Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we share the highlights from the opening chapter of this year’s Compass roadshow. And further down, the Unmade Index’s green streak comes to an end.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (2025), Unlock (2025), and Compass (November);

* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade. 

Brand fame, burnout and doing more with less

Unmade’s six-state Compass roadshow kicked off in Hobart last week.

Today we share highlights from that first session. The discussion, recorded in front of a live audience, featured Ally Bradley, GM of Southern Cross Austereo in Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria and the NT; creative Chas Bayfield; Lindene Cleary, CMO of Tourism Tasmania, Abe Udy, founder of audio production house Abe’s Audio; and Simon Crerar, editor-in-chief of SmartCompany.

The evening kicked off with a warning from Bayfield that timidity from brands in their advertising is a far bigger risk than controversy because unremarkable advertising will not be seen. “The big challenge is invisibility,” Bayfield warned.

Other topics in the debate, moderated by Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, included the journey of Tourism Tasmania’s ‘Come Down for Air’ positioning, the business challenges being faced by SmartCompany and other publishers, the effects of burnout on over-stretched teams, and the threats and opportunities offered by AI

For those curious about the reference to Blackcurrant Tango, this was Bayfield’s famous 1998 ad, ‘St George’:

The Compass roadshow continues next week. We’re in Perth on Monday, Adelaide on Tuesday and the tour concludes in Melbourne on Wednesday. Tickets are on sale via this link.

Unmade Index slips back into the red

The Unmade Index’s four-day winning streak came to an end yesterday with falls almost across the board for media stocks.

Among the larger businesses, Southern Cross Austereo has the worst of it, losing 2.8%. Audio rival ARN Media dropped 2.1%

The Unmade Index lost 0.69% to land on 429.8 points.

Time to leave you to your Thursday.

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.

We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition, we ask whether Donald Trump’s podcast strategy will signal an advertising shift; we look back at the Seven and Nine AGMs, and forward to the ABC, Seven and Are Media upfronts.

f you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (2025), Unlock (2025), and Compass (November);

* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade. 

Did Joe Rogan put Trump over the top?

Just a week ago, the consensus was that the US election was too close to call. Now, everybody is an expert on why a Donald Trump victory was inevitable.

One underplayed factor was the strategy of Donald Trump’s team to make him available on several podcasts including The Joe Rogan Experience. With podcasts skewing younger and more male than most mainstream media, will Trump’s victory change how marketers see the medium?

Also today, Seven West Media and Nine set very different tones at their AGMs; and we look forward to the ABC, Are Media and Seven’s 2025 scene setting upfront events.

Further reading:

* Google Trends: ‘Did Joe Biden drop out?'

* Unmade: Index bottoms out as TV networks share a gloomy outlook

* The Saturday Paper: ‘The mighty and powerful Joe Rogan’

* Pivot: How Trump will impact media

* Joe Rogan Experience: #2219 Donald Trump

Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy.

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’r taking a scheduled publishing break tomorrow while I travel to Compass Brisbane.

We’ll be back with more on Wednesday.

Have a great day

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s interview features Australia’s most talked about business writer, Joe Aston, whose book on Qantas has dominated the political cycle for the last ten days.

Also today, in the Unmade Index, Seven and Nine held their AGMs, taking different approaches to acknowledging their failings.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* Complimentary tickets to all of Unmade’s events, including HumAIn (2025), REmade (2025), Unlock (2025), and Compass (November);

* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade.

‘No amount of PR can fix the operations of a company that is failing’: Joe Aston on how profit-chasing caught up with the Qantas brand

Today’s conversation with Joe Aston takes place where brand, business, and lobbying collide.

His book The Chairman’s Lounge contains the most detailed examination yet seen of the Qantas-operated network of invitation-only lounges for politicians and the business elite.

Across Australia’s capital cities, alongside the well signposted Qantas Club and Qantas Business Lounges, is a third type of lounge, hidden behind mirrored doors, with word ‘Private’ written on them.

The Chairman’s Lounge isn’t just a space with an a la carte menu and top shelf wine; being invited to become a member means a range of travel perks. No matter what type of ticket they buy, a Chairman’s Lounge member will likely be upgraded when they fly.

