Tribal Worldwide has scouted throughout the world to gather a team of top adpeople for Tribal Worldwide Australia. It’s always interesting to look at something familiar through fresh eyes. So The Stable asked these adland-Aus imports to tell us what they see here.

• Jeff Cheong is president of Tribal Worldwide Asia
• Darwin Tomlinson is executive creative director Tribal Worldwide Sydney
• Phil Dowgierd is managing director Tribal Worldwide Sydney
• Richard Lloyd is managing director Tribal Worldwide Melbourne
• Matt Oxley is head of creative technology Tribal Worldwide Australia

The Stable: Australia is a little adland that wants to play with the big kids – the US and England (mostly) – although its neighbours are Asian. What do adland and Tribal Aus have that will benefit Asia and vice versa?

Jeff Cheong:The Australian market has a heritage of being strong in creative. With the exponential growth of mobile devices since 2010 and now taking the lead as one of the world’s highest smartphone adoption, Australia consumers are driving the industry to get creative in technology. Coupled with that, there is a fast growth of creative technologists from Asia. Many are attracted to work in the Australian market.

As for Tribal,we are in exciting times ahead. Australia is poised to become the new hub for technology innovation and we’ve made several key moves within the network placing Darwin, Phil, Rich and Matt in pivotal roles in Australia, from the USA and UK. To turbo charge the innovation agenda, we are supporting the team of 20 technologists with 40 additional technologists based in the Singapore office.

TS: What do you think makes Aus strong in creative technology? (In what ways is it strong?)

Phil Dowgierd: Australia has a technologically enabled customer & fantastic macro foundation: 84% penetration of smartphone and 4G nationally + a customer who are early adopters of technology and clients who spend double on digital what their global compatriots do, so the context is wholeheartedly positive. Equally, Australia is a market used by global brands to develop innovative business solutions – McCafe was developed here and rolled out globally. Lastly, customers here have a latent desire to not miss out: they want to be up with or ahead of the latest trends. The biggest risk for clients is that their spend on digital has no stand-out and is commoditised but with the background above why would you not do innovative work?

TS: Viral video success does not have a high correlation with sales success. What makes technology effective (and effective technology) in marketing?

Richard Lloyd: I’m not sure that’s entirely true – how true it is will depend on how you view it. First of all, was the video captivating, original and relevant to the intended viewer? How much media spend was there behind it? What econometric research are you doing to split out its effect vs the rest of the marketing mix? What’s the purchasing cycle of that product and that category?

What is undeniably true is that 99% of the videos that exist on behalf of brands online are insipid, dreary wastes of everyone’s time. To promise to entertain and let down so fabulously is almost fraudulent. Why are they? Because the people making them are trying at best to be better than their competitor’s ad, as opposed to be better than True Detective.

• Technology is at its most effective when it’s visibly invisible and the fuel behind an amazing brand story and experience, as opposed to the awkward MC.
• Technology is at its most effective when the interaction it allows is earned and not demanded.
• Technology is at its most effective when it is treated as an opportunity and not an obstacle.

TS:  Is provocative advertising, like Carefree’s and Devondale’s good for business? And given that you can run pretty much anything online, does the ASB need to lighten up?

Darwin Tomlinson: Provocation in advertising is likely as old as advertising itself, so I think the only difference now is that there’s currently a channel for that (e.g. online) where it’s currently less regulated than the others. Whether it’s good for business likely depends on what your business is and whether it’s appropriate for your brand.

Obviously, that is a growing conversation around the world. It’s difficult to speculate how that will be resolved, and we try don’t try to predict the future of any technology or its potential influence. The fact that technology literally changes by the day means that anything is possible tomorrow. So we focus on what we’re going to make to help enable that change, and to enable it to everyone’s benefit because we do believe that that is good for business.

TS: Heineken isn’t bringing Tribal Amsterdam’s Ignite to Aus. We’re a tiny market. To what extent and in what ways are Tribal Aus’ wings going to be clipped by our small population and ongoing economic strictures? Conversely, where are the ops for Tribal Aus to soar?

Case study – Heineken – Ignite from Bart & Pol on Vimeo.

Phil Dowgierd: Any innovative program of work developed in one market takes time to spread to others. Heineken Ignite will be no different. Australia offers a very interesting backdrop for global CEOs and marketing directors, given the points made above about context. In addition it’s a modern, developed, progressive country which offers good parallels for lots of the US and Europe. All of this means that global clients roll out initiatives here and refine them before rolling them out globally, so the opportunities are vast. Equally, we live in a global economy with a global consumer, regardless of where we live. Businesses and brands are recognising this and moving quickly to take advantage:  just look at Uber or Asos. Australian business won’t want to miss out so will take advantage of the macro context and embrace technology to reach its customers.

TS: What is the role of branded products? When is a branded product NOT a sophisticated toy in a cereal box? 

Phil Dowgierd: In the experience economy, what a brand does is as important as what it says and the experience is a critical way to differentiate and attract customers. The experience could be the ease with which you can buy something on a brand’s website, or it could be something of value for the customer that demonstrates what the brand stands for. A toy in a cereal box is a toy in a cereal box: it’s a gift but says nothing about the brand other than it has a deal with Hasbro/ Disney etc.

Why not create something which shows what you stand for, what your product does that will last longer than a free bit of plastic that adds to landfill? Critically, something which can be shared by customers. If your cereal is associated with fitness, create an experience around that, something of value. If it is targeted at children create something from which they can benefit: gamified learning or something fun to educate about health and fitness, for example.

TS: Matt, you told AdNews Creative Focus you wouldn’t do “technology for technology’s sake”. How do you assess the technology in your own advertising? …And in work like The Most Powerful Arm and Social Swipe?

Matt Oxley: The insight of alternative payment methods in an increasingly cashless world influenced the Social Swipe tech choice, the tech choice then influenced the creative executions that brought the experience together and made it meaningful.

I’m always assessing tech choices for relevancy and appropriateness, different opportunities allow for greater or lesser exposure of technology. Take the Most Powerful Arm idea. In the context of the subject matter, would an inkjet printer have felt the same? Clearly not. But each physical output would have been indistinguishable from the other. Here, the technology enables a creative process directly linked to a powerful human story. I think it’s a great balance.

TS: What does advertising look like in 2016. Why?

Phil Dowgierd: The only certainty when looking into the future is that you can hold yourself a hostage to fortune. And the reason for that is that customers will decide what succeeds and fails. The app store took off because customers liked apps: Apple thought only they would ever publish them. Instead it’s a $60bn industry. Mobile phone networks never thought SMS would take off. Customers decided otherwise.

Two things will be paramount:  1) the customer will be (even more) king & queen: fail to engage them and your $ will be wasted; engage them and they will use technology to share, and 2) technology will be used creatively to create standout and value for brands.

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