Hot off the heels of overseeing a brand refresh for the Commonwealth Bank, CMO Monique Macleod talks the art and science of marketing, customer personalisation and how her team is structuring and adapting to AI and new tech stacks - and what it now means for media and team capabilities. "Your tech is never sorted,” she says.

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Hot off the heels of overseeing a brand refresh for the Commonwealth Bank, CMO Monique Macleod talks the art and science of marketing, customer personalisation and how her team is structuring and adapting to AI and new tech stacks - and what it now means for media and team capabilities. "Your tech is never sorted,&rdquo; she says.See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

A weekly wrap of the “must-know” developments in Marketing, Media, Agency and Technology for leaders and emerging leaders in the industry. Veteran industry journalist and Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks each week with guest marketers who are in the know on what matters at the nexus of marketing, agencies, media and technology. Powered mostly by Human Intelligence (HI).

A weekly wrap of the “must-know” developments in Marketing, Media, Agency and Technology for leaders and emerging leaders in the industry. Veteran industry journalist and Mi3 Executive Editor Paul McIntyre talks each week...

Mi3 Audio Edition

Commbank CMO Monique Macleod weighs in on the downside of short-term marketing and what she sees next for customer personalisation, AI, media and tech

Live shopping, a blend of live video, real-time interaction and in-stream checkouts, is becoming a significant incremental ecommerce growth lever. Global figures suggest living shopping will tip an eye-watering US$2 trillion by 2030 and hit $1bn this year. It’s already revolutionising retail in Asian markets: Live shopping in China represents 80 per cent of the incremental growth in the ecommerce sector.

A big driver for this gamified commerce phenomenon? FOMO. Per eBay research, almost half of Australians (48%) are driven by fear of missing out in their shopping habits, and one in two say they’ve missed out on coveted limited edition or rare items they would have liked to have purchase.

With such insights to hand, eBay Live launched in Australia just in time for Christmas, coupling the livestream broadcasting format with its goods marketplace. First port of call: The growing collectables audience of buyers and sellers on its platform (30 per cent of Australians are collectors).

Over the last 3-4 years, eBay took a position that it wasn’t going to be a marketplace for everyone and everything, says eBay head of marketing and communications, Zannie Abbott. Core categories for eBay include car parts and accessories, pre-loved fashion and the ballooning category of collectibles and trading cards. 

“There are other places where you can buy your tissues and your nappies, but we really are the place to go for the things you love, and we have really doubled down in specific focus categories where we know we have a right to win here locally in Australia,” she says. “There is a perfect synergy around community, commerce and culture as an opportunity that really is ripe for us.”

eBay Live has been natively built into the marketplace and app. Users can go straight into a live stream and start bidding and buying, participating in short auction bursts running for just seconds. The local rollout took a snappy six weeks thanks to learnings from US and UK launches, cross-functional collaboration and a “scrappy” all-in approach to innovation fuelled by a low-ego culture, says Abbott.

Trust is at the heart of the offering, continues eBay Live category manager, Eric Chen. Every seller is vetted, handpicked as much for personality and broadcast potential as they are for their selling prowess.

Tapping directly into FOMO and culture, eBay chose to make its first Aussie livestream secret, featuring AFL superstar, Buddy Franklin, who auctioned rare, signed AFL trading cards for just $0.01. The global trading card games market is forecast to grow to $18bn in the next five years.

“It's incredibly exciting for everyone tuning in at the moment, but that also then turns into content afterwards that reaches a much bigger audience,” Chen says. “We just had a stream last week with Veronica Taylor, who was the original voice of Ash Ketchum for the Pokémon 30th anniversary event. These moments are something we’re able to build through eBay Live, which previously we didn't have a platform for, and create these special moments.”

To grow awareness and education, eBay Live’s marketing strategy emphasises owned channels and grassroots connection. It’s leveraged five collectible toy events, undertaking live activations on stage to build momentum, interest and excitement in the entertainment-with-commerce proposition.

