tensely for 50 minutes with no communication he needed to leave to change his baby’s nappy. The receptionist simply told him that if he left the next person in line would take his place. Naturally he was furious. The story Oxford tells is about how not to manage customer experience. If there had been clear communication, regular updates and some human understanding for how stressful it is as a parent to wait with a sick child, the situation could have been different. Anger would have been diffused and trust restored.

The point is that suboptimal brand experiences lose customer trust. Checking in on customers and giving them an opportunity to say how they feel can be extremely valuable. Oxford says he has seen instances where a customer might reveal something in a brand study that changes the trajectory of a business.

“As I always say, whenever we do a customer work around brand strategy, it’s actually about aligning brand strategy with business strategy. That’s the purpose. But what we find is that the insights actually shape business strategy,” Oxford says.

“Every brand has a unique set of customers and a unique opportunity to use a whole range of classic good old fashioned phone calls and face-to-face groups, where lockdowns allow, and a whole lot of online methods to directly converse with customers, but also to tap into what’s being said about them.”

Authenticity and purpose 

These days purpose and authenticity have become synonymous with brand. Oxford has seen the rise of for-purpose businesses or businesses that significantly support or align themselves with social organisations. 

On the podcast Oxford has spoken with experts from purpose-led brands such as Who Gives a Crap and Mood Tea about these topics in depth. He says beyond environmental activism, consumers are looking at how brands treat employees and how they impact the community. 

“As consumers, we’re actually looking at people who literally put their money where their mouth is and say, ‘Yes we’re unashamedly a business here to make money and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we are not going to do it at the cost of the planet or of people. And in fact, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to contribute back.’”

At the end of the day in a crowded marketplace, when a consumer can’t make a decision based on the quality of the product or the service, then they will move on to the next most important thing. How a brand is making the world a better place. But brands also need to be authentic.

“I think we’re becoming more and more discerning as to whether a brand has just ‘tacked on’ a purpose,” he says.

Authenticity is making sure that a brand story and the conversations that are being had about a brand match up to what a brand really is. In this sense Oxford says, “It’s not about manipulation, it’s actually about a restoration of the conversation and the stories that are being told around it.”

He adds that it’s also about occasionally breaking the artifice and having fun. 

Managing misconceptions around brand

A big focus for marketers is helping business leaders to understand the value of brand. While some leading companies do see the value and have created roles like ‘Head of Brand’, others view it simply as a “window dressing”. 

Oxford has found that an evidence-based approach helps the C-Suite to understand just how important brand is to their bottom line, to their people, to their customer relationships and their long-term business success. Ultimately, he says, marketers need to appeal to leaders with the things that matter most to them in terms of the direct impact on the bottom line and the direct impact on culture.

“I find that when a marketer can get a customer study approved and commissioned, and they can then present irrefutable opinions and insights that can help leaders recognise that a customer they thought was rock solid and here for the future is actually teetering on the edge of going somewhere else and the reasons why. Especially when it’s not about performance of the product and it’s not about necessarily service in itself but back to a perception. It can be perceptions of whether a brand is technologically up to date or is staying ahead of the game.” 

Oxford then refers back to his favourite quote from the TV series Mad Men where ad man Don Draper says, “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

“I think that that is the crux of it for me, that a marketer’s job is to change the conversation, but brand is actually more than a marketer has remit over. Brand is something that HR is involved in, that the CEO who sets the tone for the story of an organisation is part of.

“If a marketer is trying to change the conversation, but the leaders are fixed in a version of the story that is no longer current, it’s going to create a great tension. And so the best thing a marketer can do is actually get leaders over the line with the direct impact of brand, which is not fluffy, which is actually sharp as a knife when it’s good, and give them that evidence.”

Scott Oxford is the partner and creative director of New Word Order and the host of BrandJam.

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash.

Found this article interesting? Read this interview with Tom Walley, the general manager of Corporate Traveller Australia about an uncertain future for the travel sector that hinges on vaccine rollout.

The company reported that underlying earnings have more than tripled to $33.3 million, cementing oOh!media as the top competitor in the market. Key formats including Road, Retail and Street Furniture in  Australia have all shown promising recovery and New Zealand also performed at or slightly above 2019 levels.

After a tough 2020 for OOH, advertisers seemed to gain confidence in early 2021 and captialise on the flexibility of DOOH offerings. While COVID-19 and associated lockdowns are currently causing near-term uncertainty, there was a strong period of audience growth when pandemic conditions and lockdowns eased in the beginning of the year. It is expected that when the current lockdowns end this growth will continue. 

The report confirmed a gross margin of 42.5 percent (up 8.8 points) demonstrating strong recovery towards pre-COVID levels. Underlying NPATA of $2.4 million compared to a loss of $16.9 million in the prior corresponding period. Net debt reduced by 16 percent compared to 31 December 2020.

