ThinkNewBrands and Australian Marketing Institute partnered to host its Marketing Perspectives session at News Corp Australia HQ on Thursday.
Over 60 marketers attended the session, covering various key topics, including the evolution of consumer beliefs, macro-environmental challenges such as cost of living, inflation and technology advances, practical insights for business growth and how businesses can connect with culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Vanessa Lyons, CEO of ThinkNewsBrands, moderated the discussion between Amanda Gordon, AM, former president of the Australian Psychological Society, Kerry Warren, editor at news.com.au, and Kathryn Illy, general manager of consumer marketing at Destination NSW.
Vanessa Lyons
Lyons asked the panellists about the consumer shift in seeking hard news stories to have more information to feel in control of an uncertain situation.
Warren concurred and said: “But there’s also a lot that you can do about that. We’ve started making sure that every story that we’re publishing has a little bit of expert advice or has somewhere you can go for help or has that kind of something you can do to not feel so out of control and not feel so hopeless.”
Gordon added: “As long as it’s not the warning that this article contains various scary things, so be wary. We know those trigger warnings don’t work. No, they make people more scared, they don’t stop people from using them, and they don’t actually prepare you for what you read.
“Trigger warnings are the silliest thing that have come up, and I don’t know if you’ve gone to the theatre or cinema lately, but it is totally ridiculous in terms of the warnings that you receive. If you don’t want to see anything new or anything that might confront you or that might touch you in any way, then don’t go to the movies because there’s a warning about everything. They don’t work.”
Amanda Gordon
Kerry Warren
On the topic of “wokeness” in social media and levels of trust as well as a shift in how certain channels are being used and why people are engaging with them.
Warren said on the news.com.au platform, they are also always engaging with real people. She said: “Even when we’re covering federal budgets, we cover them in how they mean for the everyday Australian because that’s not always easy to determine.
“Everything that we do is based on a real person and how it affects people. It’s people telling their stories, not high-profile people or famous people. I actually think that it’s so hard when you go on Facebook or Instagram to see anything from your actual friends anymore these days. It’s all sponsored content, it’s all suggested posts, it’s all stuff that doesn’t resonate anymore with real people and real people’s stories.
“I think that is probably a large reason behind the reason, like a lot of Australians are reporting very negative sentiments towards social media these days. It’s not what it used to be.”
For Ily, it is a different story as Destination NSW is seeing the opposite on social media with a 37% increase of followers on the tourism body’s TikTok over the last year.
“We have millions and millions of followers across all of our channels and it was really interesting to say that the rise and rise of social and also social search. Over 75% use social for inspiration when they’re planning for the next travel trip or their holiday. It’s almost like a little bit of an inverse relationship because they’re searching for this inspirational content.”
“It’s a real fine balance to try and strike between being where the audiences are. So our Sinks (Single Income No Kids) and Dinks (Dual Income, No Kids), our young target segment that we work with and absolutely target for holidays, they are on social media and that is continuing to grow,” Ily added.
–
Top image: Amanda Gordon, Vanessa Lyons, Kerry Warren and Kathryn Illy