Nine Fairfax merger rocks industry | Ten deals with pharma debacle | How News' paywalls succeeded | Why banks need to transform their marketing | 33 new jobs | Producer bails from Macquarie after 3 months

[View Newsletter Online]( [Mumbrella Newsletter][Mumbrella Newsletter]( Final days to save over $2100 on Mumbrella marketing summit tickets Book your [Annual Pass]( by July 31 to get a transferrable ticket to all eight Mumbrella marketing summits for just $2999. The pass will save you over $2100 on standard price tickets, or an additional $1200 off earlybird rates, which is the best ticket offer you’ll find anywhere. But hurry, these prices won’t last long. [Book now.]( News [Nine and Fairfax Media to merge businesses]( One of the biggest moves in the Australian media history is underway, with Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media set to merge businesses. Nine announced the news on the Today Show this morning, telling the audience the deal would conclude by the end of 2018. It is the biggest proposal to come out of the media reforms – which include the repeal of the two out of three and 75% media ownership rules, since they were passed late last year. [READ MORE »]( Opinion [Fairfax - Where it all went right]( Today’s blockbuster merger between Nine Entertainment Co and Fairfax Media will radically change the Australian media landscape. In a piece first written prior to the announcement, for Saturday’s “Best of the Week” email, Mumbrella’s Tim Burrowes examines how Fairfax Media came back from the critical list. [READ MORE »]( News [Nine, News Corp and the NRL join Mumbrella Publish conference lineup]( Nicholas Gray, CEO of News Corp’s The Australian, is the first speaker revealed for a session on publishign funding models to take place at Mumbrella’s annual Publish conference this September. In the session, three of the industry’s senior leaders will discuss their various reader revenue solutions, why the model has been chosen, what the reception has been and what size of audience they have managed to build. Once each speaker has provided a rundown of their reader revenue model, the audience will be given the opportunity to decide who has the best model of the three in a real-time vote. [READ MORE »]( Features [Fairfax and Nine merger draws 177 years of Australian media history to a close]( The Nine and Fairfax merger sees the end of the Fairfax family’s 177-year association with Australian media, writes Mumbrella’s Paul Wallbank. When John Fairfax purchased the Sydney Morning Herald in 1841, Fairfax became a national company. It went on to launch the Australian Financial Review in 1953 and cemented its broadsheet portfolio with the acquisition of Melbourne Age publisher, David Syme & Co, in 1983. [READ MORE »]( Features [Why News Corp’s regional and local paywalls are holding strong]( It’s been seven years since News Corp owned mastheads began rolling out subscriptions. Now, local and regional titles are behind a freemium paywall. Mumbrella’s Zoe Samios asks News Corp’s Damian Eales why the model is working. The arrival of a local newspaper at my doorstep always feels nostalgic. My first memories of receiving a weekly title involved cutting clippings out and pasting them into my primary school workbook in an attempt to show my teachers what was going on in my community. [READ MORE »]( News [Weight-loss company pulls The Bachelor ad deal]( The parent company of a weight-loss drug has pulled the plug on plans to advertise during The Bachelor. Inova Pharmaceuticals, which distributes the prescription-only weight-loss drug Duromine in Australia, had been planning on running ads during Ten’s dating show promoting messages about weight loss. But it insists it never intended to tie the messages directly to Duromine. [READ MORE »]( SUPPORTED [No longer a ‘little island’ – how content marketing found its place in the world]( Following on from the recent Mumbrella Awards, the winner and nominees of Best Content Marketing Strategy discuss how the medium is evolving, where brands are still going wrong and what’s next on the horizon. At first glance, the winning campaign for Best Content Marketing Strategy at the Mumbrella Awards seems a tad too ambitious to be considered a mere content marketing strategy. ‘Born This Way’, for car oil brand Nulon, comprised a series of 32 videos and was executed over an 18-month period. The man behind the project, The Edge Agency ECD Matt Batten, explains it was a decision made because car nuts tend to be ravenous for information. [READ MORE »]( News [Banks won’t have any young customers in 10 