[Voiceover]: Advertising works. We like that. You just have to flog some stuff sometimes. Clean out your data, get rid of anything you don't need. Welcome to ADD to cart, Australia's leading e commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of online retail. Here's your host, Bushy.
Nathan Bush: Welcome to another episode of Add to cart. My name is Nathan Bush, otherwise known as Bushy, joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Now, from working with government on privacy reform to working with major advertising players to running mentorship programs, today's guest has one of the most interesting and I felt at times overwhelming roles in the digital industry. Today we are joined by Gaileroy, CEO of IAB Australia. With over 25 years of experience in the media and digital industry and leading the IAB here in Australia for the last six years, Gaye has a deep understanding of digital media, audience development and data analytics. She's been instrumental in helping businesses navigate the complexities of modern retail by combining strategic insights with a focus on consumer behavior and making all of that make sense to businesses all around Australia. If you are looking to understand the latest trends and prepare your business for the future, Gay's expertise is exactly what you need. I feel her practical and common sense advice really helps retailers navigate some of the big changes that are coming up, especially around data privacy and the changing workforce. I've been wanting to interview Gay for a long time because I'm a huge fan of the IAB's E Commerce report. It's been going for the last four years and today we draw and discuss on some of those findings from the latest report that came out earlier last month. There's also a new talent report which we talk about. Both reports are fantastic and I've put the links to these reports in the show notes if you want to get them in this conversation. We'll also talk about Amazon's rapid growth and how that's reshaping the retail landscape in Australia. And of course you can't talk Amazon without talking Temu, but get Gay has a very different view on both of those. We talk about the upcoming Privacy act and the reforms for that and what that means for your business. Gay is right in there with the decision makers on this one, so it's a fantastic insight on what might be coming down the line and then we dive into why the juniorization of the workforce in advertising might be cause for
Nathan Bush: concern, especially in if you're over 50,
Nathan Bush: that's a really damning stat in there
Nathan Bush: for those that are over 50 now.
Nathan Bush: If you haven't already, I would love to invite you to sign up for my weekly e commerce newsletter. Every Tuesday morning I share a key industry insight, my little piece of opinion, along with five must read e commerce stories, research pieces or case studies from the past week. I like to think it's a great way to keep you up to date with what's trending in e commerce and
Nathan Bush: give you a few little resources that you might not normally have.
Nathan Bush: You can sign up for free at add to cart.com au subscribe all right, thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Deliver in person. Here's our conversation with Gay Leroy, CEO of IAB Australia.
Nathan Bush: Gay, welcome to Add to Cart.
[Voiceover]: Thanks Pushy.
Nathan Bush: So good to have you here. I've been so deep in your reports lately. You've got the two reports at the moment, the Australian E Commerce report and then you've got your talent report that came out a week later. So just such great quality for retail at the moment.
[Voiceover]: Thank you. It's very hot at the moment in retail retail media and I think everyone wants to know about like the future of work as well. So the talent report was perfect timing in terms of what's actually going on. Am I going to have a job in a year?
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're going to dive into both of those and hopefully I do have a job in a year. We'll see how we go. So for people who may not have worked, worked with you, read your reports, come across your events, can you explain what the IAB is and how it works for your members?
[Voiceover]: Of course. I guess I should even what the acronym is. So it's the Interactive Advertising Bureau. So we're the trade association for digital advertising. We're part of a network of 45 different IABs around the world who all have their own flavors. So we all keep in touch and understand what's going on in different markets. We run the Australian chapter, so we do a lot in events, policy, tech research and I guess our member base is quite broad. But anyone who is involved in digital advertising, whether it's buy or sell or ad tech side of things, Amazing.
Nathan Bush: Such a cool space to be in right now and great to have someone like you leading it. Let's dive straight into the Australian E Commerce Report. Now in its fourth year.
Nathan Bush: It's starting to get a lot of
Nathan Bush: traction because we're seeing the year on year changes, which is what I'm finding really interesting in it. And this year you expanded from Australia and included stats from New Zealand as well, which was fantastic.
Nathan Bush: One of the key things that I
Nathan Bush: saw come out of this report and it has been echoed in some of the other reports we've seen out, such as Shopify's Retail report. Is the focus for customers on convenience and lower prices driving consumer behavior as retailers. It's probably not what we want to hear all the time, but it makes a lot of sense given the cost of living pressures.
