AdNews asked industry figures for their assessment of 2022 and outlook for next year
Maria Grivas, Mindshare Australia & New Zealand CEO
I’ve been inspired by how we have moved through the past few years with a focus on what we can affect and how to balance the consistency of what we know works, while embracing the new and different. We have experienced the biggest upheaval to the way we work and live these last three years, so 2022 was a welcome return to some of the consistency and connection we had been missing.
As an industry and as individuals we have innovated to contend with new challenges. We have leaned into the purpose of our industry as changers - #wearethechangers and it fills me with optimism that we are all at our best when we are open to something different.
For me the past 12 months have been a time of personal and professional change. I waved goodbye to my team at Reprise and embarked on a different opportunity leading Mindshare across ANZ. I have been wowed by the tenacity of our teams, their care for each other, our media partners, and our clients; and the sense of belonging that resonates across our halls.
It was also a year of different challenges. Our clients and teams have new and added pressures to navigate and talent and resourcing emerged as the toughest. We experienced the highest level of sick and carers leave with peak Covid infections at the start of the year. We also saw the highest levels of consecutive weeks of annual leave as our people and clients flocked home to visit their family and friends. I was also fortunate to have some time between roles and took advantage of international travel to visit family in Greece we hadn’t seen for so many years. Being reunited with family was a highlight for me and I know so many of my team shared that experience through our GroupM Reconnect program.
Then there have been the challenges our clients experienced across their supply chains with inflation for commodities and availability of product. We had to duck and weave and move in different ways to navigate gracefully through this tempestuous landscape in support of our clients’ needs.
As we close the year, economic uncertainties and layoffs across the technology sector foreshadow another tricky year to come for businesses and society, but even with that backdrop, I am so optimistic about the year ahead.
We’re at an inflection point, with media and marketing communities choosing our direction. Do we ignore our critical role in truth, equality, and a free society? Or can we embrace the power we wield to reshape what brand communications mean, being more thoughtful and intentional in every aspect of our campaigns?
We will view growth differently. We know that audiences are demanding greater authenticity and transparency from brands. We also know that profit is critical for organisational resilience. For me, Good Growth is the future. It sits at the intersection of purpose and profit, acting as the vision and guiding principle that underpins our growth strategies. Creative transformation is fuelled by ideas. But with Good Growth, these ideas are born from a powerful sense of purpose. Good Growth is sustaining, enduring, luminous, diversified, disruptive and effective at solving for the tensions ahead of us.
We will enable our teams to grow well, leaning into our employee value proposition - open to different. Sparking curiosity and encouraging debate. Because we believe that different opinions create better solutions; different experiences inform broader perspectives and lead to greater impact. And different, changes the world. The more open we are, the more our differences make us stronger.
We will embrace a conscious pursuit toward being changemakers in what we do, every day. Media buying is no longer just about the transaction of buying and placing an ad – climate change, misinformation, dying journalism, civil rights setbacks for the already marginalized and more are all part of the fallout. We’ll use creativity and expertise to improve client outcomes while helping build a more sustainable and equitable world.
It goes beyond a single moment, beyond a single platform, and beyond a single metric or market and makes me proud to be part of the future of this industry where we produce work that’s more meaningful and creates impact, and importantly,influences real change.
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