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 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

Welcome to Start the Week, our Monday scene-setter for the week ahead. Today: How Nine’s radio and TV operations shone in the aftermath of Saturday’s Bondi Junction attack, while the ABC failed to launch and Seven named the wrong man.
2GB steps up as other broadcasters fail
Saturday afternoon saw many broadcasters caught flatfooted as news began to break of the murderous attack at Bondi Junction. With weekend production levels and staff on holiday because of the school break, many were slow to react. The ABC’s TV news channel stuck with its rebroadcast of Planet America, while its radio arm continued to air a food documentary. ABC Sydney remained with a sports call.
By contrast, 2GB’s Continuous Call Team, led by Mark Levy, switched to rolling coverage from their commentary box in Parramatta after breakfast host Ben Fordham called in to break the news.
Meanwhile, the social platform formerly known as Twitter was an utter cesspool.
In today’s podcast:
* How 2GB dominated on Sydney’s biggest news day of the year;
* Why was the ABC so slow to go live on radio or TV?;
* How did Seven name the wrong man?;
* Countdown to 10.15am as the Bruce Lehrmann verdict arrives;
* Fastfood ads the next target
Further reading (and listening):
* 2GB: The Continuous Call Team – Full Show Saturday April 13th 2024
* The Australian: Channel 7 presenter Matt Shirvington names innocent man Benjamin Cohen as Bondi Junction killer
* The Guardian: False claims started spreading about the Bondi Junction stabbing attack as soon as it happened
* Twitter: LittleMykonos - “Where was Westfield securirty?”
* Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Books will be written’: Judgment day in Lehrmann defamation case
* Australian Financial Review: Media fury as Albanese government flirts with $400m fast food ad ban
Don’t forget your HumAIn earlybird deadline
Last week we revealed the program for HumAIn, our conference focusing on how AI will change marketing and media.
That’s all the information you need to decide whether to join us on May 28. The 20% earlybird discount expires tomorrow, so today’s the day to make up your mind.
Today’s episode of Start the Week 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 discuss how psychologist Daniel Kahneman changed marketing thinking with his work on behavioural economics. And further down in this post, after hitting an all time low on Tuesday the Unmade Index continues to sink.
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, this is the perfect time. Your membership includes:
* Member-only pricing for our HumAIn (May 28) and REmade (October 1) conferences;
* A complimentary invitation to Unmade’s Compass event (November);
* Member-only content and our paywalled archives;
* Your own copy of Media Unmade
Daniel Kahneman and the rethinking (fast and slow) of advertising strategy
Today’s conversation features Australia’s most visible consumer psychologist Adam Ferrier, discussing the huge contribution Daniel Kahneman - who died at the end of March - made to the field of behavioural economics.
Kahneman’s most famous publication, Thinking, Fast and Slow, found a place on the bookshelf of every agency strategist. It was only published in 2011 but his ideas on the field of behavioural economics - the concept that humans act in predictably irrational ways - had already begin to influence those in the persuasion business.
Among Kahneman’s most important contributions was popularising the concept of System 1 and System 2 types of thinking, whether consumers are behaving automatically or consciously.
During the conversation, Ferrier describes how the impact of Thinking, Fast and Slow helped turn his agency Naked Communications into one of Australia’s most talked about by leaning into the concepts. Ferrier is now co-founder of communications agency Thinkerbell and co-presents the Black T-Shirts creativity podcast. Later in the year Ferrier will be reviving the MSIX - Marketing Science Ideas Exchange - conference, which he curates alongside Mumbrella.
The interview also offers a primer on some of the key concepts of behavioural economics, explaining ideas like anchoring, framing, the endowment effect, loss aversion, sunk cost fallacy and heuristics.
Unmade Index sinks lower
After hitting an all time low on Tuesday, the Unmade Index lost another 0.48% yesterday, taking it down to 558.9 points.
Among the larger media and marketing stocks, IVE Group had the worst of it, losing 3.29% while Ooh Media lost 2.58%. Meanwhile Seven West Media came off its recent low, gaining 2.7%
We’ll be back with more tomorrow.
If you missed yesterday’s announcement, we’ve just finalised the program for HumAIn, Unmade’s conference on the impact of AI on media and marketing. It takes place on May 28.
If you’re into loss aversion, you should know that tickets to HumAIn get more expensive in five days’ time. You need to act now to lock in a 20% saving. And once you listen to the podcast, you’ll know why we’re doing that.
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