In this exclusive “Masters of Media” series, Integral Ad Science (IAS) speaks to the Movers and Shakers of the APAC advertising industry, on all matters digital.
Laura Boatman is the Head of Digital Sydney at Zenith Media Australia.
With a career spanning over 12 years of in-depth experience, Laura specializes in all things digital —Media Planning/Buying, Digital Strategy, Programmatic Strategy, Advertising and Digital Marketing — with a focus on planning and buying PPC and display for clients.
Laura has also spent the last few years working across different digital media agencies, in both UK and Australia.
1. Please tell us about your digital advertising journey and your current role at Zenith
My digital advertising journey began in 2010 when I started out in an independent digital media agency called Agenda21, which was based in the heart of London. I began my career in digital media as the equivalent of a Digital Coordinator and worked my way up to a Digital Director within the company. I will always be grateful to Agenda21 for giving me a valuable jumpstart in the industry – being a small boutique digital agency, my remit was very broad – I started out planning and buying PPC and display, until ‘display’ started to evolve rapidly to cover off the likes of programmatic, online video, mobile, content etc. and moved away from straight up IO display buys. While at Agenda21 I worked very closely with the Ad Ops team, the Data Science team and the SEO team, allowing me to gain exposure to all aspects of digital and develop a really holistic view of the digital world. In 2016, I left London for Sydney and started at Dentsu where I continued on the very linear digital trajectory as a Group Digital Director, before landing the Head of Digital role at Zenith in 2021. In my current role I look after all things digital for the Sydney market, which gives me the depth, variety and the broad exposure to different digital elements that I crave. I also highly value the opportunity that my role gives me to work with some amazing digital talent within the wider Publicis Groupe.
2. What are some of the key 2022 trends that have piqued your interest?
Key trends that have piqued my interest so far this year are all things associated with the Metaverse… cryptocurrency, NFTs, decentralisation, virtual reality.. you name it. I think it’s a fascinating space and something that I am personally very excited about, particularly as I dabble in a bit of crypto-trading in my spare time. I find the sheer amount of money that people are spending on their virtual realities absolutely incredible and I am keen to see how the Metaverse will evolve over the next ten years, including how daily life will adapt accordingly. I am also excited to see how we can bring new and innovative opportunities to brands and help them leverage this space moving forwards.
3. What are some of the initiatives Zenith has undertaken to stay connected with its workforce and propagate for the wellness of its employees in ANZ?
Health and wellbeing is extremely important here at Zenith and we have a number of our own initiatives to ensure that the wellness of our staff is priority. We found that wellbeing initiatives became even more crucial during lockdown and whilst working from home so we introduced things such as ‘Lockdown Lunchtimes’, encouraging staff not to schedule meetings between 1-2pm to encourage people to take a lunch break. We extended Summer Fridays giving staff a 4pm finish on Fridays all year, to allow them to get some additional time away from their desk to recuperate. We also reduced meetings from 60 mins/30 mins to 50 mins/25 mins to allow for breaks between meetings, as well as encouraging no meetings beyond 5pm. We also recruited motivational speakers to provide guidance in this space, such as health and fitness expert, David Lee, who gave us tips on mastering resilience, balance and wellbeing throughout the pandemic.
Connectivity was also key for us during lockdown when we were unable to work together physically. In addition to regular check-ins and virtual social events, we introduced an initiative called ‘Who Am I’ which allowed us to connect nationally. As part of this, each week a different member of staff would introduce themselves so that we could all get to know each other on a more personal level. From a workflow perspective, we utilised ‘The Bench’ which is a centralised workforce hub where we aligned staff who had capacity with projects and tasks from other teams and markets that were under-resourced. During the peak of COVID, this had the dual benefit of not only providing job security to experienced employees and increasing staff efficiencies, but also providing a superior back-up service to our clients where needed. Another way that we stay connected as a national Zenith team is through our annual Growth Summit, where all markets across Australia come together at an all-day conference-style event, where we showcase updates from each specialist capability unit and run team-building activities. We also hold an annual Leadership Summit where leadership teams from each market come together to work on key projects and initiatives for the year ahead.
Finally, being part of the Publicis Groupe means that we also have access to a number of Groupe wide initiatives such as ‘Publicis Liberté’ which allows for flexible working to ensure that our people can maintain a work-life balance by working to a schedule that fits in with their lifestyle. Publicis Groupe’s ‘Work Your World’ initiative gives staff the opportunity to work from anywhere in the world (where there’s a Publicis office) for up to six weeks per year. After the restrictions from the pandemic over the last couple of years, this initiative is extremely appealing. As an expat myself, I will definitely be taking advantage of this one! There are so many wonderful things to name, but mental health is an absolute priority here at Publicis, and we have introduced entitlements such as ‘Wellbeing Leave’, which supports people taking time off for their mental health as well as their physical health which I think is a game changer, and truly reflects the values of the business.
