The Feed

CMOs on 2024: Asahi's Grant McKenzie on the evolution of beer marketing

In an exclusive podcast interview for WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit, Grant McKenzie, Chief Marketing Officer, Europe and International at Asahi, talks to WARC’s Anna Hamill about sports sponsorship, media fragmentation, moving on from gender stereotypes, and the impact of climate change on the beer industry.

• In the current climate, marketers should avoid changing their premium when it's not necessary and be wary of falling into the trap of striving to make products cheaper as this is not always in line with consumer priorities.

Listen to the episode in full here 

Timestamps

01:47 – Grant’s role at Asahi.

02:49 – How is inflation impacting your consumers?

06:28 – How do these pressures affect your decision making process?

09:10 – How is Asahi telling the story of elevated experiences in their marketing?

10:51 – The growth of non-alcohol beer.

14:09 – Evolving approach to targeting.

19:43 – How important is sports sponsorship in your strategy?

27:59 – Should brands comment on political issues?

30:27 – Key challenges brought about by climate change.

32:57 – Do you think marketing plays an important role in telling your sustainability story?

36:51 – Media and tech investment at Asahi.

Further reading

How Heineken is mainstreaming the alcohol-free category

World market for alcoholic drinks

Toolkit: Marketers gear up for a brighter 2024

Despite very real concerns about the economy, the majority of marketers around the world are optimistic and expect business to be better next year than this, according to a new WARC report.

The Voice of the Marketer 2024 is a deep dive into The Marketer’s Toolkit survey data of 1,400+ marketers worldwide.

Key findings

• Marketers are optimistic despite economic worries

Two-thirds (64%) of marketers indicated that economic recession will have the biggest impact on marketing strategies in 2024, while 41% highlighted inflation and the cost-of-living crisis.

Yet almost two-thirds of marketers (61%) expect that business will improve next year and 41% believe that marketing budgets will increase. In Europe and North America, just over a third expect budgets to be higher in 2024 (37% and 35% respectively). In contrast, half of marketers (50%) in APAC expect budgets to grow next year.

It would also appear that more marketers understand that maintaining or even increasing investment in brand marketing can be effective in navigating economic downturns.

• TikTok and YouTube up, X down

Marketers are planning to increase investments in online video (+66% net sentiment), social media +59%), and mobile (+51%), with spend expected to decrease in traditional channels like print (-41%), TV (-16%) and cinema (-13%).

TikTok and YouTube are the platforms expected to receive the biggest increases in marketing spend in 2024. A third of marketers (31%) expect to decrease investments in X, while far fewer anticipate increasing investment in the metaverse (just 11%, compared to 47% last year).

The advice to marketers is to diversify media investments and monitor new opportunities whilst safeguarding a brand’s reputation.

• Brands struggle to keep pace with evolving measurement

Four in ten (39%) marketers globally identified measurement as a top concern for 2024, increasing to 48% among those based in North America. Yet very few (4%) use all available marketing measurement methods in combination (brand lift studies, econometrics/MMM, experiments and attribution) and one-fifth (22%) admitted to not utilising any form of modelling. 

Over half (54%) of marketers view brand metrics (e.g. awareness, consideration, purchase intent) as having the greatest impact on their marketing strategy, above ROI (44%), sales (36%) and market penetration (34%).

The advice to marketers is to evaluate the different measurement tools available and incorporate different measurement techniques for a holistic view of marketing activities. 

A complimentary sample of The Voice of the Marketer 2024 is available to read here. The full report is available to WARC members. It follows the recent release of The Marketer’s Toolkit 2024, a report analysing the five key trends that will disrupt the marketing industry in the coming year: political polarization, the potential of generative AI, masculinity in crisis, “sportswashing”, and community-based sustainability.

Both reports are part of WARC Strategy’s The Evolution of Marketing program, designed to help marketers address major industry shifts to drive effective marketing. A third report, The Future of Media, will be released in January. Complementing the reports, a series of podcasts are also available.

