Tag: Australia

Australia – Australian media company Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) has appointed Lucia Elliott, former principal at marketing consultancy Creighton Ward, to be its new national trade marketing director. 

Elliott brings her strategic and creative expertise to the trade remit leveraging her more than 20 years of experience working in marketing and creative agencies, including McCann-Erickson, Mojo, George Patterson Partners, and The Campaign Palace. She has also run her own marketing consultancy for several years working successfully with many high-profile Australian brands.

In her new role, Elliott will be charged with driving awareness and understanding of SCA’s total media portfolio, including the company’s digital transformation amongst clients and media agencies nationally. 

Aside from her role at SCA, Elliott is currently the marketing director of the Boomtown collective, where she oversaw several successful initiatives. She is also a part of the Boomtown Steering Committee.

Commenting on her new role, Elliott said, “SCA is committed to technology that not only delivers more invested consumers, but it also enables SCA to better understand its audiences as well. I’m thrilled to be part of the evolution and the fact that I can continue to champion Boomtown, a brand that’s near and dear to my heart, is a win-win, and I can’t wait to get stuck in!”

In addition, SCA has promoted Megan Parkes, its current trade marketing manager for New South Wales (NSW), as its new national trade marketing manager, where she will work closely with Elliott. Parkes will retain her NSW trade and client engagement activities, and lead the state-based trade marketing managers. Prior to SCA, she worked in marketing and events and fashion PR for several years.

Nikki Clarkson, SCA’s chief marketing officer, said that in Elliot’s role leading Boomtown, she has demonstrated strong strategic and creative skills with many achievements, and they are excited for her to join the SCA Marketing team. 

“Megan is already a valuable member of the trade marketing team and has proven her ability to deliver exceptional outcomes. Both Lucia and Megan will add a great degree of strength to SCA’s trade marketing,” added Clarkson. 

The appointments of Elliott and Parkes will be effective from 7 February 2022.

Sydney, Australia — Ampel, an audio experience agency based in Australia, after a period of sustained development in the agency has named two new senior hires in their leadership team, appointing Stuart Buckland and Lauren Deighton to the newly created roles of director, audio production and director, media partnerships respectively with both appointments effective immediately.

Buckland holds extensive expertise with more than a decade of involvement in the media industry. Prior to joining Ampel, he worked at Channel 10, a flagship station in Sydney, where he was instrumental in launching the station’s ‘10 Speaks’ podcast platform, managing a team of producers, creating and executing the platform’s strategy.

During his time at Ch10, he produced the platform’s two biggest shows, ‘Where’s William Tyrrell?’ and ‘The Professor and The Hack.’Buckland was also named EP of the ’10 News First Person’ podcast, which won the Kennedy Award for Most Outstanding Podcast and the SA Press Club Award for Best Long-Form Radio Report or Podcast in 2020.

Buckland is responsible for leading Ampel’s physical audio production team in the creation of original podcasts and branded audio, ensuring clients’ assets can be leveraged across all paid, owned, and earned media.

Lauren Deighton brings more than a decade of national and international exposure to the audio agency working on both the agency and publisher side. She has led national and global client strategies and campaigns across top-value brands namely Google, Tourism Australia, Apple, Mondelez, Loreal, McDonald’s and Johnson & Johnson. Lauren has held various senior sales roles representing key clients at News Corp, The Urban List and VICE, and recently moved back from NYC where she held a role as brand partnerships director for a global SAAS company prior to joining Ampel.

Josh Butt, founder and executive producer of Ampel, commented that he was honoured to welcome such an experienced and skilled team to Ampel, with the duo being tasked with significantly increasing the agency’s scope of original content production capabilities as well as partnership & sponsorship support.

“Our clients are increasingly demanding more from the audio space and are looking for new ways to tap into this very lucrative marketing medium. When they look at statistics such as audio listening is growing 50+% YOY and the average Australian listens to more than 12 hours of audio per week, they know it’s the perfect mainstream format for consumers to experience interesting and entertaining content on demand. Audio audiences are sophisticated and demanding quality – podcasts that aren’t well made aren’t listened to,” Butt concluded.

