Advertising, Media & Marketing

Seven, Nine and Ten CEOs unite for Senate enquiry to support access to Free TV

THE CEOs of the Seven, Nine and Ten networks will make a rare joint appearance at a Senate inquiry, to argue the importance of access to free TV for millions of Australians and to point out what they call "significant oversights" in the proposed Bill.

The commercial TV executives will appear today alongside Free TV chair Greg Hywood and CEO Bridget Fair before the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee to call for the prominence and anti-siphoning bill to be strengthened.  

Free TV Chair Greg Hywood said, “We welcome the government’s intention to make free local TV services easy to find on connected TVs and to stop global streaming giants putting our major sports behind a TV paywall. But this Bill contains some significant oversights that we will be highlighting to the committee today.” 

The Bill prevents subscription streaming services such as Amazon, Apple and Disney from buying exclusive terrestrial broadcast rights to iconic sporting events like the Olympics, AFL, NRL and cricket, but they can still acquire exclusive digital rights and lock out the millions of Australians who watch free sport on services such as 7plus, 9Now and 10 Play. 

In another oversight, according to Free TV, the Bill only requires the free apps of local broadcasters and a Live TV tile be available on new smart TVs that are manufactured 18 months after the legislation receives assent, meaning millions will miss out in the interim. 

Seven West Media managing director and CEO, James Warburton, said, “Live sporting moments bring our nation together and must remain free and accessible to everyone regardless of their income. 

“The Matildas proved the importance of free, accessible content last year when they smashed TV audience and streaming records. The Matildas’ FIFA Women’s World Cup games brought millions of Australians together and truly united the nation.

"With more and more people watching sport online, excluding digital rights from these new laws is a serious mistake, one that means the laws fail to keep up with modern viewing habits. 

“We also urge parliament to adapt the prominence framework to better ensure Australians can easily find free content through their smart TVs,” Mr Warburton said. 

Nine CEO, Mike Sneesby said, “All Australians deserve free access to the sporting events, trusted news and entertainment programs that bring communities together. 

“For free to air broadcasters to continue to provide these world class services we need the ability to provide them on all the platforms and delivery systems available to our audiences. It’s critical the government provides the regulatory support required to ensure we can do the commercial deals that are necessary for us to provide these services,” he said. 

Executive vice president of Ten, Beverley McGarvey said, “No other platform or service has the ability to reach Australians and unite Australians like Free TV can. Millions of homes turn to us day and night because they trust us, whether that be to deliver local shows their friends and family are talking about or to stay informed and safe during crises. Only local free TV can deliver all that. 

‘We can’t let guaranteed access to free TV only be for those who can afford a new TV in 18 months time, particularly when families are feeling the pressure on their budgets.

“The government should not delay the implementation of prominence rules because, in our experience, these changes can be implemented much faster on new TVs and even for existing TVs that regularly receive software updates. 

“That’s why we’re asking the government to reduce the delay in implementing this change that could benefit millions of Australian households before the end of this year,” she said. 

Free TV CEO Bridget Fair said, “The government has rightly acknowledged that Australians' access to free TV is under threat – but there are some crucial gaps in the bill. 

“With just a few simple changes, it could become an excellent piece of legislation that fulfills its purpose and safeguards Australians’ access to free TV for years to come,” she said. 

Free TV is calling for the following changes to the Bill: 

Prominence 

  • Reduce the implementation period from 18 months to a maximum of six months. 
  • Extend the rules to existing TVs that receive software updates. 
  • Ensure that viewers are presented with both free and paid options when searching for content. 
  • Require electronic TV guides to include local free TV services. 

Anti‐siphoning 

  • Require that both the free broadcast and free digital streaming rights be acquired by a free broadcaster before the event can be acquired by a pay TV or subscription streaming provider. 
  • Do not extend the automatic de-listing period from six to 12 months as many sporting events are acquired within this timeframe. 

The Free TV Submission regarding the Communications Legislation Amendment (Prominence and Anti‐ siphoning) Bill 2023 – link is here

 

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Greeff explains the property industry ‘engine’ powering Domain

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

DOMAIN, Australia’s digital property portal and associated real-estate industry business, does more than just list properties for consumers and agents.

