The Growth Agenda podcast full series snapshot
The whole eight-part series of The Growth Agenda Podcast can be found right here.
From top marketers at major Australian brands to senior creatives and leaders from across the advertising industry, The Growth Agenda podcast 2022 tapped into some of the smartest minds from across the industry.
Covering themes including brand purpose, conscious consumerism, creativity from ideation to execution, diversity within the industry and how it is informing campaigns and the role of new platforms, such as the metaverse, the whole eight-part series can be found right here and below.
Hosted by TGA editor Pippa Chambers, the weekly podcast series rolled out in October for eight weeks and featured no less than 25 speakers.
Brands that shared their insights across the series included Kmart, Diageo, Catch, EA Games, Glenfiddich and Tourism Australia.
CEOs and top creatives at some of the nation’s biggest and best ad agencies, including Dentsu Creative, BMF, The Monkeys and Saatchi & Saatchi also feature.
In episode one of The Growth Agenda podcast, head of marketing and sustainability at Nespresso Mariah Monaghan, chief strategy officer at Saatchi & Saatchi Iona Macgregor and chief executive at Porter Novelli Australia Rhys Ryan, spoke about brand purpose challenges, measurement and why consumers won’t choose purpose or price – they want both.
As well as understanding the distinction between your own north star and a greater purpose – triggered by conscious consumerism and expectations driving more mature behaviour from brands – guests discussed avoiding environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESCG) “word soup”, Australia’s low levels of circularity and how “not everyone can save all whales”.
Kicking off with addressing confusion around brand purpose, Mr Ryan explained how in one bucket there’s purpose in relation to the reason for your organisation, and in the other there’s positive impact that your company creates in order, for example, to become more sustainable and more responsible – which falls into a different bucket.
Having a brand purpose without a solid strategy and clear platform for growth was just “lovely to have”, but would not set you up for long-term growth, according to head of marketing at Kmart, Rennie Freer.
Speaking in episode two of The Growth Agenda podcast discussing purpose before profit, Ms Freer, alongside chief executive officer at Dentsu Creative Kirsty Muddle and CEO at WeAre8 Lizzie Young, hit on topics covering greenwashing, critical comms rules around purpose and having an unrelenting focus on the consumer.
On the question of putting purpose before profit, Ms Freer said it wasn’t a phrase banded about the office and it had to be much more balanced than that.
“As someone who‘s proudly worked in retail for close to two decades, I am a firm believer that the two can, and do, coexist,” Ms Freer said. “I don’t think in any way we should ever talk about them not coexisting because purpose without a really solid business model, and a clear platform for growth is just lovely to have, but it’s not going to be commercial in the long term.”
The Growth Agenda Podcast: Brands must be bold, embrace diversity from the fringes and relook at board makeup
Brands need to move from being mirrors of mass audiences and make more conscious decisions to embrace diversity from the fringes, according to guests.
In discussing what courage and a commitment to change-making looks like and what this means in the diversity stakes, executive creative director at BMF Pia Chaudhuri, CEO at Australia's South West tourism organisation Catrin Allsop and Ogilvy Australia CEO Sally Kissane hit off an array of topics in episode three.
Ms Chaudhuri, who co-founded Only One In The Room, a collective formed last year to increase diversity in advertising, spoke about the new Destroy This Brief initiative that invites people to respond to a brief with game-changing diversity ideas. She also spoke about the role of agencies in helping guide brands towards making decisions about casting in ads.
First Nations’ creativity and leadership is and should be critical to all businesses, despite it being complex, messy and even scary.
In this episode, general manager at Cox Inall Ridgeway, part of Dentsu Creative, Yatu Widders-Hunt, and client partner and Aboriginal affairs lead at Porter Novelli Australia, Madison West, discussed why brands need to have a greater understanding and attitude on First Nations thinking.
The guests highlighted why First Nations’ creativity and leadership can’t be treated as an add on or KPI and what the opportunities are to drive meaningful change.
“A lot of brands are a little bit scared sometimes to step into the space,” Ms Widders-Hunt said.