At the very least, they’ll be sitting in the front row of economy. Ever noticed those smartly dressed people enjoying the extra leg-room of row 4, being greeted by name by the cabin crew and handed a glass of something nice from the business trolley? Chances are they’re CL members.

And for influential politicians travelling internationally, CL status means buying an economy class ticket and sitting in a first class seat.

The Chairman’s Lounge has been an incredibly effective lobbying tool, allowing Qantas more access to politicians than any other business in Australia. Says Aston: ”What the Chairman’s Lounge does is make Qantas the most powerful lobbyist in Canberra.”

And that’s without taking into account the bosses who bend their company travel policies towards Qantas, even if other alternatives are cheaper. As Aston puts it: “It’s worth every cent. The operating costs aren’t that high compared to what it gets people to do, and that is spend millions and millions more than they otherwise would”.

Aston’s book covers the period where underinvestment in operations began to catch up with the Qantas brand. He is critical of the board for failing to hold former CEO Alan Joyce to account as the brand deteriorated. That includes Australia’s most famous adman Todd Sampson. “I do think it is ridiculous that he's still on the Qantas board - he proved to be completely useless when it mattered.Not, by the way, more useless than than anyone else, and not less useless: just as useless.

Theres a risk of burying the lede in this interview. His Rear Window column in the Australian Financial Review was often an agenda setter. So what will he do next?

Aston hints that he may launch a newsletter of his own: “Doing my own reader-funded content is something I’ve thought about.”

He acknowledges that his style of writing on the edge puts him in danger of attracting threatening letters from defamation lawyers. “It’s all a risk calculation,” he says. “It’s how much revenue you can generate and is it enough to just pay for whatever litigation costs come your way. “

Index bottoms out as TV networks share a gloomy outlook

The Unmade Index recovered marginally on Thursday after hitting another all-time low the day before.

Yesterday saw The Unmade Index lift by 0.15% to land on 424.2 points. The Index, which tracks the value of Australia’s ASX-listed media and marketing sector, began at the start of 2022 on a nominal 1000 points.

Both Nine and Seven West Media held their annual general meetings yesterday.

Nine’s chair Catherine West used a significant her address to shareholders to acknowledge that the company still needs to do more to address its problematic culture within its newsrooms.

SWM’s chair Kerry Stokes dedicated one paragraph of his address to tell his shareholders that his company has now modernised its culture, and four paragraphs to complaining about the ABC’s coverage of the problem.

Nine told the market that after an Olympics boost, TV revenues have returned to the 10% rate of decline seen in the previous financial year. It warned “we are seeing no tangible signs of improvement to date”.

Seven said its revenues are likely to be down about 6.5% for the half.

Nine’s market cap grew slightly yesterday, up by 0.9% to $1.75bn. Seven West Media lost 3%, to land on $239m

Meanwhile, Ooh Media recovered by 2.1% and Southern Cross Austereo was up by nearly 1%. ARN Media went in the other direction, losing 4.2%.

Time to leave you to your Friday.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Best of the Week.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition: Can a loveable monster make Myer’s Christmas?; The launch of AI-driven search in Australia creates a new peril for news publishing; and Nine’s chair faces a shareholder rebellion.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes a complimentary ticket to this month’s Compass roadshow, plus all of Unmade’s 2025 events, including HumAIn, REmade and Unlock (2025).

You also get our member-only content and our paywalled archives; and your own copy of Media Unmade. 

As Myer parts with Clems, it launches their last Christmas campaign; Zero click comes to Australia; and Nine’s board readies for rough AGM

With the Christmas retail season more crucial than ever for the advertising sector, Myer has launched its Christmas effort, featuring a bovver-boot wearing monster called Humbug. And will the decision of Myer to pitch its creative account open the door for a reunion?

Speaking of bovver boots, we also discuss Google’s local launch of AI Overviews and OpenAI’s decision to turn on web search.

And we discuss today’s report in Capital Brief that Nine’s chair Catherine West faces a shareholder vote against her reappointment.

