Radio ratings, Spotify is not social media, and M+C Saatchi's woes

Ready to supercharge your brand? QMS has just expanded its national digital out-of-home network, adding 24 new digital billboards live from May the 1st. Now delivering 148 million additional impressions every four weeks. This expanded network means greater reach, greater attention, and greater influence. Take your brand from good to great with QMS. Visit QMSmedia.com and search AOM. Podcast Edit by Abe Zorio. Hello and welcome to the Mumbrellicast. I'm Abe Udy today. It's Radio Ratings Day and it's a very important survey for all involved. MNC such a Australia drags down the global business and we look at the one's mighty agency's sad decline. And we speak to Spotify's global head of thought leadership, Jenny Haggard. I'm joined by Eleanor Dickinson. Hello Abe. Nathan Jolly. Hey Abe. And the very jolly Tim Burrows. I wish I was a global head of thought leadership, Abe. You always are in my book Tim. Let's start with the radio ratings. As I alluded to in the intro, this is a crucial book for many in the industry. Nathan, why is that? So this ratings period, it's a second of the year. It goes from February 8th to April 4th. So it's the first full book since Nova flipped their Sydney Breakfast and National Drive teams. It's Christian O'Connell's second book in Sydney after he's start where he dropped 3.6 points in his first ratings in Sydney. Jones in Amanda and Drive now for Gold across Sydney and Melbourne. And Carl and Jackie of course, they're only on air for about two weeks in this survey. And they as you will find out, kiss breakfast in whatever form it's taken. Still in the lead in Sydney, it wasn't quite the disaster that we were expected. And if K&J aren't causing air in enough difficulties at the moment, it's not looking very good for Christian either. Although, you know, we have to do the caveat. It's far too early to tell. This is only his second book, as I said. But he's dropped another 0.6 percent, which means since he started Gold in Breakfast, they've dropped from a 9.7 when Jones in Amanda were on air to 5.5. And that puts him equal with triple M's bow-caten would see in sixth place in Breakfast. In Melbourne, he's reclaimed the lead from Novers, Jason Lawrence. So, you know, it's not all bad news for Christian, as I said, early days. Really interesting that kiss Breakfast really hasn't dropped. Tim, I mean, is that of interest? What else is interested you in this survey? Yeah, I, one of the numbers, I started looking at last time round. And the person who's applied me these numbers is time. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say who they are or not. So, you know who you are and thank you. But last time I crunched these numbers myself, somebody has a better computer than me, I think. So, was able to do it. So, I was just looking at the total average audiences, Metro audiences across multiple cities. Because, of course, we've always been able to do that in Drive. And then we had the network shows of Christian O'Connor, Sydney Melbourne, the current former Carl and Jackie O'Show, Sydney and Melbourne as well, for Kiss. So, looking at that, Nova Drive is still the single biggest live show in Australia. So, that's about 150,000 people on average, listening at any given time. Then the next biggest show in Australia was, Kiss Breakfast in Sydney and Melbourne, still the second biggest show, despite everything that happened. Then after that we have Gold Drive with Jones in Amanda. And of course, that's across four cities. And the Hit Network Drive, which is across five cities, is just behind that. So, Jones in Amanda now doing particularly well in Melbourne. And then we turn after those four in fifth place, and Bear and Mine Now I'm talking about multiple time slots, but again, the number we're talking about is average number of listeners. Gold Breakfast. So, Christian currently, nationally in fifth place. But then that comes with a little caveat as well, which is, despite the fact that he's got this national show, because it's did you tell in three of the five cities. We've only actually got the Sydney and Melbourne numbers for him. But yeah, something for him to kind of build on. And I think, to the same point that Nathan was making it, it is early doors. He's almost doing twice as much in Melbourne in terms of audiences as he is in Sydney at the moment. So, that I think will pick up. But yeah, I mean, for me, hey look, there was more anticipation than usual for us this morning, wasn't there, Nathan? Just waiting for those ratings to drop, because we're expecting to learn so much. Yeah, and all we learned is that, Carl and Jackie actually went up in Melbourne, so maybe they'll miss them. Yeah, so yeah, a bit of a result. There was small z for a few days, wasn't there, and then he handed it over to Mikey. So, safe pair of hands so far. So, maybe this rumor of Chris Fade coming to the