NRMA Insurance was “tanking” before IAG CMO Brent Smart returned from New York and appointed Accenture’s The Monkeys, without a pitch, in an early Australian textbook execution of Les Binet and Peter Field’s work around the business impact of investing long-term in brand. Smart went further but was unwavering from the get-go – as were The Monkeys - about returning to “HELP" in late 2017, according to a redacted entry submission to the Effies seen by Mi3. A series of brand-led campaigns, spearheaded by The Monkeys, took out the Advertising Council’s Grand Effie Award last month for returning the ailing insurance company to category-leading growth. But just how bad were things at NRMA Insurance, and how and why did they return to a 20-year-old idea? Smart and The Monkeys’ CEO Mark Green and Chief Strategy Officer Fabio Buresti get brutally honest.  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NRMA Insurance was &ldquo;tanking&rdquo; before IAG CMO Brent Smart returned from New York and appointed Accenture&rsquo;s The Monkeys, without a pitch, in an early Australian textbook execution of Les Binet and Peter Field&rsquo;s work around the business impact of investing long-term in brand. Smart went further but was unwavering from the get-go &ndash; as were The Monkeys - about returning to &ldquo;HELP" in late 2017, according to a redacted entry submission to the Effies seen by Mi3. A series of brand-led campaigns, spearheaded by The Monkeys, took out the Advertising Council&rsquo;s Grand Effie Award last month for returning the ailing insurance company to category-leading growth. But just how bad were things at NRMA Insurance, and how and why did they return&nbsp;to a 20-year-old idea? Smart and The Monkeys&rsquo; CEO Mark Green and Chief Strategy Officer Fabio Buresti get brutally honest. &nbsp;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

NRMA brand was ‘tanking’: Why Brent Smart and The Monkeys won the 2021 Grand Effie: $300m lift in brand value after four years investing 70% of budget in brand over performance; competitors treating customers as ‘fools’

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large

Ryan Gosling is not a goose - at least on which feature films to front. His new movie, Project Hail Mary, from Amazon-owned Hollywood studio MGM, has blasted to this year’s best opener at the Australian box office at the time of its release.

It’s pulling mum, dad, kids and even the grandparents into a co-viewing experience they no longer do much of but want - more than brands imagine. Yes, even the kids are saying that.

How weird.

Social researcher Matt Sandwell from The Owl Insights argues the potent and polarising forces of personal device proliferation, shrinking shared living spaces in homes (down 10 per cent collectively in a decade) and killer kids schedules – three-in-four kids under 10, have before or after school activities – has thrust shared family moments into “rarefied air”. And that’s before the uncertainty and craziness of multiple geopolitical flashpoints and civic restlessness is accounted for.

The irony in Sandwell’s latest research is that every generation wants more shared family moments but struggle to land them – 16-year-olds may be a global exception.

Mid-teen angst aside, it’s a serendipitous trendline for Val Morgan cinema boss Guy Burbidge. “This will be our fastest growing audience segment this year,” he says. “Last year has seen some huge numbers off the family unit coming back into cinema.  Five of the top 10 titles at the box office last year were “all family” he says and family co-viewing experiences at the movies will lift 25 per cent in 2026 because Hollywood has clocked the sentiment and a string of top family viewing franchises are slated for the coming 12 months and beyond – think Super Mario, Minions, Toy Story and some.

Val Morgan commissioned Sandwell to go deep on the qualitative aspects of shared family moments – and he unearthed some gold in collective sentiment.

“So, the kind of big moral of the story for us in the research is these moments are harder to get than ever but the desire for them is greater than ever and cinema is one of the last and best places where people can get it. They recognise the benefits of connection, immersion and that kind of emotional depth that comes with the family.”

Burbidge is already seeing huge upside for some brands starting to tap the social need – retail, consumer goods and auto among them. But there’s still a lag for a market at large now hitched to “blunt reach, high level demographics [i.e. grocery buyers] and cost conversations,” Burbidge says. “At the moment, the market on the family trend is probably not thinking as deeply as we need to. They are bankable moments that the family understands. It’s providing some confidence and security in the world of algorithms about what is trusted. We’re seeing that audience on fire.”