Campbell’s sees off private label

Brands owned by The Campbell Soup Company are gaining share “with modest incremental investment”, according to its CEO. 

What’s happening

“We are seeing more retailers actively returning to Campbell’s brands from private label a year ago,” CEO Mark Clouse explained on an earnings call – and that is “providing an outsized benefit” as the business balances its spending priorities.

“A year ago at Thanksgiving a lot of customers had chosen to go with private label as their lead item,” he said. “We saw that reverse in a material way this year … which was very important for us relative to ensuring that we get off to a good start in the season.”

Why it matters

Consumers’ daily routines have largely returned to their pre-pandemic normal, but the cost of living has not, Bloomberg noted recently: consumers are now spending around a third more on groceries than they were three years ago. 

With price a more crucial element in consumer choice, private label has gained share. But inflation halved between October 2022 and October 2023, meaning more people may return to brands as their first preference. Strong brands that have maintained their marketing investment, like those of Campbell’s, will reap the benefits.

“We are committed to sustaining our marketing and innovation plans,” said Clouse. “This is critical not only to reinforce the value and differentiation of our products, but also to continue to build the long-term equity of our brands.”

Takeaways 

• The CEO reported that over the past four weeks, including Thanksgiving, “we’ve seen improvement in all segments driving overall dollar and unit share gains, including a 0.2 improvement in dollar share as well as a 0.9 improvement in unit share for our very important total soup business”.
• Campbell’s power brands grew net sales by 5%; that was less than a huge 21% increase in the same period last year, but resulted in a 13% growth on a two-year compound annual rate basis.
• “The strength of our power brands was tempered in the quarter by lower-margin partner brands and fresh bakery, as those businesses are somewhat more vulnerable to private label and consumer trade down,” said Clouse.
• He expects a “tailwind” from retailers including Campbell’s brands rather than private labels in their seasonal advertising. 

Sourced from Seeking Alpha, Bloomberg, Statista

[Image: The Campbell Soup Company]

RGM helps Coca-Cola do fewer brands better

The Coca-Cola Company has halved the number of brands it operates – from 400 before the pandemic to 200 now – and is leveraging marketing investment to scale these brands regionally and globally. 

Why brand pruning matters

Fewer brands allows the business to have a more focused approach on its priorities in terms of the countries and categories it operates in. 

Further, it can also be “more effective in the way that we invest every dollar to build those brands across the system through our marketing transformation process globally”, according to Henrique Braun, president of international development, speaking on the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference Call. 

Takeaways 

• Crucial to the success of this approach is the business’s revenue growth management (RGM) capabilities, which “make the revenue flywheel spin faster – having the right brands, having the packaging, price, channel, composition per country, in a way that we can continue to adapt and to win in the different markets”, said Braun.
• In this way, The Coca-Cola Company is seeing the fastest-growing opportunities in developing markets – the capability to generate data and amplify its portfolio “is invariably shorter than the developed markets”, he explained.
• India is an example of this approach, helping sequence the expansion of brands and different packages in the country – and, with a brand like Thums Up, exploring opportunities for regional expansion across Southeast Asia.
• With Coca-Cola expanding into new categories such as coffee and alcohol, there are also opportunities to expand in categories adjacent to core soft drinks – ready-to-drink coffee in China, for example.

Sourced from Seeking Alpha 

[Image: The Coca-Cola Company]

China’s livestreaming moves into real estate

Livestreaming has become a channel for selling huge numbers of everyday products, from clothing to consumer electronics; now the hope is that it can perform a similar feat for China’s depressed housing market.

What’s happening?

• Short-video platform Kuaishou has launched a month-long “national home-buying season” – an online festival which will feature star agents, bargain prices and vouchers to encourage people to buy property, the South China Morning Post reports. 
• A growing interest in buying homes online prompted Kuaishou to set up a real estate brand: its Ideal Home channel was created in June 2022.
• Kuaishou sold US$1.4bn in property last year as Chinese consumers viewed and bought homes through livestreams.