rescue from Dubai might not actually be needed to come to fruition. One thing I found interesting, and Joanne Deanna Amanda doing well in Melbourne, now could that be because of Amanda Keller's national profile already, a lot of the work she's done with the ABC? That can't hurt, can it? Yeah, that's true. And, although to the flip side of that, Fitsy, Whipper and Kate Richey, three people that have a national profile, they went down in Sydney in Melbourne. They went up in the other three states, but they actually dropped, whereas Ricky Lee and Tim, who came into breakfast for Sydney for an over, they went up. So, it's kind of a mixed result for novers, little experiment, and I suppose we'll see the full result of that as the year goes on, and they get embedded, and people get a chance to get used to the flip. Yeah, but let's remember, they are still number one in drive national, so, you know, must be so nice, I've written about this before, but four Fitsy and Whipper, like having slogged away for all those years at Nova, never once being number one in FM, to actually have a number one show now. Must feel quite nice. Up next, MNC Sartre Australia's sad decline. (upbeat music) Today's episode edited by Apes Audio. Apes works with some of Australia's leading creative agencies and content creators, supplying voiceovers, sound design, and audio production. Do they work with you? Find more info at apesaudio.com.au. (upbeat music) Now to MNC Sartre, the global agency delivered its worst ever yearly results this week, and the Australian operation has copped the blame. Eleanor, how bad is it? It's pretty bad, and look, there's a few caveats to say before we go really into the results on paper, we're looking at a 30% decline in revenue in Australia, but we should probably mention that last year we saw the closure of Bohemia, which was the media agency under the MNC Sartre group. So of course, that will have had a big part of that revenue fall, but at the same time, there has been a very significant pattern of decline in MNC Sartre, going back about two years in terms of client losses, and we're talking really high profile clients here, origin, energy, optus, tourism, Australia, and now they're battling with Commonwealth Bank, that's just going out for pitch. I think a lot of people have very strong feelings about this story, and I think it looks on paper like we are going after an agency that has built an incredible legacy in Australia. I think it's really worth making the point though, because they're publicly listed, their numbers are all for show, and what they have done in London, where it's listed, they've actually set Australia's numbers apart from the rest of the global numbers. That is how bad it is, and unfortunately because of, you know, you have to disclose it to the market as a publicly listed company, everybody gets to see it, what's and all, and yeah, Australia has really, really been singled out by their global company. - Hmm. You wrote a fairly long piece, detailing the rise and fall of MNC this week, which you can read on the Mumbrailer website, if you're interested, but did you take, are there any takeaways, any lessons in there that we can others can learn from? - It's hard to say because when MNC such a sort, it was a different advertising world. I mean, the stories of the, you know, some of what you would see is excessive now, things like hiring a room next door or opposite A and Z, so that A and Z bank could have their agency right next door, so they didn't have to travel to go meet their agency. Another question. the story that they hired out the stadium at Moore Park to win over tourism Australia. Those things are incredible, but you can't imagine people going to that length now to secure a client. We don't talk so much about pitch theatre anymore, do we these days? In the way that it used to be, some of the razzomatas was absolutely a part of pitching. I think the logic of it was showing the client just how far you were willing to go on their behalf. But as you say, I don't think anyone does that anymore, do they? Yeah, speaking to people who worked there, not during its glory days, but during its period where it was still a very successful agency in Australia, very almost unanimously everybody said how good they were at winning business, how good they were. Kenny Hill, former MD of Memesys Atty Melbourne, described Tom Derry as a rainmaker, absolute charisma and presence and just a real amazing way of working with clients. And that was bolstered by this incredible creative eye they had under Tom McFoulon. And yeah, over the time, that's got lost. And it takes a long time and a lot of change to recap to that even if you can. I think one of the, as you say, is a story of duos as well, isn't it? Famously in Australia it was the two terms, Tom Derry, Tom McFoulon, so the suit and the creative. And I think we can almost think of them as the founders, certainly in