Nathan Bush: At the same time, we've got a
Nathan Bush: lot of retailers who are struggling, don't have a lot of margin to give away. They want to make as much profit or just be profitable at the moment. How do you feel retailers are best to strike a balance between what customers want and what they can actually afford to do at the moment?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, it's a really tricky one. And I thought cost of living was strong theme through last year's report and this year it's gone up to another level. A couple of things. So I think trying to explain value so retailers with a deeper connection with their own customer base, it's easy to do that. You've got more time, they've got a knowledge of you. But understanding if there's something beyond just a discount, what you can offer. I think partnering is really interesting. We might talk about that more. So, you know, if you have a relationship with another retailer, what's that sort of combined benefit and just keeping loyal, showing the loyalty. The other thing that's really important is. And again, this will be easier for those with a deep relationship. Ensuring data security. So data. Data privacy is top of mind. The price is still number one, but making sure those other factors can shine to give you every chance of success. And then there's more tactical things and we might talk about distribution later, but, you know, you have to turn up everywhere, like it or not, just, you know, making sure that you're got that. You know, we talk about share of voice a lot in media, but you know, that share of attention, share real estate, easy to find.
Nathan Bush: You got no silver bullet for us, do you?
[Voiceover]: I'm sorry? You've got to spend a lot of time and effort and go through a lot of data, but if you do it and your competitor doesn't, you've got that advantage.
Nathan Bush: Spot on. All right, well, you've given us so many points to jump off there. We might start with loyalty, because I think when people are thinking loyalty at the moment, they're immediately thinking structured loyalty programs. And your research showed how popular they are. I think it was some. There was a stat in there that 92% of Australians are a member of a loyalty program. I have to check if I've got that figure exactly right.
[Voiceover]: And then yeah, a huge amount that are part of multiple loyalty programs. So that continues to grow. People are definitely looking for a discount there. But they're also wanting to understand why retailers collecting data, the ones that I did love in the report and I can't remember the exact number but people, what data are they willing to give away and they're willing to give date of birth if you give them something for their birthday. So it's really translating that individual piece of data, why I'm giving it to you and what's in it for me. So don't be afraid of helping to connect the dots on why that data is useful for a retailer.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. To your point around value, it wasn't just, just giving discounts or accumulating points to get X dollars off. So free shipping was up there as one of the key things. And you know, as a retailer that's one of the incentives that we love playing with because we can actually play with that to put certain limits on it and it's not just discounting our products. So I think that comes back to your, to your value conversation.
[Voiceover]: Right? Yeah. And also you're seeing people that are paying for loading prices programs. So again, you know, if, if there's enough convenience, enough value, if it's going to save me a car trip, you know, I might be willing to pay $10 a month or whatever it might be to be part of a program.
Nathan Bush: And Woolworth's loyalty program and flybys came out well and truly on top as the most popular. Were there any others in there, any others that come top of mind for you that you think they're really doing loyalty?
[Voiceover]: Well, I think the breadth of different ones just you know, show that you know, whatever your, you know, makes your heart sing. The area that's really jumped up over the last year are sort of the cashback shop back pieces as well and how they play into the ecosystem but they've definitely as a non user and my members who are in that area will now be sending me, you know, that I have to sign up. But that has surprised me how quickly which it shouldn't because you know, it's a, you know, immediate, you know, financial benefit for consumers. But that place and that data ownership in the ecosystem is quite significant.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, that third party loyalty is really interesting. Like even last weekend I was at a barbecue and was telling people about cash rewards because we had Anthony on a few months ago and Explaining the concept of you can buy what you normally buy at the prices that you normally buy, but if you visit Cash Rewards first click through, you'll get X percent of your money back. And people are dubious of it. Like it's like, where's the scam? Where's the catch? It's a hard concept to explain, but it is growing in popularity so quickly.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. And I saw your post on LinkedIn this morning that we're not allowed to talk about, you know, Cyber Monday and Black Friday type specials. But there is an element of what came through this study for both those types of sales events and trade events and discoverability. So if someone can discover something new, it doesn't have to be a cheaper price, it can be something they haven't seen before. So don't think about, you know, discounting or sales events having to just be price cutting. It can just be something special. That event element really came through strongly this year and it is some of that stuff, you know, the big mass events, but some of it's also, you know, like the vogue shopping or the smaller bespoke pieces. So considering consumers are really, you know, it gives a touch of that experiential even though they're a lot online. So make sure your partner will find something new for those events.