Further reading:

* The Australian: Myer kicks off Christmas season with playful campaign

* Little Black Book: Myer Pitches Creative Account

* Little Black Book: Ant Keogh, Paul McMillan, and Michael Derepas Leave The Monkeys Melb to Launch Agency

* Unmade: Can ChatGPT’s new search offering see past paywalls?

* Unmade: News Corp kicks off its first big AI legal battle

* Google: Introducing AI Overviews in Australia, a new generative AI experience on Search

* The Australian: Nine chair Catherine West set for re-election at AGM this week

* Capital Brief: Nine shareholders urged to 'hold directors accountable' for toxic culture

Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes, Abe Udy and Cat McGinn

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today, ahead of his visit to Australia for next month’s IAB Leadership Summit, we talk to IAB Tech Lab’s CEO Tony Katsur about the state of play in digital advertising. And the Unmade Index approaches a new low.

Only Unmade’s paying members get full access. They were entitled to a ticket to today’s inaugural Unlock conference in Sydney. They also get an invitation to our Compass: Reflections and Projections event, taking place across six states throughout November. Next year they’ll also be able to join us at our AI-focused conference HumAIn (Q2 2025) and at our retail media conference REmade.

They get full access to our archives, which go behind the paywall after two months. Feeling jealous of all that access? Maybe that should be you. Upgrade today.

‘Data provenance is going to be one of the top issues in 2025 and 2026’: What IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur worries about

Being the boss of IAB Tech Lab, the standard setting body of the digital advertising industry, must be a frustrating experience. With more responsibility than power, the IAB attempts to shepherd its members towards agreed tech standards including around audience measurement.

In the rise of the open web, the industry broadly agreed about specs like standard ad sizes and audience measurement. In Australia, the IAB endorses Ipsos as preferred currency, and before that Nielsen.

In CTV (connected TV) though, in Australia and around the world, there’s no such consensus. That includes Foxtel at the centre of a coalition of streamers pushing for a solution from Kantar, while OzTAM, owned by Seven, Nine and Ten, takes a different direction with VOZ (Virtual Australia).

Then there’s the issue of global platforms who want to apply their own measurement and standards to their walled gardens, which tends to deliver them the results they want.

Today’s podcast guest is IAB Tech Lab’s New York-based Tony Katsur, talking to Unmade’s Tim Burrowes. Katsur be speaking on standards at the IAB’s Leadership Summit in Sydney on November 20.

Katsur is a veteran of the digital advertising economy having worked for some of the industry’s formative players including DoubleClick, MediaMath and Rubicon Project before joining IAB Tech Lab three years ago

In the wide ranging conversation, Katsur describes himself not so much as a sherrif of what was a wild west, but a constable, imploring his constituents to do the right thing.

On CTV he observes: “There are companies that may believe that they're a walled garden, but they're not. Therefore they think they can go it alone with their own proprietary forms of measurement.

“There are a lot of companies out there that think they’re a bigger deal than they are, and think they can measure themselves or have their own proprietary measurement standard.”

Among the other topics discusses are the threat that the large language models of AI pose to the intellectual property of media owners; why data provenance will be the key phrase of 2025 and 2026; whether the preparation for cookie deprecation that never came was wasted effort (he argues not); and reasons to feel optimistic for publishers.

* Tony Katsur will be speaking at the IAB Australia Leadership Summit on November 20

Unmade Index hovers over the trapdoor

The Unmade Index slipped to within a fraction of a percentage point of a new all-time low yesterday. The index, which plots the movement of Australia’s ASX-listed media and marketing companies, lost 0.51%, to land on 437.7 points. It’s previous all-time low of 437.4 points came six weeks ago.

The index was pulled down by shifts at the top of town, with Nine losing 1.3% and its majority owned real estate platform Domain dropping 1.7%. Nine is now trading at its lowest point since April 2020.

It was a better day for the audio players, with ARN Media gaining 2.8% and Southern Cross Austereo up by 3.1%.

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. The Unmade team are all in Sydney today for our Unlock conference. And we’ll be back with a text-led edition tomorrow.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition, Seven West Media and News Corp lobby for government help on funding; households make the switch to ad-funded tiers, and we look ahead to the final upfront events of the year.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including Unlock (this Thursday October 31), Compass (across November), HumAIn (Q2 2025) and REmade (Q3 2025);

* Member-only content like this post; and all of our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade. 