Australia. They're almost from the beginning. Except of course, the clue of the fact that they're not the actual founders is the name of the agency, M and C, S Archie. So Morrison Charles S Archie started it in the UK after their previous agency S Archie and S Archie, they were kind of booted out from. And again, this sort of duos probably, I think, quite similar outlook to the Tom's in that they were creative and aggressive in new business, but also big brand building as well. And let's remember so much of their big moments where big brand building things. Remember, optus and the obsession with animals and yes. And that was so much of that was M and C. 100% Piano New Zealand, that's still in play today. Yeah, absolutely. There's so many which they absolutely made their mark with. You know, we should be careful not to talk about like it's an obituary because the agency is still going. But yeah, that to me was, as you say, Alana, you alluded to the way the numbers were reported. That was the moment that the penny dropped for me. So it's kind of worth saying, you know, so when a list for people who don't follow these things, you know, a list did company, whether it's on the ASX in Australia or the New York Stock Exchange, during this case, the London Stock Exchange, they have to tell the market how they're doing. Usually it's every six months, sometimes it's course only. And then they have a big annual number and these were the annual numbers. But what was really unusual, and this was what really made it stand out, was the way they, for their overall numbers, they stripped out the Australian numbers and made it very obvious they were doing so. And it was really hard to see why they chose to do that, except that the Australian numbers were so in comparison is really bad. And to me, that just sent such a strange signal and really left me wondering why they'd done it that way. And I mean, I was going to ask surely it's not as bad as one country's performance dragging down a global operation, right? I think you could say it is. It's double. So it was about 3% decline in revenue globally. That double, that went to over 7% when you factored in Australia. So that is significant. I think that the one thing to note as well, of course, is, is, Emma said it's not like one of a true global network in 50 countries or something. It's a much smaller network. So the performance of one country like Australia does make a bigger difference to that global headline. But I suppose where we'll get a little bit of a clue is in another year's time when they don't have the comparisons of the closure of Bohemia with the media side of things. And if they start reporting them normally, then that's a bit more of a sign of their commitment to the Australian office. Up next, Spotify's global head of thought leadership is in the house. Spotify's global head of thought leadership, Jenny Haggard is in the country, flying in especially to visit the Mumbrellor offices for the Mumbrellor cast. So Nathan, she might have a few other things to fit in during her visit as well. No, no, I think it was just purely to speak on the Mumbrellor cast and, you know, well worth the flight. To speak to you specifically, Nathan. Yeah, she came L.A. to Sydney, Red Eye. No, but yeah, I spoke to her and it was very fascinating. She's been at Spotify for 12 years. So she has seen the company develop from what was basically a search engine where you type in Snoop Dogg, gin and juice. And then you get that song to you, you get in recommended things to it being a whole ad platform to having podcast audio books. She's been there for the whole time. But as you'll hear in this conversation, you know, she speaks about letting users become more active in how the algorithms serve them. She speaks about how they've struggled to educate the market on their ad offering, considering a lot of them don't actually have advertising, because they pay for it. And just the balance between chasing subscriptions and advertisers. And I also asked her about how the social media under 16s ban in Australia might come to bite them and what they'll do if it does. Anyway, I'll stop yamarin on about what we spoke about and let's just listen to it. Spontovar has like such a strong robust recommendations engine. How do you know if that's steering behavior as opposed to watching behavior and then fitting that into the algorithms? How does that balance work? Yeah. In an evolution, so when we started, Spotify turns 20 this year. You can believe it. I've never felt older when I do know. Yeah. We generation. Yeah, it really is. It really is. So when we started, we were strictly utility, right? You could be like Napster, what you know, you'd type in what you were looking for and you would get served up like the Beatles or whatever that was. As more and more people started using the platform, we began curating around moments that we knew people all straight music and you can