On Thursday afternoon, hundreds of industry representatives made the trip to Carriageworks in Eveleigh for ThinkTV’s Re Vision.
After a Welcome to Country from Marrawarra and Barkindji man Brendan Kerin, Nine’s Belinda Russell took to the stage as the host of the afternoon, speaking about how television is a “vital part of our Australian culture, creating those moments that bring us all together, reflecting and forming our national identity.”
A Re Vision panel featured Kim Portrate with Seven’s Georgie Nichols, Paramount’s Diane Ho, Nine’s Ben Campbell and Foxtel’s Bridget Murphy
Winner of Australian Idol 2023, Royston Noell, took to the stage to blow the audience away with his performance of Invincible, before joining Seven’s Edwina Bartholomew to speak about what it was that made him want to sign up to a TV show in the first place.
Seven’s Natalie Harvey surrounded her colleagues from Seven at the Farmer Wants a Wife bar
“Representation is so powerful, seeing someone that looks like you on TV that has been through experiences that you’ve been through is so powerful, and that’s what I wanted to do. That was the main reason why I went on the show,” said Noell.
Nine’s Richard Hunwick and colleagues from Nine at their bar promoting The Summit
Professor Jana Bowden then took to the stage to bust some industry myths. Your brand totally understands its customers? Consumers are simple and always rational? TV is a dying format that is only good for creating top-of-funnel awareness? Bowden proved that none of those hold true when you look at the research.
Farmers Brad, Brenton and David with Seven’s Natalie Harvey, Katie Finney and Georgie Nichols
It was then time for the first panel of the day, with Think TV CEO Kim Portrate moderating as Caroline Swift (Head of Entertainment, WBITVP), Sophia Mogford (Executive Producer – Drama & Comedy, Network Ten), and Philippa Moig (Head of NSW Govt, OMD) took to the stage. The panel discussed the rise of streaming, and whether or not that impacts the way that TV is made.
Swift pointed out that “At the end of the day, whether your show is getting transmitted on a streamer, or via sticky tape, or through some sort of alien thing, it doesn’t really matter. You’ve still got to do all the things that you’ve got to do with content, which is entertain, excite, surprise, and make people feel things.”
Daniel Doody and Paramount ANZ’s Diane Ho with colleagues from the sales team
The next panel saw Portrate moderate again as Ben Campbell (Nine’s Director of Advertising and Data Products), Diane Ho (National Digital Sales Director at Paramount ANZ), Bridget Murphy (Foxtel’s Digital Innovation & Advertising Product Director), and Georgie Nichols (Seven’s NSW Sales Director) discussed the future of Australian television.
“At the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is service the audience and allow them to connect with the amazing content that we all produce and invest in on their terms, in the way that they want to watch it. All TV, whether it be free, whether it be paid, whether it be on a linear broadcast channel or live stream through BVOD services – we will continue to invest in that into the future,” said Ho.
The ThinkTV team at Re Vision: Erica Sama, Claire Williams, Kathryn Matthew, Brooke Hemphill, Professor Jana Bowden and Alicia Ward
It was then time for things to get musical once again, with the Re Vision audience turning their attention to Menulog’s incredibly catchy ‘Did Someone Say?’ campaign. After the full ad featuring singer-songwriter D’Arcy Spiller was played, Menulog’s CMO Simon Cheng joined Russell to discuss the success of the campaign in Australia and overseas.
Re Vision co-host Belinda Russell from Nine with Menulog’s Simon Cheng
“As marketers, we all get trained to build visual brand assets – your logo, your colour, etc. But the more you can add multi dimensions to your distinct brand assets, the more likelihood there is for people to remember you in purchasing decisions. So audio branding is a really important thing,” said Cheng.
10’s Daniel Doody and Vanessa Menser
D’Arcy Spiller then lit up the stage with her song Wolf Blood, before joining Cheng and Russell to speak about what it was like recording the ad in Melbourne’s lockdown – “it gave me something to do!” she laughed.
With the formal proceedings of Re Vision wrapped up, attendees then joined the speakers for networking drinks and food at Blacksmiths.
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Top Image: ThinkTV’s Kim Portrate with IAG’s Bronny Sivell, Suncorp’s Rapthi Thanapalasingam and Nine’s Ben Campbell