Australian brands are at risk of drowning in a sea of sameness, as tried and tested formulas win out over a lack of failsafe methods to get cut-through concepts across the line, according to Australia's top marketers.
DDB Melbourne’s group ECD Psembi Kinstan says the industry needs to do better at proving the efficacy of cut-through, ambitious creative campaigns to spur the market on.
“I’d say the average is fairly low in Australia for the standard campaign, versus a market like the UK or the US where the competition between brands is fiercer,” he says.
There’s a trust in marketing to make the right calls for campaigns, Uber & Uber Eats APAC director of marketing Andy Morley told AdNews.
“Trusting in the experts is absolutely critical to enabling any organisation to do their best work and move quickly, getting those concepts across the line.”
Morley has seen the opposite scenario at other businesses, where the marketing department has to take their campaigns through five levels of non-expert management, and each stage sees them managing pointless subjective feedback which waters down the brilliance of any idea.
Disastrous, he says.
“We’ve earned this trust from proven success over years, but also through the openness of our sharing. We educate stakeholders on the processes we go through to build and optimise our campaigns, how we measure (and where we can’t!), what results we’re seeing and where we could improve.
“Openly sharing builds confidence that we’re managing the investments responsibly and that’s all any stakeholder expects.”
When Uber decides to invest in big talent, productions and “risky” bold ideas, its stakeholders know the company has done its due-diligence and is making an informed call.
“We don’t always get it right, but we’ve seen a lot more success from backing big bold ideas than traditional work historically, so I see it as a greater risk not to do so,” Morley says.
With Uber & Uber Eats, Morley says the team sees bolder cut-through work performing much stronger than any “safer” subdued work across all levels of the funnel.
“This is simply because it is much more effective at achieving the most difficult aspect of marketing… getting attention!”
Less than one-third of ads garner any level of attention, and a fraction of these achieve effective thresholds, he says. With consumers much more in the driver's-seat of how they divide their attention across lots of platforms, the ultimate challenge of getting noticed is harder than ever.
“So you have to cut-through in more interesting ways, integrating into the culture of the consumers, otherwise it doesn’t matter what you say about your brand because nobody will even notice it. Field & Binet identified Fame driving campaigns as the most effective, and we’ve definitely seen this, so prioritising attention as your top objective is critical,’ he says.
On the creativity crisis in Australia, Morley says creating cut-through campaigns is very hard and takes courage.
“It requires you to throw out old working / non-working investment principles, invest in expensive celebrities and cultural properties and write hundreds of concepts which never air because the talent doesn't buy them.
“It also requires being playful with your brand in unexpected ways which make some people uncomfortable internally, and releasing some controls for your timelines and budgets to deal with all this. Most marketing managers aren’t comfortable dealing with these pressures and opt for the safer, most controllable routes.”
Morley thinks the era of 'digital best-practices' may have contributed, as teams shifted their resourcing tight digital executions of their value proposition rather than mass creative ideas.
“We absolutely do believe we need to execute in customer ways for each platform and surface to be effective, but it still needs to start with an interesting, cut-through idea, which is where we continue to prioritise our resources,” he says.
According to Kantar Asia & Australia, this bold creative measures up well from an effectiveness perspective in comparison to more subdued work.
A quick analysis of its database, on the basis of 11400 ads, reveals that over the last four years, the market research company has seen an increase in the ‘noise’ in the Australian advertising landscape.
Kantar head of creative, insights, Irene Joshy, says Australian ads are making people feel a myriad of emotions.
“The use of humour has increased (46% vs. global 33%) but everybody seems to be trying to out-shout each other reflected in the average levels of involvement with content down by 50% from 2021-24,” she says.
“So we are shouting our wares and in the short-term attracting consumers to try or buy. But at the cost of long-term brand building – with the decline in meaningful (meet needs) and sharpest decline in the brands standing apart in the sea of sameness nearly 40% drop."
Telstra head of creative excellence Anna Jackson says to get those concepts over the line, it’s all about bringing it back to the brief.
“Great creative is underpinned by great strategy – a clear rationale which can galvanise different audiences and show the potential of an idea to solve a problem,” she says.
“Better creative has a better chance of occupying mental real estate – the most valuable kind there is. Our brains are supremely energy efficient, forever filtering away content deemed dull or useless.”
In terms of campaign measurement, Telstra sees more distinct and compelling work outperforming across a variety of metrics, delivering more effective outcomes for the business.
On the creative market here, Jackson thinks about this a lot, especially given the pool of talent here driven to make great work
“Yet here we are. Ranked 11th globally at Cannes, dropping 4 places in one year alone. If I were to hazard a guess, and this will sound cliché, I think an uncertain market doubles down on ‘certainty’, with people taking more comfort in doing what’s been done, copying existing formulas and category codes,” she says.
