Mumbrellacast

"What's important to me is taking risks, because if we take the right risks, the rewards make it all the more worthwhile."

This week the Mumbrellacast team was joined by Futurebrand Australia's CEO and new owner, Richard Curtis, to discuss the ins and outs of his takeover of the Interpublic agency.

Noting his "favourite thing about this is that the media industry now has Ooh and Are", Curtis also offer his views on Bauer Media's rebrand. After being bought by private equity business Mercury Capital earlier this year, the industry knew a name change was coming, but is Are Media the fresh start it was expecting?

The team also deep dives into Facebook's ban of a Modibodi ad that alludes to period blood with the colour red. Curtis says when utilising controversy, it has to make sense for the brand, and the team agrees this time it does. But with Facebook's 'higher set of standards' for ads operating on its own playing field are we about to see more bans of this sort?

Plus, the content quotas for children's television have been relaxed in a move that was welcomed with open arms by TV networks and condemned by the screen and production industry. The team speculates on the future impacts of this decision and whether the decision was the right one.

Kicking off with a bang, Uber Eats and Special Group launched the famous 'Tonight I'll be eating' brand platform into the US this week with help from sci-fi icons Mark Hamill and Sir Patrick Stewart. Hannah Blackiston and Brittney Rigby reflect on the evolution of the brand platform, from getting blasted in the comments, to international success.

And, keeping up with agency land, is Thinkerbell's Thrive@55 initiative for interns over 55 years old an obvious play for PR or a valiant move to meet the industry's ageism head-on?

Plus, reflective of the tumult created in 2020, the sporting deal sagas keep going. Qantas broke up with Rugby Australia after 30 years, and Seven came back to Supercars, offering $40m less than Ten did five years ago. As sponsorship and broadcast rights dollars keep shrinking, where to from here for Australia's sporting codes?

And, Tim Burrowes spoke with Eardrum's Ralph van Dijk and Song Zu's Ramesh Sathiah to announce their new dedicated audio branding venture, Resonance. Learn how change in the industry has driven the need for Resonance's services and what Mumbrella had to do with its origins.

In this week's Mumbrellacast, the team gives you everything you need to know about Nine's upfronts for 2021, including a chat with chief sales officer, Michael Stephenson.

So, how exactly does it new audience targeting partnership with Adobe work? Is it really going to put Nine in competition with Google and Facebook? And, will we see more media companies developing their own defence against the cookies?

And, what will content look like in 2021? The team was hoping for a shiny new TV show, but instead Nine will be putting a 'refreshed' Celebrity Apprentice Australia and Beauty and the Geek on air (so much for Seven trying to "revive yet another Nine show"). Is Nine just playing it safe in this world of complicated productions?

Looking beyond the upfronts, small publishers spoke out against the ACCC's news media bargaining code in fear of Google and Facebook shutting down news in Australia, and industry watchdog Ad Standards upheld the first complaint under its new body image rules.

It was a week of controversy, and the Mumbrellacast kicks off with the king of FM radio, Kyle Sandilands. After last year's comments about the Virgin Mary, he received a slap on the wrist from ACMA. After comparing their own stories about interacting with Sandilands, the team debates how and why he always manages to slip through.

Addressing the second big controversy of the week, the team debates whether the Sydney Morning Herald should have named a junior journalist from Domain who was found to have fictionalised quotes in their reporting. Is the fact they weren't caught sooner indicative of an ever-growing problem in the publishing industry? Or can the entire blame be placed at the journalist's door?

And, ahead of the launch of the new season of Body Hack on Ten, Todd Sampson revealed what it was like to film in some of the most dangerous places on the planet, only to learn about the pandemic and be called home. The former adman also discusses why he decided to step away from advertising, whether he has one more executive role in him, and provides a glimpse into the audience-free Gruen.

Kicking off the week, Nova CEO Cathy O'Connor announced her upcoming move to Ooh Media, succeeding Brendon Cook, and seeing chief commercial officer Peter Charlton replace her. This game of thrones had some succession planning involved. Find out just how everything fell into place.

The team debates Darrell Lea’s take on Cadbury, swapping its famous gorilla for an orangutan and a declaration about going palm oil free. Does the ad make a bold statement or is it just a copy that fell short?

Facebook threatened to ban the posting of news in Australia, in the latest chapter of its epic battle against the ACCC and the saga of the news media bargaining code. If it follows through it will send publishers into a tailspin, but will it be detrimental to its own business?

And, to mark 100 episodes of The Briefing, Tom Tilley stopped by to chat about the news landscape with Hannah Blackiston. How does delivering news on podcasts differ from live radio? How important is diversifying your audience? And where does he get his inspiration from?

