DDB Sydney head of social Alex Watts has launched a podcast series to explore what advertisers and marketers hate and love most about advertising.
Created in collaboration with DDB Australia, Advent investigates important topics including what marketers and advertisers miss when it comes to understanding the consumer, the role of emotion in driving growth for a brand and the future of a more diverse communications industry.
The first episode kicks off with Peter Sloterdyk, the chief marketing and technology officer of Koala, who started his new role at the beginning of the pandemic.
Since then, he has been leading the 150-strong Australian headquarters from the States as the direct-to-consumer brand navigates through its biggest sales period since being founded in 2015.
“One of marketing’s biggest problems is our obsession with measurement. We’re not doing enough to solve it," Sloterdyk says on the podcast.
"In fact, we’re going in the other direction and doubling down on our obsession. I believe this stems from the lack of trust we have; boardrooms and CEOs don’t trust their CMOs and CMOs don’t trust their teams to deliver on their expectations because they aren’t setting the right strategy. If there isn’t trust at the top, there won’t be trust in the middle and there certainly won’t be trust throughout the team.”
Watts says his launched the podcast as a way for the advertising industry to "vent" how they feel about certain topics.
“Over my career, I’ve realised advertising has a huge problem with talking about what we really feel - so we started Advent to create a platform to do that in a constructive way," Watts says.
"Thank you to all our guests so far who have had great, open, conversations with a few rants along the way. Together, with DDB, we’re thrilled to be sharing the inspiring and challenging stories of some of the biggest legends in our industry.”
Weekly episodes will feature insights from a range of guests.
Some early guests include Coles CMO Lisa Ronson, TikTok general manager, commercial Brett Armstrong, TRIBE founder Jules Lund, creative consultant Karen Ferry, The Good Bits co-founder Siobhan Fitzgerald, Junkee Media co-founder Tim Duggan and many more.
The first episode is now live now and is available wherever you get your podcasts. Google Podcasts, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.
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