Fighting disinformation by funding news: Media bosses stop up the rhetoric; Ad-supported TV back in vogue

After last week’s softener from the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, Australia’s big media players are moving into lobbying overdrive. Seven will argue this week that the giant digital platforms are a force for evil; while News Corp’s boss is arguing that the little end of town cannot be the solution.

Instead, Seven and News Corp are lobbying for the government to support the not-too-big, not-too-small Goldilocks solution of companies like, well, Seven and News Corp.

As the Australian reports, the editor-in-chief of Seven West Media, Anthony De Ceglie, will tomorrow use a Melbourne Press Club speech to attack the platforms including Elon Musk’s X, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, saying:

“Elon Musk doesn’t care about the truth. In fact, he revels in peddling lies and boasts about using his bin fire of a site to influence the US election.

“Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg is seemingly happy for Meta to profit off the page impressions that child sex offenders create when they routinely use his site to prey on their next victim.

“Against these evil forces — and calling them that is not an exaggeration — there is only one true antidote. The news. The truth. The fourth estate.”

De Ceglie will also champion the idea of a tax break for producing news and current affairs content.

And News Corp’s executive chairman Michael Miller argues in The Australian today that the government should try to force Meta to go on supporting the big media players it did deals with three years ago:

“The government is at risk of abandoning the engine rooms of Australian news, which is where the bulk of the jobs are and where the bulk of important Australian stories are told,” he said.

“The parliament’s primary focus should be those deals Meta has walked away from.

As well as discussing De Ceglie and Miller’s arguments, today’s edition of Start the Week examines new numbers from Kantar which suggest a big jump in household penetration of ad-supported streaming services - up from 10% of homes to 25% in just a year; and looks across the agenda of media events over the next couple of weeks.

Further reading:

* The Australian: Seven boss Anthony De Ceglie slams government for not supporting media

* The Australian: News Corp boss Michael Miller urges government to prioritise survival of mainstream media outlets

* Unmade: Landing lights glimmer for a digital levy to fund news

* Mi3: Meta barked, Australia blinked: News Bargaining Code to be shelved as Feds prepare possible digital ad tax

* The Australian: Viewers are increasingly signing up to streaming services with advertising, Kantar research shows

Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy.

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Along with revealing the lineup for the Brisbane edition of our Compass event, we today feature an in-depth interview with Mark Frain, CEO of Foxtel Media, recorded around last week’s Upfront event. Plus, a further dip in the Unmade Index.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including Unlock (October 31), Compass (across November), HumAIn (Q2 2025) and REmade (Q3 2025);

* Members-only content; and all of our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade.  

Budget Direct Chief Growth Officer, Nine MD, Publicis strategy chief and comms veteran to bring Compass to Brisbane

Cat McGinn writes:

We can today reveal the leadership panel for the Brisbane Compass event, Unmade’s annual industry meet-up, this year taking place in six states.

The panel features Jonathan Kerr, Chief Growth Officer of Budget Direct; Michael Crutcher, PR professional and former editor of the Brisbane Courier Mail; Simon Murphy, chief strategy officer for Publicis; and Kylie Blucher, managing director of Nine Queensland & Northern NSW.

The panel will be moderated by Unmade’s Tim Burrowes and the discussion will later be featured as an Unmade podcast.

Unmade’s paying members are entitled to a complimentary place at Compass, and tickets are on sale here.

Unmade’s Compass roadshow takes place across six states.

* Wednesday November 6 - Hobart, The Hope and Anchor;

* Tuesday November 12 - Brisbane, The Prince Consort;

* Wednesday November 13 - Sydney, The Sporting Globe;

* Monday November 18 - Perth, The Globe;

* Tuesday November 19 - Adelaide, Elephant British Pub;

* Wednesday November 20 - Melbourne, The Garden State Hotel.

‘We agitated for change and we didn’t get the answers we were looking for’: Why Mark Frain created the VFC

From his opening words on stage at last week’s Foxtel Media Upfront event, it was clear that boss Mark Frain hasn’t made peace with the decision made by Seven, Nine and Ten to refuse him a place at the ownership table for measurement system OzTAM.