Why livestreaming in China matters

Singles Day sales were up just 2% on the previous year – and much of that was driven by discounts and promotions. But McKinsey notes that while traditional e-commerce was flat, livestreaming grew by around 20% and contributed 20% of the festival’s total sales.

If livestreaming can boost a residential property market – one in which transactions are 45% lower than pre-pandemic, reflecting low levels of consumer confidence – that could have a knock-on effect on the rest of the economy.

But … 

Livestreaming isn’t going to help the 1.5 million people who have paid hugely indebted property developer Evergrande for homes that have yet to be finished.

Evergrande, which has more than $300bn in liabilities, is currently engaged in a debt restructuring plan. If that fails, there are going to be a lot of angry buyers and, potentially, social unrest.

Sourced from South China Morning Post, McKinsey & Company, Financial Times

Royal Mail’s ‘Lighter Delivery’ campaign wins DMA Awards Grand Prix

A personalised campaign from The Creative Consultancy showcasing a more sustainable delivery option from Royal Mail took home the Grand Prix at the DMA Awards 2023 this week.

The campaign

• ‘Lighter Delivery’ targeted senior executives at key retailers, delivering a box within a box via a dancing postman.
• The different sized boxes demonstrated the 50% less carbon emissions produced by Royal Mail postal staff versus rival courier firms.
• Sixty percent of those reached scanned a QR code to visit a landing page, while the sales pipeline opportunity was estimated at 346 times the cost of the campaign activity.

Why Royal Mail’s campaign matters

The campaign showed the powerful impact direct mail can have while also delivering its sustainability message.

You can read the full list of winners on the DMA website.

Sourced from DMA

[Image: DMA]

Advertising boosts business prospects at Colgate-Palmolive

For Colgate-Palmolive, advertising is playing a crucial role in improving brand health metrics and helping deliver 19 consecutive quarters of growth.

Why brand health matters

• “We sell brands, so brand health metrics are probably the most important indicator about the long-term prospects of the business,” Panos Tsourapas, group president, Europe and Developing Markets, told the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference Call. 
• These are improving in most parts of the world, he reported, “and this is the result of our increased advertising spending and, through our investment in data and analytics, through the improvement of the efficiency of this investment” – investment which helps support innovation and pricing.

Driving growth 

• In Africa/Eurasia, “we are growing market share in every single market in the region”, Tsourapas said. “This is not a growth driven by temporary pricing, it’s a growth driven by focus behind the brands, advertising investment, innovation and consistent and superior executional ability.”
• Another example: Colgate’s share of the toothpaste market in Brazil is growing, “despite the fact that some of our competitors are very aggressive in pricing – it’s a key indicator on the health of our model.”
• In Latin America, the focus is on premiumisation and moving away from competing at low price points. “ Our commercialization plans, our advertising, is working very well and our execution is best-in-class – and this is reflected in the results.”

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

[Image: Colgate-Palmolive]

Why brand assets matter for B2B brands

B2B marketers need to think more broadly about where they can build their brand, and part of that involves developing distinctive brand assets, in the same way that many B2C brands do. 

That’s the view of professor Jenni Romaniuk of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute.

Context 

B2B brands tend to regard a logo as sufficient branding and to neglect things like distinctive brand assets, she told the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Podcast. 

• That’s partly because such assets are more difficult to create in a B2B context (although Salesforce’s Astro mascot has shown how it can be done), and partly because they tend to be built through the sort of broad-reach marketing that much of the B2B sector doesn't do. 
• Further, there may be an assumption that buyers will do a lot of research themselves, making such assets largely unnecessary. 
• B2B marketers have “a narrow perspective of what their distinctive assets could be and how they’re used,” said Romaniuk. They’re loathe to do anything that might risk not being taken seriously as a business. 

