They’re making their way into our hearts and onto our screens, and the Aussie women’s FIFA team the Matildas is also making their way into the TV ratings’ record books.

Held every four years, the Women’s World Cup found its home for 2023 in Australia and the Aussie crowds are absolutely loving it. Adopting soccer as their sport of choice over cricket, AFL, netball and rugby, local viewers are tuning into the games by the millions.

In fact, the 7 August match between Denmark and Australia smashed the free-to-air ratings record for the year by nearly 400,000, with an estimated 2.294 million metro viewers tuning in to watch Captain Sam Kerr trot back on the field for the first time this tournament following an injury, after a two-goal thumping of Denmark. The only program that’s come close to those numbers is Nine’s State of Origin Game I in June, which didn’t even make three million metro viewers.

Matildas cement themselves in Aussie sport history

This World Cup is proving to be a shift in the market when it comes to women’s sports. Previously not a huge ratings winner, and the source of many exhausting public debates, women’s sports is seeing a change in its popularity – led by the Matildas. 

Research shows that women’s sports spectators have increased by a whopping 36 percent in 12 months, from June 2022 to June 2023, and these numbers show no signs of dipping. As more Australians tune in to watch the fate of the Matildas, who are currently placed the highest of any Aussie team that has previously been in a soccer world cup, these numbers will likely only increase.

It seems the only thing female sports has been missing is the fandom and the finances because the skills, the personalities and the rivalries have already been there. Now it’s time to make legends.

With Australian business and government becoming more data-driven, some important conversations are finally being had, including how data is sourced, utilised, secured and stored for a better experience.

While these are challenging and at times vexed topics, the emergence and popularisation of decentralised or self-sovereign identity promises to alleviate some key concerns around data control and customer consent collection and management.

Under privacy laws in Australia, explicit consent is currently required for only “a limited range of collections, uses and disclosures of personal information”. An expansion is now being canvassed to cover “any collection, use or disclosure of personal information”, though that’s “generally opposed” by industry on grounds that it could be burdensome for all sides. Marketers, in particular, worry an expansion could result in people being asked to consent so often that they take the “nuclear option” and opt-out of all forms of branded communication entirely.

What’s needed is balance: meeting the privacy needs of people whose data it is, and the operational needs of organisations that collect, store and use it.

Data is often a critical input to customer experience and service delivery. Customers today expect a certain amount of personalisation in their interactions, and organisations want to retain an ability to use customer data for those purposes. It would not make sense to introduce friction into this process.

At the same time, changing consumer attitudes to privacy and data sharing need to be taken into account. A recent survey found 43 percent of Australians are unwilling to have their data shared with any third-party. Such attitudes are often shaped by experience, such as perceived or actual data misuse by a brand, or having their PII accessed or stolen in a data breach incident. That is a key reason why consumers now tie their willingness to share data in future to the presence of increased protections and safeguards.

As consumers become more savvy, and privacy laws and regulations catch up, it is incumbent on organisations and brands to navigate to a customer-centric and privacy-preserving path for data use.

Applying Identity and Access Management (IAM) protections and controls to both sides of the data equation – the person, whose data it is, and the business collecting and storing it – and embracing decentralised identity are likely to be critical steps to ensuring the right balance is struck.

Verifying identity to help with a better experience

Currently, every organisation collects personal data and individually controls customer preferences and consent for how that data gets used. 

These consents may need to be revisited over time, such as if a person’s relationship with a brand or business changes – and organisations should have the mechanisms in place to keep up and honour that. An IAM system can be utilised by the organisation to track and manage that consent flow lifecycle and to keep a record of authorised uses of data for a particular period of time.

However, not all organisations meet this standard today. As we’ve seen in some high-profile Australian data breaches, data is often stored for far longer than the use case it was collected for. There are often mismatches between how consumers think their data should be treated, and how it actually gets used.

Decentralised identity – also called self-sovereign identity – flips this paradigm around and puts consumers in charge of their data and more directly in control of how consent is managed. Rather than having to separately establish individual identities with each organisation they transact with, the customer has just one verified identity, held in a digital wallet on their smartphone or other device, that they can use for every interaction.