Nathan Bush: I love that point around events because it depends on what mindset you're coming from, whether this is a sales event or whether it's a new customer acquisition event because you treat it very differently in your business then depending on if you're measuring it on weekly sales or if you're trying to bring that customer into your ecosystem and, and then build on it from there. Let's talk about Amazon because that was. I did a post on this as well when the report came out because it was the number one stat that I felt was just. It just hit me over the head when I saw you compared where Australian customers had shopped over the last 12 months and 54% of Australian customers had shopped at Amazon, which in itself isn't surprising. But that was 43% last year and it felt like. Well, last year it was almost like a pack that top 10. It was like 43, 42, 42, 41. It was fairly competitive this year. Amazon, that bar graph went straight out until the second. I think it was Kmart at 41, 42, 43, big difference, right? It feels like 2024 was the year that Amazon just exploded and kind of created their own territory in Australia. Would that be fair?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, absolutely. It was a huge Leap. But what's been interesting is for the last probably five years, maybe 10 years if you look at, not from this study, but the research that we do in terms of rating so how many people are going to site. So they're not necessarily spending, but they're going there, they're researching, their browsing. Amazon has always been like so far ahead of the curve, ahead of the pack and now that gap between who's there maybe researching and then buying somewhere else. And that gap is really strong. So more and more of those browsers are converting, which is an interesting, I guess, lesson for other retailers. Not everyone can be an Amazon. I know it's, you know, it's a big hard thing, but getting people through the front door and even if they don't convert for the first few years or whatever, that loyalty, that trust that, you know, and then being able to make that, make it as easy as possible, you know, can really convert.
Nathan Bush: Well, yeah, and it was only last week that Amazon announced same day delivery in Sydney. So it means that 90% of people in Sydney can now get their parcels if they order before 12pm and get them the same day. That's pretty hard to compete with.
[Voiceover]: It is because the report, even Amazon to date with, you know, next day delivery for Amazon prime, you know, it's changed consumer expectations. So if you saw the list of, you know, the different things consumers are hoping for, that sort of quick delivery piece continues to grow. So next year I'm sure that jumps open further. And as you mentioned, we did New Zealand, we covered the New Zealand market for the first time this year, which was really interesting. And Amazon, although you can buy from Amazon, they're not really a presence in New Zealand. And you could see the difference in consumer expectations around delivery and returns. The whole market is different because Amazon's not that major player in that market and it also opens up room for other players. So the list of people at the top of the top of the game and I must say I was surprised the number one over in New Zealand and maybe I shouldn't be but you know, TEMU jumped into that marketplace without Amazon there. So.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Why do you think TEMU is more popular in New Zealand than Amazon? What's the big difference between our two countries?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, so Amazon haven't got a headquarters. They can't, you know, it's, it's not a major presence there. You can still buy but you know, there's no guarantee of delivery products not right there. So yeah, much smaller footprint in the New Zealand market. And we know In Australia, it took longer than everyone was expecting for Amazon to become a major player. And this year as well as the same day delivery and this, you know, really interesting from a media point of view the, the, you know, ads on prime at the same time. So that ecosystem continues to get richer for retailers and advertisers and partners.
Nathan Bush: Yes. And we're going to dive into all the world of data and retail media soon. But before we move on, you know, TEMU is an interesting one and I want to pick your brains on this because in this year's report, 25% of Australians had shopped there in the past year. I don't think they were even on the 2023 report, were they?
[Voiceover]: I think we might have had them, but they were fairly low. We've been watching them closely from an ad spend, from an audience point of view for quite a while because you know, a lot of our major stakeholders are publishers and platforms and I don't think I've ever seen an individual retailer or advertiser called out in earnings calls in the us so they're never named. It's always like a large, large Chinese retailers, you know, and they're spending enough that they actually sort of shape that ad market. You know, I think a lot of you and a lot of your listeners will know about sort of, you know, the, you know, it does increase the ad bids on certain areas, but it's quite interesting. So temu, when they spend, they get sales, good advertising works, we like that. But when they pullback spend, so some months they do spend less and the spend goes down in line, the sales go down in line with their spend. Which again sounds logical but for most other retailers there'll be a bit more of a halo effect from their other ad spend so that it's not necessarily driving loyalty long term sales. So, you know, there is hope if they run out of those big marketing budgets, there's room for everyone else. But I don't see every other retailer that I bang onto and go please spend more on brand on, you know, the loyalty, the connection, because it will return, you know, in the long term as well as the short term. Whereas TEMU is very much tap on, tap off.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, Sugar hits. Yeah, that's really interesting and from your monitoring because it's a huge issue from a competitive perspective for online retailers in terms of market share. But I feel the bigger issue with TEMU at the moment is exactly what you said, driving up the price of performance advertising, especially when it comes to Google shopping and being able to have share of voice in the market because you're essentially being frozen out by people with deeper pockets. From what you've seen with Timo, is there a rhyme or reason to their advertising strategy or is it kind of just throw as much money an investment in there as possible?
