Powered By Nine has brought back The Big Ideas Store, which is now in its fifth year.
Liana Dubois, director of Powered By Nine, spoke to Mediaweek about the blockbuster line-up over the next two weeks, the appeal of Nine’s content ecosystem, the growth of the event over the years and this year’s theme: The Art of Curation.
Following two challenging years hampered by Covid, Dubois said they are excited to invite industry members to their new and impressive headquarters in North Sydney.
“We’re excited to invite the industry at large into our creative campus and bring people back together to start to ideate and have conversations and see each other in the flesh. That’s how, we think, you get great work for advertisers and marketers.
“There’s a full action-packed two-week schedule. We’re welcoming everyone. It’s an inclusive event. Anybody from the co-ord through to the CMO, the CEO, and the agency MD, is welcome here. We hope that we get as many people through as possible,” she said.
The Powered By Nine director said she hopes attendees – particularly agencies and advertisers – get “a renewed effervescence for what we all do in this industry” from the event.
“Whether you’re in marketing, media, advertising, or creative, I hope that we inspire and motivate people to continue to love what they do for a living.
“I hope that we challenge some views and some opinions. I hope that we spark a lot of conversation. I hope we connect a lot of individuals to start to collaborate,” she added.
See also: The Big Ideas Store returns for its fifth year with a blockbuster line-up
What is The Art of Curation?
The theme of this year’s event is The Art of Curation. It features an immersive art gallery installation that highlights Nine’s content ecosystem and the work Powered has delivered for brands while looking out to the panoramic 22nd floor of Nine’s HQ.
Dubois explained the theme: “We believe that behind every successful CMO, every great marketer is a team of extraordinary curators.
“That is fundamentally what Powered’s role inside Nine is, to curate the vast ecosystem that is Nine and make it easier to navigate, offer assistance, consultation, and advice as to how to use that huge marketing platform to benefit an advertiser or a client with best-in-class ideas.
“That idea of curation is what we do. We curate our asset base to deliver the best outcomes for the advertisers that we act in the service of,” she added.
Nine’s content ecosystem, the growth of the The Big Ideas Store and impact of Covid
Dubois noted that Nine has been building an unrivalled marketing platform over the last five years with a huge audience reach, including a channel makeup spanning television, digital, radio, print, as well as marketplaces Drive and Domain.
The Powered By Nine highlighted the appeal of Nine’s ecosystem is working with the Powered group, which curates all of Nine’s assets. She said: “You’re working with a great fun group of people who are real specialists in their field and are there to help you realise your ambitions.”
Five years ago, the Big Ideas Store had its humble beginnings when it started as a pop-up physical store on Oxford Street in Sydney.
“Now, run a physical store where people can come and interact with the installations for the art of curation and explore the tangible and physical side of our content,” she said.
Dubois also shared that an upside of Covid over the last two years has been the ability to go virtual and thereby reach a larger audience. She said: “We’re not constrained by the physicality of the store or only being able to have a 100-seat capacity in this room. We can now reach much further and wider because of the virtual nature of the store.
“Why we’ve done it – because we wanted a way to invite people into our home to explore our content and our capability in a little bit more depth than perhaps, they might just in their regular day. It’s here to bring Nine to life,” she added.
Dubois shared that the most significant takeaway she and her team have learned from the last five years of running the event has been the scale of collaboration it takes to bring brand ambitions and campaigns to life.
She explained: “One of the biggest learnings we’ve had in the last five years is to invite that village in to collaborate with us and co-create with us. You’re seeing no less than 50 external panellists coming in for the next two weeks. There are some extraordinary brains out there, and if you bring them all together, then the whole is greater than the sum of the parts,” she said.
Outlook for the next two weeks
When asked about what she was looking forward to the most out over the next two weeks, Dubois stayed neutral and laughed: “That’s like asking me to pick a favourite child.”
The Powered By Nine said: “The two weeks of sessions and events that we’ve curated this year, I humbly believe that it’s the best of the five years.
“The diversity of thinking coming together, the diversity of people that will share this stage with us, and the broad church of topics that we’re going to be talking about fundamentally excite me.
“What I am looking forward to most is, at the close of these two weeks, hearing and seeing the conversations and collaborations that perhaps we’ve had a hand in helping to drive or support,” Dubois concluded.
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Top image: Toby Boon and Liana Dubois