Unmade: media and marketing analysis Tim Burrowes

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we’ve an episode of our series focusing on industry startups, The Unmakers. We talk to the co-founders of fast growing influencer platform Fabulate. And further down, mixed fortunes on the Unmade Index.
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Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell on Fabulate’s five year push into the technology of influencer marketing
A noticeable trend in adland is that nobody is making it big by starting another media company or advertising agency.
However, those working inside the legacy players have been perfectly placed to understand the problems of brands and publishers, and work out how to solve them. The technology based solutions have the ability to scale globally in a way that media offerings and agencies do not.
Recent examples include media mix modelling platform Mutinex, started by WPP staffers Henry Innis and Matt Farrugia; micro influencer platform Tribe started by then 2Day FM presenter Jules Lund, and retail media platform Zitcha, which span out of media agency Hatched.
A further example which deserves a higher profile is Fabulate, whose founders include former Nine staffers Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell, along with Toby Kennett. Today’s podcast focuses on the Fabulate story.
Five years on, Fabulate barely counts as a start up any more. It employs more than 50 staff and manages campaigns to the value of millions of dollars. In the conversation, chief revenue officer Gunn and content and strategy boss Powell are cagier about revealing the platform’s own direct revenue, but they drop some hints.
In March, Fabulate was named best influencer marketing technology service by AiMCO (the Australian Influencer Marketing Council).
With its roots in text-based branded content, Fabulate is now deeply in the short form video influencer space, including TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube. The platform connects influencers to brands and manages workflow for marketing campaigns. It is also planning to gear up around LinkedIn influencers.
Along with being integrated into IPG Mediabrands’s Kinesso social offering, Fabulate is working with almost all Australia’s influencer agencies, as well as major PR agencies including Edelman.
The wide ranging conversation - which is part of Unmade’s ongoing The Unmakers series - covers Fabulate’s first five years, an overview of the fast changing influencer sector, and insights into where the company goes next.
Previous episodes of The Unmakers:
Unmade Index flat as TV networks look up
The Unmade Index battled itself into equilibrium on Wednesday, with broad falls across most of the list counterbalanced by improvements from Nine and Seven West Media.
With the index moving up by just 0.2 points to 546.1, Nine did much of the heavy lifting, rising by 1.3%, while Seven was up 2.5%.
Meanwhile Ooh Media, IVE Group, ARN Media and Southern Cross Austereo all slumped.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, editing and production.
Time to leave you to your Thursday.
We’ll be taking a one-day publishing break tomorrow.
I’m in Sydney today at the Australian Associational of National Advertisers Reset conference (one question I’m considering: is the “growth” theme of the event in keeping with the mood music around sustainability? Your thoughts please.)
And tomorrow afternoon I’m jumping on QF1 to London for Advertising Week Europe. It looks as though the upgrade gods have not smiled upon me. Saturday’s Best of the Week will be brought to you from deep in the bowels of the cheap seats.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media

Welcome to Start the Week, our audio-led Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.
Today: Nine under pressure from investors as questions are asked about CEO Mike Sneesby’s behaviour to staffer; SXSW lineup unveiled
Today:
Nine boss Mike Sneesby gets ready to front the Macquarie investor conference, as The Australian reports that he puts pressure on one of his journalists over coverage of Stan. And SXSW revleas its first speakers for October’s Sydney event - it’s AI-a-gogo.
Further reading:
* Unmade: How news is becoming a collective industry
* Capital Brief: Nine facing pressure to cut TV costs amid ad market rout
* Unmade: Rock bottom delayed
* The Australian: Did Nine chief Mike Sneesby break an unwritten rule?
* SXSW: SXSW Sydney reveals first look at 2024 speakers and sessions
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy
Time to leave you to start your week.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we’ve an episode of our series focusing on industry startups, The Unmakers. We talk to the latest entrant into the increasingly competitive marketing mix modelling sector, Jordan Taylor-Bartels, the co-founder of Prophet.

In today’s episode of The Unmakers, we talk to Jordan Taylor-Bartels about Prophet, the analytics platform he’s been quietly building for the last three years, before finally publicly launching it in March.
There were several industry investors attached to the launch, including Australian Community Media proprietor Antony Catalano, and ex-Dentsu (now Bastion) executive Cheuk Chiang. To add to the spice, Chiang was an early investor in media mix modelling platform Mutinex, although he parted ways early in the project.
Although recently an owner of indie media agency Magic, much of Taylor-Bartels career has been spent outside of media, including at a couple of Elon Musk companies in the US. At the start of his career, Taylor-Bartels studied media and journalism at RMIT and created his own culture magazine, Helmet.
In today’s conversation, Taylor-Bartels explains his approach to simplifying the variabilities of marketing, talks through the launch team and plots a path for where Prophet grows from here.
Today’s podcast was edited by Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, editing and production.
We’ll be back with more tomorrow.
Have a great day.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media



