Fast food chains constantly refresh their menus to keep the crowds coming, and for disappointed diners who miss out on limited releases it can be a long wait for another chance. Now, for the first time in years KFC is offering its Fiery Zinger Burger, but this time with an added boost to appeal to heat fiends.

The end result is the company’s hottest ever burger.

“We know so many Aussies like their meals to pack a punch, so the Fiery Zinger Burger is perfect for fans looking to satisfy their heat cravings or test their limits,” says KFC Australia chief marketing officer Tami Cunningham.

It’s an amplification of a staple marketing technique for KFC.

The brinkmanship of heat marketing

It’s easy to see why selling spiciness works. The Scoville scale lends brands authenticity to position products in an adventurous market that treats every release as a dare.

And who doesn’t love a challenge? There’s strong marketing value in any call to action, and the chance of social media virality. One of the most popular YouTube series ever is a combination of Scoville and celebrity called Hot Ones, which has sustained enough popularity to reach 21 seasons.

But there are perils. Brands risk alienating adventurous customers by either underdelivering or posing a danger to unseasoned taste buds. The Google reviews left by naive chip munchers on the ‘Paqui One Chip Challenge’ product make for an interesting read of bodily experiences.

KFC brings back the Zinger Burger heat

The Fiery Zinger Burger released for a short period in 2016, but this time it comes with a new level of heat, thanks to its extra-hot sauce of 11 chillies – which includes jalapeños, habaneros and Carolina Reapers.

“Delivering a fresh take on iconic KFC flavours, the hottest burger from the Zinger range is sure to delight Aussies with a unique KFC eating experience that truly brings the heat. Get in quick as you never know when it’ll be back again,” says Cunningham.

To up the ante, there is also a new Fiery Double, with spicy fillets acting as buns in a burger.

The spicy meals will only be available for a limited time, from 8 August until 4 September, so don’t wait around. But for those with the KFC app, early access is under way. 

KFC was recently singled out as hot in a different way, found to have Australia’s favourite chips.

The rescue of Australia’s hopes at the FIFA Women’s World Cup in a thrashing of Canada has been the crowning highlight of a seamless event, and the public is engaged. The conclusion of an entertaining Ashes series failed to impede the success, its metropolitan viewership of 754,000 drastically outshone by the Matildas’ 4 to 0 win over Canada.

It feels like this could be a turning point for women’s sport on the global stage.

Everyone’s tuning in for the Matildas

On Monday 31 July 2023, 1.55 million Australians watched Hayley Raso and company dispatch the higher ranked team across the major cities, with almost a million sticking around to watch the post-game analysis.

After the first Matilda’s game, Football Australia CEO James Johnson, said, “this tournament is creating history and we are delighted as Host Nation. We are seeing a surge in support for women’s football, not just in ticket sales, but also in broadcast viewership, fan festival participation and merchandise sales.”

​​

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by CommBank Matildas (@matildas)

So long to the Socceroos

Australia’s mens’ soccer team, the Socceroos, has hardly held comparable relevance within the sport to the Matildas, ranked by FIFA as the 27th best team at the time of writing compared with 10th. Yet with the greater prominence of the long-established men’s event, the Socceroos have previously seemed to garner more attention in Australia. 

This group-stage game against Canada topped the viewership efforts of the mens’ 2022 campaign in Qatar, when a comparable match against Denmark only drew in 618,000 people, though to be fair it was much later at night. 

“This heightened interest in our national iconic brands is also reflected in record CommBank Matilda’s merchandise sales online and in retail stores. These numbers reflect the growing strength and appeal of the women’s game, particularly the CommBank Matildas, and it’s a testament to the incredible athletes who are providing us with such thrilling football,” says Johnson.

We’ll have to wait and see if the Matildas next game in the Round of 16 sets a new record for Australia at the World Cup.

Read more about the Matildas and the Socceroos by checking out Football Australia’s marketing efforts in its TikTok partnership here.

Pepsi is teasing a new campaign for the 50th anniversary of hip hop’s birth in New York City that focuses on a titan of both genre and metropolis alike: The Notorious B.I.G.

Although Christopher Wallace (also known as Biggie) died in 1997, his legacy as an icon of hip hop continues to evolve as Pepsi strikes up another partnership with his estate. A fresh Instagram spot captures his distinctive personality and connection to the brand, returning to a Pepsi-themed freestyle recording by the rapper.

“We’ve been working with Pepsi to commemorate my son’s artistry and connect his music with the sounds and artists of today. We hope fans will enjoy it as much as we do,” says his mother Voletta Wallace.

Limited edition Pepsi MAX cans will be released and major global cities are set to be decorated by new B.I.G-themed street art pieces, working with the Christopher Wallace estate to raise his profile with younger audiences.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Pepsi (@pepsiglobal)

Returning to an unearthed B.I.G recording

In 2020, Pepsi released a freestyling animation that featured the highly-marketable recording for the first time, in honour of Wallace being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Pepsi marketing team felt this anniversary was the right time to build on that release.