It is also a technology company that services the real estate industry. That is, for consumers, investors and agents.

Frank Greeff, the head of industry at Domain, explains how part of part of Domain works as an aggregator. Mr Greeff had started out as a chef and then, with the help of his brothers, decided to create a real estate-focused technology business that they eventually sold to Domain.

“For example, if you drive past any home for sale, you’ll see a sign board at the front, you’ll see it in Domain, you’ll see it on REA, they might hand out some brochures, you might see it on social media,” Mr Greeff told Talking Business.

“Our business aggregates all the suppliers, all the people who execute those different materials, and the real estate agents will log on to our platform to perform those tasks.” 

Mr Greeff said the easiest way to describe it was “as similar to Uber Eats”.

On one side you have a consumer who wants to buy the property and on the other side you have the agents who, like the restaurants, provide what the consumer is looking for.

“Uber Eats is the aggregator, the gateway between the two,” he said. “We are the gateway between the two. We don’t necessarily do the marketing but we facilitate the process.”

Adapting to meet real market needs

It’s very niche. One of Mr Greeff’s brothers was a real estate photographer and the other was a real estate floor planner.

He said the business (Realhub.com.au) started as a physical service company that created the signboards. They then created a platform.

They challenged the major company that was in this space (Campaigntrack.com), took about 30 percent of their business, and then merged.

The business, Realbase, that he and his brothers created was then snapped up by Domain.

“Roughly we see about 43 percent of all transactions, so about one in two properties across Australia and New Zealand will come to our business. The next closest is about one-tenth the size,” Mr Greeff said.

“This was the unique element for Domain. This is the place where agents come to get not just the online marketing but all the marketing.”

Platform made to order

The technology is totally proprietary, developed by Frank Greeff’s brothers.

He said Domain also offered services direct to agents. These include services for compliance for agency agreements and signing digital authorities – and for data behind the history of the properties.

“This series of products are fragmented, so what we are doing is creating a single entry point and bringing the products together so the agent has one log in and they would see all the different products and processes that they could save within their business,” Mr Greeff said.

That is how Mr Greeff and his team integrate Domain’s businesses.

“In five years’ time, the goal for us is a single platform in terms of look and feel,” he said.

“What we want is one log-in for an agent where they can pick and choose from any of the products, but once they understand one of the products, how it works and how the technology feels, they understand them all.”

www.realbase.io

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.

https://play.acast.com/s/talkingbusiness/talking-business30-interview-with-frank-greeff-from-dom

 

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A much, much closer look at marketing

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

MARKETING whizz Maureen Barten from Maureen Barten Consulting sees marketing as very much an inside job.

“Internal marketing is often overlooked so our marketing journey with a company starts with looking at the inside,” Ms Barten told Talking Business. “How is your team communicating with each other? Because that communication and the consistency of communication and the tone of communication sets the tone for how they are communicating with the outside world, your customers, your stakeholders, your vendors.

“Along with that strategy, we are often involved in creating brand messaging and establishing a voice,” she said. “We will identify avatars and firstly the goals, mission and vision of the company.”

Ms Barten said companies often have this, but it’s not up to date. And if it incorporates changes.  

“One of the things I’ve come to understand over my decades in businesses is that a marketing strategy, a business plan, a marketing plan, they need to be dynamic,” Ms Barten said.

“If they’re not being reviewed on a consistent basis, at least annually, and updated, they are largely out of date.”

Long years of experience

Ms Barten, who has run businesses from the age of 22, works with small to medium businesses that turn to her because they need to outsource their marketing.  She works with professional service providers, accountants, lawyers and allied medical professionals as well as hospitality retail and consumer goods businesses.

She also has clients in wholesale manufacturing as she has a background in manufacturing back home in California. Generally, her clients have a staff of two to15. She has also worked with non-profits.

Ms Barten has run campaigns and helped organisations raise millions of dollars building hospitals. In the United States, she had worked as a consultant to Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.

Maureen Barten Consulting also builds teams, some with internal and others with external sources.