[Voiceover]: I think there is a bit more. It's tricky because their buying's not done here, their strategy is not done here. So it's a very global approach which actually gives local retailers yes, it might be tricky when they're spending a lot in Meta or Google TikTok, the big global platforms, but they're not going to be spending as much in the local players. So thinking creatively around where a team are not showing up because they're not showing up everywhere, they're trying to make it easy to spend big chunks of money across the world as easy as possible. So look for that clear space where other people aren't spending
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Nathan Bush: if you're in a hurry is a
Nathan Bush: metric that matters for retailers and customers.
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Nathan Bush: Well based on that clear space, one of the services and the functions of IAB for your members is to be able to track investment and presence across all digital ad channels. Based on what you're seeing, I'd love your thoughts on Are there any channels that you think are getting more airtime than they deserve in terms of what they're delivering in terms of performance for retailers? And are there are there any that are going under the radar that you're like there's your blue space, there's your area.
[Voiceover]: So here's my least favorite child and you're asking. Okay, I'll reframe a little bit. But obviously video has been the biggest growth over the last five, six years that continues to continues to grow and fragment in terms of the types of video options that are there. I'M going to say, and I will make sure everyone listens to the second bit of my answer here, that probably retail media has been overhyped at the moment. Not overinvested, but overhyped, I don't think, you know, and we're guilty of this because everyone wants to know about it. We've got two new reports coming out, you know, shortly, but I think now that it's becoming more mature, the expectations of that sector in terms of measurement, roi, it's the normal hype cycle. So hottest new thing. And now we need to put all the infrastructure in place to make sure people are happy with their investments, understand how it fits in with other areas. So probably way too many opinion pieces written on it. So hopefully that will come down and we'll go about actually building a robust ecosystem for all those retailers spending a lot of money jumping into the space in terms of things that go under the radar. Look, I'm always. It's not my natural heartland and I'm always quite amazed by the affiliate area. It's one that works as a silo a little bit too much. So I have an affiliate working group and I think they're sick of me saying, can you just mix with the other media people sometimes, because neither side knows about each other enough. But that definitely. The investment's been strong there. The thing we're talking about in terms of consumers, it's fitting in with the cost of living, as well as publishers and media owners really needing some extra revenue stream. So that area is maturing. You've got content players who you wouldn't have imagined going to that space, whether it's news, corporate media, you know, really leaning in. And I find that a really fascinating area. The area I think should get more investment just because I like it. Is that a good reason is.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, of course it is.
[Voiceover]: And. And it's the perfect forum to speak to it. It's audio, I still think it's harder to buy. Podcasting and streaming, it's a bit more fragmented, it's a bit harder to do. But that connection and the ability to create it, that's not too expensive. You know, have that relationship in your ears. If you're willing to spend a bit of time, there's still. You've still got a better chance of having a high share of voice. And, you know, I won't say it's cheap, but a lower price point than other areas.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. I wrote an opinion piece in Inside Retail a couple of weeks ago around the power of audio. Based on what I'VE learned through this podcast and it is a totally different relationship. You can't cost it on a CPM or the same way you can do it everywhere else. And it's similar to, you know, when we picked up this morning it was like, you're like, oh hey Bushy, how are you? And I'm like we have never met but you kind of able to get those relationships that people feel familiar with you and they trust you and there's that next level of relationship that you don't get through other mediums.
[Voiceover]: So yeah, spend more in audio.
Nathan Bush: Spend more in audio. I love it. You did mention at the start and I want to pick up on the affiliates piece because you mentioned, you know what came to mind for you straight away when we were talking was partnerships as an opportunity for brands and affiliates is obviously one way to do partnerships. Are there other interesting ways that you've seen brands come together for partnerships to maybe share customer relationships and to market in a more cost effective way.
[Voiceover]: So I think it's the partnerships are more selective and considered are the ones that I like. So sometimes everyone's partnering with everyone and it loses meaning. And this also feeds into. And I know we'll chat a bit more in a minute but privacy reform. So if you've got valuable first party data, a relationship with a customer, you really want to partner with someone who has something similar and the similar ethos to data management coming together in a compliant way through a clean room or whatever. So I think there'll be more of those direct top end of town partnership deals. You know, we've seen Qantas do it for many years. But more and more when I look at the top hundred sites that people go to in the olden days, it used to be oh yeah, they're the, they're the ad sites or the commercial sites and these ones are, you know, the banks or the government or whatever. So I would just suggest everyone look at that top 200 list. Everyone is a media, you know, a media player. Maybe not government, but everyone else, you know is, is an opportunity if you feel you've got very similar ethics, doesn't even have to be similar customers because that synergy could be good as well.