This week, a COVID-19 outbreak on the set of Ten's The Masked Singer sparked a discussion about whether the entertainment industry should be exempt from lockdown restrictions. Is entertaining Australians constrained at home an essential service? The team debate if it’s worth the risk to keep Australia’s media and arts industry afloat.

Elsewhere in TV, Seven and Nine released their financial results to the ASX this week. CEOs James Warburton and Hugh Marks are looking towards green shoots in the industry, but Ooh Media will just be happy when people can go back outside...

And why would a marketer kill off a popular brand figurehead? Budget Direct's chief marketing and delivery officer, Jonathan Kerr, stopped by to chat about the evolution of the brand's public faces and his partnership with creative agency 303 MullenLowe.

In agency land, there is one less independent playing the media field after Virginia Hyland sold her eponymous agency to Havas Media this week. The Mumbrellacast team asks, 'why sell?' and chats about the pros and cons of joining a holding group.

This week, Google took a stand against the ACCC's News Media Bargaining Code, saying the proposed agreement which would see it pay publishers for news content is a threat to consumers' free access to Youtube and Google Search.

Free TV's CEO Bridget Fair said Google's open letter is an attempt to use its power to frighten people into supporting the tech giant when she stopped by to talk all things TV. Fair discusses how Free TV is taking the opportunity presented by the pandemic to negotiate changes in Australia's content quotas, and how the production industry is getting back up and running.

Over in the PR world, a 'back to basics' course was set up by agency Romano Beck, based on their observations that graduates 'can sometimes have delusions of grandeur' about their role in the workforce. Are university courses falling short on training up new PR professionals? Is this course a bad PR move?

And, it was insurer vs insurer this week with new campaigns from NRMA and AAMI. Two very different approaches, two very different strategies. Which one will sell more insurance?

In this week's Mumbrellacast, was it the right move for Ten to line up back to back Bachelor franchises? Sold to viewers as the biggest week in TV for the network, Bachelor in Paradise bowed out, The Masked Singer returned and The Bachelor kicked off - all to lower audiences than seen before. Behind the scenes, Kerri-Anne Kennerley, Natarsha Belling and Tim Bailey were all axed by Ten in a move to restructure its news teams. The Mumbrellacast team asks if the cuts were just another phase in Ten's news identity crisis or whether, this time, it's permanent?

Industry cuts also included the Coles catalogue, in preference for a personalised digital experience for its customers. Coles' CMO Lisa Ronson popped by to talk about why this decision was made, and the future for customers on Coles & Co.

And, how does DDB's new global CEO, Marty O'Halloran, plan to bring the success of the Australian and New Zealand agencies to the world stage? O'Halloran joined Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes to chat about the legacy of Bill Bernbach - the B in DDB - industry burnout, and management across cultures.

How do you make a dating show in a pandemic? Osher Günsberg has the answer on this week's Mumbrellacast. Ten is prepping for a double launch of The Masked Singer and The Bachelor, both of which underwent serious changes in production due to COVID-19. Günsberg describes the upcoming Zoom dates on The Bachelor, and why The Masked Singer set is the safest place in Melbourne.

Crikey's Peter Fray also stopped by to chat about the highs and lows of his career in publishing, experimenting with payment models and bringing young journalists into the industry. Fray also discusses how Crikey takes its role as the fourth estate very seriously - more seriously, he would say, than other outlets.

Also this week, Publicis Groupe parted ways with its head of futures and insight, Tom Goodwin, after things kicked off on Twitter about the state of COVID-19 and how we measure the impacts of associated deaths. The Mumbrellacast team discusses the increasingly flimsy go-to excuse of "Tweets are my own opinion, not those of my employer".

And an ad for Lotterywest was pulled for making light of a man breaching social distancing guidelines. Has the industry's watchdog, Ad Standards, gone too far? Or was it just a stupid move from the brand in the first place?

This week's Mumbrellacast features a chat with ex-ABC boss Michelle Guthrie, in which she discusses her take on the latest round of cuts at Australia's public broadcaster, why she believes the loss of ABC Life is a shame and how a business can balance audience demands with tight budgets.

Sticking with the ABC, a COVID-19 scare on the set of News Breakfast this week sent hosts Lisa Millar and Michael Rowland into lockdown. It has been a tumultuous week for TV, but with the previous week's ratings finally recovered from the hold of ransomware hackers, Seven found out if Big Brother went out with a bang and how Farmer Wants a Wife fronted up against Nine's Australian Ninja Warrior.

The tech giants are back under fire as congressional hearings kick off in the US with Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook joining in on the heaviest Zoom call you could possibly cop an invite to. In Australia, the ACCC is suing Google for misleading millions of people by expanding its use their data. Will the tech giants ever be broken up by governments? How will the power be handed back to the people?

Plus, Mikey Robins dropped by for a chat about his new book, his media career, and whether satire will ever get old.