Paul McIntyre

The digital transformation sprint left everybody with “bland” customer experiences, per Fjord founder turned Accenture Song’s global design and product chief Olof Schybergson. After the Covid hangover, he thinks the next wave is incoming, driven by ‘fluid experiences’ that cut through templated attempts at personalisation, where design leads technology, not vice versa, and creates new products, income streams and business models while delivering actual customer value. He reels off case studies for Fortune 500, beauty firm Shiseido and Saudi Arabia’s flagship airline as needle movers. Sydney-based APAC design and digital products boss Cristiano Dencker was shocked at the high penetration of recommendation engines in Australia when he landed last year. Problem is, he reckons, they are not being properly harnessed and personalisation as a differentiator “is BS” pushed by vendors and agencies. ANZ design lead, Fabio Buresti, thinks local airlines and streaming services are standout examples of ‘

Former PepsiCo, Kimberly-Clark, Interbrand and Westfield [now Scentre Group] marketer John Batistich transitioned to company board roles ahead of most – he’s now a non-executive director (NED) and advisor to seven boards, including the listed buy now pay later firm Zip Co, Muffin Break Bakeries and Jamaica Blue Cafes’ parent company FoodCo, Melbourne unicorn Moose Toys and Sydney-founded fashion label Ksubi International. Batistich has a helicopter view of what boards want from marketing functions, where the gaps remain – and crucially, what marketing can do to close them. In short, “become the expert on customer” because marketing is still seen as a cost centre; focus on “brilliant basics”, build better partnerships, and start working on capability models, because marketing’s capability gap is widening and Batistich sees major skills deficiencies – especially around personalisation for lifetime value. Here's his take on what's coming down the track for marketing, customer and commerce ove

Future of TV Advertising international keynote Jon Evans is Chief Customer Officer at marketing effectiveness data firm System1 – and one of the world’s top marketing podcasters. He's on a mission to help marketers hold the line and sell-in emotional, creative campaign investment to rational, hard-nosed exec teams by better predicting its P&L impacts. While the media industry obsesses on the medium – optimising channel mix, ROI, CPMs, the value equation of the channel – fully half of the business outcome depends on the creative, i.e. the message, per System1’s analysis of 100,000 campaigns. But that message is getting lost says Evans. He wants to help CMOs avoid getting fired by arming them – and the C-suite – with the data to better predict how their ads and massive media investments will perform over the long term. Which just might counteract the accelerating rush to performance channels, with Coke the latest, as marketers seek any kind of validation in the face of exploding remits and inte