Nathan Bush: I think it's too about discovering the assets that you've got as a company because, and I think that's your point maybe around retail media is that all of a sudden these brands are like we've got all these eyeballs. This is actually an asset that we can, you know, leverage and it's the same as customer data, this is an asset that we've got, we've got this, got to treat it with respect and privacy, but we have this sitting here that we can partner and actually leverage for sales. It's not just something that has to be just ours, as all the walled gardens that are popping up have shown. I want to dive into privacy because I think this is really important and I know you're passionate about it. We've obviously got Australia's Privacy act review, which has been in the works for the last couple of years. And I know you're involved in that as a, as a key, key player. What do you think retailers should be preparing for as that's in the works and likely to be activated in the next. We're all guessing next year or so.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, there'll be some interesting timings coming out, but some of it's advice that we've been giving for a long time that should, should prepare retailers for most of the reforms. I mean, clean out your data, get rid of anything you don't need. Do a data audit and a pixel and tags audit. Because one of the main areas of concern with consumers and government is that sharing piece. So if there is data or signals shooting off everywhere, you know, and, and signals is pretty broad at the moment. So, you know, some of the wording that we're seeing currently around personal information is probably not what we'd consider personal information. So, you know, whether it's a cookie or an IP address or any of that could be. So rethink around your sharing and your usage of data and widening out what you would consider personal information. So I would be reviewing every painful, every tech partnership, what am I allowing them to have access to every agency. So just think where your data could be going and if that's going to stop, what are the economic ramifications for my business? So, but to that point of, you know, do I partner with someone else with first party data? Your partnerships could look quite different. Start being more transparent with your consumers. Consumers will have a lot more ability to complain. So the clearer you are on your website and the more transparent you are around decision making, data usage, it will hopefully limit people thinking you're doing something with your data with their data that you're not. But yeah, just the amount of data collection just our industry's created a narrative that first party data is the holy grail, which is, but you don't need to know everything about everyone to flog them up, you know, a book or a pen, like really there's, you know, there's limits to what those, what those signals can tell you.
Nathan Bush: Do you feel that where we'll end up is similar to gdpr. So if retailers are preparing and they've kind of got that framework in mind, that's a good starting spot.
[Voiceover]: It's going to be a little bit different from the indications that we've got. So there will be a lot of similarity with GDPR but from a consumer engagement point of view. So gdpr, you've very much got a bit of an opt in. You know, you've got your banner blindness, you know, you've explicit consent. Whereas Australia will be a little bit more, I guess, rules around what's fair and reasonable to do so. Not necessarily opting into everything. A lot more clarity around opting out. But you as a business will have to prove beyond doubt that you need that data and that a consumer is knowingly, you know, being tracked, giving data. So there's a bit of philosophical shift which sounds good but it can almost be a higher bar because you, you know, it's almost an insurance policy. But you said I can have it versus I need to run my business in a way that's got this at the forefront of my mind the whole time. The other thing which I mean privacy is, I mean around the world is a fascinating, fascinating, a polite word of saying it's a bit of a mess because any retailers, and most retailers would be having people come from overseas to visit their site or marketing to other markets. And the patchwork of privacy reform. We do a lot with IB in the US I think there's now 15 different states that have got their 15 different privacy policies. You know, they continue to roll out. I feel for particularly smaller businesses who have to think if they're, you know, dealing with any customers in different regions and that's only going to get harder, unfortunately.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, exactly.
Nathan Bush: Like you said, I can hear a
Nathan Bush: lot of UX designers go oh thank goodness we don't have to have all those customer opt ins. But at the same time it feels like it could get a little bit murky when you talk about fair and reasonable in terms of where do you draw that line.
[Voiceover]: So we do a lot of work with government to try and get some clarity on that. But you know, it's, it's hard to build legislation that's specific. And even with gdpr, like we're still, you know what, five years in and we're still seeing court cases that are getting clarity on what things mean. So law is not always crystal clear. So even when we do get the wording. There'll be a range of consultations but also time for the industry to get better so, you know, to get, to get compliance. So there'll be a lot of work for lawyers to tell your kids to do law, but, you know, a lot of time for businesses to within that compliance period. And please don't do what every company in Europe did, please don't leave it to the last two weeks. So we'll be hammering that point regularly of where people are on that journey to get ready for compliance.