This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to Start the Week, our audio-led Monday scene-setter for the week ahead.
Today: Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson smash onto the Melbourne airwaves, and go full bore from the first talk break; Cosmo magazine is coming back; and the coming war between Australia and the digital giants
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Melbourne makes up its mind about the K+J Show
Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson exploded onto the Melbourne airwaves this morning with a family-unfriendly half hour opening talk break that kept the bleeper operator busy (we include a small excerpt in today’s podcast). Introducing the team behind the Sydney-based Kyle & Jackie O Show to the Kiis Melbourne audience, Sandilands and Henderson ranged through topics including sex acts, sexual preferences and sexually transmitted diseases.
There were also moments of dead air where local feeds failed to fill the ad break, for the digital audio stream at least, as ARN grappled with the technicalities of a live national show with local inserts.
And ARN pulled a switcheroo on Fox FM, upgrading the prize in their secret sound contest to $200,000
Also today, we examine Australian’s increasingly fractious relationship with the digital behemoths including Google, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter.
And Cosmo is returning.
Further reading:
* New York Times: Congress Passed a Bill That Could Ban TikTok. Now Comes the Hard Part
* Capital Brief: Leadership vacuum at TikTok Australia as US ban looms
* Australian Financial Review: Small player Twitter
* Australian Financial Review: Facebook shifts more than $1.1b offshore as local profits rise 36pc
* Australian Financial Review: Google hides its total revenue from Australia in new accounts
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy
Time to leave you to start your week.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead. Today: TikTok piles the pressure on the television industry as US legislators put the squeeze on the short form video platform; the TV revenue slump still hasn’t hit bottom; how consumers are making brand compromises in the cost of living crunch.
Today:
* The US House of Representatives voted over the weekend to force the Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok or be banned. That means the law could be on Joe Biden’s desk for signing within days if the Senate votes on it this week. If ByteDance refuses to sell, will Australia ban TikTok too?;
* Seven had one of the worst weeks in the company’s history. Analysts describe it as a “one trick pony”, and that TV trick is no longer working;
* Hard-up consumers are disguising their Aldi tomato sauce in big brand bottles;
* The ABC has upped its marketing spend, but is $6m a quarter enough?
Further reading:
* The Guardian: US House passes bill that could lead to total TikTok ban
* Australian Financial Review: TV networks have lost 83pc of young viewers to TikTok, YouTube
* Unmade: If a TV network puts a roof over a rapist’s head, employs a war criminal and pays a creep it might just have a culture problem
* The Australian: Bleak outlook for Seven West Media shares, says analyst
* The Australian: Seven launch internal investigation over incorrectly naming the wrong Bondi killer on Weekend Sunrise
* Unmade: Born to be mild: New Seven boss’s first staff memo
* The Australian: Consumer brand loyalty declines in hard times, research finds
* The Australian: ABC’s spending on advertising, marketing and promotions has soared, new data shows
Today’s episode features Tim Burrowes and Abe Udy
Time to leave you to start your week.
Editing was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
tim@unmade.media


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe

Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade. Today we talk to Anthony DeCeglie, the editor-in-chief of Seven West Media’s Perth-based news masthead operations including The West Australian, Perth Now and the group’s newest text-led news brand - The Nightly.
‘There’s nothing more impactful than a front page’: Anthony DeCeglie on why The Nightly is edition-led
Today’s conversation features two players from Australia’s news landscape.
At the end of February, the country got a new national news brand - The Nightly, published from the same stable as The West Australian. Although a digital-only product which covers breaking news, The Nightly is centred around an evening edition, complete with impactful front page, and the ability for advertisers to buy full page ads inside.
The man who has led the project is Anthony DeCeglie, who also heads up The West Australian. In today’s conversation, he explains the rationale behind the launch, rebuts the theory that the main reason was to deliver greater influence, and reveals that the advertising-supported project has been profitable from the start.
Also participating the conversation with Unmade’s Tim Burrowes is Vanessa Lyons, CEO of industry body ThinkNewsBrands. According to Lyons, The Nightly taps into a readership trend of a spike in evening reading.
She also points to a wider trend in all the major state-based news mastheads of significant readership from other parts of the country. According to the Roy Morgan Readership data, West Australia’s news mastheads have more readership in the east than the west, with 2.2m readers to 1.6m.
“There is a significant amount of out-of-state readership”, says Lyons. “They have the highest out of state readership over any state or territory which is pretty significant. If you’ve got a strong eastern seaboard following, it makes sense.”
The conversation also checks in on the progress of Streamer, the community sport video streaming platform launched out of The West Australian last year.
And DeCeglie pushes back on reporting in rival title The Australian Financial Review suggesting the launch of The Nightly has sparked internal tensions within Seven West Media.

Production on today’s podcast was by the ever-helpful Abe’s Audio. The ringing phone in one of the questions was entirely my fault.
Time to leave you to your Thursday. We’ll be back tomorrow with a focus on the retail media landscape.
Toodlepip…
Tim Burrowes
Publisher - Unmade
tim@unmade.media



This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.unmade.media/subscribe