Instead, he has gone it alone, with Foxtel building its own measurement system powered by Kantar, and inviting a coalition of streamers to join them in the Video Future Collective.

Frain sees it as the free-to-air networks’ loss: “It’s been cathartic” he tells Unmade’s Tim Burrowes. “We did request to become officially part of OzTAM from a shareholding perspective. We also discussed the opportunity to provide our data to that business where we thought we could enrich and improve the service. And unfortunately, the shareholders said no. So from there, that forced us down a different direction.”

The biggest downside of the schism is that for media agencies and brands they now have a second measurement system to contend with. Frain is unapologetic. “Any change causes some unrest”.

This new direction includes the creation of a coalition of streamers under the banner of the Video Futures Collective, chaired by Foxtel’s Toby Dewar. Alongside Foxtel, the VFC membership now consists of Amazon Advertising, Disney Advertising, Samsung Ads, SBS On Demand, Vevo and YouTube. Frain says, pointedly, “Everyone’s got an equal share of voice.”

* Declaration of interest: Foxtel provided my travel and accommodation for the upfront event, and they’ve been advertising with us this week. The podcast interview was not part of any commercial arrangement.

Unmade Index continues downwards drift

Tim Burrowes writes:

The Unmade Index’s slow stall has stretched into a week after losing another 0.74% yesterday. That followed a drop of 0.73% on Tuesday. The Unmade Index, which tracks Australia’s listed media and marketing companies has been losing ground since last Tuesday. It closed on 444.7 points last night.

Yesterday saw Vinyl Group grow by 4.6% to a market capitalisation of $111m, just behind Southern Cross Austereo’s $112m.

Ooh Media’s slide also continued, losing 2.5% yesterday to land at $641m. The company has lost nearly 9% over the last month.

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio. We’ll be back with more tomorrow

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition: We reflect on the industry’s move against Campaign Brief; And Nine is hit with a historic rape claim after publishing its culture report.

We’ve upgraded Unmade’s membership. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events. That includes Unlock on October 31; our Compass series in November; and REmade and HumAIn next year.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership also includes members-only content, access to our paywalled archives and your own copy of Media Unmade. Upgrade today.

How Campaign Brief contributes to the problem

The dominos have continued to fall for Campaign Brief after a backlash against its perpetuation of a creative club dominated by middle aged white men.

In today’s conversation, we explore why Campaign Brief isn’t just reporting a problem, but is actively contributing, by using its power and influence to support the same club.

And also today, a new challenge for Nine, as The Australian breaks news of an alleged rape after a Christmas party.

Further reading:

* Unmade: Why won’t Campaign Brief acknowledge women (and why do male execs still support them)?

* Unmade: Campaign Grief

* The Australian: Advertising’s gender representation debate heats up as agencies boycott trade title

* Unmade: Truth and consequences at Nine?

* The Australian: Former Nine junior female staffer reports alleged sexual assault involving senior male manager

Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes, Abe Udy and Cat McGinn

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s edition features a fascinating exploration of how Four Pillars Gin became such a huie brand success, with an in-depth conversation with co-founder Matt Jones. Also today, we share details of the Sydney panel for Unmade’s Compass roadshow.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including Unlock (October 31), Compass (across November); HumAIn (2025), and REmade (September 2025).

* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade. 

Smart, Barrett, Horgan and Bedir revealed for Unmade’s Compass Sydney panel next month

Cat McGinn writes:

We can today reveal our Sydney panel for our annual industry meet-up Compass, which will travel to six states for the first time.

The Sydney edition, taking place on November 13, will feature Brent Smart, CMO of Telstra; Lou Barrett, managing director of client partnerships at News Corp; Jasmin Bedir, CEO of creative agency Innocean; and Peter Horgan, outgoing CEO of Omnicom Media Group, for a lively discussion of the year just gone and outlook on 2025.

The pub conversation will also be featured as an Unmade podcast.

Unmade’s paying members are entitled to a complimentary place while tickets are also on sale here.