“We are always keeping a finger on the pulse of culture while listening to music fans’ preferred choices, and in the lead up to this momentous cultural occasion, they told us they had Biggie on repeat,” says Gustavo Reyna, senior director global marketing at PepsiCo. 

“In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of hip hop, an art form that has touched every corner of the world and evolved into one of the most significant drivers of popular culture, Pepsi is honoured to partner with The Notorious B.I.G. Estate to bring this unique encore of Biggie’s art and talent to a whole new generation of music fans in never-before-seen ways.”

Read about Pepsi’s relationship with the advertising disclaimer 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.

Two high-profile marketing campaigns just culminated in the ‘Barbenheimer’ opening, as Barbie and Oppenheimer finally released in cinemas. The discrete artworks were entangled in a cultural phenomenon to which they will forever be attached, but so many commentators misunderstand the sensation.

It was Barbie that came out on top in box-office earnings, taking in US$356 million to Oppenheimer’s US$180 million worldwide. It’s the biggest opening for a film directed by a woman in history, and director Greta Gerwig has been lauded for outperforming counterpart Christopher Nolan.

But ‘Barbenheimer’ was never a contest.

Marketing blitz

You’d struggle to find anyone who hadn’t engaged with at least one aspect of Barbie marketing, as it was absolutely everywhere.

On top of impressive traditional advertising, collaborations kept the movie prominent for months, from pink burgers to Impala roller skates. Our favourite was the partnership with Airbnb, which allowed fans the chance to request a booking in Ken’s bedroom of ‘Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse’.

But Barbie had everything primed for global engagement. The long history and many evolutions of Mattel’s crown jewel set the stage for this success through excellent brand recognition, so with an enormous marketing budget of reportedly US$150 million, failure seemed unlikely.

The marketing for Oppenheimer largely emphasised its solemn approach to the historical story with few colours other than in explosion depictions, providing a stark contrast to the vibrant Barbie branding that would spawn ‘Barbenheimer’ through creative online comparisons.

The symbiosis of the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon

When the Barbie release date was announced in April 2022 the overlap was framed as a contest, with one Twitter user calling it an “epic matchup”. But as marketing operations got underway that’s not how things played out.

This is not the first experience of such an anticipated dual opening for Hollywood, or even Nolan. In 2008 Mamma Mia! and The Dark Knight shared a launch date, but a differentiation was made between the fans of heart-warming musicals and superhero blockbusters, which is common counterprogramming. 

The connection seems to have been inflated recently in the context of ‘Barbenheimer’, as watching both features in a single cinema visit was not common.

This time around, instead of duelling for attention and treating this as a typical competition, the two productions succeeded in merging narratives to elevate the release date’s importance as a whole. Internet fandom played an undeniable role in the media narrative, but the stars of each film played up the entwinement. 

“I think it’s just great for the industry and for audiences that we have two amazing films by amazing filmmakers coming out on the same day,” Oppenheimer’s lead actor Cillian Murphy told IGN, while Barbie’s Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig posed with Oppenheimer tickets in June.

It’s an unexpected symbiotic relationship that has borne fruit. Each movie should be considered a huge hit thanks in part to the existence and coinciding release of the other. 

The opening weekend for ‘Barbenheimer’ was the biggest haul for the box office since mid 2019 when Avengers: Endgame debuted, providing relief for the unstable movie industry.

WB is opening the doors to BARBIE’s dreamhouse July 21, 2023, where it will show against Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER.

BARBIE VS THE BOMB. Epic matchup.

— Exhibitor Relations Co. (@ERCboxoffice) April 27, 2022

A tough time for the cinemas

Recent years have seen historically low cinema attendance figures, thanks in large part to the coronavirus pandemic. According to Screen Australia, the total domestic cinema admissions fell from 84.7 million in 2019 to roughly a third as many the following year, only recovering to 57.9 million in 2022.

Streaming has also had a major effect on this cultural shift as on-demand access to high-quality content naturally disincentivises ticket sales, but that alternative stifles cultural phenomena like ‘Barbenheimer’ without key factors like communal attendance and limited release windows.

Though this may inspire future openings, as writers and now actors strike in the US it’s hard to see this event as a turning point, since more engaged cinema audiences don’t matter if there is no content to serve them.

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.

It’s the week of the rebrand on Marketing, with yet another company deciding that it’s time to shake things up. Twitter is pivoting to ‘X’.

Though the familiar text-driven social media platform is still named Twitter, that is set to change. The company and its high-profile owner Elon Musk recently launched new branding, with a black, white and red theme replacing the light blue. And its iconic logo, the bird silhouette, has been replaced by a stylised letter x.

