A Woolley April: The Biggest Stories
Each month, TrinityP3 Global CEO Darren Woolley reflects on the lessons from the previous month's big stories.
Has every day become April Fool's Day, or is it Groundhog Day again?
April 1st seems to pop up out of the blue, except this year, I have two 8-year-old boys who thought it was a massive amount of fun, so I was acutely aware and on the lookout for April Fool's marketing pranks. This year's problem is living in a time when the news cycle is reporting what often feels like prank announcements by the President of the USA. My filter seemed incredibly misaligned.
Things I thought were April Fool's jokes turned out to be brands market testing off-the-wall ideas under the pretence of fun. Others that appeared to be just another annoying press release picked up by the media turned out to be a supposed April Fool’s Day joke, though not very funny.
I am not trying to be the fun police here, but if you are going to pull an April Fool stunt, you need to make sure it is funny and stands out from the trash that passes for editorial and promotional content these days.
1. The Pitch Goes From Ordinary to Worse
Early in April, we released the latest research on The State of the Pitch in Australia. LBB ran the headline, Agencies’ Pitch Satisfaction Sinks “From a C- to D+”: 2025 State of the Pitch Report. This is no joke.
Not only is the pitch process failing agencies, it is increasingly failing the majority of marketers who run a pitch and manage to piss off the majority of the agencies they invite to participate. Imagine if you invited people to your place for a party and, at the end of the night, asked if everyone had a good time, only to discover that most did not?
Sure, there are winners and losers in any pitch, but both feel that the process can be better and should be.
2. Political Advertising Is A Free-For-All
Suppose you were living under a rock or overseas. In that case, you may have missed that Australia held an election in early May, which meant that the rest of us had to endure a whole month of political campaigning. Significant expenditures were made on broadcast media, out-of-home, social media platforms, and mobile, and one party spent a fortune bombarding the population with almost daily text messages.
It again raised the question of why politicians and their parties do not have to comply with any of the regulations that commercial advertisers have to abide by, including misleading and deceptive conduct, spam, privacy violations, and more. As Todd Sampson said on Gruen Nation, “There are more regulations to advertise toilet paper than there are for politicians”, to which Toby Ralph answered, “but just as much shit”.
One notable mention is Dee Madigan's line, “He cuts. You pay,” which we think is up there for cut-through and memorability with “If you don’t know, vote No!” from the Voice Referendum.
3. Did Purpose Marketing Drive The Woke Backlash?
An article in the Guardian last month was shared widely on LinkedIn and raised an interesting question: has purpose marketing (read: woke marketing) driven a backlash from the far right? The topic has come up periodically, most famously in Kendall Jenner’s 2017 Pepsi advertisement.
While it is true that advertising, and exceptional creative advertising, can change attitudes and behaviour, an essential first step is to understand the audience you are trying to influence and impact. In light of the changes we are seeing in the USA, the referendum vote for the Voice to Parliament, and more, it is worthwhile to reflect on the dangers of shouting into our bubble.
4. CMOs want creativity and business-savvy agencies
Early in the month, Lee Leggett, the new CEO of the consolidated Clemenger agency, announced “Creativity Is Having A Comeback” in LBB. That's good to know. But in the same month, the CMO of ING, Danielle Hamilton, also reminded everyone in agency land that we ultimately work in a commercial business world and that an agency with sharper commercial acumen is highly desirable.
Improved commercial acumen has a double advantage: It closes the communication gap between agency and marketer and, hopefully, makes agencies much better-run businesses. And anyone following the performance of the holding companies will see which groups are better-run businesses.
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Every week, the TrinityP3 team analyses five stories from across the media and marketing landscape. You can subscribe to the TrinityP3 for FIVE as a newsletter or on LinkedIn.