years unless they transform their marketing: Mediacom]( Financial institutions risk completely losing their hold on the youth market as their marketing efforts fail to keep pace with evolving market trends, Mediacom’s global ECD and head of Mediacom Beyond Advertising, Gemma Hunter, has warned. The source of the problem, she said, is poor advice being dished out by partners and agencies, as well as the bureaucratic layers within banks. [READ MORE »]( Opinion [It is time for agencies to reject racist clients and put ethics before revenue]( A toxic client will not only damage an agency’s reputation and credibility, but also bring team morale down, so agencies must fight against unethical behaviour even if it means giving up business – says Lina Marican. I have been closely following the Papa John’s public relations crisis over the past weeks – not for the company’s response to it, but to see how agencies around the brand have reacted. [READ MORE »]( Opinion [What could a My Health Record data breach look like?]( As security concerns around the government’s online My Health Record scheme continue to grow, Queensland University of Technology’s Cassandra Cross considers what a data breach might look like in this crossposting from The Conversation. Last week marked the start of a three-month period in which Australians can opt out of the My Health Record scheme before having an automatically generated electronic health record. [READ MORE »]( News [Beau Ryan exits Macquarie Sports Radio after three months]( The newly-launched Macquarie Sports Radio has lost one of its breakfast hosts, with NRL star Beau Ryan leaving the company after just three months. Macquarie Media has confirmed Ryan, who was announced as part of the revamped station’s lineup three months ago, will not be returning. [READ MORE »]( News [Banks shouldn't expect love from customers says Volt Bank co-founder]( Banks shouldn’t be expecting love from their customers, instead they should focus on providing a good service and knowing what customers need, co-founder and deputy CEO at Volt Bank, Luke Bunbury, said. “Many institutions have actually got it wrong, we shouldn’t expect customers to love us because that is just the wrong emotion to pair with your financial services provider.” [READ MORE »]( SUPPORTED [Trust: shaken, but heard in the latest PWC media outlook]( In a year of unexpected shake-ups, break-ups and make-ups, PwC’s Entertainment & Media Outlook 2018-2022 brought some home truths into the room: trust will define the market for the next four years. Halfway through and 2018 has already swerved out of its lane. Revelations from the Royal Commission into banking have shattered consumer confidence, the unsteady wake of Brexit has left the UK bruised and a surprise meeting between the US President and the North Korean Supreme Leader has built tentative talks of nuclear disarmament between the two long-term enemies. [READ MORE »]( Opinion [Adapting your brand's tone of voice for audio is a must]( In the new era of voice assistants and endless podcasts, getting your audio brand strategy right is more important than ever before, writes Core’s Hannah-Louise Dunne. Not since the halcyon days of pirate radio has aural storytelling caused such a stir. [READ MORE »]( News [Brand loyalty is dead, says WE Buchan's general manager]( Brand loyalty is dead and the focus for marketers in the finance industry should be on making sure customers want to hear from finance brands again, WE Buchan’s national general manager, Gemma Hudson, has told a room of marketers. Speaking at Mumbrella’s Finance Marketing Summit, Hudson said: “This idea of brand loyalty as we’ve long played around with is certainly quite dead and it’s actually no longer about loyalty. [READ MORE »]( SUPPORTED [How to win this year’s all-new NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards]( Long-standing judge Steve D’Alessandro explains why marketers and media professions are missing out if they forget multicultural audiences. Steve D’Alessandro, a judge at this year’s NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Awards, remembers a time when Australia wasn’t a country known for its diversity. [READ MORE »]( News [Seven's The Single Wives falls out of top 20 in Wednesday's TV ratings]( Seven’s latest dating program The Single Wives has shed 32,000 viewers since it launch last week with 375,000 metro viewers. Hosted by radio personality Fifi Box, last night’s episode of The Single Wives saw 343,000 metro viewers tune in and did not make the top 20 programs according to OzTAM’s overnight preliminary metro ratings. [READ MORE »]( Opinion [To grow your brand, think like a bonsai tree]( Admit it: you’re probably not going to work with your current company from the rest of your life. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about the brand in the long term, writes Bohemia Group’s Victor Condogeorges. You work on a brand right now, but that brand will probably be around a lot longer than you’ll be working on it. Simple, right? The roots of this realisation are deeper than you might think, and what it means may change the way you appreciate your day-to-day. [READ MORE »]( News [Vanessa Ballauff joins Our Friends Electric as brand director]( Engagement agency Our Friends Electric (OFE) has appointed Vanessa Ballauff to the newly created role of brand director. Ballauff joins the agency from sports, events, media and fashion company IMG where she was the sponsorship and clients services director for more than three years. [READ MORE »]( News [Undergraduates challenged to create a high-impact campaign for Nestle in IAA Big Idea contest]( Marketing, advertising, media and communications undergraduate students are being called upon to enter the International Advertising Association (IAA Australia) Big Idea challenge for 2018. This year’s contest will see students compete to create a high-impact campaign for Nestle’s Uncle Tobys Plus brand. [READ MORE »]( News [How Bitcoin led Fred Schebesta to see the future of marketing]( The future of marketing can be seen in the fast paced cryptocurrency market where an email is as old fashioned as sending a letter, says HiveEx cofounder Fred Schebesta. Schebesta told the Mumbrella Finance Marketing Summit how his revelation on how fast marketing has become came when setting up the cryptocurrency section of his comparison site, Finder.com. [READ MORE »]( News [News Corp sells majority share in Diakrit after two years]( News Corp has sold its majority stake in digital real estate marketing business, Diakrt, after two years. In 2016, the publisher confirmed a major shareholding in the business, which creates visualisation tools and digital content for the real estate industry. [READ MORE »]( News [Starts at 60 appoints new COO and commercial director for travel]( Starts at 60 has named Amena Reza and Wendy Harch as chief operating officer and commercial director for travel respectively. Reza was previously the CEO and CFO of ML Design, a role which she held until January this year. Reza is also a committee members for the Property Council of Australia, a board director for RSPCA Queensland and a director of Zonta Club of Brisbane City Heart. [READ MORE »]( News [The Royal Institution of Australia to take over Cosmos Magazine]( Cosmos Magazine will be published by charity The Royal Institution of Australia, after five years under the ownership of two Melbourne scientists. The title, which was previously owned by Luna Media and run by Wilson Da Silva, was sold to Australia’s chief scientist Dr Alan Finkel and Dr Elizabeth Finkel in 2013. [READ MORE »]( Sponsored Post Automotive Marketing Summit is just two weeks away - book now [Mumbrella’s Automotive Marketing Summit]( is just two weeks away. Join industry leaders including Caroline Laird from Google, to learn how you can better understand your customers and gain valuable insights from data. Find out how to effectively target the right customers. [Book now](to join your peers and get data driving your marketing strategy. F.Y.I. • [Coca-Cola launches Coca-Cola Orange No Sugar]( • [GHO promotes Ryan Chao to executive creative director and James Legge to executive strategy director]( • [Nine’s The Block to air on August 5]( • [Nine’s True Story with Hamish & Andy returns on August 7]( • [Ooh Media’s Unmissable Awards open with $2m prize]( • [Hawaiian Airlines and SurfStitch announce sales partnership in Australia]( • [South Australian Film Corporation announces two executive hires]( • [Aboriginal Health TV partners with Tonic Health Media]( • [2018 ARIA Awards to run on Nine network]( • [Pollen creates website for Nine’s Future Women]( • [AACTA reveals nominees for its 8th Awards]( Jobs [20 new jobs]( MOST DISCUSSED [The Monkeys' first Australia Post ad showcases caring posties and community support]( [Eight male media personalities to front Ten's Pilot Week]( [Yoghurt Digital wins R.M. Williams' digital account]( [Nine and Fairfax Media to merge businesses]( mumbrella.com.au Sent By Focal Attractions Pty Ltd 46-48 Balfour Street, Chippendale, NSW, 2008, Australia If you would rather not receive this newsletter, you can [unsubscribe]( or [manage subscriptions here.](