“I build messages that are timeless, that are specifically targeted to the audience you desire,” she said.

Challenge is in identifying key markets

The firm’s challenges are all about helping clients identify their key markets.

“In doing so, we create new opportunitie,” Ms Barten said. “It’s the backbone of a solid marketing strategy. You’ve got to know who you’re selling to.”

She said Maureen Barten Consulting was now moving into “the exciting space of mentoring business leaders” and owners and their teams.

“We go in and work with them on the key deliverables that we provide which would be the messaging and making sure we are talking to and in the right language to those people, the people they want to meet, we create strategies and plans and we mentor them so they can run with it,” she said.

“Or we make sure we have those teams in place and we project manage.”

Ms Barten said it was exciting for her because she liked production – especially as she has a background in product production.

“I like to see how things are built, I like to see them come to fruition and deliver results,” Ms Barten said.

“So managing a team or mentoring a group so they make those things happen is hugely rewarding for me,” she said.

“If I look over the course of my journey, my most fulfilling moments have been in mentoring and teaching."

www.maureenbarten.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.
https://play.acast.com/s/talkingbusiness/talking-business45-interview-with-maureen-barten-from-mareen

 

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How brands have navigated the downturn so far – Pureprofile research

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business

THE DOWNTURN has seen an explosion of Australians shopping online.

Martin Filz, the CEO of Pureprofile said a number of factors were driving this trend. He also outlined strategies that brands should be using to take advantage of the trend.

Mr Filz said they need to be mindful that people’s buying habits change when times get tough and people have less money.

“When you look at the preferences of audiences and consumers going to brand, what you always have in a downturn is that people change their opinions and views,” Mr Filz told Talking Business

“So the first key point is that brands need to stay close to their consumers. What I mean by that is, do market research and understand what your consumers’ drivers are, what their concerns are. Is it quality? Is it price? Is it privacy? Is it sustainability? Is it convenience?

“All of those things change over time but especially change when we’ve got a downturn.”

 

RETAILERS, TAKE STOCK

Mr Filz said retailers should look at what drives individual purchases with brands.

“For example, convenience is really important, free delivery is really important, lower price, discounts, click and collect, products that are only available online, are important.

“Those are the key drivers for people buying on e-commerce,” he said.

The other area for retailers to examine is how people are gathering information about brands and products.

“Social media is the number one place that people understand about a brand or a product,” Mr Filz said. “They look at reviews, they look at feedback. They may look at offers.”

Mr Filz said friends and families were the second biggest drivers for products.

Product reviews and Google reviews are also critical.

The third driver is the loyalty scheme.

 

KEEP INVESTING THROUGH A DOWNTURN

Mr Filz said companies that keep investing during a downturn are the ones that succeed. They gain customers and they keep that market share until things come right again, which will inevitably happen.

He said customer loyalty from people buying directly from brands is now “through the roof”.

“64 percent have purchased their favourite brand on multiple occasions from that brand’s website, so it works,” Mr Filz said.

“We also know that 61 percent who have bought direct from a brand, when they see that brand available on an aggregation site, don’t buy from that market place, they actually go back and buy it from the brand.

“The direct brand-to-consumer market place is really powerful. It is especially strong with millennials and Gen Z who are looking to purchase their brands direct from the manufacturer.”

Mr Filz said research by Pureprofile showed Australians’ spending had changed with the downturn.

He spending at supermarkets in July this year, compared with July in 2021, had increased 7 percent. But alcohol expenditure at Dan Murphys and BWS was down 5 percent.

Supermarkets are charging more but people have to eat so they keep buying, hence the 7 percent increase. But they are removing alcohol from their discretionary spending.

“People are looking at what they have to buy, what can they buy, what can they do without?” Mr Filz said.

“People are also making decisions around quality versus price.”

The research also showed people were not letting go of quality during the downturn. Instead of buying something based on price, they were now shopping around.

www.pureprofile.com

www.leongettler.com

 

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.

https://play.acast.com/s/talkingbusiness/talking-business-35-interview-with-martin-filz-from-pureprof

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Forbes to focus on Australia’s ‘best’ business minds and entrepreneurs

FORBES AUSTRALIA officially launched on Friday. Its stated mission: to offer Australian leaders, entrepreneurs and success seekers a new experience-led membership built to unearth stories of change and success.