The degradation of Twitter seems final, with even the facade of the once thriving platform torn away and the current platform shown without its familiar glow.

The transition to the new branding is fragmented. While the browser version of Twitter shows off its moody ‘X’, on mobile there is no sign of an update. Both the app icon and user interface still have the bird logo.

Issues arose immediately as it looks like rivals Microsoft and Meta own trademarks of the letter x, with that of the latter even relating to software and social media.

Not sure what subtle clues gave it way, but I like the letter X pic.twitter.com/nwB2tEfLr8

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 23, 2023

Advertising dollars tumble

Already in a tailspin, last month the platform introduced controversial rate caps that limit the number of tweets users could interact with in a given timeframe. Even for those of us not investing in Twitter campaigns it was an annoying move, but for advertisers the hammer fell hardest.

With campaigns suddenly restricted, Twitter paid the price. Similarweb recently revealed that Twitter’s ad spend year-on-year had dropped 20 percent in June with traffic down 11 percent for the same period, amounting to an overall ad revenue decline of 50 percent.

It was not a good time for Meta to debut its new rival to the platform, Threads, which launched 6 July to the general public in 100 countries, after allowing influencers and brands a head start of two days to provide an initial wave of content.

What is it with Elon and the letter x?

Musk has a history with this particular letter, which was instrumental in building his career. He was a founder of web 1.0 site X.com, an online bank that became Paypal. The domain name was bought from the company by Musk in 2017, and as of this week, it now links back to Twitter.

Though he may be best known for Tesla, Musk’s most ambitious venture is SpaceX. The commercial rival to NASA charges US$67 million for rocket launches in the marvellous satellite industry.

In 2020, he and then-partner Grimes even named their son X Æ A-12, so the fascination is evident in both professional and personal life.

Without any of this context it could appear to some internet natives that Musk is launching Twitter into a revolutionary direction, because the letter has another, adult, association.

These are all porn except one. That one’s Twitter. pic.twitter.com/VYUWOFsFTv

— Jesse McLaren (@McJesse) July 24, 2023

An established anonymity platform is giving networking a go, diversifying functionality and revitalising visuals as it expands. Glassdoor has been known as the home of workplace reviews, where anonymity afforded employees the freedom of honesty in ways other platforms cannot offer. 

Now, with a major rebrand from partner agency Koto, the platform has new communicative features to pair with a refreshed style.

“Our work focused on shifting the experience from being a destination purely for insights, into a community for real work talk,” Koto posted on its LinkedIn page.

“Together, we built Glassdoor a holistic identity exuding confidence, transparency, and open-mindedness—positioning the brand as the centre of workplace conversations.”

Expanding beyond the rumblings of disgruntled former employees

Enhanced communication is a functional leap that can help the company branch out to new and more engaged users.

‘Bowls’ are spaces for direct chatting with optional levels of anonymity within companies,  industries or communities, so that professionals can seek assistance with their concerns. Employers can keep tabs on staff expressions, but in small companies this could see the feature gain little traction as identities are easier to uncover.

This follows Glassdoor’s 2021 acquisition of networking app Fishbowl, a natural partnership due to a common ethos of frank feedback. Now named ‘Fishbowl by Glassdoor’, the app has similar offerings to what Glassdoor is integrating into its main service.

“Today, Glassdoor becomes a home for workplace conversations,” says senior creative director Tim Murray. 

“We’re incorporating real talk in real time into our experience.”

Refreshed visuals bring a Glassdoor playful energy

Koto utilised four defining principles to redefine Glassdoor’s representation: “fresh”, “attentive”, “true” and “gutsy”. The theme is precisely refined yet expansive, including vibrant colours, a casual font and prominent motion through animations. 

The centrepiece is a new logo with Glassdoor initials “g” and “d” as quotation marks bookending the company name, permitting a transformation to a minimal form for Glassdoor’s app.

Graphic designer Josep Puy has pioneered a cast of illustrative characters for Glassdoor, creating a series of sketches that “capture a wide range of emotions at the intersection of work and life”, according to Murray. Glassdoor will continue to evolve the project internally.

It’s rebrand season

Another recent platform rebrand came from Rome2Rio, with the company pivoting to a new logo that could better engage its global consumer base.

“The move away from the previous cursive script was a deliberate move to maximise the logo’s readability for our diverse global user base,” Rome2Rio CEO Yesh Munnangi recently wrote for Marketing.

“As more than 50 percent of Rome2Rio’s users are not native English speakers, the new logo’s simplicity and readability are paramount.”

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is calling on businesses to substantiate claims of sustainable practice, after finding that 57 percent of the brands it reviewed were making misleading statements, in an act known as greenwashing. 

Businesses get creative to appear climate-conscious, from exaggerating climate action to inventing internal certification programs.

