New platform Thread launches to fix marketing’s ‘memory’ problem

New Zealand-founded marketing technology company Thread has launched across Australia and New Zealand, aiming to solve a problem familiar to marketing teams: losing the knowledge behind past campaigns.

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The platform brings campaign activity, investment, performance and decision-making context into one place. Its latest customers include DB Breweries, ANZCO Foods, FreshChoice supermarkets and Metlifecare.

Thread targets marketing’s memory gap

Thread is designed to capture material including campaign briefs, media plans, budgets, creative, results and learnings. The company says this gives marketers a searchable history of what happened, how campaigns performed and why decisions were made.

Troy Fuller, co-founder and CEO of Thread, said: “Marketing teams aren’t short of information. The challenge is turning all of that information into something they can actually use.”

“Most organisations have years of marketing knowledge sitting across reports, presentations, inboxes and marketers’ heads. Thread gives that activity a home and then puts it to work, allowing teams to not only understand what happened and what was achieved, but, most importantly, why. Those learnings can then be used to make better-informed decisions next time.”

AI tools built around campaign context

Thread’s Track feature records marketing activity across campaigns, product launches, shopper promotions and always-on social media. Teams can then compare activity across brands, channels, markets and different time periods.

Its Smart Add tool lets users upload existing documents such as briefs, media plans, budgets and post-campaign reviews. Thread maps that information into its framework, while Ask Thread lets marketers ask natural-language questions about their campaign history and performance.

Phil Newman, co-founder and chief product officer of Thread, said: “Marketing has spent years investing in measurement, but very little in memory. Teams shouldn’t have to rebuild the story every time someone asks what worked.”

Thread also positions itself differently from brand tracking, media dashboard and attribution platforms by capturing recommendations, creative decisions and campaign context alongside performance data.

ANZCO Foods puts campaign history into Thread

ANZCO Foods is already using Thread for its Angel Bay brand. The company has added $3.5 million of marketing activity dating back to 2022 to the platform.

Becky Turnbull, marketing manager at ANZCO Foods, said: “Before Thread, half our campaign history lived on our server and the other half in my inbox. Now it’s all in one place, for the entire team.”

She added: “I’ve just put $3.5m of activity into Thread dating back to 2022. Now I’m not writing reports from scratch anymore.”

The founders behind Thread

Fuller has more than 20 years of advertising experience across New Zealand and Australia, including leadership roles at Clemenger Group. He founded independent creative agency Multiplied in 2021.

Newman has worked in advertising production and operations for 15 years, including senior positions at Dentsu. He later moved into automation and AI at ArchiPro before founding AI and automation studio Chuffed.

Thread’s analytical foundation was developed with Hayley Clinning, data science lead, who has more than a decade of analytics experience.

The platform is now available to marketing teams across Australia and New Zealand through a monthly subscription model, with savings offered on annual and longer-term agreements.