name them. Working out, commuting, partying, focusing, right? All we didn't expect is that people were also telling us what they were doing. So they were naming playlist, things like songs to sing in the shower. I remember that being a huge use case, we were like, what? So we started curating around that. So Spotify from the beginning has always had a dialogue with our users, with all the hundreds of millions of fans that are on platform. Now you're right as we build more into, you know, as all platforms are using algorithms and things like that. Well, we have chosen very intentionally to do it. Spotify is to put the power of the algorithm back in the people's hands. So just a few weeks ago, we rolled out something called Taste Profile. It's an AI-driven feature. It's currently in beta, only in very small amount of markets. But basically, it gives you the ability to see how Spotify understands your taste and then steer your algorithm. So you can actually now shape what is on your Spotify homepage. You can refine your algorithm by saying, I want more heavy metal. I want less Brit pop, whatever that is. So we believe that the future is actually giving the algorithm back to the people and letting them steer it. So we do both. You're absolutely right. We recommend songs we think you're going to like podcast episodes. We think you're going to like audio books. We think you're going to like, but we also understand that people deserve the right to define that themselves. So we're really building toward that as well. And I guess from that, you would get another data point where it's like, if that isn't used very often, it would suggest that you're already doing the job. Like you're heating them. They're going, yep, it's what I want. Absolutely. Absolutely. It doesn't. That's okay too, because we can build toward it. We can help people. Yeah. Oh, that's right. It's not a right or wrong answer. Yeah. In terms of advertising. So that's obviously a big part of the business, but so is subscription. So how do you get the balance right where it's like, do you foresee a point where you'll actually be trying to get people off the subscription tier to the free tier so you can serve more advertising because that becomes more lucrative? How do you balance those two things? So Spotify was started as a premium business, right? We have always had ads, which I think is really interesting in the environment that we're now where a lot of platforms, I'm thinking of several in particular, who said, we will never have ads and then five years later, we're introducing ads, right? So we have learned a lot as a premium business. To us, a free user or premium user are both valuable for different reasons. I think what a lot of people don't understand is that the majority of users globally on Spotify are on free. So we've got 751 million users over half of those are free users, which is always surprising because I feel like us in our city bubbles, right? When we're in Sydney right now, I live in LA or in our premium bubbles where everyone pays for it. But the majority of our users are unfree. So it's bonafy when I think about that balance between free and premium, we need both. And as long as the user is happy with the experience that they're getting, we're happy. So whether they are choosing to be a in the free tier and they understand the value exchange that you'll get access to all the world's music and podcasts and audio books for free and you listen to ads or whether you're paying whatever it is per month to be a premium subscriber. And advertisers can benefit from both. So brands can actually reach free and premium users, depending on the format, depending on the environment, they can do both. - Yeah, that's, that's very interesting. So what would you say you're more incentivized to chase? - Subscribe is still, is it still like that more a lucrative thing? - Well, I really don't, I really don't think money is the right thing to focus on. Like, yeah, yeah. - Like, it's Spotify we're really concerned with the fan experience. So yes, a label, a rights holder might make more money off of a premium user than a free user, but we don't focus on that. We're not, we're not gonna, yeah, exactly, exactly. Anything. So, so we just want someone to have a great experience on Spotify and you're right, I think the industry focused on money first, then it really became all about time spent, right? And this idea of like, we want to get as much out of people as we can. My hope and I believe that the next phase that we're gonna see is time well spent. So is the time you're spending on a platform actually good? And that's what we've been investing heavily into make sure that people feel better after they leave Spotify than before we found them. So that I think is a much more interesting area. And that's on free and premium. - Yeah, I would agree. And I would agree that that's where you see a part, like no one ever talks