Under this model, when an organisation asks the customer to verify their identity, only a small amount of information, only what is necessary at that given time, is exchanged. For example, if all the organisation needs is an age verification, decentralised identity would confirm the person is over 18 and that that’s been verified. There would be no need to overshare anything else – such as a full scan of a passport or driver’s licence with address, birth date, etc. – for the intended purpose. The customer can also manage and revoke consents centrally from within their digital wallet, instead of having to manage them in self-serve portals attached to every organisation they interact with (assuming that granularity of control is even offered – it may not be).

This will shift identity and data handling practices from organisations having all the power, to a world where consumers and organisations both have a key role.

To operate in this world, organisations will need to ensure they have the right IAM controls, covering both the customer as well as employees looking to use and leverage customer data. Having IAM on both sides of the data is the bare minimum organisations can do to make sure that as they unlock the value of that data and personalise interactions, that customers and their data stay protected, and privacy and consent are respected.

With a tightening of Australian privacy laws inevitable – a question of when, not if – it makes sense for organisations to prepare for this new reality now. By adopting best-practice data handling, privacy protections and IAM controls today, organisations will be best placed to meet current customer expectations and evolving laws in the future.

Ashley Diffey, Vice President Sales APAC and Japan at Ping Identity

New research by Sefiani has highlighted the importance of a renewed focus on building brand belonging with consumers and employees. 

The study, which investigated understandings and experiences of brand belonging in over 1000 Australian employees and consumers, in addition to 23 senior corporate communicators, found that 46 percent of consumers and 24 percent of employees were more cynical about brands post-COVID.

Brand belonging: the challenge

Communicators now face the challenge of shifting stakeholders’ relationship with brands from transactional to emotional, thereby supporting long-term brand loyalty and belonging. Fostering brand belonging is paramount, with Sefiani’s study finding that 92 percent of employees and 61 percent of consumers agree that feeling a sense of belonging with a brand is important. However, over a third (39 percent) of communicators are unsure if their customers have a sense of brand belonging with their company.

There is also a mismatch between perceived and reported senses of belonging in employees: despite 70 percent of corporate communicators believing their employees have a sense of belonging with the company, almost half reported they were open to moving jobs if presented with the right opportunity.

Fostering expectations

For consumers, who have higher expectations of brands after having turned to them for security and stability during COVID, communicators must deliver personalised and speedy responses. Sefiani’s study found that 45 percent of consumers said brands took too long to respond to issues or trends, with generic communication being the biggest barrier to their belonging.

Communicators must also have a deep, up-to-date understanding of their audience and the socioeconomic conditions affecting them, such as the cost-of-living crisis and job insecurity. This allows businesses to offer fit-for-purpose products tailored to their audience’s personalised needs.

For employees, communicators must facilitate open communication. Transparency of business performance and finances is particularly important for employees, whose livelihoods, already strained by inflated costs of living, rely on these metrics.

Working conditions are also important, with 72 percent of employees believing that the most important factor in belonging was a good relationship with their colleagues and peers.

Implementing research insights

Given the importance of personalised responses for consumers, and their expectation of swift response times, AI presents one opportunity for facilitating brand belonging for consumers. Sefiani’s report noted that AI’s capabilities for predictive analysis, real-time personalisation and hyper-local personalisation were significant draws of the technology. AI is already heavily embedded in marketing, such as in service chat bots.

Social media is another avenue for building brand belonging, with consumer respondents identifying it as their primary channel for meaningfully conversing and sharing feedback with brands. Video content on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram are particularly useful for listening to consumer feedback. 

Listening to feedback is also vital for ensuring a feeling of brand belonging in employees. This communication must be not only transparent but constructive and open. 

Concerningly, however, Sefiani’s report found that only 24 percent of corporate communicators were investing in two-way communication with employees. Two-way communication is especially important in allowing organisations to align their behaviours with the needs and values of their employees, facilitating long-term brand loyalty and belonging.

The full report and its insights can be found here.

Most car manufacturers wouldn’t think to showcase safety features inside a notorious video game named after a vehicle-related crime, but Hyundai has taken the risk.

With ‘The Uncrashable Tucson’, Hyundai and partner agency From have flipped Grand Theft Auto on its head, creating a custom server that enables the Korean company’s driver assistance system: Hyundai SmartSense.

Partnering with a gaggle of streamers, From let them test out a safety-driven SUV to ruin all of the fun, as frustrated players tried to complete suggested missions without the normal chaos of the game. 

Features of the Hyundai SmartSense system that were introduced to the server included front and rear crash prevention, lane departure warnings and blind spot detection.

The ad is a Hyundai showcase designed for the Latin America market and was produced in Uruguay, but the Tucson is already one of the best selling cars in Australia. In June 2023, 2667 models sold, making it the sixth most popular car in the country.

Games aren’t not child’s play anymore

Gaming was once derided as immature and childish, but the industry has evolved into a titan that rivals any other medium. 17 million Australians engage with video games in some form, showing that advertisers should respect gaming as a platform for accessing significant and established audiences.

‘Wordle’ was even the most common Google search of 2022, significantly more popular than its eventual owner The New York Times.

Gemma Battenbough from Twitch recently spoke to Marketing about why brands should start integrating advertising into gaming platforms. Celebrating Burberry’s efforts in the industry, she said that the company “continued to invest in this space because it’s connecting them to a new generation of fans that are incredibly hard to reach elsewhere”.

Read about the unusual Burberry collaboration with Minecraft to save the environment here.

Although there is a perception that corporate belts are being tightened across the board, Google ad revenue has managed to surpass expectations. The company announced its strong results of Q2 to shareholders this week, with advertising revenue up 3.3 percent after slumping recently.

“There’s exciting momentum across our products and the company, which drove strong results this quarter,” says Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Alphabet and Google.

“Our continued leadership in AI and excellence in engineering and innovation are driving the next evolution of Search, and improving all our services.”

What restricted budgets?

In a harsh economic climate this is an unexpected announcement, with marketing and advertising spending an early victim.

Recent data from Australian-born payments company Airwallex recorded domestic ad spend plummeting, with a 16 percent drop in a year and nearly a $2 billion decline in the Australian advertising industry.

But for Google, 2023 is proving to be a rebound year after share prices fell throughout 2022. The company report for Q2 shows that it took US$74.6 billion in revenue, beating expectations, as YouTube ad revenue rose to US$7.66 billion from US$7.34 last year. The results cast doubt upon forecasts of extreme declines in advertising spending.

“Our financial results reflect continued resilience in Search, with an acceleration of revenue growth in both Search and YouTube,” says Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

The company will be encouraged by rival results. Despite a strong return on its investment in AI, Microsoft took a hit with a poor result from the second quarter of 2023 and share prices falling. 

Google announces CFO to take on new role

Amongst the slate of Alphabet updates was the news of a new executive position for the current CFO, with Porat to be president and chief investment officer of Alphabet and Google from 1 September.

“I’m excited about this new role and the opportunity to engage with leaders globally to unlock economic growth via technology and investment,” says Porat in a statement.

“I’m committed to Google’s continued growth and ensuring that our diverse global investments are supported with strong partnership to create opportunities for people and communities everywhere.”

Read more about Google’s advertising updates by checking out its crackdown on ad-blocking software for YouTube.

The marketing game is evolving faster than most could have imagined, thanks in part to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) – in particular conversational AI. Ambit’s Tim Warren explains how to find that sweet spot between innovation and safety, to protect brand image and keep the trust of customers.  

Conversational AI, AI chatbots, have become the smart marketers’ secret weapon, transforming how we engage with customers and building brand loyalty, thanks to real-time, personalised interactions. AI chatbots can answer multiple customer queries immediately, around the clock, with no breaks. In a research study by HubSpot, 90 percent of customers rate an ‘immediate’ response as essential or very important when they have a question. 

AI capability means we can do incredible things for our prospects and customers. This goes beyond providing an immediate response. How about educating them about that new eco-friendly polar-fleece that’s hitting your shelves? Help them find their nearest favourite brand retailer? Maybe offer special personalised incentives to your top brand enthusiasts? There’s no limit to the scope of the engaging conversations you can have, and no limit to the creativity of the engagement.

But how do we keep our customers and brands safe and secure in the AI era? We have all seen the examples of chatbots gone rogue – from hallucinating incorrect answers to expressing inappropriate views misaligned with a company’s values – and marketers are well aware of the damage this can cause to a brand.  

We also have a responsibility to handle customers’ personal information with the utmost care, and many people don’t realise that once something has been entered into a public generative AI system such as ChatGPT, that input could be used to train and explain answers for others.  

Some corporates and government departments are rushing to introduce staff bans on use of ChatGPT. This is due to the risk that data from prompts entered into an open generative AI platform might appear in responses to questions from other users. 

A smarter way to use conversational AI

 There is a smarter way though. Ambit does not believe in blanket bans. Instead we recommend proactive establishment of policies and procedures to protect data, including communicating clearly to staff what tasks can and can’t be carried out using external tools such as public generative AI. 

AI and GPT are very new technologies and there will be some trial and error while marketers and customers work out how to safely use these tools.

Ambit’s advice is to

1. Identify the risks and opportunities for your business – create a risks register and review it monthly.
2. Determine who in the organisation is responsible for creating policies to guide AI adoption.
3. Determine who owns those policies.
4. Agree what tasks can and cannot be carried out using external tools. For example, writing a LinkedIn post announcing event sponsorship is fine, but writing anything at all that includes any personal data or information about a customer is not.
5. Communicate the policies and guidelines to your team, customers and partners.

By using a trusted provider of conversational AI, and following ethical AI frameworks and guidelines, you will ensure your AI systems play by the rules, minimising any potential biases or unethical outcomes.

It is also important to assign a real person to train and oversee AI chatbots. Digital employees are fantastic, yet they can’t do everything on their own. We still need that human touch and personal connection so a team made up of humans and AI is ideal. The AI chatbot provides lightning-fast responses and automated processes, freeing up time for real people to handle tricky situations, show empathy, and tackle more sensitive and complex customer inquiries. 

AI isn’t just a fancy buzzword; it’s a game-changer that unlocks a world of possibilities for marketers, allowing us to improve customer service, elevate customer engagement, and drive brand success. Conversational marketing extends beyond mere sales transactions; it serves as a powerful tool for cultivating customer relationships and fostering unwavering brand loyalty. 

So don’t let the potential risks put you off adding an AI chatbot to your team. Recent findings from Twilio’s research reveal that a whopping 90 percent of consumers express a strong desire to engage with businesses through messaging channels. This data underscores the immense potential of conversational marketing in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape. Companies that fail to capitalise on this trend are overlooking opportunities for driving customer engagement, amplifying brand visibility, and fuelling revenue growth.

By embracing AI responsibly, being transparent with customer data blending the best of human and AI interactions, and using a trusted provider, brands can safely unleash the true potential of AI.

For more tips on how to stay safe in the AI and GPT era, have a look at Ambit’s organisational readiness guide for AI and GPT.

Hays has released its FY23-24 Salary Guide, and it outlines how marketers should go about asking for a pay rise.

With the cost of living continuing to rise, recruitment and workforce solution specialists Hays have found that a significant majority of employers view individual performance as the most important factor when it comes to pay rise evaluations. 

Key elements to go through when looking for a pay rise

The primary factors that employers are looking at when reviewing pay rise requests in marketing include:

• The key responsibilities of the role.
• External median salaries for the same or similar roles.
• The organisation’s performance.
• The employee’s skills and expertise.
• The organisation’s internal set pay structure.

“We know that 95 percent of employers will increase salaries in their next review. But, with salary increase budgets under pressure, employees must make the best possible case to maximise the value of their pay rise this year,” says Matthew Dickason, CEO Asia Pacific at Hays.

“To boost your chances of a stronger pay rise, you must prepare a persuasive case,” he finishes.

Tips to maximise your value

When it comes to negotiation, these are some of the preparation tips as provided by Hays:

• Prepare your evidence: demonstrate why you deserve a raise, with a focus on your individual performance and the importance of your responsibilities.
• Research typical salaries for similar roles: review the recent salaries in the market as back up for your request.
• Set a meeting: ask your manager for a meeting for a salary review and maintain a professional manner.
• Be willing to negotiate: prepare to discuss the salary you feel your results are worth, but with some willingness to compromise.
• Have a contingency plan: if the agreement is not reached in this meeting, put a date in place for another review, or bridge the gap with improvements to work-life balance.

New data from Australian born payments company Airwallex records ad spend plummeting, with a 16 percent drop in 12 months.

Lachlan Millist of Airwallex speaks about the major drop in ad spend, with nearly a $2 billion decrease in domestic advertising. 

“The expense data track shows that Aussie businesses are scaling back ad spending in the face of a tough economic climate,” Millist says.

