Marketing

In times of economic uncertainty, every marketing dollar counts. As Australia (and the rest of the world for that matter) “flirts” with a recession, marketers have their hands full with hamstrung budgets and ever-increasing pressure to do more with less. The last thing any marketer needs is a worldwide group of fraudsters covertly siphoning away their hard-earned budgets which in essence makes the budget process even harder to justify for the next year.

Rakuten Advertising, the performance-driven ad solutions provider, announced that The Thoughtful Agency has been named as the first Platinum Agency Partner in APAC. The Thoughtful Agency, a full-service digital agency in Australia, has been recognised for delivering innovative solutions to clients through the Rakuten Affiliate Network. Rakuten Advertising’s Platinum Agency Partner program is an exclusive community of partnered agencies.

HypeAuditor, an AI analytics platform for brands who want fair and transparent influencer marketing, releases its fourth annual “State of Influencer Marketing” 2023 report. Each year, the report provides an overview of latest news from social media platforms most used by marketers (Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube), as well as predicted trends for the year ahead.

AB InBev was once again named Creative Marketer of the Year by Cannes Lions. This is the first time in awards’ history that the same company has been selected two years in a row. The annual Creative Marketer of the Year (CMOY) award is presented to the marketer that has amassed an industry-leading body of Lion-winning work over a sustained period of time.

Australian end-to-end online used car platform, Carma, has announced the appointment of Emily Meier-Murren as Director of Brand Marketing. Taking up the newly created role from 13 March 2023, Emily’s remit is to drive Carma’s brand strategy, including overseeing marketing and advertising operations, partnerships and sponsorships, public relations and social content.

Home to some of the country’s leading personal care brands, such as Wilkinson Sword, Banana Boat, Bulldog, Schick and WetOnes; global fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) giant Edgewell, announced the appointment of WiredCo. after a three-way pitch process. Hired for a brand launch, WiredCo.’s remit is to execute a campaign extending across media, creative, social, earned media, digital and influencer marketing. This will see the group shake-up a category in supermarkets, which has been dominated by a duopoly for decades. 

Australia’s food delivery platform, Menulog, announced that it has appointed Thinkerbell as its creative partner following a comprehensive agency review process. The partnership will see Thinkerbell deliver a range of services including strategy, creative, earned and owned content.

Brightcove, the trusted streaming tech company, launched Brightcove Ad Monetization, a new bespoke service designed for media companies to better monetise their content. To supplement the service, the company also created a new global advertising operations team to support media firms and help them maximise their advertising strategy and revenue.

TotallyAwesome, a youth-first specialist marketing and media company, has appointed four senior executives as it grows operations in Asia Pacific to cater for the demand in brands wanting to engage Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Pablo Gomez joins as Chief Strategy Officer APAC, Belinda Casselden as Head of Marketing APAC, Brian Riedlinger as Chief Delivery Officer and Jeff Franco as Regional Head of Growth APAC. All four roles are newly created positions.

Wunderkind, the world-renown performance marketing solution that delivers guaranteed revenue and performance for brands, publishers and advertisers, has announced the appointment of Bill Ingram, a proven marketing technology leader, as Chief Executive Officer. Ingram brings over 30 years of experience scaling tech start-ups, leading enterprise SaaS organization advancement, and driving product development and growth. Before joining Wunderkind, Ingram served as President and Chief Product Officer at Cheetah Digital, driving the global innovation and advancement of next-gen B2C marketing automation solutions.