These new signings are the first since the recruitment of Michelle Lomas, general manager of Ampel, in late 2021.

Lomas commented on the new hires, saying, “Lauren and Stuart bring the skills, capabilities and senior support to our team to help our clients take full advantage of what audio can offer their brands and audiences. With Lauren and Stuart on board, I can’t wait to hear what brilliant audio strategies, creations and partnerships we can now produce for our clients.”

Deighton also said, “Leading the way in the independent audio race is exactly where I expect Ampel to be and I’m delighted to be part of the team that will be responsible for bringing clients new opportunities in paid, owned and earned media within the podcast landscape; growing audiences and driving them to Ampel’s, and our client’s content. It’s a heady combination and I can’t wait to get started.”

Meanwhile, Buckland, also shared his thoughts, “Audio and voice are engaging avenues for brands to connect with consumers, and I’m excited to be working with brands to create audio eco-systems – from customer experience, B2B & B2C podcasts, smart home device skills, internal education and communication strategies and more. This is a great time to be in the industry and to help clients tap into the ever-growing format of audio.”

Buckland and Deighton’s appointments come on the cusp of Ampel significantly increasing its scope of original content production, including new comedy podcasts with high profile comedic talent; continued production of existing podcasts, brand funded podcasts, and production of brand funded TV shows.

Sydney, Australia – As an extension to the organisation’s “Uncommon Care” health platform, not-for-profit health fund HCF has launched its newest multi-platform campaign, centered around the message that sometimes, our everyday mundane actions are to be considered as uncommon health insurers.

https://youtu.be/F7O9WytxicI

Conceptualised alongside creative agency Clemenger BBDO, Ant Phillips, creative director at Clemenger BBDO stated that the campaign lives by the message of whether it’s a last-minute floss to trick the dentist, or wishing you didn’t have to de-robe in front of a fully clothed stranger, when it comes to our health, there’s a lot of stuff we all have to go through.

“This campaign is grounded in the common human truths we all relate to, contrasted with what makes HCF an uncommon health insurer. Being a not-for-profit they can do things a little differently and genuinely offer things other health insurers can’t,” Philips said.

https://youtu.be/JD4AU3tU_nA

The campaign is built on the proposition of HCF being able to serve its more than 1.75 million members, with industry-leading health and wellbeing programs, services and tools to help members live happier and healthier lives, while striving to keep the cost of health cover as low as possible. 

For Tatiana Papavero, head of advertising at HCF, noted that while the journey through life is something we all have in common, at HCF, they like to bring everyone the uncommon and this new campaign explores that in a humorous and human way.

“The Uncommon Care platform is an organisational belief at HCF. It means putting people before profit. We know we’re not a typical health fund – we genuinely want our members to get great value cover and to know that when it comes to health, they can always count on us to go that extra mile to deliver outstanding experiences,” Papavero said.

Meanwhile, Jim Gall, CEO at Clemenger BBDO, commented, “We’re really proud of this work and the partnership we’ve forged with HCF since being appointed late last year. As Australia’s largest not-for-profit health insurer, HCF has so many incredibly positive stories to tell. I am confident this campaign is the beginning of an exciting creative journey for both businesses.”

The campaign launched this week with executions across TV, OOH, radio, social, digital and in-branch. This also marks the first work from Clemenger BBDO, recently appointed as HCF’s creative agency of record.

Sydney, Australia – Experience improvement (XI) solutions company InMoment has launched its new layer of intelligence, InMoment AI, aimed at enabling brands to grow through a better understanding of teams, current customers, and future customers alike.

The new intelligence comes after InMoment’s recent acquisition of, a provider of cloud and on-premise natural language processing and machine learning. Lexalytics brings two decades of expertise in NLP and machine learning to InMoment’s XI Platform, and the combination captured through InMoment AI, which accelerates companies’ ability to get to high-impact, informed actions quickly.

