Veteran media executive, Kim Williams, is no stranger to new or unproven ideas. Fifteen years ago, he was involved in bringing video onto mobile phones in his role as chief executive at Foxtel – an idea which garnered its share of detractors.

Connecting inspiration and positivity with conversion is the ambition for social media platform, Pinterest, and it’s building out consumer insights and commerce capabilities in the hopes of delivering it.

The Australian Information Commissioner has progressed a step further in its quest to pursue Facebook for breaches of Australian privacy law after the Federal Court rejected the social media giant’s appeal against a ruling to continue proceedings.

Australian Businessman and Fortescue Metals Group chief, Dr Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest, has launched potentially ground-breaking criminal proceedings against Facebook, alleging the social media giant has committed criminal offences by allowing cryptocurrency scams to be advertised on its platform.

Only one in five Australian consumers believe social media is beneficial for society and four in 10 are concerned about the way companies are using their personal data online.

Consumer merchandise that’s produced well and is both functionally and visually appealing is a solid asset for a brand that harnesses it, says Subway Australia and New Zealand head of marketing, Rodica Titeica.

Non-Fungible Tokens, or NFTs, have become the latest hot digital item and brands are clamouring to embrace them. From community engagement to creative expression, raising funds for not-for-profits, lead generation, campaign promotion and influencer marketing, brand uses cases of NFTs are already wide in scope.

Social is the ecosystem of choice for small businesses, from marketing to gathering inspiration and selling to prospective customers. So creating a social design system that could enable Sendle to live and adapt in this environment was a no brainer for its chief marketing and customer officer, Eva Ross.

As we wave goodbye to the year that was 2021, CMO presents our top 21 stories of the year across CMO Australia based on audience engagement.

Social media sites Twitter and TikTok and have revealed their standout brand campaigns of 2021 from across Australia’s marketing landscape.

Australia’s advertising spend growth is set to continue into 2022, albeit at moderate rates of between 4 to 5 per cent, against a globally recharged media market.

Seven in 10 Australian consumers are likely to buy through social media channels, with livestreams and conversation commerce proving strong prompters for purchase, a new report indicates.

If influencer marketing was the buzz of the last decade, then the creator economy is its successor, supercharged by growing ability for consumers to use social and digital platforms to directly connect with their own communities and audiences. But with such tools to now cut out the middleman, be it media company or advertiser, how do brands fit into this new creative puzzle?

TikTok is dominating the social media platform scene right now at a consumer level. And with that comes a rush of brands looking to get into the game and build engagement through the platform with these far-reaching audiences.

Digital technologies have delivered a host of ways for observing the behaviours of customers and listening in to their conversations. They have also introduced methods for marketers to engage with customers in their natural environment – if they dare.

Building influence and community lies at the heart of Australian beauty brand, Sunny Skin, debuting its first NFT (non-fungible token) collection in the metaverse.

Teaching women basic self-defence moves has been put front and centre in a new TikTok social dance crafted as part of UN Women Australia’s #EmpowerMoves campaign.

With a view of only four out of 36 official social channels, the University of Sydney’s corporate communications team found it impossible to coordinate messaging, content, or measurement and reporting - let alone work strategically with its eight faculty comms teams.

Heightened consumer demand to connect authentically around cultural conversations as well as tentpole TV moments are triggering strong growth in the number of brands investing marketing dollars into Twitter globally and locally.

Samsung Electronics has adopted shoppable augmented reality (AR) as part of its latest marketing efforts to launch new Galaxy devices.

Winning over the millennial generation of consumers and taking advantage of rapid digital take-up has led iconic 90-year-old Australian brand, Dri-Glo, to take its first steps into direct-to-consumer commerce.