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large
Ryan Gosling is not a goose - at least on which feature films to front. His new movie, Project Hail Mary, from Amazon-owned Hollywood studio MGM, has blasted to this year&rsquo;s best opener at the Australian box office at the time of its release.
It&rsquo;s pulling mum, dad, kids and even the grandparents into a co-viewing experience they no longer do much of but want - more than brands imagine. Yes, even the kids are saying that.
How weird.
Social researcher Matt Sandwell from The Owl Insights argues the potent and polarising forces of personal device proliferation, shrinking shared living spaces in homes (down 10 per cent collectively in a decade) and killer kids schedules &ndash; three-in-four kids under 10, have before or after school activities &ndash; has thrust shared family moments into &ldquo;rarefied air&rdquo;. And that&rsquo;s before the uncertainty and craziness of multiple geopolitical flashpoints and civic restlessness is accounted for.
The irony in Sandwell&rsquo;s latest research is that every generation wants more shared family moments but struggle to land them &ndash; 16-year-olds may be a global exception.
Mid-teen angst aside, it&rsquo;s a serendipitous trendline for Val Morgan cinema boss Guy Burbidge. &ldquo;This will be our fastest growing audience segment this year,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Last year has seen some huge numbers off the family unit coming back into cinema.&nbsp; Five of the top 10 titles at the box office last year were &ldquo;all family&rdquo; he says and family co-viewing experiences at the movies will lift 25 per cent in 2026 because Hollywood has clocked the sentiment and a string of top family viewing franchises are slated for the coming 12 months and beyond &ndash; think Super Mario, Minions, Toy Story and some.
Val Morgan commissioned Sandwell to go deep on the qualitative aspects of shared family moments &ndash; and he unearthed some gold in collective sentiment.
&ldquo;So, the kind of big moral of the story for us in the research is these moments are harder to get than ever but the desire for them is greater than ever and cinema is one of the last and best places where people can get it. They recognise the benefits of connection, immersion and that kind of emotional depth that comes with the family.&rdquo;
Burbidge is already seeing huge upside for some brands starting to tap the social need &ndash; retail, consumer goods and auto among them. But there&rsquo;s still a lag for a market at large now hitched to &ldquo;blunt reach, high level demographics [i.e. grocery buyers] and cost conversations,&rdquo; Burbidge says. &ldquo;At the moment, the market on the family trend is probably not thinking as deeply as we need to. They are bankable moments that the family understands. It&rsquo;s providing some confidence and security in the world of algorithms about what is trusted. We&rsquo;re seeing that audience on fire.&rdquo;

Family back as the new black: World chaos, kids’ killer schedules and personal screen rabbit holes trigger cross-generation co-viewing surge to fastest-growing audience segment for 2026 

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/221c55e4-770e-435f-8d7e-b42e00332b37/transcript

Host: Nadia Cameron, Publisher | Editor – Marketing

CMOs have always sought to build best-practice marketing teams – it’s one of the first things they’ll have on the to-do list when they take up a new gig. But what does the marketing team of the future even look like in a world where AI is disrupting everything? How do you as a CMO chart a path through the changing AI landscape as organisations continue to pile on pressure to leverage AI tools, and as headcount cuts and productivity efficiencies become an even more expected output of AI adoption?

CMOs from Unicef, RAA and Accenture Australia, joined by Adobe ANZ head of Gen AI content and commerce, took to the mics in the latest CMO Awards podcast series, powered by Mi3, to unpack how they’re beginning to recast roles and build AI fluency, while managing the very real fear of AI existing across teams.

Accenture’s Carrie Smith says marketing team was ground zero for adopting AI agents from optimisation to entire workflow remodelling. Not an early journey to go on, it started with centralised planning, transparency and a focus on the marketing discipline first – not the tech – to understand which parts are difficult across workflows to get to great outcomes, she says.

RAA’s Michael Healy cites the first aha moment when the team saw what AI creative production was going to achieve. The second catalyst was adopting enterprise-grade Claude inside the organisation. “Very quickly, I formed a view as a marketing leader that with AI, one of a few things is going to happen. One, you'll get the tools in the hands of the people, and you'll figure out how to use it together, and thus, generate competitive advantage. Or two, you will eventually have a consultancy in with your CEO or board saying, this is how your marketing team should be using AI, and if they're not, you're already behind, which I have openly said to my team is a very problematic place to find ourselves in.”

Giving people time to experiment was critical at Unicef, but equally, a CEO-wide mandate to not shrink with AI and instead, drive incremental revenue proved transformative. It’d led to temporarily bringing the full technology team into the marketing remit to unite the technical experts with the marketers using those tools and driving those business needs. “It's been a big learning curve on both sides, and it's not a permanent structure, but I think it will leave a deeper way of working and understanding between the two teams,” says Libby Hodgson.