Using the starting point of behaviour, iProspect national managing director, Marcelle Hoyek, says the agency worked with eBay to identify two audiences: Those ready for Live now, and those who will be ready sometime in future. Live wasn’t an unfamiliar concept, but the habit wasn’t ingrained, she points out. “It all starts with audience and that’s the biggest role we play with eBay when they’re launching something new into market,” she says. “Who's the audience? What are they into? What are their drivers? And what's the opportunity for us?

Commercial data is indicating eBay is onto a winner. In the UK, one seller sold $1 million watches in three hours. A livestream featuring Pokémon cards clicked over $100,000 in one night.

“There are a number of metrics we're monitoring as a business to understand whether we're getting traction or not, and that's everything from number of sellers to number of live streams to sales,” comments Abbott, adding a fine balance of new buyers coming to site, content density and number of sellers is critical to success.

Live shopping, a blend of live video, real-time interaction and in-stream checkouts, is becoming a significant incremental ecommerce growth lever. Global figures suggest living shopping will tip an eye-watering US$2 trillion by 2030 and hit $1bn this year. It&rsquo;s already revolutionising retail in Asian markets: Live shopping in China represents 80 per cent of the incremental growth in the ecommerce sector.
A big driver for this gamified commerce phenomenon? FOMO. Per eBay research, almost half of Australians (48%) are driven by fear of missing out in their shopping habits, and one in two say they&rsquo;ve missed out on coveted limited edition or rare items they would have liked to have purchase.
With such insights to hand, eBay Live launched in Australia just in time for Christmas, coupling the livestream broadcasting format with its goods marketplace. First port of call: The growing collectables audience of buyers and sellers on its platform (30 per cent of Australians are collectors).
Over the last 3-4 years, eBay took a position that it wasn&rsquo;t going to be a marketplace for everyone and everything, says eBay head of marketing and communications, Zannie Abbott. Core categories for eBay include car parts and accessories, pre-loved fashion and the ballooning category of collectibles and trading cards.&nbsp;
&ldquo;There are other places where you can buy your tissues and your nappies, but we really are the place to go for the things you love, and we have really doubled down in specific focus categories where we know we have a right to win here locally in Australia,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;There is a perfect synergy around community, commerce and culture as an opportunity that really is ripe for us.&rdquo;
eBay Live has been natively built into the marketplace and app. Users can go straight into a live stream and start bidding and buying, participating in short auction bursts running for just seconds. The local rollout took a snappy six weeks thanks to learnings from US and UK launches, cross-functional collaboration and a &ldquo;scrappy&rdquo; all-in approach to innovation fuelled by a low-ego culture, says Abbott.
Trust is at the heart of the offering, continues eBay Live category manager, Eric Chen. Every seller is vetted, handpicked as much for personality and broadcast potential as they are for their selling prowess.
Tapping directly into FOMO and culture, eBay chose to make its first Aussie livestream secret, featuring AFL superstar, Buddy Franklin, who auctioned rare, signed AFL trading cards for just $0.01. The global trading card games market is forecast to grow to $18bn in the next five years.
&ldquo;It's incredibly exciting for everyone tuning in at the moment, but that also then turns into content afterwards that reaches a much bigger audience,&rdquo; Chen says. &ldquo;We just had a stream last week with Veronica Taylor, who was the original voice of Ash Ketchum for the Pok&eacute;mon 30th anniversary event. These moments are something we&rsquo;re able to build through eBay Live, which previously we didn't have a platform for, and create these special moments.&rdquo;
To grow awareness and education, eBay Live&rsquo;s marketing strategy emphasises owned channels and grassroots connection. It&rsquo;s leveraged five collectible toy events, undertaking live activations on stage to build momentum, interest and excitement in the entertainment-with-commerce proposition.
Using the starting point of behaviour, iProspect national managing director, Marcelle Hoyek, says the agency worked with eBay to identify two audiences: Those ready for Live now, and those who will be ready sometime in future. Live wasn&rsquo;t an unfamiliar concept, but the habit wasn&rsquo;t ingrained, she points out. &ldquo;It all starts with audience and that&rsquo;s the biggest role we play with eBay when they&rsquo;re launching something new into market,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Who's the audience? What are they into? What are their drivers? And what's the opportunity for us?
Commercial data is indicating eBay is onto a winner. In the UK, one seller sold $1 million watches in three hours. A livestream featuring Pok&eacute;mon cards clicked over $100,000 in one night.
&ldquo;There are a number of metrics we're monitoring as a business to understand whether we're getting traction or not, and that's everything from number of sellers to number of live streams to sales,&rdquo; comments Abbott, adding a fine balance of new buyers coming to site, content density and number of sellers is critical to success.

