Rival radio networks are transplanting big talent from Sydney and trying to make it work in Melbourne.

SCA Chief Content Officer, Dave Cameron, is taking the opposite strategy. Local talent that “speaks the language of the city” and gets the “fabric” of its suburbs is particularly crucial for breakfast audiences, he says.

Plus, as platforms and content globalise, localism becomes a competitive advantage: “Anti-globalism will pay dividends for us … otherwise we’re playing the same game as everyone else.”

Hence SCA launching six new shows, pairing fresh local talent with station “juggernauts” while focusing harder on radio’s core heartlands – like Western Sydney, where massive audiences and engagement are found. “That is where the bulk of radio listening, the bulk of audience data and surveys, is happening,” per Cameron. “It's not happening in Bondi.”

SCA is laser-focused on growing audiences and revenues without blowing holes in the budget that could later prove problematic. Content economics are underpinned by sharpened appetite for advertiser integration – with those commercial discussions happening upfront and early. “We’ve never been more commercially savvy around that,” says Cameron.

Seeking new audiences via greener talent and formats could risk dislocating “rusted-on” loyalists, Cameron acknowledges. “But we believe in the combinations we’ve put together,” he says. “If you're not investing in fresh thinking, talent and voices, your industry may become irrelevant.” Plus, there’s growing evidence to suggest a younger set is discovering the analogue dial – either through nostalgia, or as a reaction to algorithmic overreach.

The next year will test SCA’s strategy, but Cameron’s confident audiences will hold and then grow. The alternative is to keep hoping the world doesn’t change, or emulate the metro lift and shift being attempted by rivals. Can that transplant strategy pay off, given time to bed-in?

“That’s a $200 million question,” says Cameron.

SCA is staking out a different numbers game.

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Nico Neumann is deep in the weeds on digital marketing attribution, market mix modelling [MMM] and incrementality testing – likewise the dangers of narrow audience targeting and junk user data - the latter a $20bn market in the US alone. The Melbourne Business School Associate Professor in 2019 published research proving that closing your eyes and randomly selecting male or female audience targets was more accurate than the data brokers and DSPs many advertisers buy from. Neumann claims a senior data broker admitted to him privately that they knew their data was crap, “but who cares? Marketers are buying this”.

(Like Arielle Garcia, UM’s former US privacy lead who last year told Mi3 she had accessed her data profile from multiple third party brokers with laughable results, Neumann has downloaded his own, “and it’s hilarious”. You should do the same - we’ve got a URL in our Mi3 feature to test your profile segments).

Neumann batted away claims his B2C audience studies were too broad and challenged widely held assumptions that niche segments and B2B were where precision targeting of online users actually works. Last year he ran tests with IT giant HP - a paper is coming - that sharply contests most B2B marketing plans and particularly so for tech sector practitioners. “No matter what we used, it was either equal to random targeting, or even worse,” says Neumann.

First party data is better, per Neumann, but there are caveats, particularly around clean rooms and matches that can be bogus. He advises marketers to upload made up email addresses and see what they get back - hashed user 'match rates’ may not be what they seem. His advice: stick with the first and second party data you can trust, but even then, don’t assume targeting will deliver better bang for buck.

“I would even take a step back and ask, do you need to target that narrowly? There are very few cases where it makes sense … Why do you even need to exclude people and increase the cost, instead of just letting the content or message do that?”

Neumann sees the explosion of market mix modelling and measurement approaches as “a good thing”. But there are market rumblings that the big platforms pushing MMMs risk skewing towards inherent model biases. Either way, Neumann’s working on a project to compare how all the main MMMs hitting the market actually perform.

He urges marketers to question all models – and his advice for those emerging from business schools is the same as for seasoned CMOs: Hone fundamentals that will last a lifetime; don’t overspecialise in trends and fads. “Ask hard questions – and just test stuff yourself.”

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Four Pillars Gin is now four times the size of the entire Australian premium gin category when it started in 2013. Much of the category’s explosive growth is down to three cofounders having a crack, while seeing off the cops, who thought they were making meth. Now under Lion’s ownership, itself part of Japanese drinks giant Kirin, two of the founders – ex-Olympian Cameron Mackenzie and PR man Stuart Gregor – have “gracefully” exited. But the third founding partner, former global strategy boss at IPG’s Jack Morton Worldwide, Matt Jones, is still in. He thinks Australia deserves a global spirits business spearheaded by botanical alchemy, experience, craft, influence and intimacy over mass “shotgun messaging”. Jones is also a reluctant martech convert, valuing old school customer experience and its intangibles over measuring clicks and other marketing metrics. He likewise places far greater value on flywheels than marketing funnels. While the direct-to-consumer growth hacking playbook that fuelled start-ups a decade ago is now a relic of its time, Jones thinks many of the Four Pillars lessons and tricks are repeatable today for those that distil the fundamentals. But there are some key differences. Here’s his take on what made the business succeed and where Four Pillars – and Lion’s expanding spirits business – goes next.

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