According to Josh Faulks, “marketing is the one of the biggest drivers for growth and profitability.” The AANA CEO, speaking to Mediaweek ahead of next week’s RESET event, believes now is the right time to talk about growth following “a pretty turbulent year for a lot of businesses.”
“A lot of people expected us to be out of a slump by now, but it looks like the recovery is going to be a bit slower than we expected,” he says.
The AANA’s annual flagship event has a theme of ‘RESET for Growth’, which Faulks says is particularly pertinent for marketers as a tough economy continues to plague the industry.
Conversations on growth for the advertising industry matter, Faulks says, as marketers look for ways to sustain business growth, while tackling economic challenges.
“In some industries, it’s huge. We’re talking 30% plus increase in the cost of doing business,” he says.
In an environment where businesses are “squeezing margins and the cost of doing business is increasing,” Faulks observes that “everyone is talking about how we can grow.”
He elaborates: “how they can grow their businesses, and how we can grow the economy, from the government and from the business’ side.
“There’s only so much [brands] can pass those costs onto consumers without damaging the reputation of the businesses or affecting demand. If you keep putting prices up, that also has an impact on inflation.”
Which is why, Faulks explains, the AANA’s roster was curated to represent world-leading examples of growth, highlighting creative efforts that have delivered significant and tangible results for brands, despite the challenging environment.
“Good creativity is not just creativity for the sake of creativity,” he says.
“The interesting angle this year is that some of the best marketers in the world are coming to the stage, and they’re talking about some of the biggest and most successful marketing campaigns around the world last year.”
Janine Allis
Last week, the industry body announced Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice, as the final speaker to join its lineup.
“All the speakers are talking about growth and various things that they’ve used, like creativity, leadership, and a range of other things to grow their businesses.”
Reflecting on the selection process, Faulks laughs, “I said I want the biggest campaigns.”
He continues: “I spoke to a few CMOs and went ‘Who are the people that you really like? [Of] the big ones, the very senior CMOs, who are the people that you’d like to see on the stage the most?’”
He points to the lauded marketing campaign behind the era-defining blockbuster film Barbie, which will be the focus for speaker Josh Goldstein, president of worldwide marketing at Warner Bros. Picture Group.
Diane Everett, general manager for brand, sponsorship and social at CommBank, and Jackie Lee-Joe, deputy chair of Football Australia will team up to discuss the marketing strategy behind the Matildas’ rise to iconic status.
“It’s not just about money and marketing,” Faulks remarks on the session. “They actually started a cultural movement, a cultural moment in time, for such a good thing around women’s sport.”
“The inspirational part for me is that the next generation coming through will believe in women’s sport and see it as equal, whereas my generation was all boys.”
Futurist Bernard Salt AM will be discussing the reappraisal of the industry’s understanding of the consumer, concentrating on “the segments and the gateways and those kinds of periods you go through in your life, and how that’s moving now from a demographic perspective, and what that means for marketers.
“What they should be segmenting and targeting, and have they got that right?”
Anheuser-Busch InBev, and its Budweiser American lager brand, represented by vice president Richard Oppy, is another example, Faulks adds, of a brand that “put creativity at the centre of their business.”
“From that they won the two Cannes Lions [for creative marketer of the year], which has never happened. That has also transformed into significant growth,” he says.
Faulks hints that the AANA is pursuing its own growth ambitions.
“I’m a big fan of north stars,” says Faulks. “I like a big, audacious goal to say ‘this is where we should be.’”
He describes the AANA’s recent board session around its 2030 strategy, with such goals established “for two reasons.”
“One is that I want to truly represent the industry,” he says. “The second thing is, for our organisation, we want to be – and I think we’re getting to that point now – the leading industry body for the advertising and marketing industry.”
Building upon its 95-year legacy, Faulks declares the moving goal post for the AANA is to account for the full gamut of Australia’s adland.
While advertisers are still the priority, he says, “we’ve evolved also to the broader representation at the media agencies, the platforms, the media partners.
“If we’re going to be the leading industry body, we need to reflect and represent the whole industry.”
See also: Janine Allis joins AANA Reset’s final speaker lineup
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Top Image: Josh Faulks