Why B2B might need distinctive assets 

• The B2B buying audience may be smaller than the B2C one, but you still have to build memories among a set of buyers who will change over time. And it’s rarely just one person making the decision – there will be various influencers within an organisation as well.
• Additionally, the range of media available to B2B marketers requires branding that is adaptable to the various options; you can’t assume a logo will be suitable for all environments.
• The shift to digital has broken the personal relationships that used to exist between buyer and salesperson. “You might only talk to a person if you’ve got a problem or a specific requirement – then, what you’ve built up in people’s brains becomes even more important.” 
• Having a distinctive asset (and don’t confuse asset building with asset using, Romaniuk cautioned) can help free up people’s brains to focus on specific messages as they’re not having to process the brand. “The memory building that you’re doing in your communications is separate from the brand building that you’re doing in your communications,” she added.

How to take action 

• Do an audit of competitors to see what assets they are using and then think about how to “counter-program against that”.
• Develop a distinctive asset palette – a ‘menu’ of assets that you can select from as required for any particular environment. 
• Review your own communications and get rid of inconsistencies.
• Audit employees to see what branding opportunities you may be missing on platforms like LinkedIn. “Anytime you have an opportunity to communicate the brand – attention is so precious, exposures are so few – you should leap at it with every resource you have available.”

Sourced from LinkedIn for B2B Growth Podcast

Clarity needed for eco-labels on food to be more effective

Eco-labels on food products with environmental messages do encourage consumers to buy and pay more for items, but their effectiveness is diluted when the label isn’t trusted or it’s confusing, a study in China finds. 

Moreover, the environmental messages were found to have equal signalling power as those about health and safety, indicating that talking up environmental benefits could give brands a competitive advantage if they’re trusted. 

Why eco-labels matter 

Despite their use worldwide and increasingly as part of marketing campaigns, it is estimated that only about 20% of consumers, who are reported to be environmentally conscious, actually purchase eco-labelled products. Furthermore, it’s estimated that about 147 food eco-label schemes exist globally, but consumer awareness of these remains low.

Additionally, the information conveyed by eco-labels can be confusing and complex, causing ambiguity and misunderstanding among consumers about their benefits. As such, it’s important to know how this might directly or indirectly affect marketing efforts.

Takeaways

• The study found that consumers with higher environmental concerns are willing to pay more for eco-labelled food products, while the same is true of those who are more aware of eco-labels.
• Being environmentally concerned and aware of eco-labels and their claims is not enough to convince consumers to act – you need trust (a belief in the labels’ integrity or validity) to reduce the ‘attitude-behaviour gap’. 
• The environmental benefits of eco-labels hold equal signalling power to messages about ‘health’ and ‘safety’, suggesting these should be communicated clearly. 
• The presence of children in households has a ‘significant effect’ on consumers' willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products. This makes a strong case for consumer segmentation for eco or green companies. 
• The study authors suggest that clear information will help with authenticity and enhance consumer trust in eco-labels.

Key quote 

“...[G]lobally, consumers are increasingly considering environmental issues in their purchasing decisions. Along with the continuous rise in eco-consciousness and green consumption in recent years, consumers are found to pay more attention to the social and environmental values, thus putting functional values of products at the back burner” – study authors, Modelling the antecedents of consumers’ willingness to pay for eco-labelled food products.

About the study 

The study focused on four popular eco-labels in the Chinese food industry: the Chinese Environmental Protection Label, the Chinese National Organic Product Certification, the No Harm Agriculture Food Label, and the Safety Quality label.

Respondents (a total of 333) were asked to what extent they believe purchasing products with these eco-labels were good for the environment. The average age range of the sample was 30 years, with 55% of respondents indicating that they had children under the age of 18 living with them.

Sourced from the International Journal of Consumer Studies 

P&G undertakes ‘superiority’ reset

FMCG giant Procter & Gamble is resetting its ‘superiority’ criteria in order to avoid inertia, according to its CFO. 

Context

• P&G has for several years now been focused on a superiority strategy, whereby innovative products are backed by investment in marketing to deliver value for both consumers and retailers. 
• “We were very concerned about inertia that could set in … when we’ve gone from 30% of our product portfolio being superior to now 80% being superior,” CFO Andre Schulten told the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference.