The rise of live shopping: eBay taps fandom, collectibles obsessions, and the consumer’s penchant for entertainment-laden commerce with debut of eBay Live in Australia as global spending looks set to hit $2bn by 2030.

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/806cd0de-1cb5-48c8-8998-b40b0067bfa0/transcript

Host: Nadia Cameron, Publisher | Editor – Marketing

For Expedia Group country director and marketing activation lead, Philippa Durant, completing an MBA culminated in three leadership pillars reflecting her own personal brand: Kindness, passion and creativity. For Monash IVF head of marketing, Stuart Matthewman, securing a new formal tertiary qualification meant being uncomfortable – especially when squaring up to financial acumen – but also turned into growth and ultimately, compounding learning. And for Fitness and Lifestyle Group EGM of marketing and PR, Sara Dunseath, time at Harvard studying corporate revitalisation – “after a kick up the bum from my CEO” – fostered adaptability, confidence and relevance.

These three marketing executives join Mi3 Publisher and CMO Awards program leader, Nadia Cameron in the first of our new series of CMO Awards podcasts for 2026 to explore how formal knowledge is power, and why these mid-career learning experiences have proven of such benefit professionally and personally. There’s no doubt the pressure is piling on marketing executives to be constantly learning and adapting their skill sets to suit rapidly changing marketing, business and customer environments. And it can be exhausting, all three agree – especially when there is such scrutiny of marketing ROI and an onus to know how to always deliver success. But surprisingly, taking the time to tackle formal learning in courses that first appeared to be outside the boundaries of the marketing function gave them renewed energy to tackle tasks at hand. Even more significantly, it elevated their own respect for the very discipline of marketing itself in organisations today.

Tune into the conversation here.

Host: Nadia Cameron, Publisher | Editor &ndash; Marketing
For Expedia Group country director and marketing activation lead, Philippa Durant, completing an MBA culminated in three leadership pillars reflecting her own personal brand: Kindness, passion and creativity. For Monash IVF head of marketing, Stuart Matthewman, securing a new formal tertiary qualification meant being uncomfortable &ndash; especially when squaring up to financial acumen &ndash; but also turned into growth and ultimately, compounding learning. And for Fitness and Lifestyle Group EGM of marketing and PR, Sara Dunseath, time at Harvard studying corporate revitalisation &ndash; &ldquo;after a kick up the bum from my CEO&rdquo; &ndash; fostered adaptability, confidence and relevance.
These three marketing executives join Mi3 Publisher and CMO Awards program leader, Nadia Cameron in the first of our new series of CMO Awards podcasts for 2026 to explore how formal knowledge is power, and why these mid-career learning experiences have proven of such benefit professionally and personally. There&rsquo;s no doubt the pressure is piling on marketing executives to be constantly learning and adapting their skill sets to suit rapidly changing marketing, business and customer environments. And it can be exhausting, all three agree &ndash; especially when there is such scrutiny of marketing ROI and an onus to know how to always deliver success. But surprisingly, taking the time to tackle formal learning in courses that first appeared to be outside the boundaries of the marketing function gave them renewed energy to tackle tasks at hand. Even more significantly, it elevated their own respect for the very discipline of marketing itself in organisations today.
Tune into the conversation here.