Chief Executive Officer, Cathy O’Connor said: “In Australia audience levels were consistent up to May 2021 before declining as a result of the Melbourne lockdown in June. Overall revenue has held consistently at 80 percent of 2019 levels with revenue in Road performing particularly strongly at 116 percent of the first half of 2019.”

oOh!media says the promising result has been supported by fixed rent abatement with commercial partners and a clear focus on its core OOH assets, continued digitisation of core sites and audience-focused selling.

“The Out of Home sector is well positioned to grow its share of advertising revenue through improvements to measurement and further digitisation,” added O’Connor. 

“Our core focus is on our OOH assets and redefining our offering through audience selling which capitalises on oOh!’s scale advantage to deliver increased effective reach to advertisers and revenue.”

Photo by RealKina on Unsplash.

The NSW Government’s EoI stated it was seeking to consolidate its media planning and buying with “one media agency holding group”. The IMAA asserts that this contravenes the Government’s own Procurement Policy whichs states that for any contract over $3 million, 10 percent must be allocated to SME participation. According to the IMAA, “holding companies” refers to the six multinational media agency groups in Australia and means that all of the successful agency’s fees will go offshore. 

The NSW Government’s EoI was released under the cover of COVID, with independent agencies unaware of it. The EoI closed on 18 August with the pitch running to late 2022, when the new contract will commence. 

IMAA general manager, Sam Buchanan, said: “The local media buying industry has taken a big hit over the last 18 months. To have the NSW Government exclude us from this contract is not in the national interest. This will send the money offshore to support another country’s economy and not our own.

“We have reached out to the NSW Government to try to find a way to include the local industry, but it seems they are only talking to the multinationals.” 

The IMAA has questioned the NSW Government’s adherence to its own Procurement Policy and lodged a Freedom of Information request asking the NSW Government to disclose its advisory committee members, who are advising the Government on the master media EoI. To date, this request has been ignored. The IMAA has also made several unsuccessful requests to meet with NSW Customer Service Minister Victor Dominello, and IMAA members have written to their local members, which have been met with a similar response and no action.

“If the NSW Government took the time to get to know the local media buying industry, they would see that it employs thousands of talented people and their businesses are Australian owned. This is a lazy policy that will impact the livelihood of Australian business owners,” said Buchanan.

“This comes at a time when the NSW Government talks so proudly about supporting the local economy first and yet does not even give independent agencies an opportunity to tender.  Australian businesses have not only been overlooked, but locked out. It’s unAustralian and anticompetitive.”

Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash.

Sixty businesses across the media, advertising and marketing industry have donated time, resources and $10 million in inventory towards the ‘Sip selflessly’ campaign. MOOD tea donates all profits to fund charities preventing youth suicide. 

The creative was developed by The Monkeys, directed by Simon Harsent and the Pool Collective team, with audio by Ralph Van Dijk and Simon Kane at SongZu. ‘Sip Selflessly’ will roll out across all TV, radio, OOH, digital, social and print channels over the coming weeks following the largest philanthropic media inventory drive our industry has ever seen.

The campaign is headlined by a pair of TV commercials featuring adults in classic tea-drinking situations, a Regency-period costume drama and an ancient tea master with his student. The scenes are lip-synched with the voices of children relating impactful stories of mental health. 

Supporting the campaign launch, MOOD tea ambassadors including author of ‘Tea & Honesty’ Jules Sebastian, Roosters NRL player Luke Keary, TV presenter Liv Phyland, and Tiddas 4 Tiddas founder Marlee Silva will be involved in a PR campaign run by Clear Hayes Consulting, One Green Bean and POEM Group. 

All profits raised from MOOD tea go towards funding mental health projects by Backtrack, batyr and The Sebastian Foundation which are helping save young lives. Programs are focused towards mental health education in schools and suicide prevention.

Jenni Hayward, General Manager of MOOD said: “The hard fact is youth suicide is the leading cause of death for young people in our country – so we wanted to create a campaign which grabs attention and makes people really think about the message. 

“We’ve deliberately portrayed real conversations which highlight the everyday challenges facing young people today, including cyber bullying and suicide. Juxtaposing them with classic movie-style tea scenes makes people sit up and take note, and we hope will start meaningful conversations.”

Photo by Matese Fields on Unsplash.

Corporate Traveller Australia sits in the business division of the Flight Centre Travel Group. Walley and his team specialise in servicing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and believes that the travel industry needs to pay attention to this segment if it hopes for business travel to recover.

SMEs make up about two thirds of all business travel in Australia. “So pre-pandemic, that business travel market was worth $25 billion worth of spend in the Australian market. Including all the spend they have whilst they’re traveling, like restaurants, taxis, hotels, etc.,” Walley says.

“SMEs form a major part of the recovery of the economy because normally they are not only spending money on travel, but they’re growing their businesses in various regions and overseas.”

Now with a large portion of the population under varying degrees of restrictions due to the Delta variant, Australia needs to ensure a healthy vaccine rollout for the business travel sector to catch up with the leisure sector. But before we unpack the future, let’s take a look at the state of travel in Australia pre-pandemic. 