Nathan Bush: If people are early on that journey and they're at the point of going, oh, geez, I need to get a good view over where all my data is going, what's connected to, what's passing where. Especially for those small to medium businesses, do you think it's realistic that they can do that in house with the level of knowledge required or would you usually recommend having an expert in this space come in and do an initial audit?
[Voiceover]: Look, if you can afford an expert, I would do. It depends on, on how complicated and how many partners you've got. So if you've got a very simple commerce site, you know, you might have a meta and a Google relationship. You're not doing other partnerships, you probably, you know, can work it out internally, but if you've got very complicated systems, you know, measurement pieces going everywhere, you're much safer having something. The government has committed to providing guidance and frameworks, so we are fingers crossed, hoping that will be okay. The fact that we are likely to see small business included for the first time, very small business, means that we will really have to provide support for small organisations.
Nathan Bush: Not a natural place for them for a lot of people to play.
[Voiceover]: No, no, it's not what their strength is. But you know, industry bodies will be there to help, you know, we'll do what we can and hopefully the privacy commissioner, you know, they have a lot of resources and just interpreting what it means for your business.
Nathan Bush: And I can't move on from this topic without talking about Google and their cookies. Obviously that announcement a few weeks ago that they are abandoning their plans to scrap third party cookies. Do you think in the light of what you see coming down the line, it changes anything?
[Voiceover]: Not a lot. I mean, it will keep some smaller players, some smaller publishers, you know, with a bit more of a sustainable path. So there's a little bit more glue at the bottom there. I think the fact that the timing changed quite a few times means that most people who are, who have been probably overly reliant on a device that's already been deprecated in a lot of browsers. Most people that we deal with are already thinking what their ID solutions be on the cookie. But you know, this is where the complication of regulation in different areas, you've got privacy on one hand, you've got competition issues in other areas. So you know, it's trying to find a regime that you know, pleases consumers and governments in all markets which is.
Nathan Bush: I don't envy your position at all with all these changes taking place.
[Voiceover]: No, it's good. They all come from the right place. The reason they just implementing them is not always easy.
Nathan Bush: Understood.
Nathan Bush: From winning the block to establishing a leading personal care brand during COVID it's fair to say that the Alive Body team can do anything that they put their mind to. But as the business grew rapidly, third party applications didn't split speak to each other. Managing two separate sites for D2C and wholesale got costly and budgets were blowing out. Sounds like the typical Renault really. But as we know, the Alive Body team don't settle for standard renos. That's why they upgraded to Shopify Plus. Combining D2C and wholesale stores with a unified backend. Creating country specific stores and optimizing the customer experience. With Shopify function, they've now got an award winning online home and it's paying off. With three times more customer acquisitions and a 47% increase in conversion rate, it's enough to put a smile on any skeptical judge's face. Check out shopify.com auplus and get in touch with the Aussie Shopify plus team to see how Shopify plus can help you get your technical foundations in order to. I'd love to skip.
Nathan Bush: And we mentioned that you've got a few research reports out at the moment and the one that you released last week was your industry talent report which is always fantastic and threw up a bunch of surprising outcomes. And the headline that got me was the juniorization of the workforce, especially when it comes to advertising and marketing. And the stat in there that you highlighted was that 5% of the industry is over 50. That's crazy. Like crazy small.
[Voiceover]: As a woman over 50 in the industry, I just, I don't know, I need to buy lottery tickets or something because I don't know how I'm still here. What's going on? Yeah, look, look, the industry overall, ad, tech, media, advertising, you know, margins are tight and there is a lot of companies rejigging their workforces to have fabulous young people. I don't want to. You know the trick with this is, you know, not to sound like we don't want amazing young people in our industry but they're chopping at the head and the middle. So you are losing a lot of experience there and you're not necessarily providing the support for the young ones who are coming in. It's sort of cheeky. Every company wants someone with two to sort of two to three years experience. So could someone else please train my people and then just hand, hand them over? That would be good. So please don't give up on intern programs, grad programs, you know, it's worthwhile. But yeah, from an aging point of view, from that, from the older end of the workforce, we'll definitely have to be more creative. You know, I think that's why a lot of people go into consulting when they're older, fractional CMOs, all of that side of things. But I think there will be a, hopefully a bit of a shift back again. Particularly when commercial times are tough. You really do need commercial leaders who have been through good and bad times who have that perspective of being there before.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, I agree. I mean we saw that in Covid, saw an explosion of talent into E commerce. People who were getting heads of positions that maybe weren't ready for heads of positions and then the speed came out of the market and they were the first ones to go. That exactly what you said, that middle level chop. But all of a sudden you had people who were great doers and on the tools and great specialists promoted into leadership. And then a lot of organisations saying actually we don't value leadership as much as we do hands on skills.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. The one pleasing thing out of the report was when we looked at what training's needed and normally it's like I need to know about programmatic or something really tangible and it was leadership and management skills skills. So I'm hoping that that's been recognized and that the companies get more mature but also the sort of the new to market employees get that support because it is. There's a lot of people who've been promoted very quickly and it'd be very stressful.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, yeah. What are you seeing from a training and skills perspective? Obviously you offer a lot in this space as well. Where is the real demand for skills beyond leadership? But if we talk more, I don't like calling it tangible, but hands on experience, whether it's emerging technologies or emerging channels or skills. Where are you seeing the focus?