“As consumers become more environmentally conscious, businesses need to be honest and transparent when making environmental or sustainability claims so consumers are not being misled,” says ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

New guidelines for brands

The ‘Environmental and sustainability claims’ report is a recommendation for businesses to authentically engage with sustainability action through eight new principles, which cover setting goals, not exaggerating and providing evidence.

“Our draft guidance sets out what the ACCC considers to be good practice when businesses make environmental claims about their products and services as well as making them aware of their obligations under the Australian Consumer Law,” says Cass-Gottlieb.

She also says that businesses making authentic efforts to enhance sustainability are placed at a disadvantage by “businesses that engage in greenwashing without incurring the same costs”.

Businesses and consumers can give feedback on the draft guidance, as consultation is now open and closes on 15 September 2023.

Government joins community in targeting greenwashing

The public has long despised false corporate promises, but younger demographics seem to be particularly attuned to sustainability action. It is important that brands follow through on environmental promises, and the best course of action is to genuinely adopt once apparent values.

Hello Mother’s Jason Steel recently contributed an in-depth look at values-led business practices for Marketing, aiding businesses in creating honest engagement with Gen Z.

“Across industries and countries, ethical practices such as sustainability, diversity and inclusion have become essential to establishing a baseline of acceptability,” he writes, celebrating the rise of the ethical consumer.

For more news about companies addressing misleading sustainability, read about greenwashing and plastic problems in the soft drink industry.

Marketing and advertising agencies face the challenge of meeting client expectations while not deviating too far from initial service forecasts. Out-of-scope work, anything not agreed upon at the beginning of a project, is a reality for many businesses. Once over-servicing begins it can be difficult to stop.

In this difficult economic climate, every business needs to be cautious not to bleed money.

Marketing spoke to Bronwyn Karaoglu, global vice president of marketing at Ignition, about recent research the company has undertaken as it tries to highlight the extent of the scope creep.

Ninety-two percent of agency leaders said that clients had requested they work on a task that is out of scope, while most agencies reported over-servicing clients “all the time”. According to Karaoglu, it’s often their own fault.

Over-servicing is an industry-wide problem

Karaoglu says the 22 marketing and advertising agencies involved in the Ignition survey were aware of out-of-scope work-related losses and described over-servicing as a major challenge. “It’s costing them a lot,” she says, but does not believe this represents a new trend.

“If you’re not getting paid for your work there are implications on cost, on cash flow and on everything else.”

A third of agency leaders say that unbilled out-of-scope work is costing them up to $5000 per month, while over a quarter say that it is costing them more than $20,000 each month. 

An agency issue Karaoglu identifies is that many clients have become “conditioned” to expect that a lot of related yet unspecified work will be required, and don’t want to pay for it. Over-servicing has been entirely normalised. Thirty-eight percent of agency leaders say clients request out-of-scope work multiple times per week. 

Be mindful of over-servicing immediately

Ignition garnered from its research that the leading catalyst for unbilled out-of-scope work is a misalignment of expectations, with troubling differences between the perspectives of a client and an agency often created at the initial stage of the relationship.

It’s important to have a clear agreement in place from day one that defines all aspects of potential servicing so that both agency and client can remain on the same page, as once issues arise they become harder to address.

“If you’ve started to over-service a client and suddenly stop, it can have a negative effect on the relationship with that client,” says Karaoglu, warning agencies to be careful about how they manage the issue.

She believes the signed agreement should be regarded by both parties as “the single source of truth”. It is the nature of a business relationship to be dynamic, but if a client demands constant changes it creates a vicious cycle of over-delivering and underperforming.

The agency-client relationship as the critical asset

Karaoglu thinks agencies prioritise preserving relationships with clients, which creates a hesitancy to push back against unexpected requests. Twenty-four percent of agency leaders told Ignition that demonstrating the value of their work to clients is difficult, while 38 percent think retaining clients will be a challenge agencies face in their next 12 months.

But provided compensation is assured, out-of-scope work can be a valuable opening.

“It really signals an opportunity for organic growth, for agency leaders and owners to negotiate that additional revenue with their clients and build on that relationship. However the challenge is that many of them simply absorb the cost, and just take on the extra time,” Karaoglu says.

Often the fallout of avoiding awkward conversations with clients falls back on employees of an agency, with Karaoglu saying that it can lead to burnout, increased absenteeism and even a staff exodus.

The challenge of over-servicing clients can be seen in other industries. Ignition previously analysed its incidence in the accounting industry, where over $100,000 from unbilled out-of-scope work was being left on the table by agencies every month.

Ignition recommends automating invoicing and payment systems through a client-engagement platform so that other issues with servicing can be removed, as marketing and advertising agencies also described struggling with overdue payments.

Most agencies reported dealing with payments more than 10 days overdue.