The reset 

• Accordingly, the company has decided to “sharpen the criteria for what we consider superior” in the categories in which it operates. 
• “We [have] basically reset that 80% superiority down to between 20% and 30%, depending on the category and the region,” said Schulten. “And we’ve introduced incremental criteria into the innovation and the consumer design process to sharpen the thinking in each of the categories.”

What it means 

• Products should be “so superior that when you use them for the first time, you are clear that it’s the best possible solution you could purchase,” Schulten explained. 
• “That will trigger the desire to share that experience, it will trigger repeat loyalty, but it will also trigger what we believe is social media buzz and, therefore, word of mouth.”
• Environmental sustainability is being “integrated into the superiority vectors” that consumers consider; given a choice of a product that works for them or one that is more environmentally sustainable, “they will prefer the solution that has both elements without a trade-off”.

Putting it all together 

“Our belief is that the combination of superiority when combined with pricing yields a better outcome from a volume standpoint – and that’s what we’re seeing,” Schulten said.

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

A quarter of open-web programmatic spending is wasteful or unproductive

Client-side marketers can pick up $22bn in efficiency gains by rethinking their approach to programmatic spending, confirms a study from the ANA.

The ANA’s Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study* is a comprehensive follow-up to its First Look report published in June, which flagged a potential $20bn in savings. 

Key findings 

• Transaction costs (primarily DSP and SSP fees) account for 29% of the ad dollar.
• Loss of media productivity costs (non-viewable and IVT impressions as well as non-measurable for viewability and Made for Advertising ad spend) account for 35% of the ad dollar.
• Depending on the levels of agency fees (a transaction cost) and brand safety (a loss of media productivity cost) – both beyond the scope of the ANA project – the study suggests that less than 36 cents of every dollar effectively reaches the consumer.

Recommendations 

• A re-evaluation of Made for Advertising websites could save marketers $10bn. 
• A further $12bn comes from a raft of other recommendations, including: 
• website optimization/reduction – use inclusion lists;
• buying through direct inventory supply paths;
• having direct contracts with primary supply chain partners (DSPs, SSPs, and ad verification vendors);
• having an SSP optimization strategy;
• understanding information asymmetry in programmatic advertising and taking more active stewardship of media investments; 
• understanding when an agency is purchasing as an agent versus selling;
• inventory on a non-transparent basis or that has been acquired as a principal;
• keeping media agency contracts updated;
• understanding the types of Private Marketplaces (PMPs) bought from and considering allocating more budget towards Open Marketplaces (OMPs).
• improving transparency by optimizing measurability and viewability;
• having a proactive plan to fight invalid traffic (IVT);
• leveraging log-level data;
• aligning incentives with goals, measuring and optimizing effectiveness.

Analysis 

Each of the recommendations varies in complexity and applicability, meaning each needs to be understood and considered, says Pranay Damji, programmatic and ad-tech consultant for ID Comms. Implementing an inclusion list is fairly quick and easy, for example, while accessing log-level data from every ad tech vendor across an advertiser’s supply chain is much more complex, costly, and time consuming.

“The real challenge for advertisers is not what to do [the report provides plenty of guidance in that regard], the challenge is to know where to start,” he told WARC.

* Twenty-one marketers and 12 supply chain companies participated in the study. Total ad spend was $123m with 35.5 billion impressions. Qualitative interviews supplemented the quantitative work.

Sourced from ANA

Brands can tap India’s e-sport sector

E-sport is gaining ground in India, and while it’s not about to challenge cricket as the nation’s sporting passion, it could soon overtake some other traditional sports in popularity.

Context 

In India, as elsewhere, gaming has become a mainstream activity. In parallel, e-sports consumption has grown, as games publishers invest to maximise interest. But one of the biggest games, BGMI (Battlegrounds Mobile India), was temporarily banned by the government amid security concerns because players were interacting with servers in China.