“No-one wants to be the case study behind trying something new and falling flat. But, in an ironic kind of way, the alternative of producing ‘safe’ work seems far riskier an investment to me if it means creating wallpaper.”
Menulog’s head of brand and media Fiona Bateman says in a category where differentiation can be a challenge, there is a definite need to be creative and always think outside the box, with whatever the delivery service platform does.
“Thinking creatively has become ingrained in the Menulog culture - both in marketing and across the wider business,” she says.
One way Menulog does this is by bringing all stakeholders along for the ride, to create that environment where creative thinking thrives across the whole business.
It might seem unusual to bring finance or commercial teams into the creative review process, but Bateman has seen the value in having a shared vision right from the start.
“Of course, it’s still not a simple journey to get concepts over the line. We do significant testing on both our creative concepts and finalised work, leveraging data-driven insights as best we can. With everyone working collaboratively on this journey, we can manage expectations on how the work will land in the real world, and remove any subjectivity - which is often the downfall of a great idea!” she says.
“There’s no failsafe method, but this helps demonstrate whether the work aligns with our values, business objectives or campaign KPIs, which is always the ultimate goal.”
Any good measurement model will prove that the quality of your creative will multiply the return of your advertising dollars, Bateman says.
The days of relying on media spend alone are long gone, and in a world where all brands are competing for the often-limited attention of the consumer, she believes creating a campaign that cuts through is critical.
“While we don’t consider any of our work subdued, some of our most effective campaigns have involved a touch of the absurd - whether that’s Snoop Dogg rapping about sausage sizzles and meat pies or Wendell Sailor brushing his teeth in silence for a 15 second TV spot!” she says.
“Both campaigns involved a certain degree of risk and a lot of creative ambition to make happen, but the payoff was strong. After all, a higher degree of engagement from our audience directly correlates to better brand recall and top of mind awareness. The strong results from these examples prove that creativity is not just an artistic endeavour, but a crucial driver of business success for Menulog.”
In Bateman’s experience, senior leaders appreciate clear, concise, and data-backed narratives, and proof that teams can manage any risk involved.
“It also helps when you have developed trust over time. Like in our case, where we have significant tenure within the marketing department, which means our senior leadership understands our process and has confidence in what we do,” she says.
“That’s thanks to the team constantly showing that (calculated) creative risks can result in better business outcomes.”
It’s easy to forget that leaders are consumers too, and Bateman has found there’s great power in softer results.
“From positive sentiment in their own social media feeds, to comments at the school pick up about how our latest jingle is stuck in their heads - such personal experiences can drive support for our ambitious creative ideas.
“We are also fortunate to benefit from a global network of delivery brands where learnings are shared, case studies are circulated and our own internal benchmarks for creative excellence are constantly being smashed.”
It’s natural for businesses to want to adopt a more risk-averse approach when cost of living pressures start to bite, Bateman says.
But she believes a desire to play it safe or adopt the mentality of ‘if it isn’t broke don’t fix it’ can stifle innovation in advertising.
“This often comes with the assumption that the bigger the creative ambition, the bigger the budget needs to be - which isn’t the case. Smart businesses will use harder conditions as an opportunity to think outside the box, and challenge their agencies to do the same,” she says.
“There is a pressing need to bridge the gap between creative ambition and measurable business outcomes. Without clear evidence of effectiveness, bold ideas are less likely to gain traction. At Menulog, we believe in challenging the status quo and demonstrating that creative excellence is not only possible, but essential for standing out in a competitive market.”
Another observation Bateman has had is around the challenges some businesses face when they attempt to engage Australian consumers with globalised campaigns.
It’s not necessarily a creativity crisis, she says, but it shows that work clearly misses the mark when it isn’t adapted to capture the local nuances of a market.
“This is why it’s so important for us at Menulog to find creative ways for our brand assets to connect with local consumers, and bring our international stakeholders through this journey too.”
At ANZ, the mulitnational banks believes creatively impactful work is effective for both its customers and the organisation, general manager of marketing Sian Chadwick says.
"Driving ANZ’s brand distinctiveness, instigating whole-of-customer thinking over product-led propositions, and increasing commerciality of marketing’s work is at the core of what we do.
"We pride ourselves on our campaign work, and rely on a broad and engaged stakeholder network who champion the importance of creativity across the business to drive business results."
Extensive consultation with ANZ's stakeholder network throughout the entire campaign development process is critical, Chadwick says, as is working in collaboration with its agency partners to ensure they understand the business opportunities and areas for growth.
"As part of our campaign development process, we undertake rigorous consumer testing of all creative concepts to ensure there’s a robust narrative and understanding of how the creative work will resonate with the customer," she says.
"We engage with the ANZ board in a similar way as our other internal stakeholders – it is important to demonstrate the campaign, no matter how creative, has a clear narrative that links from customer insight to strategy, and creative output and development."
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