Unmade’s Compass will for the first time take place across six states. We’ll be announcing each state’s speaker lineup across the next few days

* Wed 6 November - Hobart;

* Tues 12 Nov - Brisbane: The Prince Consort;

* Wed 13 Nov - Sydney: The Sporting Globe;

* Mon 18 Nov - Perth: The Globe;

* Tues 19 Nov - Adelaide: Elephant British Pub;

* Wed 20 Nov - Melbourne: The Garden State Hotel.

Love and craft and marketing - how Matt Jones helped create the legend of Four Pillars Gin

A year on from a $100m exit, Four Pillars Gin co-founder Matt Jones has written a book about the business discipline behind the creation of one of the great Australian brand success stories.

Unusually for the author of a business book, Jones is not just a strategist, but one who put his money where his mouth was. Along with partners Stuart Gregor and Cameron Mackenzie, he made the decision to create a luxury gin brand, and then executed it brilliantly.

Lessons From Gin: Business the Four Pillars Way tells the story of how they did it, and offers a series of insights that anybody building a brand could borrow from. The book breaks the story into four stages - thinking, crafting, sharing and growing.

In today’s Unmade podcast, Jones shares with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes some of the lessons applied, and learned, along the way.

He makes the case that many business are underpowered in having marketing brains at the top. Like Jones, Gregor came from the communications world as owner of the PR agency Liquid Ideas. Mackenzie was the only working directly in the production of alcohol.

Says Jones: “We were far heavier in terms of creative industries, creative mindset, brand mindset, marketing mindset than 99% of leadership groups out there in the world.

“My perspective on the whole is that businesses are underweight when it comes to those voices around the leadership table. And I think that is something that we absolutely benefited from, that we valued these things that we might call brand leadership. We valued them at the heart of the business, not just the marketing strategy.”

Lessons from Gin will be published by Wiley on October 30 and is available on presale. On October 31 Jones will deliver the keynote at Unmade’s Unlock conference in Sydney where he will discuss the role of telling stories in building brands. Tickets are on sale now, or complimentary to Unmade’s paying members.

SCA moves back past Vinyl

Tim Burrowes writes:

The old order reasserted itself on the Unmade index yesterday with Southern Cross Austereo moving back past Vinyl Group.

SCA lost 1.1% to land on a market capitalisation of $111.5m, But Vinyl Group lost 4.4% to land on $111.1m.

Most acitvity on the Unmade Index was negative yesterday with Domain losing 1.3% and parent company Nine dropping 0.8%.

Seven West Media bucked the trend, growing by 3%

The Unmade Index fell 0.67% to land on 454.1 points.

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.

I’m about to hop onto a flight to Sydney to cover tonight’s Foxtel Upfront event. I’ll let you know how it went in tomorrow’s newsletter.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.

In today’s audio-led edition: With Campaign Brief under fire for continuing to focus only on male creatives, the industry reacts; AI exhumes movie stars; the ACCC’s exposure of Coles’ and Woolworths’ shady pricing hits their brands; and Seven defends yet another legal case.

We’ve upgraded Unmade’s membership. Annual members now get a free ticket to all of our events. That includes Unlock on October 31; our Compass series in November; and REmade and HumAIn next year.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership also includes members-only content, access to our paywalled archives and your own copy of Media Unmade. Upgrade today.

Why won’t Campaign Brief acknowledge women (and why do male execs still support them)?

The scandal of the last few days has been playing out on LinkedIn as the industry questions Campaign Brief’s ongoing emphasis on the talents only of male creatives

Campaign Brief’s latest ranking of creatives in NZ and Australia - in the gift of publisher Michael Lynch - focuses mainly on men. Even agencies featuring on the list, including Thinkerbell, appear to be asking themselves whether it’s a good idea to be there.

Thinkerbell was among the agencies highly placed. CEO Margie Reid, who is also a director of Support The Girls Australia, took to LinkedIn over the weekend to distance her agency from the ranking, writing: “Thinkerbell has not paid, created or had any part to play in the list that appeared in the latest edition of the Campaign Brief magazine or the BestAds ranking list. Nor were we contacted when the list was published.”

Creative Jet Swain put it more succinctly yesterday: “Shame on you Campaign Brief. Nothing has changed in the three decades I’ve witnessed this blatant misogyny. Your NZ lists had no women, and Australia only has Tara Ford.”