The CMO Awards Podcast Episode 9: Fountains of knowledge: CMOs on the power of mid-profession learning

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/776c6fc6-8c30-4cb3-8215-b4010048b3ef/transcript

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large

Despite a multi-year boom, there’s an abundance of retail executive teams around the world disappointed with their retail media network initiatives - largely because of a misleading valuation method influencing what retailers think they can extract in advertising terms from their physical and digital store media assets.

That’s one key finding in the first global report from Sonder on the owned media sector – that is, companies and brands with large customer bases which commercialise their publishing, retail and digital assets with suppliers, and increasingly advertisers beyond. 

Sonder estimates owned media has a commercial potential of $573 billion – the global advertising business (paid media) is forecast to hit 1 trillion by 2028 or sooner. 

But the bullish performance of retailers operating as media networks, partly fuelled by Amazon’s digital advertising romp, is masking some big challenges and a few open field revenue opportunities for some in commerce media, a derivative of retail media for telcos, airlines, financial services and others, says the Sonder 2026 Global Report on Owned Media.

Andrew Lipsman is a former e-marketer analyst and currently a founding advisor and strategist at Colosseum, a specialist commerce and media advisory founded by the former president of Best Buy Ads, Media & CRM, Keith Ryan, in the US.

Lipsman joins Sonder co-founders and report authors Jonathan Hopkins and Angus Frazer to unpack some wayward market developments slowly correcting and some new players shaking up the owned media model: ”There does seem to be a significant misconception here that e-commerce is way bigger than it actually is,” says Lipsman on one of the report’s findings that retail media networks and advertisers are locked on retailer digital assets - dwarfed in spending and customer volume by physical retail. Marketers are not following the money, say Lipsman and Sonder.

Listen here for the full lowdown. 

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large
Despite a multi-year boom, there&rsquo;s an abundance of retail executive teams around the world disappointed with their retail media network initiatives - largely because of a misleading valuation method influencing what retailers think they can extract in advertising terms from their physical and digital store media assets.
That&rsquo;s one key finding in the first global report from Sonder on the owned media sector &ndash; that is, companies and brands with large customer bases which commercialise their publishing, retail and digital assets with suppliers, and increasingly advertisers beyond.&nbsp;
Sonder estimates owned media has a commercial potential of $573 billion &ndash; the global advertising business (paid media) is forecast to hit 1 trillion by 2028 or sooner.&nbsp;
But the bullish performance of retailers operating as media networks, partly fuelled by Amazon&rsquo;s digital advertising romp, is masking some big challenges and a few open field revenue opportunities for some in commerce media, a derivative of retail media for telcos, airlines, financial services and others, says the Sonder 2026 Global Report on Owned Media.
Andrew Lipsman is a former e-marketer analyst and currently a founding advisor and strategist at Colosseum, a specialist commerce and media advisory founded by the former president of Best Buy Ads, Media &amp; CRM, Keith Ryan, in the US.
Lipsman joins Sonder co-founders and report authors Jonathan Hopkins and Angus Frazer to unpack some wayward market developments slowly correcting and some new players shaking up the owned media model: &rdquo;There does seem to be a significant misconception here that e-commerce is way bigger than it actually is,&rdquo; says Lipsman on one of the report&rsquo;s findings that retail media networks and advertisers are locked on retailer digital assets - dwarfed in spending and customer volume by physical retail. Marketers are not following the money, say Lipsman and Sonder.
Listen here for the full lowdown.&nbsp;

‘Inherently reckless’: Retailers’ inflated ‘owned media’ asset values are ‘wreaking havoc’; telcos, finance the biggest laggards in first global report on $573bn owned media sector

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/5faa76e4-5794-4460-a878-b3f400681720/transcript

Commbank CMO Monique Macleod weighs in on the downside of short-term marketing and what she sees next for customer personalisation, AI, media and tech

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