Through the new InMoment AI, organisations will be able to benefit from smarter data, which will provide them with an industry-intelligent data management and a complete view of analytics of the customer and employee journey, intelligent conversations, which will let them understand the sentiment and intent behind feedback with humans stepping in as needed for experience intervention, and behaviour prediction, which allows them to predict outcomes and experience scores based on business metrics and unstructured data, as well as automated action, which will automate and recommend the next-best-action for customer segments based on past experiences and current data.

Andrew Joiner, InMoment’s CEO, believes that the further investment in InMoment AI will offer their clients the unique capability to identify transformative insights from previously inaccessible data to make an unprecedented impact.

“Whether it’s using conversational surveys to solicit richer feedback, using machine learning and natural language processing on new unstructured datasets to surface growth opportunities, or using AI algorithms to predict and preemptively act on emotion or intention – InMoment AI has a solution to help brands improve experiences at every step in the customer journey,” said Joiner.

Meanwhile, Mehul Nagrani, InMoment’s general manager of AI products and technology, shared that the world is now moving beyond structured surveys, and superior machine learning and NLP/NLU are the new keys to unlocking the insights available in all of a company’s data, both structured and unstructured.

“InMoment AI is the key to understanding omnichannel experience journeys and solving the issue of a siloed and fragmented view of the customer, employee, and market,” said Nagrani.

The new InMoment AI is now available both in the cloud and on-premise.

Australia – Australian media company Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), which has radio, TV, and digital channels in the region, has elevated James Pedersen to the newly created role of head of general management. Pedersen is currently the executive general manager of the company for Melbourne, South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. 

The appointment, which will take effect immediately, charges Pedersen in managing and leading SCA’s senior general management team. Amid the new position, he will continue as general manager for the Melbourne and Adelaide markets 

SCA is also welcoming some new additions to the senior general management team including Rob Iannazzo, who has been promoted to general manager of Regional South Australia and Northern Territory, in addition to his role as head of sales for South Australia. Furthermore, Marc Eddy and Ian Kennedy will also join the senior general management team and continue in their current roles of general manager for Perth and general manager of Regional Western Australia respectively. 

SCA Chief Operating Officer John Kelly says of Pederson, “James has had a stellar 23-year career with SCA and is the ultimate ‘coach’ and mentor for those around him. James applies a highly commercial and collaborative approach to all that he does and has a genuine passion for exhibiting values-based leadership to drive business performance. 

Kelly adds, “I know he will continue to take the senior general management team from strength to strength and I look forward to seeing him work his magic in this new leadership role.”

Meanwhile, Pedersen comments on his new role, “I am really excited to take on this new role and have responsibility across the national team. SCA has an exceptional general management team that embodies localism. I am looking forward to working with them to bring ideas to life and drive initiatives to ensure SCA maintains and grows its position as one of Australia’s leading and most innovative media companies.” 

Sydney, Australia — Healthylife.com.au, a health and wellness brand, has launched a campaign to encourage Australians to start their health and fitness journey by subtracting all the distracting information, products, and service and shifting to a more simplified but finer approach.

The 30-second campaign that aired through TV commercials as well as digital and social channels, highlighted the predicament that while many sought a healthier and fitter way of life, a myriad of distractions, lack of motivating factors, or life in general, holds us back from our true potential.

Healthylife.com.au ‘Your new home of healthy’ provides a range of health and wellness advice, experiences, services and products to make consumer choices easier, personalised and more accessible.

Creative agency and innovation company Akcelo was tapped by the digital startup to develop the brand and go-to-market strategy, identity, design system, and integrated campaign for heathylife.com.au.

Ben Padfield, general manager of digital marketing and eCommerce at Healthylife, commented, saying that while many Australians see the benefits of getting healthier, it can often feel like opening Pandora’s box, with an overwhelming array of information, products and services designed to help you achieve your goals.

