Good afternoon loyal listeners! It’s time to plug in and digest a wealth of delicious content in just 30 minutes.
This episode of B&T’s Fast 30 podcast features OPR chief executive Richard Brett, who stopped by the studio to chat about the agency’s recently released report, Flawed, Hacked, Hard & Slow.
The report dives into the biggest trends in advertising, marketing, and technology from the past 12 months, focusing on discussions from adland’s most innovative conferences; Cannes Lions, D&AD, SXSW and CommsCon.
Now in its fourth consecutive year, the 2019 report comprises 28 trends across five chapters covering society, technology, storytelling, government policy, healthcare, culture, and marketing. Each will inform Australian and New Zealand leaders – including CEOs, marketing, communication, and government – how these trends will impact their organisation.
During the podcast, Brett shared a few insights from the report with B&T’s Daisy Doctor and John Bastick.
Perhaps the most fascinating area of the report is the way advertising is so clearly reflecting recent political and societal changes.
Speaking on the ‘Flawed’ topic, Brett said brands are beginning to adopt a new mentality, of honestly, transparency directly reacting to the Global Financial Crisis.
Brett said: “Flawed ties to peoples mistrust in government and politicians.
“Ever since the GFC there’s been a move away from spin and trying to cover things up by companies.
“People need to own it and be much more human about the way they are fessing up to things and be much more transparent.”
As an example, Brett referenced KFC’s chicken shortage earlier this year, where the brand quite literally turned the catastrophe into an unashamed “FCK up”.
Switching the infamous three initials around, KFC rolled out a series of ads apologising for the shortage, and in turn, took complete control of the situation.
Speaking on KFC, Brett said: “KFC owned that narrative, they totally turned the sentiment and narrative to balanced from a negative one”.
Here more key trends from the report in B&T’s Fast 30 podcast below:
