The Fragmentation Paradox: Mass is Still Necessary
James Bayes set the scene by noting that while audiences are fragmenting across streaming platforms (Netflix, Stan, Paramount+), the real challenge isn’t finding scale, but finding the right audience at scale to drive conversion. The industry’s solution must center on three themes: accountability, independent measurement, and transparency.
Bayes stressed that marketers should optimize towards outcomes (sales, footfall) and not just reach and frequency, using independent third-party measurement to avoid proprietary “black box” solutions that prevent learning.
Nikki Rooke added a critical observation: despite the market rhetoric around precision and sophisticated segmentation, the majority of BVOD (Broadcast Video On Demand) briefs Nine receives still default to traditional targeting levers: age, gender, and geography. This demonstrates that while the capacity for precision exists, the need for mass reach remains paramount for most marketers.
It's very difficult to connect what's actually driving performance within those black boxes… that you can feed back into how you're growing your business.
– James Bayes, Vice President – ANZ, The Trade Desk
Menulog’s Blueprint: Mass Personalization
Menulog Media Lead Ben Malfatti detailed how they executed the “What’s Good in Your Hood” campaign, which successfully married mass reach with localized data. The goal was to combat the perception that Menulog was not an Australian brand.
The campaign leveraged a 60-second TV music video with Bliss n Eso, but used technology to personalize 250 audio assets, 25 video assets, and 100 out-of-home variants down to the postcode level, heroing local restaurants and even building their names into the song lyrics.
The scale of this operation was delivered seamlessly using The Trade Desk’s integrations, which utilized an ad server (Innovid) to scan each bid request’s postcode and serve the appropriate personalized creative. This approach allowed Menulog to hit their mass reach goal (70% one-plus reach) while still delivering localized relevance.
Results from the short-lived campaign showed significant green shoots: 16% uplift in new customers, 4% growth in orders, and a 7-point increase in spend.
Proving Effectiveness Beyond Reach
Nikki Rooke acknowledged that TV “rested on its laurels around reach for a long time” but was now working hard to prove its role in short-term and sales growth. Nine is partnering with providers like Mutinex and Agile to show TV/BVOD’s contribution to lower-funnel metrics like web traffic, app downloads, and search.
Key data points showed that TV drives about a third of direct web traffic and app downloads, which is highly valuable as those users are more likely to convert. Furthermore, in aggregate, TV is second only to search in driving sales volume, accounting for approximately 22% of all media-driven sales.
Rooke shared a stark insight from Mutinex: about 85% of TV advertisers are underinvesting. If all were advertising at the optimal level, there was an estimated 100% ROI gain to be made.
James Bayes corroborated this synergy, noting that premium video drives material uplift in search behavior, making “last-click attribution on social media look better” because premium channels do the heavy lifting.
We have an enormously high point of diminishing returns where you can keep advertising and keep garnering profit back. Um, and we've seen that about 85% of TV investors are underinvesting…
– Nikki Rooke, National Sales Director, Total Television, Nine
The Future: Technology and Data Simplification
The panel concluded that technology, particularly AI, is helping to de-risk and simplify complexity. Rooke noted that AI is dramatically changing creative versioning, enabling smaller advertisers on platforms like Nine Ad Manager to access good creative for less than $10,000.
Bayes highlighted The Trade Desk’s Audience Unlimited tool, which uses AI to score the value of thousands of third-party data segments. This helps marketers determine which data combinations are most likely to drive the most effective outcome for their campaign, helping marketers move away from guesswork.
Summed up his views, he said:
Premium video works, and it's even better…when you leverage technology and data to make it work even harder.
– James Bayes, Vice President – ANZ, The Trade Desk