The Australian arm of Forbes has a pretty good head start, being able to tap into the suite of print and online subscriber services atop the US magazine’s 105-year heritage.

Forbes Australia has come about through a licensing agreement between Forbes Media and the optimistic local group, Success Publishing Pty Ltd, so it is able to draw on an armoury of well-regarded business journalism.

Today, the Forbes reader experience is – thanks to the magazine’s digital and broadcast development – what the publishing team calls a multi-faceted immersive experience that includes a premium bi-monthly magazine, website and curated online newsletters’.

Something different is the Forbes Australia focus on events, with members promised they will be able able to “see the story unfold beyond the pages at live and hybrid events”. The first Forbes Australia LIVE event is happening in Sydney on October 20.

Writing in the first issue of Forbes Australia, Forbes Media chairman and editor-in-chief , Steve Forbes said, “Australia embraces many of the same ideals as that of Forbes. It’s a place of doers, built by entrepreneurs who have created from scratch the country’s leading industries in sectors such as commodities, wine, agriculture and fishery. Now a new generation is adding high tech to that mix.

“This ‘can do’ country provides a model of stability, economic progress and democratic government in the Asia-Pacific and has a growing role in regional security. We are truly excited to watch Forbes Australia chronicle the country’s rising business, financial and economic profile.

Forbes Australia will build a local iteration of the global media brand, led by CEO Michael Lane, who has developed multiple successful businesses across live events, real estate and wealth management.

“Forbes is an inspiring and engaging media brand for more than 150 million people every month,” Mr Lane said.

“With Forbes Australia, we are combining Forbes’ global perspective with a uniquely local twist. By putting local business leaders and local entrepreneurs at the centre, we want to celebrate success, cultivate community and spark meaningful change.” 

Forbes Australia editor-in-chief is Sarah O’Carroll. Ms O’Carroll was most recently editor-in-chief of Yahoo Finance, which she re-launched in the Australian market in 2018 and grew its audience to a peak of more than two million monthly users.

“Australians have never been more ambitious,” Ms O’Carroll said. “They’re yearning for new approaches to our nation’s challenges and opportunities.

“They want stories of success and determination, and ideas built to equip our leaders for the best and brightest future.”

Ms O’Carroll said content would primarily be built on unique, locally written stories of entrepreneurs and success, mixed with the best news and features from Forbes’ global offerings. The brand has the stated goal of “tapping into the deep well of local insight and leadership, Forbes Australia will unearth and tell the stories that celebrate success, cultivate community and spark meaningful change”.

forbes.com.au

Mobiquity tailors tech-driven financial products to ‘brand enthusiasts’

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

IMAGINE IF RETAILERS offered banking services like buy now, pay later? Or if your local football club offered you the opportunity to get the finance to buy a car? This is possible with the work that Mobiquity is doing.

Mobiquity partners with the world’s leading brands and banks to design and deliver compelling digital products and services.

Gustavo Quiroga, the vice president and general manager of Mobiquity for the Asia-Pacific regionAPAC, said this was one of the most exciting areas that Moibiquity is getting into in Australia. He said they ‘become like banks’.

“It’s about bringing this opportunity to extend the utility that these trusted brands have with their customers by bringing in financial services which they couldn’t do before, “ Mr Quiroga told Talking Business

“Now the reason is banks or banking is a very distributed and loosely defined industry. So all of these industries, airlines and sporting associations, they have something that every bank covets – and that is trust of their customers and a real brand affinity.

“So as a Penrith Panthers member, I might take out a car loan with them, before I go to a bank, and some insurance, because I know that I trust them, that they’re going to give me the best deal, because I love my club and any profits are going to go back to make my club even better. So why wouldn’t I do that?

“Why wouldn’t I take out a Qantas holiday and pay it through Qantas in 12 easy direct instantly created direct debit payments,” Mr Quiroga said.