about, you know how everyone's just talking about mindlessly scrolling on Instagram, mindlessly scrolling on Facebook. No one thinks, I'm doing housework and mindlessly listening to Johnny Mitchell. It's not the way that people engage with music. So you don't really have that problem where like everyone that comes to it, there's a purpose to it. - Yeah, and you know this. I mean, you've been in music journals for years. Like the idea that people think that we're competing against TikTok or things like that. No, I mean social media feeds are built as feeds for consumption. They're designed to keep you in the scroll and consume as much content as possible. Spotify is a feed for discovery. We want you to discover what you would like to stream, watch, listen to. And then we encourage you to go live your life, right? So audio's not interrupting your life. It's integrating into it, which allows you to go out and like you said, clean, hang out with friends. So do whatever you need to do and Spotify enables that. - Yeah, really need to make that. - Yeah, yeah. - And you can tell I'm chugging the green cool. I love Spotify. And I made a promise to myself when I started a marketing that I didn't want to work somewhere that I thought was bad for the world. And so that's one of the reasons I've stayed so long. I really believe in what we're doing. - That's great to hear. - Yeah. So your podcast play has changed a bit recently where like at first it was about acquisitions. And now it just seems like they in the like the porthole or the conduit or whatever that people get their podcast through. I imagine you actively made that decision to step back from that. Why was that? - Yeah, so if you remember back to the early days of streaming with music, people used to take that same strategy where they would get artists to release their albums exclusively on a platform. And we all quickly realized that that's not good for anyone. It's not good for the creator, 'cause they're limiting their reach. It's not good for the fans, 'cause they can't actually get the content that they want. I think it's the same thing with podcasts. You know, those acquisitions that we made early on really helped us first of all build our brand to show that we have podcasts. And secondly, then enable people to come stream that on Spotify, right? So that was a great, very strategic decision to do that. Just as music evolved, so did podcasts. We're now, it's about making all that content available to everyone. So it's very intentional. We are really thrilled with how the podcast business has grown. We have over 7 million podcasts on Spotify. Mambrelacast is one. You know this, there's like a lot of podcasts content. And hundreds of thousands of those are video podcasts. So that's another interesting shift in podcasting as well. - And it's recently you've introduced, or you're about to introduce a feature where people can turn off that video thing, which I thought was very interesting. Did that come from feedback where people are going like, "I just don't want this to be a video platform." - Yeah, so Spotify has always been a platform of choice for people where we let you choose what you want to stream, right? So you can follow the algorithm, or you can go directly to an album or an artist that you want to stream. Same with user behavior. So we've, especially with podcasts, given people the option to watch or listen to that. And we see in the back, you know, in our data that people go back and forth, which makes a lot of sense in terms of the moments that they're in. When they're driving, hopefully they're listening to a podcast, not watching it. When they get home, hopefully they're, if they would like, watching it on TV or on their phone while they're laying on the couch, right? So we see that behavior happening. And so for us, it's not that we are deprioritizing video or saying that audio is the only thing. It's just we offer you the choice to watch or listen. - Yeah, that makes sense. So in Australia, I'm not sure if you're aware of our under 16s band. - Oh, very much. - Yeah, I would have assumed you would. - Yes. - Are you worried about Spotify getting caught up in that? Because there are like kind of real mild, like, you know, there's shit, you can share playlists. It's like kind of a slight messenger element to it. I mean, so far in this country, the legislation has been pretty scatter short. So there are like gaming companies that are being caught under it where they go, well, we don't, we shouldn't be here, Reddit, kind of things like that. So are you worried at all about that? And how are that impact things having like that under 16s who are like the discovery, you know, they're the two music was four originally, you know? - Absolutely. Yeah, you think about the Beatles back in the '60s. That was, yeah. So I will say as we've talked about that, Spotify is a distinctly different experience from social media for a number