“Healthylife.com.au takes the hassle out of researching and deciding which products to buy to ensure whatever your healthy looks like, you can achieve it. We have worked closely with Akcelo to bring Healthylife to market. They understand our strategic objectives and how to engage Australians wanting to start and maintain their health journeys,” Padfield said.

Aden Hepburn, CEO of Akcelo, shared his own thoughts, saying, “It’s always great to start working with a brand from the ground up and that’s what we’ve achieved with Ben and the team at Healthylife. Developing the brand identity, design system, go-to-market strategy and launch campaign has been a truly collaborative experience and reflects Healthylife’s ambitions for people to get their own health journeys underway.”

Sydney, Australia – As basketball grew exponentially worldwide, only the professional players got the chance to have their own signature logo. With this in mind, House of Hoops, the basketball brand of sportswear and footwear retailer Foot Locker, has launched its interactive player logo tool, aimed at allowing fans to design and generate their logo just like the pros.

Developed in collaboration with dentsu’s BWM Isobar and Merkle, the ‘House of Hoops Mark of Greatness’ campaign is a mobile-first, interactive design tool that lets basketball fans create their own, personalised ‘player logo’ in a few simple steps. This also gives them a chance to score their own player edition shoe.

According to House of Hoops, the new tool, which is spread not only in Australia and New Zealand, but all around the world, has already been featured on some of the world’s most popular basketball news sites, including NBA.com. It simply requires users to enter their initials to have a monogram automatically created to form a symbol. From there, the tool integrates hundreds of font, colourway, icon, and shape iterations to let fans personalise their logos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMRqjDudUu0

Brendan Graham, Foot Locker’s senior director of marketing for APAC, shared that the impact of the pandemic accelerated their need to bring the innovative experience House of Hoops is known for at a physical retail level, into digital touchpoints. 

“This idea embraced the culture of the modern game and gave our customers a truly engaging House of Hoops brand experience online and on mobile,” said Graham.

House of Hoops said that upon the launch of the new tool, the promo film hit almost one million views on YouTube. Over 32,000 fans experimented with designs, with the very best winners’ designs featured on out-of-home media across the country.

The overall winner was given the full pro athlete treatment. Powerful stills of the winner pulling iconic basketball poses were captured and plastered everywhere on high impact billboards and large format digital OOH – just like the NBA superstars.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia — The Chiefs Esports, a subsidiary of SQID Technologies, has renewed its sponsorship agreement with popular energy drink brand Red Bull for a further 12 months with an extension option available for another 12 months. The two entities have been partnering since 2016, with this renewal it marks the longest standing team-based major esports sponsorship in Australian & New Zealand history.

The Chiefs team and Red Bull will continue to work together with the members sustaining their responsibility as brand ambassadors alongside the catalogue of other significant traditional sports athletes and professional teams under Red Bull. This portfolio includes more than 90 disciplines, and some notable stars namely Max Verstappen, Neymar, Tyler ‘Ninja’ Blevins, RB Leipzig, New York Red Bulls and many more.

Red Bull has been an active supporter of the esports scene for more than a decade, with their first signing of an ambassador in 2006. Since then, they sponsor top teams and the largest events in each region as well as operating their own tournaments ranging between grassroots initiatives and the largest events in the world like the Red Bull Kumite, Red Bull Player One, Red Bull Guardians, Red Bull Campus Clutch, Red Bull Flick and more.

Nick Bobir, chief executive officer of The Chiefs, commented, “Red Bull has been a major supporter 6 years now and we’re extremely proud that they have again put their faith in us to continue to deliver Championships and represent the brand on the world stage. It’s no secret the Red Bull media machine is one of the most influential in the sports world and we can’t wait to produce more content to showcase our team’s journey to a wider audience.”