That was a problem for the sector, as the founder of e-sports streaming platform Loco told afaqs!: “What cricket is for Indian sports culture, BGMI is for Indian e-sports culture.” 

Why e-sport in India matters

With the lifting of the ban earlier this year, and the development of newer game categories in the interim, e-sports have picked up and viewership of tournaments is reported to be third in sport overall. Brands have a unique opportunity to reach and engage with this audience. 

Takeaways 

• There are some 440 million online gamers in India, with around a quarter of that number playing frequently. 
• A 2023 survey by Loco found almost half of respondents spent over an hour per game-playing session and that there is a growing willingness to pay for better quality gaming experiences. 
• Loco reports success with pay-per-view e-sports tournaments, but adds that frequency needs to be managed carefully and that leagues and franchises are the way forward.
• Mumbai is a hub for gaming houses: gaming companies find it easier to cut brand deals in the city, plus the presence of servers of popular games reduces latency time.

Key quote

“I believe, in some years, e-sports could surpass the viewership numbers of Kabaddi as it continues to solidify its status … e-sports can become the second largest sport in India in 3-5 years” – Ashwin Suresh, founder, Loco.

Sourced from afaqs!, Economic Times

The future of games is social

Games are the social networks of the future, Stuart Canfield, CFO at Electronic Arts, believes. 

“They are social, expressive, they need people to connect and share experiences,” he told a Nasdaq investor conference call. “You only have to think about social media three or four years ago, and how games are slowly navigating to that path,” he added. 

Context 

While gamers these days come from all ages, it is Gen Z and Gen Alpha who will determine the sector’s future direction. “They’re going to be the largest generations in history, they are the most socially expressive, they are the most engaged and they take entertainment as their primary form,” Canfield noted. 

Why gaming matters

Gaming is about far more than play, Canfield observed: “seventy-five percent of our audience today engage outside of play. They’re either watching, reading, writing, commenting, creating.” 

The aim for EA is to harness that community, to keep it engaged and to monetise it in different ways – including advertising and partnerships with iconic brands such as Marvel and Star Wars.

Takeaways

• The big titles are getting bigger and more time than ever is spent in games. 
• Mobile is an increasingly important platform for the industry, enabling players like EA “to continue to scale and reach in certain geographies, which represent an under-penetration for us today”.
• Creating opportunities for user-generated content “both enriches the engagement and a community and, by default, creates economic and monetisation opportunities for us”, said Canfield.

Sourced from Seeking Alpha

[Image: EA]

Aggressive pricing gives Temu advantage over competition

Temu, Pinduoduo’s international arm, is the Chinese e-commerce company with ambitions across western markets that go beyond its local rivals. 

Why Temu matters

Since launching in the US in September 2022, Temu’s international expansion has continued apace in response to an e-commerce slowdown in China. 

A costly exercise for the company, this drive has been a boon for digital media as Temu and rival Shein are thought to have hugely driven up spending on Meta.

Pinduoduo-owned Temu, in particular, is estimated to have spent $300m on launching its brand in the US in the first nine months of 2023, according to LatePost. 

What’s going on

The Wall Street Journal reports on the market activity that has seen the company steal the crown of China’s most valuable e-commerce firm from Alibaba on the back of soaring revenues up 94% year-on-year. 

• Known for low prices, its relationship with manufacturers has allowed it to cater to price-sensitive Chinese customers. 
• Its aggressive pricing, an advantage it enjoys over Alibaba’s third-party marketplace-focused Tmall, is helping it grow in new markets while following a similar path to profitability as in its native market. 
• The trouble is that the costs of doing business are much higher elsewhere, with vital aspects like delivery and online marketing significantly more expensive outside China, especially as it begins to compete with Shein in the US for the same price-sensitive dollar.
• It’s not going to be easy. The rise of platforms like Shein that sell at extremely low prices has drawn some scrutiny as to the ethics of the products sold on these platforms. It’s likely that this will only intensify as they move into the mainstream.

