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Retail's Digital Shift: IAB’s Gai Le Roy on Balancing Value and Privacy | # 444

In this episode of Add To Cart, we sit down with Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia, to explore the shifting landscape of retail and digital media in Australia. Gai shares her insights on how Amazon's rapid growth is redefining consumer expectations, the importance of preparing for upcoming Privacy Act reforms, and the impact of the juniorisation of the workforce in the advertising industry. With over 25 years of experience, Gai provides practical advice for retailers on how to stay competitive in this fast-evolving market.


Links from the episode:


What you’ll learn:

  • How is Amazon’s rapid rise transforming the retail landscape in Australia and what can local businesses can do to keep up.
  • The crucial steps should you take now to prepare for the upcoming Privacy Act reforms. Learn how to protect your business and customer trust.
  • Why is the juniorisation of the workforce causing ripples in the advertising industry, and how your company do to stay ahead.


This episode was brought to you by…  

Deliver In Person

Shopify Plus


About our guest

Gai Le Roy, CEO of IAB Australia, is a senior executive and board director with over 25 years of experience in the media and digital industry. She specialises in helping businesses leverage digital and advertising insights to drive strategy and growth. Passionate about sustainability, mental health advocacy, and fighting domestic violence, Gai is committed to making a positive impact both professionally and through her involvement in not-for-profit organisations.


About your host:

Nathan Bush is the host of Add To Cart and is an ecommerce transformation consultant. He has led eCommerce for businesses with revenue $100m+ and has been recognised as one of Australia’s Top 50 People in eCommerce four years in a row. You can contact Nathan on LinkedIn or via email.


Please contact us if you: 

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  • Are interested in joining Add To Cart as a co-host 
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Email hello@addtocart.com.au We look forward to hearing from you!


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Broadcast on:
08 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
other
(ringing) Advertising works, we like that. You just have to plug some stuff sometimes. Clean out your data, get rid of anything you don't need. - Welcome to Add to Cart. Australia's leading e-commerce podcast that express delivers all you need to know in the fast-moving world of online retail. Here's your host, Bushy. (upbeat music) - Welcome to another episode of Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, otherwise known as Bushy, joining you from the land of the terrible people here in Brisbane, Australia. Now, from working with government on privacy reform, to working with major advertising players, to running mentorship programs, today's guest has one of the most interesting, and I felt at times overwhelming roles in the digital industry. Today, we are joined by Gaylaraoy, CEO of IAB Australia, with over 25 years of experience in the media and digital industry, and leading the IAB here in Australia for the last six years. Gayl has a deep understanding of digital media, audience development, and data analytics. She's been instrumental in helping businesses navigate the complexities of modern retail, by combining strategic insights with a focus on consumer behavior, and making all of that make sense to businesses. All around Australia. If you are looking to understand the latest trends and prepare your business for the future, Gayl's expertise is exactly what you need. I feel her practical and common sense advice really helps retailers navigate some of the big changes that are coming up, especially around data privacy, and the change in workforce. I've been wanting to interview Gayl for a long time, because I'm a huge fan of the IAB's e-commerce report. It's been going for the last four years. And today we draw and discuss on some of those findings from the latest report that came out earlier last month. There's also a new talent report, which we talk about. Both reports are fantastic, and I've put the links to these reports in the show notes, if you want to get them. In this conversation, we'll also talk about Amazon's rapid growth and how that's reshaping the retail landscape in Australia. And of course, you can't talk Amazon without talking Timu, but Gayl has a very different view on both of those. We talk about the upcoming Privacy Act and the reforms for that. And what that means for your business, Gayl is right in there with the decision makers on this one. So it's a fantastic insight on what might be coming down the line. And then we dive into why the generalization of the workforce in advertising might be cause for concern, especially if you're over 50, there's a really damning stat in there for those that are over 50. Now, if you haven't already, I would love to invite you to sign up for my weekly e-commerce newsletter every Tuesday morning. I share a key industry insight, my little piece of opinion, along with five must read e-commerce stories, research pieces or case studies from the past week. I like to think it's a great way to keep you up to date with what's trending in e-commerce and give you a few little resources that you might not normally have. You can sign up for free at addicart.com.au/subscribe. All right, thanks to our partners Shopify Plus and deliver in person. Here's our conversation with Gaylle Roy, CEO of IAB Australia. (upbeat music) Gay, welcome to Addicart. - Thanks, Bushy. - So good to have you here. I've been so deep in your reports lately. You've got the two reports at the moment, the Australian e-commerce report. And then you put your talent report. It came out a week later. It's just such great quality for retail at the moment. - Thank you. It's very hot at the moment, retail, retail media. And I think everyone wants to know about like the future of work as well. So the talent report was perfect timing in terms of what's actually going on. Am I going to have a job in a year? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're going to dive into both of those. And hopefully I do have a job in a year. We'll see how we go. (laughs) So for people who may not have worked with you, read your reports, come across your events. Can you explain what the IOB is and how it works for your members? - Of course. I guess I should even what the acronym is. So it's the interactive advertising bureau. So we're the trade association for digital advertising. We're part of a network of 45 different IOBs around the world who all have their own own flavor. So we all keep in touch and understand what's going on in different markets. We run the Australian chapter. So we do a lot in events, policy, tech, research. And I guess our member base is quite broad, but anyone who is involved in digital advertising, whether it's buy or sell or add tech side of things. - Amazing, such a cool space to be in right now. And great to have someone like you leading it. Let's dive straight into the Australian e-commerce report now in its fourth year. It started to get a lot of traction because we're seeing the year on year changes, which is what I'm finding really interesting in it. And this year you expanded from Australia and included stats from New Zealand as well, which was fantastic. One of the key things that I saw come out of this report and it has been echoed in some of the other reports we've seen out such as Shopify's retail report is the focus for customers on convenience and lower prices driving consumer behavior. As retailers, it's probably not what we want to hear all the time, but it makes a lot of sense given the cost of living pressures. At the same time, we've got a lot of retailers who are struggling, don't have a lot of margin to give away, they want to make as much profit or just be profitable at the moment. How do you feel retailers are best to strike a balance between what customers want and what they can actually afford to do at the moment? - Yeah, it's a really tricky one. And I thought cost of living was strong theme through. Last year's report and this year it's gone up to another level, a couple of things. So I think trying to explain value. So retailers with a deeper connection with their own customer base, it's easier to do that. You've got more time, they've got a knowledge of you, but understanding if there's something beyond just a discount, what you can offer. I think partnering is really interesting. We might talk about that more. So if you have a relationship with another retailer, what's that sort of combined benefit and just keeping loyal? Now, showing the loyalty. The other thing that's really important is, and again, this will be easier for those with a deep relationship, ensuring data security. So data privacy is top of mind. The crisis is still number one, but making sure those other factors can shine to give you every chance of success. And then there's more tactical things and we might talk about distribution later, but you have to turn up everywhere, like it or not. Just making sure that you're got that, we talk about share of voice a lot in media, but that share of attention, share of real estate. Easy to find. - You got no civil bullet for us, do you? - I'm sorry, you've got to spend a lot of time and effort and go through a lot of data. But if you do it and you can bet a dozen, we've got that advantage. - Spot on. All right, well, you've given us so many points to jump off there, we might start with loyalty because I think when people are thinking loyalty at the moment, they're immediately thinking structured loyalty programs and your research showed how popular they are. I think there was a stat in there that 92% of Australians are a member of a loyalty program. I'll have to check if I've got that figure exactly right. And then, yeah, a huge amount that are a part of multiple loyalty programs. So that continues to grow. People are definitely looking for a discount there, but they're also wanting to understand why retailers collect in data. The ones that I did love in the report and I come with the exact number, but people, what data are they willing to give away? And they're willing to give data birth if you give them something for their birthday. So it's really translating that, individual piece of data, why I'm giving it to you and what's in it for me. So don't be afraid of helping to connect the dots on why that data is useful for a retailer. - Yeah, to your point around value, it wasn't just giving discounts or accumulating points to get X dollars off. I saw free shipping was up there as one of the key things. And as a retailer, that's one of the incentives that we love playing with because we can actually play with that to put certain limits on it. And it's not just discounting our products. So I think that comes back to your value conversation, right? - Yeah, and also you're seeing people that are paying for loyalty programs. So again, if there's enough convenience, enough value, if it's gonna save me the cartridge, I might be willing to pay $10 a month for whatever might be due to the part of the program. - And Woolworth's loyalty program and flybys came out well and truly on top as the most popular. Were there any others in there, any others that come top of mind for you that you think they're really doing loyalty well? - I think the breadth of different ones, just show that whatever your, makes your heart sing, the area that's really jumped up over the last year are sort of the cash back, shot back pieces as well and how they play into the ecosystem. But they're definitely, as a non-user and my members who are in that area will now be sending me that I have to sign up, but that has surprised me how quickly, which it shouldn't because it's a media financial benefit for consumers, but that place and that data ownership in the ecosystem is quite significant. - Yeah, that third party loyalty is really interesting. Like even last weekend, I was at Barbecue and was telling people about cash rewards 'cause we had Anthony on a few months ago and explaining the concept of, you can buy what you normally buy, the prices that you normally buy, but if you visit cash rewards first, click through, you'll get X% of your money back. And people are dubious on it, like it's like, where's the scam, where's the cash? It's a hard concept to explain, but it is growing in popularity so quickly. - Yeah, and I saw your post on LinkedIn this morning that we're not allowed to talk about Cyber Monday and Black Friday type specials, but there is an element of what came through this study for both those types of sales events and trade events of discoverability. So if someone can discover something new, it doesn't have to be a cheaper price. It can be something they haven't seen before. So don't think about discounting or sales events having to just be price cutting. It can just be something special. That event element really came through strongly this year and it is some of that's the big mass events, but some of it's also like the boat shopping or the small or bespoke pieces. So consumers are really, you know, it gives a touch of that experiential, even though they're a lot online. So make sure your partner will find something new for those events. - I love that point around events because it depends on what mindset you're coming from, whether this is a sales event or whether it's a new customer acquisition event because you treat it very differently in your business than depending on if you're measuring it on weekly sales or if you're trying to bring that customer into your ecosystem and then build on it from there. Let's talk about Amazon because that was, I did a post on this as well when the report came out because it was the number one stat that I felt was just, it just hit me over the head. When I saw you compared where Australian customers had shopped over the last 12 months and 54% of Australian customers had shopped Amazon, which in itself isn't surprising, but that was 43% last year. And it felt like, well, last year, it was almost like a pack, that top 10, it was like 43, 42, 42, 41. It was fairly competitive. This year, Amazon, that bar graph went straight out until the second, I think, was came up at 41, 42, 43. Big difference, right? It feels like 2024 was the year that Amazon just exploded and kind of created their own territory in Australia, would that be fair? Yeah, absolutely, it was a huge leap. But what's been interesting is for the last, probably five years, maybe 10 years, if you look at, not from this study, but the research that we do in terms of grading, so how many people are going to site? So they're not necessarily spending, but they're going there, they're researching their browsing. Amazon has always been so far ahead of the curve, ahead of the pack, and now that gap between who's there may be researching and then buying somewhere else, and that gap is really strong, so more and more of those browsers are converting, which is an interesting, I guess, lesson for other retailers, not everyone from Amazon, I know it's a big hard thing, but getting people through the front door, and even if they don't convert for the first few years, or whatever, that loyalty, that trust, and then being able to make it as easy as possible, can really convert well. - Yeah, and it was only last week that Amazon announced same-day delivery in Sydney, so it means that 90% of people in Sydney can now get their parcels if they order before 12pm and get them the same day. That's pretty hard to compete with. - It is, 'cause the report even Amazon today with next-day delivery, if you're Amazon Prime, it's changed consumer expectations, so if you saw the list of the different things of consumers are hoping for, that sort of quick delivery piece continues to grow, so next year, I'm sure that jumps over and further. And as you mentioned, we did New Zealand, we covered the New Zealand market for the first time this year, which was really interesting. And Amazon, although you can buy from Amazon, they're not really a presence in New Zealand, and you could see the difference in consumer expectations around delivery and returns. The whole market is different because Amazon's not that major play in that market. And it also opens up room for other players, so the list of people at the top of the game, and I must say, I was surprised, the number one over in New Zealand, and maybe I shouldn't be, but Timu jumped into that marketplace without Amazon there, so. - Yeah, why do you think Timu's more popular in New Zealand than Amazon? What's the big difference between our two countries? - Yeah, so Amazon haven't got a headquarters, they can't, it's not a major presence there. You can still buy, but there's no guarantee of delivery, products not right there. So yeah, much smaller footprint in the New Zealand market. And we knew, no, in Australia, we took longer than everyone was expecting for Amazon to become a major player. And this year as well as the same day delivery, and this, you know, really interesting from a media point of view that, you know, adds on prime at the same time. So that ecosystem continues to get richer for retailers and advertising and partners. - Yes, and we're going to dive into all the world of data and retail media soon. But before we move on, you know, Timu is an interesting one, and I want to pick your brains on this because in this year's report, 25% of Australians had shopped there in the past year. I don't think they were even on the 2023 report, were they? - I think we might have had them, but they were fairly low. We're being watching them closely from an ad spend, from an audience, one of you for quite a while, because, you know, a lot of our major stakeholders, the publishers and platforms, and I don't think I've ever seen an individual retailer or advertiser called out in earnings calls in the US. So they're never named. It's always like a large Chinese retailers, you know, and they're spending enough that they actually sort of shape that ad market. You know, I think a lot of you and a lot of your listeners will know about sort of, you know, it does increase the ad bids on certain areas, but it's quite interesting. So Timu, when they spend, they get sales, good advertising works, we like that, but when they pull back spend, so some months they do spend less, and the spend goes down in line, the sales go down in line with their spend, which again sounds logical, but for most of the retailers, there'll be a bit more of a halo effect from their other ad spend, so that it's not necessarily driving loyalty, long-term sales. So, you know, there is hope if they run out of those big marketing budgets, there's room for everyone else, but I don't see every other retailer that I bang on to and go, please spend more on brand on, you know, the loyalty, the connection, because it will return, you know, in the long term as well as a short term, whereas Timu is very much tap on tap on. - Yeah, she'll get hits. - Yeah. - That's really interesting. And from your monitoring, because it's a huge issue from a competitive perspective for online retailers in terms of market share, but I feel the bigger issue with Timu at the moment is exactly what you said, driving up the price of performance advertising, especially when it comes to Google Shopping and being able to have share of voice in the market, because you're essentially being frozen out by people with deeper pockets. From what you've seen with Timu, is there a rhyme or reason to that advertising strategy or is it kind of just throw as much money and investment in there as possible? - I think there is a bit more. It's tricky because their buying's not done here, their strategies don't not done here. So it's a very global approach, which actually gives local retailers, yes, it might be tricky when they're spending a lot of meta or Google tick tock the big global platforms, but they're not going to be spending as much in the local players. So thinking creatively around where a Timu not showing up, because they're not showing up everywhere, they're trying to make it easy to spend big chunks of money across the world as easy as possible. So look for that clear space where other people aren't spending. - How was your last e-commerce delivery experience? Did your order arrive on time and undamaged or did it fail to fulfill expectations? If you are a high value brand, just think about the low value experiences in the last mile affecting your reputation. Delivered in full on time or DIFOT if you're in a hurry is a metric that matters for retailers and customers. Why? Because it shows where the deliveries are happening reliably and on time. Many Aussie retailers are settling for 70 to 80% DIFOT scores and dealing with a lot of unhappy customers. However, after partnering with Delivering Person, experience-driven brands like Samsonite, The Party People, and July see a consistent 99.6% DIFOT score. Don't settle for less. Make your last mile experience the first thing that customers remember. Learn more at DeliveringPerson.com. Well, based on that clear space, one of the services and the functions of IAB for your members is to be able to track investment and presence across all digital ad channels. Based on what you're seeing, I'd love your thoughts on are there any channels that you think are getting more airtime than they deserve in terms of what they're delivering, in terms of performance for retails, and are there any that are going under the radar that you're like, there's your blue space, there's your area. - So here's my least favorite child, and you're up in the air. Okay, I'll reframe a little bit, but obviously video has been the biggest growth over the last five, six years that continues to grow, and fragment in terms of the types of video options that are there. I'm going to say, and I will make sure everyone listens to the second bit of my answer here, that probably retail media has been overhyped at the moment, not over-invested, but overhyped. I don't think, and we're guilty of this, 'cause everyone wants to know about it, we've got two new reports coming out shortly, but I think now that it's becoming more mature, the expectations of that sector in terms of measurement, ROI, it's the normal hypecycle, so hottest new thing, and now we need to put all the infrastructure in place to make sure people are happy with their investments, understand how it fits in with other areas, so probably way too many opinion pieces written on it, so hopefully that will come down, and we'll go about actually building a robust ecosystem for all those retailers, spending a lot of money jumping into the space. In terms of things that go onto the radar, look, I'm always, it's not my natural heartland, and I'm always quite amazed by the affiliate area, it's one that works as a silo a little bit too much, so I have an affiliate working group, and I think they're sick of me saying, "Can you just mix with the other media people sometimes?" 'Cause neither side knows about each other enough, but that definitely the investment's been strong there, the thing we're talking about in terms of consumers, it's fitting in with that cost of living, as well as publishers and media owners really needing some extra revenue stream, so that area is maturing, you've got content players who you wouldn't have imagined going to that space, whether it's musical bar media, really leaning in, and I find that a really fascinating area. The area I think should get my investment, just 'cause I like it, is that a good reason? - Yeah, of course it is. - And it's the perfect form to speak to it, it's audio, I still think it's harder to buy, podcasting and streaming, it's a bit more fragmented, it's a bit harder to do, but that connection and the ability to create it, that's not too expensive, you know, have that relationship in your ears, if you're willing to spend a bit of time, there's still, you've still got a better chance of having a high share of voice, and I won't say it's cheap, but at lower price point than other areas. - Yeah, absolutely. I wrote an opinion piece in "Inside Retail" a couple of weeks ago around the power of audio, based on what I've learned through this podcast, and it is a totally different relationship, you can't cost it on a CPM, or the same way you can do it everywhere else, and it's similar to, you know, when we picked up this morning, it was like, you're like, oh, hey, bushy, how are you? And I'm like, we have never met, but you're kind of able to get those relationships that people feel familiar with you, and they trust you, and there's that next level of relationship that you don't get through other mediums. - So yeah, spend more on audio. - Spend more on audio, I love it. You did mention at the start, and I want to pick up on the affiliates piece, because you mentioned, you know, what came to mind for you straight away when we were talking was partnerships, as an opportunity for brands, and affiliates is obviously one way to do partnerships. Other interesting ways that you've seen brands come together for partnerships to maybe share customer relationships and to market in a more cost-effective way. - So I think it's, the partnerships are more selective and considered are the ones that I like. So sometimes everyone's partnering with everyone, and that loses meaning. And this also feeds into, and I know we'll chat a bit more in a minute, but privacy reform. So if you've got valuable first-party data, a relationship with a customer, you really want to partner with someone who has something similar, and the similar ethos to data management, coming together in a compliant way, through a clean room or whatever. So I think there'll be more of those direct top-end-of-town partnership deals. You know, we've seen quarters do it for many years, but more and more. When I look at the top 100 sites that people go to, in the olden days it used to be, oh yeah, they're the ad sites or the commercial sites, and these ones are the banks or the government or whatever. So I would just suggest everyone look at that top 200 list. Everyone is a media player, maybe not government, but everyone else is an opportunity if you feel you've got very similar ethics. Doesn't even have to be similar customers because that synergy could be good as well. - I think it's too about discovering the assets that you've got as a company because, and I think that's your point, maybe, around retail media, is that all of a sudden these brands was like, we've got all these eyeballs. This is actually an asset that we can leverage, and it's the same as customer data. This is an asset that we've got. We've obviously got to treat it with respect and privacy, but we have this sitting here that we can partner and actually leverage for sales. It's not just something that has to be just ours as all the walled gardens that are popping up have shown. I want to dive into privacy because I think this is really important, and I know you're passionate about it. We've obviously got Australia's Privacy Act review, which has been in the works for the last couple of years, and I know you're involved in that as a key player. What do you think retailers should be preparing for as that's in the works and likely to be activated in the next? We're all guessing next year or so. - Yeah, there'll be some interesting timies coming out, but some of it's advice that we've been giving for a long time that should prepare retailers for most of the reforms. Clean up your data, get rid of anything you don't need. Do a data audit and a pixel and tags audit because one of the main areas of concern with consumers and government is that sharing piece. So if there is data or signals shooting off everywhere, and signals is pretty broad at the moment, so some of the wording that we're seeing currently around personal information is probably not what we consider personal information. So whether it's a cookie or an IP address or any of that could be. So rethink around your sharing and your usage of data and widening out what you would consider personal information. So I would be reviewing every tech partnership. What am I allowing them to have access to? Every agency. So just think where your data could be going. And if that's going to stop, what are the economic ramifications for my business? So, but to that point of, you know, do I partner with someone else with first party data? Your partnerships could look quite different. Start being more transparent with your consumers. Consumers will have a lot more ability to complain. So the clearer you are on your website and the more you're transparent you are around. Decision making, data usage, it will hopefully limit people thinking you're doing something with the data that you're not. But yeah, just the amount of data collection, just our industry has created a narrative that first party data is the Holy Grail, which is, but you don't need to know everything about everyone to flog them a book or a pen. Like really, there's limits to what those, what those signals can tell you. (laughing) Do you feel that where we'll end up is similar to GDPR? So if retailers are preparing and they've kind of got that framework in mind, that's a good starting spot? It's going to be a little bit different from the indications that we've got. So there will be a lot of similarity with GDPR, but from a consumer engagement point of view, so GDPR, you've very much got a bit of an opt-in, you know, you've got your banner blindness, you know, you've explicit consent, whereas Australia will be a little bit more, I guess, rules around what's fair and reasonable to do. So not necessarily opting into everything, a lot more clarity around opting out, but you as a business will have to prove beyond doubt that you need that data and that a consumer is knowingly, you know, being tracked, getting data. So there's a bit of philosophical, philosophical shit, which sounds good, but it can almost be a higher bar because you, you know, it's almost an insurance policy, but you said I can have it versus I need to run my business in a way that's got this at the forefront of my mind the whole time. The other thing, which I mean, privacy is, I mean, around the world is a fascinating, fascinating, a polite word of saying it's a bit of a mess because any retailers, and most retailers would be having people come from overseas to visit their side or marketing to other markets. And the patchwork of privacy reform, we do a lot with IB in the US. I think there's now 15 different states that have got their 15 different privacy policies. You know, they continue to roll out. I feel for particularly smaller businesses who have to think if they're, you know, dealing with any customers in different regions and that's only gonna get harder, unfortunately. - Yeah, exactly what you said. I could hear a lot of UX designers go, "Oh, thank goodness. "We don't have to have all those customer opt-ins." But at the same time, it feels like it could get a little bit murky when you talk about fair and reasonable in terms of where do you draw that line? - So we do a lot of work with government to try and get some clarity on that, but you know, it's hard to build legislation that's specific. And even GDPR, like we're still, you know, what five years in and we're still seeing court cases that are getting clarity on what things mean. So law is not always crystal clear. So even when we do get the wording, there'll be a range of consultations, but also time for the industry to get better. So, you know, to get compliant. So there'll be a lot of work for lawyers, to tell your kids to do law, but you know, a lot of time for businesses to within that compliance period. And please don't do whatever your company in Europe did, please don't leave it to the last two weeks. So we'll be hammering that point regularly where people are on that journey to get ready for compliance. - If people are early on that journey and they're at the point of going, "Oh, geez, I need to get a good view "over where all my data is going, "what's connected to what, what's passing where?" Especially for those small to medium businesses. Do you think it's realistic that they can do that in-house with the level of knowledge required? Or would you usually recommend having an expert in this space, come in and do an initial audit? - Look, if you can afford an expert, I would do. It depends on how complicated and how many partners you've got. So if you've got a very simple commerce site, you know, you might have a meta and a Google relationship, you're not doing other partnerships, you probably, you know, can work it out internally. But if you've got very complicated systems, you know, measurement pieces going everywhere, you're much safer, having something. The government has committed to providing guidance and frameworks, so we are, I think it's cross hoping that we'll be okay. The fact that we are likely to see small business included for the first time, very small business, means that we really have to provide support for small organizations. - Not a natural place for them, for a lot of people to play. - No, no, it's not what their strength is, but you know, the industry bodies will be there to help, you know, we'll do what we can, and hopefully the privacy commissioner, you know, they have a lot of resources, and just interpreting what it means for your business. - And I can't move on from this topic without talking about Google and their cookies. Obviously that announcement a few weeks ago, that they are abandoning their plans to scrap third party cookies. Do you think in the light of what you see coming down the line, it changes anything? - Not a lot. I mean, it will keep some smaller players, some smaller publishers, you know, with a bit more of a sustainable path. So there's a little bit more good at the bottom there. I think the fact that the timing changed, quite a few times, means that most people who have been probably overly reliant on a device that's already been deprecated in a lot of browsers, most people that we deal with are already thinking what their ID solutions be on the cookie. But, you know, this is where the complication of regulation in different areas, you've got privacy on one hand, you've got competition issues in other areas. So, you know, it's trying to find a regime that pleases consumers and governments in all markets, which is true. - I don't envy your position at all with all these changes taking place. - No, it's good. They all come from the right place. The reason it's just implementing them is not always easy. I'm just steward. (upbeat music) - From winning the block to establishing a leading personal care brand during COVID, it's fair to say that the alive body team can do anything that they put their mind to. But as the business grew rapidly, third-party applications didn't speak to each other, managing two separate sites for D2C and wholesale got costly and budgets were blowing out. Sounds like the typical Renault, really. But as we know, the alive body team don't settle for standard Renault's. That's why they upgraded to Shopify Plus, combining D2C and wholesale stores with a unified backend, creating country-specific stores and optimizing the customer experience with Shopify function, they've now got an award-winning online home. And it's paying off with three times more customer acquisitions and a 47% increase in conversion rate. It's enough to put a smile on any skeptical judges face. Check out shopify.com/au/plus and get in touch with the Aussie Shopify Plus team to see how Shopify Plus can help you get your technical foundations in order. I'd love to skip. And we mentioned that you've got a few research reports out at the moment and the one that you released last week was your industry talent report, which is always fantastic and threw up a bunch of surprising outcomes. And the headline that got me was the juniorization of the workforce, especially when it comes to advertising and marketing. And the stat in there that you highlighted was that 5% of the industry is over 50. That's crazy, like crazy small. I don't know. As a woman over 50 in the industry, I just, I don't know, I need to buy lottery tickets or something 'cause I don't know how I'm still here. What's going on? Yeah, look, the industry overall, ad tech, media, advertising, you know, margins are tight and there is a lot of companies rejigging their workforces to have fabulous young people. I don't wanna, you know, check with this is, you know, not to sound like we don't want amazing young people in our industry, but they're chopping at the head and the middle. So you are losing a lot of experience there and you're not necessarily providing the support of the unwanted coming in. It's sort of cheeky. Every company wants someone with two to sort of two to three years experience. So could someone else please train my people and then just hand them over? That would be good. So please don't give up on intern programs, grad programs, you know, it's worthwhile. But yeah, from an aging point of view from that, from the older end of the workforce will definitely have to be more creative. You know, I think that's why a lot of people go into consulting when they're older, fractional CMOs, all of that side of things. But I think there will be a, hopefully a bit of a shift back. Particularly when commercial times are tough, you really do need commercial leaders who have been through a good and bad times, who have that perspective of, you know, being there before. - Yeah, I agree. I mean, we saw that in COVID, saw an explosion of talent into e-commerce. People who were getting heads of positions that maybe weren't ready for heads of positions. And then the speed came out of the market and they were the first ones to go. That, exactly what you said, that middle level chop. But all of a sudden you had people who were great doers and on the tools and great specialists promoted into leadership. And then a lot of organizations saying, actually, we don't value leadership as much as we do hands-on skills. - Yeah, the one pleasing thing out of the report was the, when we looked at what trainings needed. And normally it's like, I need you know, about programmatic or something really tangible. And it was leadership and management skills. So I'm hoping that there's been recognized and that the companies get more mature, but also the sort of the new-to-market employers get that support. Because it is, there's a lot of people who've been promoted very quickly and it'd be very stressful. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you saying from a training and skills perspective? Obviously, you offer a lot in this space as well. Where is the real demand for skills beyond leadership? But if we talk more, I don't like calling it tangible, but hands-on experience, whether it's emerging technologies or emerging channels or skills, where are you seeing the focus? - AI, AI, AI, AI. - I should have predicted that answer, right? - So from a more generic piece, it's AI. So many organizations are so under pressure that from a training point of view, they're very practical around in-platform training. So it's very specific to a partner, to a piece of tech, which is great, but it's leaving less time to develop those other skills, so. But yeah, definitely AI is the one that's probably closest to the discovery of new skills. - I've heard you talk about and be very passionate around making sure people have the fundamentals of marketing behind them, because people like me, and I'm not sure on you, but we went through marketing degrees to get to where we are. And now we find a lot of people come in via specialties, whether that be AI, whether that be by design, development, whatever it is, and may not have those marketing fundamentals. Do you still think that's as important today and can people kind of backtrack from having those specialties to getting those marketing fundamentals under the belt? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, having both is gonna be the gold standard, so we can definitely still catch up. I think it will happen because what I'm starting to hear from a lot of brands, and it'd be particularly pertinent to your space, is, okay, I'm maxing out my performance dollars, and that brand building piece, that longer-term investment, which is about the loyalty piece. I haven't been feeding the top of the funnel for a long while, 'cause I haven't been able to sell into my CFO, or it's just not my skill set, but now it's an economic problem. That's when you always see change in an organisation, so I think some of those classic marketing skills will come into play. We just need to, it's really hard for sort of CMOs or people running businesses to carve off the money that may not return today, but if you think about it, like a bank deposit, that's how we go to the CFOs and go, okay, if you could invest something, that's gonna give you a return of maybe 1.2 today, but you'll get another 30% over the next few years. That's the sort of language that can open up, some more spend from investors or from CFOs, but I know it's true. I mean, we talk all the time about the ideal marketing mix, and yeah, you just have to plug some stuff sometimes, so, but if people understand those fundamentals while they're doing it, they might be able to carve off, you know, five or 10% or some longer term. - Yeah, speaking of fundamentals, your report also said that nearly half 40% of organisations are starting to require staff members back in the office three days a week. Are we going back to our old ways? - They're trying, they're not always succeeding, but yeah, so it's very much shifted last year. There are a lot of, you know, we're trying for two days, this year it's gone to three. I think there's been so much turnover of staff. Initially, whenever I knew each other, that's been a lot of time together, didn't matter so much, but now they're teams, you know, who haven't bonded in person. And as we've mentioned, like there are a whole lot of quite new to market people who need to sit and shadow and learn and listen. So I'm not going to pretend I know what the right mix is, but there's definitely a push to get people, people back in a bit more. I think it's cheaper than sending whole teams to off sites, you know, twice a year. It's like, just come into the office and hang out. I'll give you a pizza and some beers. - I think that's fair, but I think it kind of goes both ways, is that if I am coming into the office, I'd like some leadership around me. I'd like some, you know, a bit of culture, a little bit of, you know, a facilitation together rather than me being on a phone to other people who might be at home. - Absolutely. And I think the media agencies are really trying to nail that. So when people come in, there's a reason and inspiration. - Yeah, lovely. Okay, you've been in the role, CEO role for six years, and it sounds like there's no shortage of challenges and opportunities to work through based on what we've talked about. Where do you think the IAB can make the biggest impact over the next six years? - It's probably our basics, but there's gonna be new things to do. So all the different pieces of reform, whether it's looking at scams, looking at privacy, looking online safety, someone has to come up with those frameworks and the aligned industry, ways of operating protocols, et cetera. So locally and globally, that's our most important piece. So making sure CTV, podcasts, all the new areas have ways of operating so that we can compliantly and efficiently serve the ads, serve the marketing material. So that's the biggest piece. We play a huge role in community, which is something quite joyous. Like we do bring people together, whether it be for events, but we also have a incredibly popular mentorship program. So yeah, so which is really nice. So we've had about 450 people go through that program, over two and a half thousand hours of mentoring. So that I think will continue from a skills, but also a mental health point of view, play a big role. And then the third area is where we play a lot is continuing to interrogate and investigate marketing effectiveness. So the regrowth of the rebirth of marketing smuggling, like what does it mean? How does it work? Is it robust? Trying to get marketers away from last click attribution, which, you know, I'm probably the wrong audience for this one, but you know, the education piece of what all the pieces of the puzzle, what they mean. So trying to get people to do experimentation a little bit more. So yeah, those three areas. I think they're, hopefully everyone will see value in what we're bringing to the table. - Oh, you do a fantastic job. Everything from the reports to the mentorship programs, to the opinion pieces, to the data that you bring forward for the industry is phenomenal. So thank you very much for all the work that you guys do. If people want to learn more, maybe get their hands on the report, check out some of the things that you've got on the website. What's the best way to do that and to get in touch with the IAB team? - So visit our website. IABAustralia.com.au. There's contact details. I'm on LinkedIn. We love to connect with new people, new communities, get different takes on, you know, businesses large and small. So please reach out. - Love you work. And you've got a podcast. We have a podcast. I don't know if I'm as professional or as regular as you, but we have an IAB Australia podcast where we try and get on a range of issues around digital advertising, so. - I've got no doubt you're more professional than me. That's for sure. Thank you, Gay, for joining us. That was awesome. Really appreciate all your insights. It's just such a fast paced industry and it's so great to have someone like you on top of all the issues to make sense of it for us. - Thanks for having me. It's been fun. I am so in awe of Gay for all the major issues and the huge changes she's across. She's able to explain them so clearly and so practically for people without inciting panic or alarm, I felt kind of calm, even though we covered some really big topics. And two, she stayed pretty calm and level headed throughout. All right, here are the three lessons I took from the conversation. Number one, Amazon's impact. It's no surprise to anyone that Amazon's rapid expansion in Australia is reshaping consumer expectations. But the IAB report showed how far Amazon has come in 2024 in terms of the number of Australians who are now shopping there, especially compared to the number two retailer. There is a big yap starting to emerge. Retailers must adapt or risk calling behind. I especially like the insight that Gay gave around Timu, snapping up global ad networks. And I think that her highlight of saying that yes, they are doing that on the big platforms like Meta and Google, but they're doing this at a global scale, which means that there is an opportunity for local retailers to be creative and really immerse yourself in local networks and local media that those big players can't be bothered diving into because they're not global players. That's your blue ocean. Number two, prepare for privacy reform. The upcoming Privacy Act reforms will require businesses to be more diligent with data. It is likely to drop in the next 12 months, probably early 2025. Start preparing now by auditing your data and being transparent with your customers. The big hint here, and especially when we talked about the comparison with GDPR, is that the focus in Australia will be about allowing customers transparency over their data and allowing customers to opt out easily. Both of these things are things you should be focused on right now anyway. So don't wait to get started, have a real focus on understanding where your data is going and how you make that data experience really easy and transparent for your customers right now. And number three, leadership matters. The juniorization of the workforce in advertising and digital presents challenges. But it also presents opportunity and it's exciting to notice so much great talent coming through. However, investing in leadership training and retaining experienced staff will be crucial in navigating tough times. It might be worth a check-in with your team right now that they feel they are getting the leadership and development that they need. We've been through a lot of change. There's a lot more change coming. Might be time for a quick pulse check. Make sure you go check out IOB Australia's resources on their website, go give their podcast a listen and stay up to date with digital advertising and retail trends. I'll add the links to the reports that we mentioned in this conversation to the blog and into the show notes. You can check that out on abdacart.com.au. If you enjoyed this episode, please, please consider sharing with a friend or a colleague who might enjoy some of those insights that came out of that conversation with Gay or you could leave us a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts if you're feeling particularly generous. And lastly, please support our sponsors who make this podcast possible to help us keep bringing you this content every week, Shopify and deliver in person if you would like introductions to the team there. Please let me know. Before you go, we'd love to invite you to join our free e-commerce learning platform at Decart campus. Meet other professionals and learn from e-commerce experts to take your business and your e-commerce career to the next level. Register to join campus at abdacart.com.au/campus. Now, if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with a friend or a colleague or even better, leave us a review on Spotify or Apple. It really makes a difference. (upbeat music)