“What we are seeing from the way thousands of Australian businesses use our expense management products are that domestic and international advertising spending is being displaced by higher costs in areas like travel and recruitment,” he finishes.

Ad spend plummeting by nearly 20 percent

All data reviews by Airwallex were comparing January to May 2022 through to January to May 2023. During this time, it was international advertising that took the hardest hit, as it was down by 19 percent. 

In some positive news, although the advertising spend tap is being turned off, it doesn’t mean that businesses are turning off the lights. Some of this budget is being diverted to other areas. In fact, it’s gotten up to a nine percent increase across other areas of the business that might have suffered during lockdowns.

“What we are seeing from the way thousands of Australian businesses use our expense management products is that domestic and international advertising spending is being displaced by higher costs in areas like travel and recruitment,” Millist says.

So, it might be up to marketers to fight for some of the sparing budget. 

“Marketers and advertisers are having to fight harder for a share of the pie while businesses carefully review internal expenses,” Millist explains.

“More and more businesses are picking expense management partners like us to keep a close real-time watch on expenses, while accessing competitive foreign exchange rates for the overseas marketing trends.”

It was the tool of the year in 2022. Group chats everywhere were testing out the latest artificial intelligence (AI) function ChatGPT. But, like everything, as the novelty wears off, ChatGPT web traffic is posting a loss.

According to data released by web analytics company Similarweb, worldwide traffic to ChatGPT web has decreased nearly ten percent in one month.

Does a decrease in ChatGPT web traffic mean the end?

For ChatGPT, a ten percent decrease in online traffic isn’t too worrying, as it was the talk of the town when first released to market. And, as such, it was natural for the numbers to decrease after such a dizzyingly high first few months. 

ChatGPT, first released to the public in November 2022, saw a huge boost in the first quarter of 2023. The website continued to grow as people became curious about the new technology. How could it increase their work outputs? How can it be used day-to-day? So, only naturally, OpenAI and particularly ChatGPT saw an influx of traffic as word of mouth spread the site. 

But for June, the site posted its first month of traffic loss. To put some perspective into it, however, the increases are keeping ChatGPT’s website still garnering well over 1.5 billion monthly visitors. 

The cost of running ChatGPT

For the parent company, OpenAI, this dip in traffic could be a good thing. The tool is a cost-free demo to try and get more paying customers for OpenAI. Due to the massive volume of traffic to the site, it can cost OpenAI a “eye-watering amount” according to Open AI’s CEO Sam Altman. In fact, it’s rumoured to cost about $700,000USD per day.

Still, the drop in interest for ChatGPT is a sign that the novelty is wearing off. Whether this means that the technology is soon to be defunct is open-ended.

New York-based beauty brand Maybelline scored a marketing hit this month, with viral clips of London’s public transportation looking its best.

Two videos over the past week caused a stir online and were reposted across countless accounts. A Tube carriage and a red double-decker bus, both London icons, had giant lashes installed for Maybelline promotions.

Who’d have thought that all of Maybelline’s collaborations with beauty influencers would be outperformed by an anthropomorphised train?

But Londoners should not go searching for any giant eyelashes just yet.

Lashes in London

In the popular video a Tube train pulls into a station to have its oversized lashes swept back  by a mascara brush, promoting the Maybelline Lash Sensational Sky High product.

A signature London bus gets a similar treatment above ground from a Sky High brush attached to the side of a building. 

 

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A post shared by Maybelline New York (@maybelline)

One social media user described the campaign as “some of the coolest advertising ever seen”, while another said it was “genius”.  The Instagram post has over one million likes.

Unveiling Maybelline’s CGI trickery

The marketing team at Maybelline has upskilled lately, employing hyper-realistic animation to impress and bring these stunts to life. That’s right, unfortunately these eyelashes are not real.

Most people didn’t seem to notice that they were animated. The company has also been showing futuristic buses cruising through New York, with posts hinting that it was up to something.

“All it takes is a few coats to take your lashes on a ride to a surreal world,” the Maybelline caption reads.

Connecting to the physical world lends the brand a local connection. In a time of restricted budgets and hesitant consumers, out-of-home advertising is one area that is seeing strong growth.

Recently, outdoor advertising net revenue grew 11.9 percent year-on-year, according to the Outdoor Media Association which accounts for nearly 100 percent of the Australian industry.