Red Bull will feature prominently across The Chiefs’ branding, including major jersey placement, as they strive to add to their 22x National Championship trophy cabinet. The Chiefs will be competing in the League of Legends LCO, Rainbow Six | Siege: APAC Pro League, and the Halo Championship Series where the team currently sits at 1st place. The contract will provide a 33.33% increase in Red Bull contract revenue, plus the opportunity for performance bonuses.

Australia – Australia’s Out-of-Home (OOH) industry has launched its second annual healthy eating campaign, which will run over the next four weeks. This year’s pro bono campaign is donated by the members of the peak industry body Outdoor Media Association (OMA), and delivered in partnership with Health and Wellbeing Queensland and Nutrition Australia.

The new campaign deems to be the second campaign run in partnership with the government to encourage healthy eating. It is also part of OMA’s National Health and Wellbeing Policy that aims to meet community expectations and support government efforts to tackle overweight and obesity in the country.

Titled ‘Better than you remember’, the campaign encourages Australians to rediscover and think differently about how they consume vegetables. It has its own website, aimed at shining a light on how delicious veggies are, and offers tips, resources, and recipes.

OMA said that the value of the campaign is estimated at over AU$3m and will be in the market from 30 January to 26 February 2022. 

Charmaine Moldrich, OMA’s CEO, shared that the campaign aims to support Health and Wellbeing Queensland’s mission to ‘make healthy happen’.

“Our research has proven these outcomes, particularly when it comes to lifestyle changes. The post-campaign study of the first health and wellbeing campaign we ran in January 2021, adding an extra handful of veggies, showed that 86% of parents who saw the ad said they were encouraged to include veggies in their meals or snacks. While 80% said they were encouraged to make healthier choices for their children’s meals. We ran Add an extra handful of veggies last year in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Health,” said Moldrich.

Meanwhile, Robyn Littlewood, Health and Wellbeing Queensland’s CEO, commented that she was delighted to see the work with the Outdoor Media Association and Nutrition Australia come to life on signs in Brisbane, regional Queensland and across all other states in Australia.

“We’re committed to addressing health issues and promoting the importance of veggies in everyone’s diet, which is why it’s so rewarding to be working with the Outdoor industry to achieve this goal,” said Littlewood.

Lucinda Hancock, the CEO of Nutrition Australia for Vic Division, said, “We are thrilled to be involved in this year’s campaign and provide tips and recipes that can make healthy eating tasty and accessible. This campaign is topical as you can boost your immune system by upping your veggie intake. A great annual initiative by the OMA and their members.”

Sydney, Australia — Sydney Waters, a New South Wales government-owned water provider company, has released two new films in their water conservation advocacy series – Turn it off, Bob campaign. The two new short films are set in family summer gatherings and the cricket season and underscore the mantra to love water – don’t waste it. 

Bobland shows Bob in his over-the-top theme park-like backyard set up with sprinklers and slip and slides encourage viewers not to go overboard like Bob when they are gearing up to cool down over summer, with a gentle rebuke from his family – to Turn it Off, Bob.

In Cricket, launched during The Ashes series and featuring a cameo from Aussie cricket legend Brett Lee, Bob learns a valuable lesson about another ‘traditional’ but wasteful summer pastime – watering hard surfaces.

The films are made in collaboration with marketing communications company Clemenger BBDO.

Shane Jacobson, the award-winning Australian actor, comedian and conservationist, stars as the titular and lovable but absentminded Bob. The two new videos, entitled ‘Bobland’ and ‘Cricket’, introduce viewers to more of Bob’s family and friends – and a cricketing superstar – as the series rolls out for summer and The Ashes Test series.

Brendan Willenberg, Sydney executive creative director of Clemenger BBDO, commented, “It’s been another tough year of COVID restrictions, so we knew that bringing Bob back and using a light-hearted approach to encourage better water usage was going to be key. Bobland and Crickets are the 2nd and 3rd spots in this campaign that has been amazingly received by the public. I also got to meet Binga which is a life goal.”

The campaign is running across channels namely TV, OOH, digital and social channels.