Show notes
Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s episode of the Unmade podcast features the third stop on our Compass tour, when we rolled into Sydney. Plus, further down, the board of radio network SEN signal that they want to be dealt into the deal-making action.You should be at next year’s Compass. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, why not do it today? Your membership includes:* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn, REmade, Unlock, and Compass, all returning in 2025* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;* Your own copy of Media Unmade.Transparency deprioritised: ’If there are dodgy agencies out there, those two probably deserve each other’The third chapter of this year’s expanded six-state Compass Roadshow rolled into Sydney earlier this month with four of the industry’s most high-profile people.Telstra CMO Brent Smart has been the client behind some of the industry’s most talked-about advertising work this year. Peter Horgan chairs the Media Federation and is the outgoing CEO of Omnicom Media Group. Lou Barrett leads sales at News Corp Australia. Jasmin Bedir is CEO of creative agency Innocean and founder of gender equality initiative Fck the CupcakesAn early topic was the price of not doing distinctive work.According to Smart: “I think the really brave marketers are the ones who create boring things. That’s super brave.”Later in the conversation, he expanded on the point: “The bravest markers are the ones doing boring, invisible marketing.” Of the Telstra work, Smart said: I don’t think it’s brave, I think I’m commercially smart. I do it to drive a commercial result. I don’t do it for vanity or to win awards. I do it because it’s more commercially effective to be creative.”Meanwhile Horgan flagged the challenge of procurement departments driving down agency remuneration. He told the room that his challenge of the year was : “Pushing back on weaponised procurement, which means we don’t need humans any more in the communications ecosystem, trying to push back on that reductive narrative.”He added: “Two years ago the revenue was easy… and the humans were hard. This year, humans aren’t easy, but the revenue is bloody hard.”Smart argued that it is in brands’ best interests to avoid simply chasing the lowest cost with agencies.. “Screwing down your partners is not how you get discretionary effort from your partners. A lot of clients forget we can pay an agency a fee, but the bit you can’t buy is their passion and how much they care, and that’s a good commercial decision.”For Bedir, a theme of the year was the rise of generative AI. “I am deeply concerned about gen AI. What I hear from clients is there’s a lack of governance in most organisations. There’s so many suppliers trying to peddle you stuff that magically makes your problems go away. That’s the latest gold rush.”Accountants on the marchAnd Barrett warned of a media landscape dominated by CEOs who had come up through finance. Recent months have seen Seven West Media, Nine and Southern Cross Austereo all put their chief financial officers in the top chair Asked to nominate a challenge for the industry, Barrett said: “The rise and rise of the CFO. With so many CFOs running media companies now, I worry we’re going to end up with a lack of creativity.”Bedir also warned that the industry is struggling to find diverse new talent: “I’m concerned about the pathway of getting people in to the industry. If you’ve got the same group of people we end up with the same outputs.”And Horgan also flagged as a problem for the industry, the issue of brands investing less in understanding their media investments, He said: “Transparency is a double edged word, which needs to be owned on the client side as well."It’s not the focus that was. There’s a bell curve of clients out there who have ten person team, haven’t been able to sell expertise they need to board and are not able to sell the expertise to the board. You do the maths. If there are dodgy agencies out there, those two probably deserve each other.And Barrett added as an issue: “Over reliance on social and platforms. These guys are not paying taxes in Australia. They are not paying for content.” She added: “I’m not talking about Google, I’m talking about Meta.”Smart also acknowledged that he had learned a new lesson this year, having not previously given enough priority to influencing the staff of the brands where he has worked. He said: “Something that is often overlooked by marketers is, make your staff proud to work for the brand. That has an incredible impact on how they show up. I wouldn’t have thought as much about that in the past. But I’ve seen some incredible impact.”Unmade Index rises as SEN tells the M&A market: Deal us inThe Unmade Index nudged upwards for a second day on Wednesday, while SEN Radio’s owner Sports Entertainment Group used its AGM to signal that it wants to be a player in media deal making.SEG’s chairman Craig Coleman told shareholders that the company has been tidying up its balance sheet including selling Perth Wildcats and its New Zealand station SENZ. SEN has reduced its net debt to $13.3m and delivered an EBITDA profit of $9.6m in the last financial year.Coleman told investors: “We are now well positioned to be an active participant in beneficial media consolidation moves.”However, although SEN said it was on track to improve its profitability in this financial half, it said the radio market remains tough. “Our media division is seeing a tightening in the economy with businesses feeling the impacts of a lingering slowdown which is not isolated to any particular industry.”SEG is the smallest of the ASX-listed audio players with a market cap of $64m, compared to ARN’s $225m and Southern Cross Austereo’s $130m.SEN’s share price did not move after the update yesterday, after seeing a drop of 8% the day before.The Unmade Index closed 0.41% down on 451.6 points.Time to leave you to your Thursday.Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. (Special thanks to Team Abe’s for cleaning up what was poor audio recorded at the venue.)We’ll be back with more tomorrow.Have a great day.Toodlepip…Tim BurrowesPublisher - [email protected] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit unmade.substack.com