[Voiceover]: AI. AI.
Nathan Bush: I should have predicted that answer.
[Voiceover]: Right. So from a more generic piece, it's AI. So many organizations are so under pressure that from a training point of view they're very practical around implementing platform training. So it's, you know, very specific to a partner to a piece of tech, which is great, but it's leaving a less time to develop those other skills. So. But yeah, definitely AO is the one that's probably closest to, you know, the discovery of new skills.
Nathan Bush: I've heard you talk about and be very passionate around making sure people have the fundamentals of marketing behind them because people like me, and I'm not sure on you, but we went through marketing degrees to get to where we are. And now we find a lot of people come in via specialties, whether that be AI, whether that be by design, development, whatever it is, and may not have those marketing fundamentals. Do you still think that's as important today and can people kind of backtrack from having those specialties to getting those marketing fundamentals under the belt?
[Voiceover]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, having both is going to be the gold standard. So you can definitely still catch up. I think it will happen. Because what I'm starting to hear from a lot of brands and it be particularly pertinent to your space is okay, I'm maxing out my performance dollars and that brand building piece, that longer term investment, you know, we talked about the loyalty piece. I haven't been feeding the top of the funnel for a long while because I haven't been able to sell it into my CFO or it's just not my skill set. But now it's an economic problem. That's when you always see change in an organization. So I think some of those classic marketing skills will come into play. We just need to. It's really hard for CMOs or people running businesses to carve off the money that may not return today. But if you think about it like an in, you know, a bank deposit, you know, that's how we, we go to the CFOs, you know, and go, okay, if you could invest something that's going to give you a return of maybe 1.2 today, but you know, you'll get another, you know, 30% over the next few years. That's the sort of language that can open up some, some more spend from investors or from CFOs. But I know it's true. I mean, we talk all the time about the ideal marketing mix and yeah, you just have to flog some stuff sometimes. So. But if people understand those fundamentals while they're doing it, they might be able to carve off a, you know, 5 or 10% for some longer term.
Nathan Bush: Yeah. Speaking of fundamentals, your report also said that nearly half, 48% of organizations are starting to require staff members back in the office three days a week. Are we going back to our old ways?
[Voiceover]: They're trying. They're not always succeeding, but yeah. So it's very much shifted. Last year there are a lot of, you know, we're trying for two days. This year it's gone to three. I think there's been so much turnover of staff. Initially, when everyone knew each other, they'd spent a lot of time together, didn't matter so much, but now they're teams, you know, who haven't bonded in person. And as we've mentioned, there are a whole lot of quite new to market people who need to sit and shadow and learn and listen. So I'm not going to pretend I know what the right mix is, but there's definitely a push to get people back in a bit more. I think it's cheaper than sending whole teams to off sites twice a year. It's like, just come into the office and hang out and we'll give you a pizza and some beers.
Nathan Bush: I think that's fair. But I think it kind of goes both ways, is that if I am coming into the office, I'd like some leadership around me, I'd like some, you know, a bit of culture, a little bit of, you know, facilitation together, rather than me being on a phone to other people who might be at home.
[Voiceover]: Absolutely. And I think the media agencies are really trying to nail that. So when people come in, there's a reason and inspiration.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, lovely. Now, Gay, you've been in the role, CEO role for six years, years, and it sounds like there's no shortage of challenges and opportunities to work through. Based on what we've talked about, where do you think the IAB can make the biggest impact over the next six years?
