Nine has swung open the door on its sixth Big Ideas Store, launching a week of speakers, workshops, research, and an immersive pop-up taking over the Beta events space in Sydney.
Mediaweek will be across all the week’s sessions, bringing readers a rundown of every idea – big or small.
Find out more about The Big Ideas Store here.
See Also: Nine’s Big Ideas Store 2023: Day Two recap
See Also: Nine’s Big Ideas Store 2023: Day One recap
Dativity: Defining the Future of Technology and Creative
By Jasper Baumann
This session was hosted and introduced by Jack Bavin, Powered by Nine’s head of strategy in Melbourne.
Ahead of the panel, Bavin introduced the seminar and discussed what the future looks like for relationships between creative agencies and technology, specifically AI and the rising popularity of programs such as ChatGPT.
Bavin raised a point that often, advertising is positioned as an art vs science argument. However, he argues that usually, the most effective campaigns are usually a marriage of the two.
After the introduction, Bavin passed it over to moderator Jessica Parry and the panel of speakers who discussed the different approaches to bring data, tech and creativity together from the perspectives of clients, creatives, media, agencies and publishers.
The panel included Luke Simkins, group creative director – Mediabrands, Gemma Dawkins, national head of digital – PHD Agency and Whitney Meldrum-Hanna, head of creative strategy & web3 – Pedestrian Group.
When asked about her perspective on how AI will transform agency, Dawkins said transform is the keyword in that question.
“When I think about the things that people who work in agencies, particularly media agencies have frustrations over, it’s the repetitive nature of manual tasks. With that also comes human error, but also staff churn. So what I think AI can or should be able to do is automate some of those manual tasks that not only reduce those errors but also give our people more time to be creative and think creatively, which is also what clients are always saying, that they want more creativity and more innovation,” she said.
The discussion around how agencies and publishers should be upfront about the use of AI arose, and the key takeaway was that agencies need to be transparent.
“I think if it’s a tool to help, then I don’t have an issue with that. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would do this, but if you punched in the prompt [into ChatGPT], got an idea and then presented it directly to a client, I think that’s unethical. You shouldn’t do it because the second you do, you devalue what it is that you actually do for a living. I believe it should be a tool and not an end result,” Simkins said.
The panel took time to answer audience questions including how do you make sure you’re finding a true data-driven insight and not just using specific data to support your own insights?
Hanna said it ultimately comes down to the approach.
“You start with data, and then look through that, get to an insight and then it’s a matter of reverse engineering the data to make it suit what your viewpoint is,” she said.
Ultimately, the main takeaway from the seminar is that AI is a fast-moving tool that can be used to aid agencies in producing creative products for clients, and will only evolve and get bigger as time goes on. However, the panel stressed that AI will not make marketing jobs redundant and should only serve merely as a tool to help creativity.
Giant Slayers: The big ideas helpings SMEs win big
By James Manning
The midweek afternoon session at Nine’s Big Ideas Store was in the capable hands of Kate Waugh, national head of client solutions at Nine, and Nicki Kenyon, director of Nine’s Powered.
Waugh introduced the sessions on SMEs and played some audio from campaigns that cut through from SMEs. “Big ideas aren’t just for big brands,” she said.
“We believe a big idea is any idea that stands out. It has purpose, reason to exist and an exciting strategy at its core. It is then executed perfectly across its chosen channels. A big idea can be simple, bold, different, meaningful and powerful.
“We know creativity drives business results. There are 2.6m business in Australia and 98% of them are SMEs.
“For them to be noticed by consumers it is not only about spend. It is about prioritising creativity.”
Waugh then gave some examples of SME’s using creativity to drive business success. The first was mattress manufacturer Koala. “They owned creativity…nothing they did was predictable. They were bold, clever and disruptive. They flipped the script on how to launch a new brand in market.”
Waugh then played some highlights from the Koala fake infomercial with comedian Sam Simmons.
The flow of the session was then itself disrupted with an appearance from Nine’s director of sales for Nine Plus, Tim Rose.
He inserted himself into the session with a brief descriptor of what Nine Plus does: “This won’t be a sales pitch,” Rose promised.
“Nine Plus was formed in 2019 and was the first sales team at Nine to be fully integrated across all our formats. We now have 5,000 customers with annual spends ranging from a few hundred dollars to a few million.
“While the majority of our customers engage Nine Plus to manage their traditional campaigns across television, print, digital, BVOD and radio, we always seek to provide them with a big idea. Something that will give them a unique integration opportunity to help drive awareness and ROI for their business.
“It might be Today show weather crosses that we host every year for Jamberoo Action Park to launch their summer season or Chery Motors sponsorship of the Nine Traffic Network that you might have seen on air this morning on the Today show or heard on 2GB.
“Just last week Ingham’s Australia sponsored to Today show and we had Karl and Sarah wolfing down chicken nuggets at 8am.
“Every Tuesday night Jacaranda Financial Planning host a segment with our 2GB and 3AW listeners to give them expert advice on superannuation.”
Rose gave another handful of Nine Plus big ideas.
It was soon back to a more general discussion about SMEs though and it was time for the Big Ideas Store panel.
Hosting the panel this session was Nine’s Nicki Kenyon.
Special guests who spoke about their respective businesses and how slayed giants with big ideas were Amelia Taylor from blind, shutters and awnings retailer Wynston, Matt Rossi from Eucalyptus and Owen Finegan from Kids’ Cancer Project.
Taylor paid tribute to the work on the family-owned business done initially by ARN and radio creative guru Colin Lee. Although now based in the UK, Lee still looks after all the Wynston radio spots which still air on ARN, but also the Nine Radio network of course.
Rossi spoke about the success their mattress brand Koala had with their fake infomercial mentioned previously.
Finegan stressed how important big ideas were to his charity which has a marketing budget of just $250,000 annually. He noted, how in partnership with Nine, the fundraising work they do has helped improve childhood cancer recovery figures from just 2 in 10 to a very impressive 8 in 10.