4. According to you, what will enable CTV to become more mainstream for advertisers? What role will its measurement capabilities play to propel CTV advertising?
I think the main barrier to CTV becoming more mainstream is the measurement piece. The CTV landscape is extremely fragmented due to the vast number of different apps, devices, and platforms, which brings with it the challenge of identifying a unified view of the audience. This makes it difficult to accurately measure the incremental reach of CTV advertising, which is a particularly important metric to brands that focus much of their investment on traditional linear TV. Furthermore, the CTV advertising experience is still not as ‘premium’ as linear TV in that there are still some complex issues with accurately controlling the frequency, with BVOD ads often playing multiple times within the same ad break leading to media wastage, despite all accessible controls to buyers being put in place. However, CTV consumption is growing rapidly and has obviously been further accelerated by the pandemic – CTV adoption is projected to reach almost 80% by 2025 in Australia. Therefore it is only a matter of time before CTV advertising investment keeps up with consumer demand and with the industry working on technical solutions to these measurement challenges we should expect the gap to close over the next few years.
5. In your opinion is the industry doing enough to combat the trust and transparency challenges in the digital supply chain?
This topic is certainly a big focus for the industry and as part of the Publicis Groupe we are definitely committed to doing everything we can to improve supply chain transparency. We collaborate with the industry bodies, working closely with the likes of the IAB and the MFA to tackle this industry challenge on a broader scale. I am also personally a part of the MFA Interactive Committee and educating the industry on the digital supply chain challenges and how we can combat them is high on our agenda. I think that leveraging products such as IAS Total Visibility are particularly helpful for allowing agencies and advertisers to quickly and easily understand the quality of the inventory that they are buying and to optimise accordingly to ensure that they are buying quality media in the most cost-efficient manner and therefore reducing media waste. This is certainly a quick win that can be implemented whilst trying to tackle the issue more broadly at an industry level.
6. With brands moving away from keywords and cookies to contextual targeting, how is Zenith approaching this shift?
Our typical approach to this is using Zenith’s Discover, Design and Deploy framework. In the discovery phase, we start by conducting an audit for clients to gauge the impact of the removal of 3rd party cookies on current activity. From there we can understand the most impacted channels and strategies and we can then design and deploy a test and learn roadmap, alongside a corresponding measurement framework, to trial new targeting strategies and benchmark their performance, so that we can transition in to 2023 as smoothly as possible. We have found that the impact to clients varies greatly depending on their business and the category, so we have really had to take a unique and tailored approach for each client. In terms of the resurgence of contextual targeting, it’s come a long way from where it used to be and we are adopting more sophisticated technology to more effectively target people in relevant contextual environments, factoring in things like sentiment and emotion. For example, we use brand suitability technology to ensure that content is not only relevant, brand safe and ‘acceptable’, but actually ‘ideal’ for our clients’ brand identity.
7. Metaverse has become an area of interest for brands, how are agencies exploring this space?
There has been a lot of interest from our clients in this space and the first step for us is really education. The most exciting and also the most challenging thing about digital is the fact that it’s always changing and evolving and therefore we continuously need to be educating and upskilling ourselves, which is a challenge in itself. We have been running education sessions and workshops for our clients educating them about the Metaverse and what it means for advertisers as a first step, and subsequently we will be exploring opportunities for brands, where it makes sense of course! Obviously it’s still a pretty under-developed space in terms of advertiser opportunities, but it’s good to get brands clued up and on the front foot now so that we can jump on any exciting opportunities that may crop up in the near future.
7. What’s your favourite book/podcast/movie and why?
I am not sure that I have a ‘favourite’ book but Brene Brown is up there as one of my favourite authors! I think the ‘Power of Vulnerability’ is a must-read for anyone and it really prompted me to see vulnerability as a strength vs a weakness, which can play out in all aspects of life, both work and personal. Another favourite by Brene Brown is ‘Dare to Lead’. This book has done wonders for me in my career in terms of enhancing my people-management skills and enabling me to effectively lead large teams. I would highly recommend it to any people managers in the industry!
8. What is your advice to the fresh talent in the industry?
I think the industry is a lot less ‘cookie-cutter’ than it used to be – there’s now more room for innovation, unique opinion and pushing boundaries, particularly as technology has evolved so much over recent years enabling us to do so much more. I think it’s all about building your personal brand, which to me means being authentic, and voicing your ideas and unique perspectives, even if they go against the grain or the way things have always previously been done. I think diversity of thinking is key in order to thrive in this industry, so this would be my advice to people new to the industry.
Other stories might be interested in:
– Masters of Media – Vivek Misra, Senior Director, Data Partnerships, The Trade Desk
– Masters of Media – Kerrie Leary, Director of Digital Operations (TAAG)/GDPR at Publicis Media