“It's an incredibly beautiful and rich space, but it can be complex and it’s political as it’s talking about reshaping the nation which essentially can be messy. But from our view it’s incredibly important work.”
The Growth Agenda Podcast: Creativity is a muscle we need to exercise
In episode five of The Growth Agenda podcast, top Diageo marketer and two leading creatives discussed why in a data-drenched marketing world gut instinct should not be taboo for marketers, why creativity has to be built in a business capability – and much more.
It’s thought that creativity should no longer be reserved to one department and must not be thought of as “one big beautiful anthemic thing” that lands in market once a year. Instead, the word must continue to be democratised, should be embedded as a way of thinking throughout a whole organisation, and must be implemented at all points of the customer journey.
In episode five of The Growth Agenda podcast, marketing manager at Diageo-owned Bundaberg Rum and Johnnie Walker Jodi McLeod; national executive creative director at Leo Burnett Andy Fergusson; and chief creative officer at BMF Australia Alex Derwin, discussed why creativity isn’t just about creating a brilliant story arc and wowing consumers with a cinematic-style ad.
The Growth Agenda podcast: No longer a “dark art”, creativity takes its place in value chain
With many businesses doing it tough right now, perhaps looking to solve problems with more creative thinking could be the answer, according to guests on the this episode.
In episode six, creative collaboration lead and ambassador at Glenfiddich & The Balvenie Ross Blainey, chief creative officer at The Monkeys Tara Ford, and MD at Accenture Song Celia Romaniuk, discussed creativity at all points of the customer journey.
The trio discussed the rise, role and rhetoric around ‘commercial creativity’ and questioned if it was becoming more evident as brands embrace and understand the power of creativity far beyond advertising.
Melbourne-based Ms Romaniuk, who formerly worked at Accenture Song’s design and innovation consultancy Fjord across the Nordics and the UK for nearly a decade, said solving all manner of business problems in a creative way is becoming more important.
“We are facing constant challenges and whether that‘s around inflation or sustainability, there’s so much going on all the time that it’s a struggle for brands to keep up and have that cut through,” Ms Romaniuk said.
The Growth Agenda podcast: Fantastic yet flawed, the role, rise and evolution of creativity and tech
Creativity and technology make “fantastic bedfellows”, but marketers have not yet mastered the internal “data cultures” needed to match the same levels of creative cultures that have been steadily maturing.
In episode seven head of content at Catch Alex Wright, EGM for strategy and research at Tourism Australia (TA) Rob Dougan, and executive creative director and GM of Digitas Simon Brock discussed whether tech was driving creativity or vice versa.
The guests looked at the rise of data-led insights and strategies that are supercharging creativity and pondered the role and future of both elements and to what extent they must coexist.
From questioning how brands should weigh up investment in these areas to if it was better to have a data-informed mindset rather than be solely data-driven, many hot topics and important themes were hit off.
The Growth Agenda podcast: Brands behold the rise of immersive content
Brands should not discard their role in the booming world of immersive content without doing the necessary due diligence to assess if it’s right for them.
Whether it’s 3D, augmented reality (AR) or virtual reality (VR) content - either within or outside the metaverse - it’s a growing space where brands can connect and interact with consumers.
Described by creative technologist at Special Laurent Marcus as a great space for brands to create “richer and two-way experiences” with the consumer, rather than the brand simply controlling the whole narrative, the role of immersive content has been steadily spilling out of a gaming-only habitat into a more mainstream world.
Whether it‘s the use of AR filters on social media, brands like Nike and Spotify showing up in a virtual universe such as Roblox, beer brand Miller Lite creating the first-ever brand hosted bar in the metaverse during the Super Bowl, or a retailer updating their 2D product offering to a 3D-try on experience, immersive content strategies and creative can vary wildly.
In episode eight, director of Asia marcom strategy for EA Games Liam McClure, executive creative director at CHEP Network Amy Weston and Mr Marcus, discussed themes around whether tech was driving creativity or vice versa.
Created to highlight the role and importance of creativity in driving business growth, The Growth Agenda – a weekly page within the national broadsheet in partnership with Advertising Council Australia – launched in June last year and has gone from strength to strength.
Check out more stories from TGA here.
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