When it comes to where AI is having greatest early impact in marketing, Adobe’s Sheerien Salindera points to content supply chain efficiencies as the first unlock. “We call it content economics, and the throughput of a piece of content, the ability to remix it, send it off for legal approval, bring it back all of those sort of steps and hand offs that used to take a long time, making that more automated,” she says. “But the next piece is getting the AI to not just give you speed to market … but really embedding the AI on your brand, on your tone of voice, on your creative and bringing your own IP and brand models to life.”

Tune into this highly informative, relevant marketing conversation here.  

Host: Nadia Cameron, Publisher | Editor &ndash; Marketing
CMOs have always sought to build best-practice marketing teams &ndash; it&rsquo;s one of the first things they&rsquo;ll have on the to-do list when they take up a new gig. But what does the marketing team of the future even look like in a world where AI is disrupting everything? How do you as a CMO chart a path through the changing AI landscape as organisations continue to pile on pressure to leverage AI tools, and as headcount cuts and productivity efficiencies become an even more expected output of AI adoption?
CMOs from Unicef, RAA and Accenture Australia, joined by Adobe ANZ head of Gen AI content and commerce, took to the mics in the latest CMO Awards podcast series, powered by Mi3, to unpack how they&rsquo;re beginning to recast roles and build AI fluency, while managing the very real fear of AI existing across teams.
Accenture&rsquo;s Carrie Smith says marketing team was ground zero for adopting AI agents from optimisation to entire workflow remodelling. Not an early journey to go on, it started with centralised planning, transparency and a focus on the marketing discipline first &ndash; not the tech &ndash; to understand which parts are difficult across workflows to get to great outcomes, she says.
RAA&rsquo;s Michael Healy cites the first aha moment when the team saw what AI creative production was going to achieve. The second catalyst was adopting enterprise-grade Claude inside the organisation. &ldquo;Very quickly, I formed a view as a marketing leader that with AI, one of a few things is going to happen. One, you'll get the tools in the hands of the people, and you'll figure out how to use it together, and thus, generate competitive advantage. Or two, you will eventually have a consultancy in with your CEO or board saying, this is how your marketing team should be using AI, and if they're not, you're already behind, which I have openly said to my team is a very problematic place to find ourselves in.&rdquo;
Giving people time to experiment was critical at Unicef, but equally, a CEO-wide mandate to not shrink with AI and instead, drive incremental revenue proved transformative. It&rsquo;d led to temporarily bringing the full technology team into the marketing remit to unite the technical experts with the marketers using those tools and driving those business needs. &ldquo;It's been a big learning curve on both sides, and it's not a permanent structure, but I think it will leave a deeper way of working and understanding between the two teams,&rdquo; says Libby Hodgson.
When it comes to where AI is having greatest early impact in marketing, Adobe&rsquo;s Sheerien Salindera points to content supply chain efficiencies as the first unlock. &ldquo;We call it content economics, and the throughput of a piece of content, the ability to remix it, send it off for legal approval, bring it back all of those sort of steps and hand offs that used to take a long time, making that more automated,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;But the next piece is getting the AI to not just give you speed to market &hellip; but really embedding the AI on your brand, on your tone of voice, on your creative and bringing your own IP and brand models to life.&rdquo;
Tune into this highly informative, relevant marketing conversation here. &nbsp;

The CMO Awards Podcast Episode 10: Recasting marketing teams and capabilities in an AI world 

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/cd92423b-332f-4a8c-9441-b4250075adc1/transcript

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large

AI’s impact is rapidly eroding public trust in content, including the vast volumes originated by brands.

Gen Z is leading the public concern, typified by confusion over what is real and what has been blurred, blended and bent by nefarious AI operatives with hot prompts.

At stake for marketers and corporate affairs in an independently commissioned study called News Nation, is escalating consumer doubt over the provenance and authenticity of the content they consume – and around the brands linked to it. It holds as much for brand-produced content and owned channels as the content from others they pay to place their ads around.

The impact for brands is seismic – VaynerMedia’s Gary “Vee” Vaynerchuk predicts in as little as two years, “we're not going to believe a single video on the internet, not one”. (It’s a pressing problem for a content house and media buyer like Vaynerchuk who invests big client ad dollars in social video.)

The war in Iran offers the latest example, where graphics from a video game have been shared as real footage and viewed 70 million times.

The Gulf conflict has triggered a new flight to trusted sources – people seeking out truth from news sites. Audiences are spiking – particularly younger Australians, according to the latest ThinkNewsBrands data, which suggests one of the biggest shifts in behaviour and sentiment since Covid is now underway.

