The Digital Picnic

The good news continues to come out of TDP HQs, and we come here today bearing more internal promotion’y news! Our phenomenal Account Director, ??Rachel Rosser has now been promoted to Group Digital Director effective immediately > upon her return to TDP following parental leave… and not a MOMENT TOO SOON [in our humble opinion]. Rach has been with us for 4+ years now, and today’s announcement will be her 3rd promotion in the x4+ years she’s been with us… such is the quality of her technical expertise, leadership capabilities, above and beyond curiosity, and the way that not only our clients, but our TEAM, just *get* around her. In agency-land? She’s got that much-needed “Midas touch”, i.e she can turn underperforming departments who aren’t hitting targets… into some of our BEST performing departments via the sheer care she has for this industry, her clients, and her team alone. She’s the science of leadership. In human form. And everything she touches? Benefits from that, immediately. We could say so much more, but the only thing our beloved Rach hates more than underperforming paid ads results? … it’s praise [lol]. Congratulations Rach: Group Digital Director looks *so* good on you… and our team are looking forward to even more of your leadership and mentoring, right down to the advice being “if it’s a hard meeting? Bring crayons to it.? It immediately makes the hard > better”. We are so lucky to have you on our team [??].

We have some bluddy-delicious-news to share with y’all, and that is that we’ve LOCKED IN an MC for our Comeback Conference… and it’s none other than AZURE Antoinette. I KNOW. WE KNOW. WE CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT. [whole team *screamed* when the news came through, if we’re bein’ honest]. Azure is a commissioned poet, actress, TED Speaker, GRAMMYTM Considered recording artist, entrepreneur, and DEI thought leader & corporate advisor. She was even named the "Maya Angelou of the millennial generation," in the highly acclaimed Forbes Most Powerful Women in the World Issue. Since being discovered in 2010 by Oprah Winfrey on the World Stage of the Minerva Conference hosted by former first Lady Maria Shriver, Azure has written for, and shared a stage with, bestselling author of Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert and opened for Lady Gaga. She’s the current spokesperson for Janssen Pharmaceuticals and the MoretoMS Campaign, and is a 13-year survivor of Multiple Sclerosis, which has lead to her having the strongest passion for patient advocacy and living well with MS. Amongst her many commitments she has previously served as ambassador and/or spokesperson for Clean & Clear, The GAP, and Beats by Dr. Dre, among others, and commissioned to write for the Girl Scouts of America, Johnson & Johnson, California Arts Council, American Cancer Society's benefit Art 4 Life, The Documentary Group, and many more. Azure even made her acting debut this past April as the first character to portray her disease on screen and represent the LGBT+ community on the critically acclaimed hit series Grey’s Anatomy in its 17th season as Irene Hayes! Off screen, you can find Azure planning storytelling strategy with her team at her parent firm TELLER Ventures Ltd. Some way, somehow, she has managed to find time in amongst ALL OF THE GD ABOVE to spend x2 days with us > honouring community, and holding the safest space for all of us as we gather at MCEC to do our Comeback THANG. Thank you for saying yes, Az. ?? Haven’t booked yet, and got nothing on this weekend? We have TWO SPOTS LEFT! Oh, and the cut-off for ticket sales is 3pm Friday. RUN. https://lnkd.in/gZdEUe6M

Sometimes we’re pitching work to clients and they’re worried about our Indie agency’s size [we’re a humble team of x24], and we say to that; → Our small’ness is our superpower: you’ll never see us opening up additional offices in the US, UK, et. al because we are *passionately* “indie” when it comes to “agency”. → Why? “Small” moves faster, operates more efficiently and can focus on the bigness of ideas instead of its own bigness. → We do really big things for our clients with our ‘small’. … but small does something else in lieu of ‘bigness’, and that’s in terms of team tbh.? And we think this is - hands down - one of the most advantageous things about working for an agency that’s Indie in size.? It’s the way we rally around each other. Because we can. Because we know each other. Because we know each other *well*. Because small remains humble. And because small remains caring. One of our team member’s nephews wanted to complete his Cubeez set, and you better believe we had that Enderman and Sheep within x24 hours [lol]... because our Founder went to a local buy/swap/sell FB page and specifically asked. An iconic sidenote? Props to our passionate food scientist, Raj, who is SPOT ON with the “parental pester campaign” call, also [lol].