of reasons. And we've spent a lot of time and resources on making sure our fans are having a good experience on Spotify. And we've done a lot of surveys and questions around, hey, how do you feel after using Spotify or using social media? So like one of the stats I love is that consumers say that they trust music and podcast hosts, artists and podcast hosts more than social media influencers. So this idea that we're building trust through these wonderful creators on the platform. So the first thing I'll say is that I feel like we are in a different boat. Secondly, if the government were to decide, no, you're not, we have built a business on flexibility. The ability to be very agile and make sure that we can work with, yes, absolutely government officials, creators, everyone within our wheelhouse of stakeholders to make sure that we can adjust to that. So yeah, I think we hope that doesn't happen and we're prepared. - Yeah, makes sense. So is there anything that you can tell us about what other things are coming down the line in next year or also in terms of innovations around the platform? - Yeah, so several things. Number one, I mentioned taste profile, really giving power back to the people in terms of algorithm. We're going to continue to roll that out and really see how it does. So that's one area that we're really focusing on. Secondly, we are very much a moments company, right? So we've noticed when you stream music and podcast, you do it in different moments. We're going to continue to double down on several of those moments, whether that's new content around things like that or other areas. And then on the ad side of the house, we've been investing a lot and making it easier to work with us. So we always have advertisers come to us and they're like, we love Spotify. We understand the why Spotify, the power of the platform, the brand love. We do not understand how Spotify, like how to work with you, how to buy, create, measure, we don't understand it. So we have rolled out a lot of new products and ways of working that are helping answer that question for them. So you're probably already familiar. I believe you wrote an article about the new carousel ads that we've just rolled out that are much more visual. We've refreshed sponsored playlist, which have always been a great product for advertisers and now that it's even better. And automated bidding, we've made it much easier to work with us through Spotify ads manager, which is our self-serve platform or Spotify ad exchange, which is on the program ad side. So really enabling much more ease of buying and creating and measuring with us. So we're going to continue to double down and invest in that as well. And why do you think the advertisers didn't quite and I had to work with Spotify, is it? - Well, I have found that a lot of our clients are premium members. A lot of our clients pay for Spotify. - Literally don't know where the ads pop up. - Spot on. And so what we've had to do, it's been a piece of education where we've had to go in and say, hey, let's remind you that over half of our users are on free and this is the experience that they get served. So we really educate them on the ads. And then once they see it, you see the unlock, you see, oh my gosh, now I get it and they can go invest in that. So that was one challenge. And then secondly, I believe honestly that we were a little bit behind in delivering some of these things that other platforms have had. Now, I believe we're on par. We're giving advertisers what they're already used to having on other platforms, which to me is almost like, you know, when you hold a dog over water and it'll move its paws, yeah, exactly. And then like once you set it in the water, it takes off. That's where we are. I think we were above water and now we are in the water and swimming fast. - I like that analogy. That was Jenny Haggard, Spotify's head of global thought leadership flying into Sydney, especially for that interview and chat with Nathan at Mumbrellahouse. And thanks for joining us today. It's goodbye from me, a beauty live from a hotel room. And thanks to Eleanor. - Thanks, Abe. - Nathan. - Thank you, Abe. - And Tim. - And no explanation why Abe's in a hotel room. - Thank you, Abe. - He's our witness protection. (upbeat music) - Podcast edit by Abe's audio. - In just over a month's time, Mumbrellah 360, a festival of media and marketing is set to take over carriage works in Sydney from the 26th to the 28th of May for three unforgettable days. - With the full program now locked, In, it's all about accelerating change and equipping media and marketing professionals with the ideas and tools needed to drive real impact in a rapidly evolving landscape. From everyone's favourite professor, Mark Ritson, ingenious Mark Pollard to global marketing leadership expert Thomas Barter and the marketing academy's powerhouse CEO, Sheryl and Shekel, umbrella 360, 2026 is not to be missed.