Our agency profile highlights media and creative agencies across the industry. This week, AdNews spoke with Resident Paediatric Psychologist, Amanda Abel from Totally Awesome.
Agency Name: TotallyAwesome
Mission/Vision/Unique identifier:
TotallyAwesome curates and moderates the richest source of digital media inventory engaging U18s and GenZ for brands to engage with meaning, utility, and above all, safety.
What makes your Agency stand out:
The fact that no-one else does what we do. TotallyAwesome is purpose built to protect both brands and today’s youth and our accumulated experience and knowledge is a valuable asset offered to our clients.
This year alone, we launched the TotallyAwesome Programmatic Playground which is the world’s first programmatic solution targeting under 18s, as well as TotallyPlay, a gaming platform that will similarly help brands connect with gamers without the need for third party online data. I’d also be so bold as to say that I (or rather my role) help our company stand out because I’m a practising paediatric psychologist. I lead the psychology team at TotallyAwesome working to ensure all our offerings benefit from current insight, research and thinking around child development, privacy, and ethical practices.
Team size:
We’ve grown our headcount by 200% over the last three years and now stand at 121 people across APAC, with a team of 22 people based in Australia. We are about to boost that number across sales, data science and machine learning talent thanks to our just announced US$10 million in seed funding.
Office Locations:
We’ve got physical offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan as well as employees in New Zealand, South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand looking after those markets.
Special Expertise:
Everything we do is focused on helping brands connect with Under-18s and their families in an engaging, fun, and responsible manner– and we have four ways of doing this.
First up, we’ve got the biggest media network to connect brands with their youth audiences, including our programmatic and gaming offer – all of which uses contextual targeting. Next, we have our consulting arm (which is where I spend a lot of my time) mentoring governments, brands, publishers, and content creators on how to best engage youth online. As part of that, our research and insights team deliver an annual ZDI research report to help our clients gain more insights on audience behaviours and trends. Thirdly, we have our creative content offer where we work with brands in our Creative Studio to produce a range of digital assets; I often get involved in this aspect as well, which I love. And finally, we have our planning offer to help media planners in agencies find the right under-18 audience for their clients.
Significant clients:
Lego, Hasbro, Moose Toys, Spin Master, Sanitarium, Mattel, Disney, Cricket Australia, AFL and Nike.
Description of agency:
TotallyAwesome is Australia’s most advanced digital media network for GenZ and families. We help brands reach audiences under 18 years-old in an age-appropriate, brand safe environment, on target and effectively. We’ve been working in a data-less environment for over seven years and offer contextual media placement in thousands of YouTube channels, websites, apps, and gaming environments. We follow the most advanced Government regulations protecting kids’ data and privacy and have a resident practising psychologist (me!) to help shape our products and bespoke research solutions.
Most memorable/favourite campaign?
I know I’m meant to pick a campaign I like, but as a psychologist, I’d rather look at this from the perspective of looking at opportunities where I can make an impact and inform future thinking and behaviour in this industry. I'm always passionate about campaigns which give me the opportunity to encourage inclusivity and diversity in a brand's communication because this helps normalise the experience of under 18's and can contribute to improving the self-esteem of this vulnerable group. However, other times my impact might be broader like providing education about current issues facing under 18's and how this impacts brands.
Biggest challenge/opportunity
For under-18 Gen Z’s playing, socialising, and shopping in the emerging metaverse is going to become a big part of their lives and present tremendous opportunities for leisure, adventure, and connection, as well as offering brands a new environment in which to engage with consumers. We’re already deep into this process, having just launched TotallyPlay which seeks to enable positive play for brands and under-18s through our contextual gaming inventory in, around and beyond the game and we expect to see this inventory index heavily towards the metaverse in the coming years.
However, as with any emerging technology platform, there are risks to the safety and wellbeing of under 18’s. Specialist knowledge, access to resources and clinical training will be needed to safely navigate the constantly evolving metaverse when it comes to under 18's, so I’m anticipating both a fascinating and incredibly busy few years as people, tech players, brands and regulatory agencies work out how to navigate it.
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