The travel industry at “bursting point” pre-pandemic

Walley has been in the travel industry for 20 years. He left his job as a chartered accountant to get his wings, becoming a commercial pilot. After some time flying and instructing in Perth, he had an interview with British Airways and was set to work in London as a first officer. Then the September 11 attacks happened, changing aviation forever. In the ensuing chaos, he got a job at Flight Centre and has never looked back. 

When I ask why travel, Walley says he is in it for the culture, something that still persists at Flight Centre despite the challenges that COVID-19 has presented. And we all know that the travel and tourism industry has faced much adversity. He says many people get into the business for the fringe benefits, like cheap travel and big vibrant culture, but overnight all of that changed.

Tourism Research Australia says that prior to the pandemic in 2019, tourism generated billions of dollars and directly contributed 2.5 percent of Australia’s GDP. Now as we pass the mid-point of 2021, things aren’t looking hopeful with slow vaccine rollouts, lockdowns, the end of JobKeeper and borders unlikely to open any time soon.

That said, there were some changes that needed to be made in the sector. Walley says the industry was at “bursting point” before the pandemic hit. Things were unprecedentedly cheap, a shift driven by low cost carriers. While travel was more accessible than ever for consumers, it led to high capacity in the market and was unsustainable from a supplier point of view but also environmentally. 

Companies like Corporate Traveller used this time during the pandemic to look at revenue lines and learn more than ever about its customer base. Like other brands, there was a steely determination to “not waste a good crisis” and a push to rapidly evolve.

“I think we understand our business bucket load better than we did [before the pandemic] because we’ve been forced to scrutinise it down to every dollar,” says Walley. “We went from being less about acquisition marketing and more about retention and value proposition.”

Sustainable travel programs 

The changing landscape of COVID-19 provided an opportunity to put business travel on a sustainable trajectory. Walley says sustainable travel is a growth area coming through reasonably loudly from consumers since the pandemic and something businesses should be considering. 

“It’s not just about travel and carbon offsetting – that’s a fairly obvious thing. It’s about how do you have less of an impact on the environment you’re traveling to? It includes things like dealing with indigenous communities and reconciliation action plans. There’s about seven sustainable development goals that we’ve been working on as an organisation and that we want to try and help our customers with as well.” 

“I think again, [sustainable travel] will become a relatively solvable problem but also something that most companies are growing passionate about. And the pandemic is probably a good thing to help along the conversation.”

While the industry needed to evolve in some ways, Walley is quick to add that the sector employed a lot of good people who lost their jobs as a result of COVID-19. It has impacted small businesses the most. The pandemic has promoted the expansion of larger organisations (like Flight Centre) and the consolidation of airlines, which Walley says contributes to a monopoly that is ultimately bad for consumers and the industry.

Impact on travellers

The pandemic has had a huge impact on travellers too, who were left navigating refunds and reimagining what the future would look like. Travellers have been separated from family, friends and missed out on holidays or important business trips. To try to address this, the Corporate Traveller marketing team had to focus on staying connected with customers through personalised messaging. In a time where public health advice can change quickly and with little notice, they recognised a need to keep business people updated on the latest industry news with an information hub. 

In some ways the complex information landscape has renewed the role of travel managers and consultants. In fact, in the last 12 months Corporate Traveller won 360 new accounts.

“So someone working in a company who was just booking travel on Qantas or Expedia [for example] but is now willing to pay a fee because actually, they see the value in what we do from a total travel management program and around risk. Things like, where my staff are right now or what happens if they shut the border, how do I get them home? I’ve been a victim of that a couple of times myself. All of those things played very well into our hands as a travel management company.”

The return to travel

Walley thinks the complexities will only be exacerbated when international borders eventually reopen. Prime Minister Scott Morrison recently announced a four phase plan to ‘return to normal’, but was reluctant to commit to a definitive timeline. For many in the travel sector the government roadmap lacked clarity, prompting industry leaders like Walley’s boss, Flight Centre CEO Graham ‘Skroo’ Turner, to share their own timelines and push for faster vaccine rollout. 

Walley foresees that the border opening will be handled in stages and there will be restrictions around travel, including potentially requiring a vaccine to travel internationally. He speculated that there might be some countries that have higher risk levels than others and a ranking system for destinations might be implemented, with locations being labeled red, amber and green. 

Speculations aside, he says the uncertainty is hurting business traveller’s confidence. Australia needs to continue to push the vaccine rollout but also communicate clearly with the community. “I think if businesses can see a real, clear road to recovery, to opening, then they can start planning,” says Walley.

Flexible work arrangements are great but “there is no real substitute for that face to face” according to Walley. He explains that it can be difficult to truly collaborate on video meetings and often Zoom becomes about presenting as opposed to solving a problem. For businesses, particularly SMEs, getting back into the market and returning to travel is important for growth and relationship building. 

Walley, for one, still retains a passion for travel, despite the challenges ahead for Australia’s recovery. 

“I actually booked a two week snowboarding trip to Canada for January next year to give myself and my family a bit of hope. I haven’t booked flights, because you can’t, but I have booked accommodation. So if it opens up, that’s where I’m going.”

Tom Walley is the general manager of Corporate Traveller Australia.

Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash.

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