Yet advertisers are largely absent on the soft assets they say matter most – reputation and trust. Already they’re missing Gen Z’s return to selective news environments, in part because they deploy blunt brand safety tools that suppress and blacklist content and environments considered unsafe for their brands to be alongside. Their customers, particularly the younger set, meanwhile, pile into content they feel safer to trust.

Case in point? Major brands blocked adverts on Time Magazine’s Taylor Swift cover story because suppression lists detected the word “feminist”; likewise, the same kill switch was deployed for a Time article on the James Webb telescope – because it mentioned the “violent death of a star”. Advertisers also missed out on surging Wimbledon and Olympics audiences because of blocked words like ‘shot’, ‘smash’ and ‘killer technique’.

The Trade Desk’s VP – ANZ James Bayes, News Corp Australia’s Laura Maxwell and Nine’s Ashleigh Thomas suggest marketers and media buyers align with real, in-market customers and audience behaviour – and challenge the commercial incentives of brand safety firms whose fees and revenues on these products are linked to volume and the appearance of good governance. Brands also need to question whether they can afford to keep pouring money into walled gardens dominated by AI-created content. Especially when nobody believes it is real, nobody trusts it, and ultimately, if nobody worth targeting watches.

Host: Paul McIntyre, Editor-At-Large
AI&rsquo;s impact is rapidly eroding public trust in content, including the vast volumes originated by brands. Gen Z is leading the public concern, typified by confusion over what is real and what has been blurred, blended and bent by nefarious AI operatives with hot prompts. At stake for marketers and corporate affairs in an independently commissioned study called News Nation, is escalating consumer doubt over the provenance and authenticity of the content they consume &ndash; and around the brands linked to it. It holds as much for brand-produced content and owned channels as the content from others they pay to place their ads around. The impact for brands is seismic &ndash; VaynerMedia&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.mi-3.com.au/03-02-2026/gary-vee-doing-superbowl-ads-kelloggs-next-week-heres-why-he-wont-buy-more-tv-what-he">Gary &ldquo;Vee&rdquo; Vaynerchuk predicts in as little as two years, &ldquo;we're not going to believe a single video on the internet, not one&rdquo;</a>. (It&rsquo;s a pressing problem for a content house and media buyer like Vaynerchuk who invests big client ad dollars in social video.) The war in Iran offers the latest example, <a href="https://www.mi-3.com.au/13-03-2026/why-most-effective-environment-brands-still-news-media">where graphics from a video game have been shared as real footage and viewed 70 million times.</a> The Gulf conflict has triggered a new flight to trusted sources &ndash; people seeking out truth from news sites. Audiences are spiking &ndash; particularly younger Australians, according to the latest ThinkNewsBrands data, which suggests one of the biggest shifts in behaviour and sentiment since Covid is now underway. Yet advertisers are largely absent on the soft assets they say matter most &ndash; reputation and trust. Already they&rsquo;re missing Gen Z&rsquo;s return to selective news environments, in part because they deploy blunt brand safety tools that suppress and blacklist content and environments considered unsafe for their brands to be alongside. Their customers, particularly the younger set, meanwhile, pile into content they feel safer to trust. Case in point? Major brands blocked adverts on Time Magazine&rsquo;s Taylor Swift cover story because suppression lists detected the word &ldquo;feminist&rdquo;; likewise, the same kill switch was deployed for a Time article on the James Webb telescope &ndash; because it mentioned the &ldquo;violent death of a star&rdquo;. Advertisers also missed out on surging Wimbledon and Olympics audiences because of blocked words like &lsquo;shot&rsquo;, &lsquo;smash&rsquo; and &lsquo;killer technique&rsquo;.
The Trade Desk&rsquo;s VP &ndash; ANZ James Bayes, News Corp Australia&rsquo;s Laura Maxwell and Nine&rsquo;s Ashleigh Thomas suggest marketers and media buyers align with real, in-market customers and audience behaviour &ndash; and challenge the commercial incentives of brand safety firms whose fees and revenues on these products are linked to volume and the appearance of good governance. Brands also need to question whether they can afford to keep pouring money into walled gardens dominated by AI-created content. Especially when nobody believes it is real, nobody trusts it, and ultimately, if nobody worth targeting watches.

Biggest consumer trust, sentiment shift since Covid; Gen Z leads as AI, deep fake content sows doubt – brand safety tools block swing to safer sources

https://api.omny.fm/orgs/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/clips/59b5d453-faf7-4af4-816d-b41900444322/transcript

NRMA brand was ‘tanking’: Why Brent Smart and The Monkeys won the 2021 Grand Effie: $300m lift in brand value after four years investing 70% of budget in brand over performance; competitors treating customers as ‘fools’

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