“I think this is the most exciting area of innovation for financial services across the whole industry and it’s not just traditional banks.”

BUILDING BRAND RELATIONSHIPS

Mr Quiroga said Mobiquity could also work to help banks deal with the trust issue by becoming a broker and creating relationships between banks and other businesses.

“We act as partnership brokers or we sponsor marriages between organisations,” he said. “For a bank, why not empower and enable those organisations that have the trust of captive audiences – so the Penrith Panthers, the Qantases of the world – and therefore tackle this challenge of trust as more one of distribution into those target segments and integration with the organisations that own those target segments.

“So what we do, in that sense, we broker those marriages and we orchestrate those business integrations from a technology and experience.”

Mr Quiroga said Mobiquity was also targeting to work with mutuals, neo banks and challenger banks. 

“From a tactical level, we tend to focus more on solutions to current problems that these banks have, such as how do I turn Pay 2, a new industry initiative, into something that helps my merchant clients win more customers?” Mr Quiroga said. 

“Or how do I speed up the approval of the right personal loan for my retail customers? So we do this by partnering with best of breed technology vendors.”

Mr Quiroga said strategically, Mobiquity provides digital banking advisory services.

“We are doing this for a number of organisations that are looking to stand up new propositions, like a brand new Islamic bank here in Australia,” he said.

www.mobiquity.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://play.acast.com/s/talkingbusiness/talking-business15-interview-with-gustavo-quiroga-from-mobiq  

 

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Discounting prices can discount your brand says Eisner

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

IN AUSTRALIA, consumers are used to companies discounting products when there’s a downturn in the market. But a discount in tough times can damage a brand, according to Jason Eisner, co-founder of BrandQuest, a strategy, culture and brand management company.

He said businesses needed to work out where exactly they fit in the market. If they are a company modelled on providing discounts, they might be able to do it. But if not, they should not go down the discount route. 

“I think people during an economic downturn get scared and especially in Australia, one of the first things we do is we go straight to discounting. It’s kind of a last resort thing to do and one of the things it does is it basically destroys your brand,” Mr Eisner told Talking Business.

“It’s a very quick fix to an ongoing problem. It’s probably the last resort to turn to and people use it as their first resort.”

He said “price tells us everything, what the business is about”.

PRICE INDICATES SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Mr Eisner said price told about supply and demand. Demand had everything to do with what the product was worth and how much people liked it.

He said changing the price would always have an impact and he said it was done way too often and done with a short term viewpoint without much analysis.

He said there were times when it was worth discounting and there were other times when BrandQuest would recommend against it.

“If you’re a low cost brand and your brand is always a discounted brand, and the reason why people come to you is because it’s a discount, then there’s probably a reason to discount it at every point in time,” Mr Eisner said.

This could also be done when there was an oversupply of the product, or the company was entering a new market.

“If you have a brand and you put lots of money into it and you have built it over time, discounting is eroding that,” Mr Eisner said. “It basically says the value of my brand is actually not as much as I priced it at, I’m going to discount it and I’m saying you shouldn’t need to pay full price for my brand.

“And the best brands in the world don’t.”

TOP BRANDS HOLD THEIR PRICES

Examples of that include brands like Apple and Mercedes, BMW and Audi.

Their products are worth more than what their competitors are selling, so they use price the opposite way to build into their brand, letting the consumer know it is a quality product.

“In general, the big luxury brands tend not to discount because they realise if you put lots and lots of money into building your brand, all you’re doing is destroying that brand value if you discount too much,” he said.

“If I am in the top prestige premium market, you are pretty hard pressed to discount. If I was in the budget commodity market with low price, low quality, that’s where you are in this discount thing.”

Any company setting a price has to do this in conjunction with a marketing strategy.

“A strategy is about thinking of the long term and price is a very short term mechanism that you can change over time. Everybody gets scared and they use a sort term lever like price and the reality is, it affects their long term strategy,” Mr Eisner said. 

www.brandquest.com.au

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.

https://play.acast.com/s/talkingbusiness/talking-business-43-interview-with-jason-eisner-co-founder-

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