Sourced from the Wall Street Journal, WARC, Nikkei Asia, CNBC

Creating cultural advantage with local brand stories

With Gen Z sceptical of corporations, brands need to level up to attract, engage or retain them as employees or customers, while enhancing creativity and innovation to tell brand stories that are authentic and culturally relevant.

Why cultural advantage matters

Creativity and storytelling are necessary for a powerful brand story, but marketers also need high-quality input that recognises cultural nuances – not old constructs or outdated themes and tropes – in order to create an unparalleled advantage.

Takeaways

• Culture is not a gimmick, and the right mindset will guide you to be inspired by culture and how your brand can contribute to it.
• Brand custodians have to be self-aware about limitations when gathering inputs for strategic/creative development processes.
• Be cognisant that convening cross-functional teams requires extra time to acclimate to different working style or thought process.

^{[Image: Raimond Klavins on Unsplash]}

Amazon bags Aussie cricket rights 

From January, Amazon Prime will have the broadcast rights in Australia for all men’s and women’s International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments for the next four years. 

Why it matters

The rights deal represents a major shift in the broadcasting landscape, as it is the most significant sports deal ever to go to a streaming service without an attached free-to-air partner, said the Sydney Morning Herald.

It’s a move reminiscent of Sky’s acquisition of cricket broadcast rights in the UK during the 1990s, which made immediate financial sense but which, its critics argued, endangered the long-term future of the sport by taking it out of the public eye. That won’t matter much to advertisers who will still be able to tap into a particular audience. 

Context

• Amazon’s deal, the value of which has not been disclosed, covers a total of 448 live games between 2024 and 2027. It is the fourth major broadcaster of cricket to Australian audiences, and the first that is entirely online.

• The announcement comes just days after the government said that major sporting events should be available on free-to-air services. 
• “All Australians regardless of where they live, or what they earn, should have the opportunity to enjoy free TV coverage of iconic sporting events,” said communications minister Michelle Rowland.
• More than 2.1 million Aussie cricket fans tuned in to see the national team beat India in the recent ICC World Cup Final, including 1.6 million on the free-to-air Nine channel. 

Sourced from Guardian, Sydney Morning Herald, Cricket Australia, The Full Toss
^{[Image: Cricket Australia]}

Brands will have to explain their green disposal claims

UK consumers are broadly accepting of green disposal claims in ads, but new research shows how little they understand the differences between terms such as ‘compostable’ and ‘biodegradable’. 

A qualitative study* by the Advertising Standards Authority examined the understanding of green disposal claims in advertising and found that there is a risk consumers have an oversimplified understanding of the terms used and how waste is disposed of.

Why green terminology matters

Ultimately, it’s all about transparency. Marketers may reach for a word like ‘biodegradable’ to reinforce their brand’s green packaging credentials, but if their understanding isn’t the same as consumers’, then confusion – or worse – can result. 

Participants expressed anger and frustration when they learned that ‘biodegradable’ could refer to an unlimited timescale and that some products can release toxins upon degrading – not what many had initially thought as they equated the term with ‘compostable’.

‘Compostable’ was also widely misunderstood, generating a negative response when it was explained that such packaging needs to be taken to a council facility rather than put in a domestic compost bin.

“Businesses need to work a lot harder to explain the difference,” Miles Lockwood, director of complaints and investigations at the ASA, told the Guardian. 

Takeaways

• People are proud of their efforts and see waste management as a way of “doing their bit” for the environment.  
• Participants were most focused on how they dispose of waste at home, and felt it was unfair to ask them to do more outside the home, such as taking recycling to specific drop-off points. 
• There were widespread calls for stronger transparency about the length of time a product that’s described as ‘biodegradable’ takes to degrade, as well as specific disposal risks.  
• Participants also emphasised the importance of having clearer information on the disposal of product parts, as well as where products need to be taken to be responsibly thrown away.

* Consumer Understanding of Green Disposal Claims in Ads

Sourced from ASA