Also in today’s podcast: AI can bring dead actors back to life; but should it?; Coles and Woolworths have seen tangible brand damage from the ACCC prosecution new data from Roy Morgan Research shows; and Southern Cross Austereo is accused of ‘mocking’ its local TV news obligations.

Further reading

* LinkedIn: Thinkerbell’s Margie Reid on the Campaign Brief sexism row

* LinkedIn: Darren Woolley of Trinity P3 on the Campaign Brief sexism row

* LinkedIn: Jet Swain accuses Campaign Brief of misogyny

* Australian Financial Review: Think you know that voice? Dead celebrities are working again

* The Australian: Aldi nabs ‘most trusted supermarket’ title as Coles and Woolies suffer

* The Australian: An absence of local news in the regions is denying a voice to the people whose lives are affected

* The Australian: Seven blocks release of ‘humiliating’ docs in case against ex-producer Amelia Saw

* Australian Financial Review: Inside ARN’s Melbourne gamble on The Kyle and Jackie O Show

Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes, Abe Udy and Cat McGinn

Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.

Time to leave you to start your week. We’ll be back with more tomorrow.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today’s edition features one of the highlights of last week’s REmade - Retail Media Unmade conference, our leadership panel.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

* A complimentary ticket to all of Unmade’s events, including Unlock (October 31), Compass (across November); HumAIn (2025), and REmade (September 2025).

* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;

* Your own copy of Media Unmade. 

Growing pains, data gains, and techy brains: retail media’s leaders reflect

In today’s audio edition, we hear from the retail media leaders in a session which concluded our retail media conference REmade last week.

Dan Ferguson, chief marketing officer for Adore Beauty Group, Sarah Minassian, head of retail media at Metcash and Marc Lomas, MD of commerce for GroupM AUNZ shared their views on the surge in retail media and its growing industry impact.

The panel presented a unified case that retail media is on a fast track, and with year-on-year expansion, demanding attention, investment - and increased integration across the industry.

In the conversation, moderated by REmade’s Curator Cat McGinn, Lomas argued “We are rapidly approaching Retail Media 3.0 where it’s no longer a separate entity - it's just media, seamlessly integrated across channels and treated the same as other forms of media."

Another key takeaway was the need for better collaboration and data sharing between brands, retailers, and tech partners. The message was clear: transparency builds trust, and trust fuels the kind of partnerships that can really scale retail media. Minassian said “It’s about having authentic conversations, building trust, and aligning everyone’s expertise to move forward at a million miles an hour."

The panel doubled down on putting customers first. Whether it’s using podcasts or digital channels, keeping customer experience front and centre drives genuine engagement. As Ferguson said, “We listen to our customers. They give us sharp and direct feedback, and it’s what drives our decisions. At the start of the pandemic, our audience told us, ‘less of the hard sell,’ and we changed our tone of voice accordingly. That kind of customer feedback is what shapes everything we do."

On the tech side, integration is key. Metcash is focusing heavily on building the infrastructure needed to enhance its retail media offerings, while Adore Beauty’s commitment to leveraging customer data shows just how important tech and data are in taking retail media to the next level.

Lomas added: "When you look at the way consumers are starting to shop, younger demos are rekindling the love of the store. The store is a new canvas for innovation, and syncing experiences between online and offline through technology is where retailers can really step in and deliver."

And Metcash’s Minassian called out the need for more diverse voices at the table to shape the future of the industry, reminding women to apply for roles, even if they don’t feel they have the "perfect" experience.

* REmade will return in September 2025. Subscribers who become paying members of Unmade now will get a whole year of access to paywalled content and all our events, plus a ticket to the next REmade, Upgrade today

Unmade Index hovers as Nine moves up and Seven moves down

Declines from Ooh Media (down 1.2%) and Seven West Media (down 2.8%) were offset by increases in the valuation of Domain (up 1.5%) and Nine (up 0.4%) to slightly lift the Unmade Index yesterday.

The index closed up by 0.2% at 451.6 points.

Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio.

We’ll be back with an end-of-week update tomorrow.

Have a great day.

Toodlepip…

Tim Burrowes

Publisher - Unmade

[email protected]