[Voiceover]: It's probably our basics, but there's going to be new things to do. So all the different pieces of reform, whether it's looking at scams, looking at privacy, looking at online safety, someone has to come up with those frameworks and the aligned industry ways of operating protocols, et cetera. So locally and globally, that's our most important piece. So making sure CTV podcasts, all the new areas have ways of operating so that we can compliantly and efficiently serve the ads, serve the marketing materials. So that's the biggest piece. We play a huge role in community, community, which is something quite joyous. Like we do bring People together, whether it be for events. But we also have a incredibly popular mentorship program. So yeah, so which is really nice. So we've had about 450 people go through that program. Over two and a half thousand hours of mentoring. So that I think will continue to from a skills but also a mental health point of view, play a big role. And then the third area where we play a lot is continuing to interrogate and investigate marketing effectiveness. So you know, the regrowth of the rebirth of market mix modeling, like what does it mean, how does it work? Is it robust? Trying to get marketers away from last click attribution, which you know, I'm probably the wrong audience for this one but you know, the education piece of what all the pieces, pieces of the puzzle, what they mean. So trying to get people to do experimentation a little bit more. So yeah, those three areas, I think they're. Hopefully everyone will see value in what we're bringing to the table.
Nathan Bush: Oh, you do a fantastic job. Everything from the reports to the mentorship programs to the opinion pieces to the data that you bring forward for the industry is phenomenal. So thank you very much for all the work that you guys do. If people want to learn more, maybe get their hands on the report, check out some of the things that you got on the website. What's the best way to do that? And to get in touch with the IAB team.
[Voiceover]: So visit our website, IAB Australia.com there's contact details. I'm on LinkedIn. We love to connect with new people, new communities, get different takes on, you know, businesses large and small. So please reach out.
Nathan Bush: Lovely work. And you got a podcast.
[Voiceover]: We have a podcast. I don't know if I'm as professional or as regular as you, but we do, we have an IAB Australia podcast where we try and hit on a range of issues around digital advertising.
Nathan Bush: So I've got no doubt you're more professional than me, that's for sure. Thank you Gay for joining us. That was awesome. Really appreciate all your insights. It's just such a fast paced industry and it's so great to have someone like you on top of all the issues to make sense of it for us.
[Voiceover]: Thanks for having me. It's been fun.
Nathan Bush: I am so in awe of Gay for all, all the major issues and the huge changes she is across. She's able to explain them so clearly and so practically for people without inciting panic or alarm. I felt kind of calm even though we covered some really big topics and two, she stayed pretty calm and level headed throughout. All right, here are the three lessons I took from the conversation. Number one Amazon's impact It's no surprise to anyone that Amazon's Amazon's rapid expansion in Australia is reshaping consumer expectations. But the IAB report showed how far Amazon has come in 2024 in terms of the number of Australians who are now shopping there, especially compared to the number two retailer. There is a big gap starting to emerge. Retailers must adapt or risk falling behind. I especially like the insight that Gay gave around Temu snapping up global ad networks and I think that her highlight of saying that yes, they are doing that on the big platforms like Meta and Google, but they're doing this at a global scale. Which means that there is an opportunity for local retailers to be creative and really immerse yourself in local networks and local media that those big players can't be bothered diving into because they're not local planes. That's your blue ocean. Number two Prepare for Privacy Reform the upcoming Privacy act reforms will require businesses to be more diligent with data. It is likely to drop in the next 12 months, probably early 2025. Start preparing now by auditing your data and being transparent with your customers. The big hint here, and especially when we talked about the comparison with gdpr, is that the focus in Australia will be about allowing customers transparency over their data and allowing customers to opt out easily. Both of these things are things you should be focused on right now anyway. So don't wait to get started. Have a real focus on understanding where your data is going and how you make that data experience really easy and transparent parent for your customers right now. And number three, Leadership matters. The juniorization of the workforce in advertising and digital presents challenges, but it also presents opportunity and it's exciting to know there's so much great talent coming through. However, investing in leadership training and retaining experienced staff will be crucial in navigating tough times. It might be worth a check in with your team right now that they feel they are getting the leadership and development that they need. We've been through a lot of change. There's a lot more change coming. Might be time for a quick pulse check. Make sure you go check out IAB Australia's resources on their website, go give their podcast a listen and stay up to date with digital advertising and retail trends. I'll add the links to the reports that we mentioned in this conversation to the blog and into the show notes. You can check that out on add to cart.com if you enjoy this episode. Please please consider sharing with a friend or a colleague who might enjoy some of those insights that came out of that conversation with Gay. Or you could leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts if you're feeling particularly generous. And lastly, please support our sponsors who make this podcast possible to help us keep bringing you this content every week, week, shopify and deliver in person. If you would like introductions to the team there, please let me know. Before you go. We'd love to invite you to join our free e commerce learning platform, Add to Cart Campus, meet other professionals and learn from e commerce experts to take your business and your e commerce career to the next level. Register to join campus@addtocart.com now. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague. Or even better, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple. It really makes a difference.