The challenge? … taking on the paid ads activity for an account [client, and *friend*] that we absolutely ADORE [oh, hi Kylie!], and overhauling their activity so that the $550 CPA [cost per acquisition] that WERE paying > wouldn’t be what they continued to pay. $550 for a lead? … not even qualified? Australia says no. And TDP’s team of Kind Geniuses?? say “f*ck no!”. [lol]. And we know what you’re thinking; “c’mon TDP.? You surely can’t save an account that’s doing > $550 CPA.? IMPOSS!”.? Others would even say, and *did* say, “why even bother with ads if you’re paying $550 for a lead that might not even be qualified/any good [like, that’s a LOT o’ cheddar ??]. Our toxic trait, tho? We love a challenge, and the challenger? “Get leads that will convert for a sustainable CPA”. And, “we did it, Joe!” [and are going to do it, and seriously SCALE!], because look at this; ?? an 84.01% cheaper CPA ?? and an increase in conversions by 620.75% ?? As well as much more leads actually converting → Need some specialist support in your corner this year? … we’ve got availabilities for Q1 onwards. ? Head to the link below to fill out a short form > tee up a zilch obligation phone chat to discuss whether or not outsourcing your paid ads activity is the right move for your business [we live for those chats, and always bring the integrity whether it’s a resounding “YES!” or more of a “no, not right now, because you need to instead focus on x,y or z” etc.]. https://lnkd.in/gEPAHt9

AI in marketing? It’s happening. FAST. Canva’s latest State of Marketing & AI report just dropped, and the stats are WILD: 94% of marketers now have a dedicated AI budget, and 75% expect that budget to grow. ?? Safe to say, AI is reshaping the marketing world…but how are you personally adapting? Vote below & let’s chat in the comments.??

Psst… said with love, but, uh, we have FIVE tickets left at our conference kicking off in just x9 days… and we’d *hate* for anyone to miss out who was j-u-s-t about to complete that add to cart experience, and secure their spot within the LAST FIVE tickets available. Some of your favourite TDP’ers? Up on stage. And the smartest marketing friends of ours? Also on stage. The topics? Transformative. The community? Typically TDP? [so: phenomenal]. The environment? Truly inclusive. … this is one of those conferences that goes live, and when you watch it go live from home you think to yourself “gahd-damnit, I should’a got that ticket”. S’ok though. You still can. With x1 [and a bit] weeks to go. We cannot WAIT to conference with y’all! https://lnkd.in/gZdEUe6M

… something you might not know about our Founder, Cherie? She always says “one of the best things about deliberately remaining “Indie agency” in size… is that I always know when anyone on my team is having a sh*t day, and then I know I’ve got the ability to do something really small - but meaningful - in order to fix it”. On this occasion, it was some fave bikkies from a café below our offices… and a little voucher to cover that person’s sushi lunch [her lunchtime fave]. Indie agencies have their downfalls, absolutely, but you can always guarantee you’ll be working somewhere where the person you work for *intimately* knows you/can read you/gives so-much-of-a-sh*t-about-you… and can drop a little sushi lunch on your desk on a day you just really need a “sushi pick me up”. Indie agencies FTW.

… get you a workplace where on a WFH day you pop in to Slack that you’re taking a “quick lunch”, and then your Direct Manager comes in and says, uh, actually, let’s abolish “quick lunch” culture and normalise 30 minutes.? Minimum. Heck. Go all out, folks. TAKE ?? THE ?? FULL ?? HOUR. As much as we LOVE our industry, it’s; Not like we’re performing life-saving surgery Or on the front line somewhere [or admittedly anywhere, lol] Or riding the ambulance to the nearest ED as a paramedic Or fighting bushfires [you get the gist]. TAKE ?? YOUR ?? GD ?? LUNCH??? BREAKS ?? EVERYONE Big love, TDP [??].

It’s IWD and our Founder always rolls into the offices on “IWD Eve” to gift us all a book to either enrich us, or advance us… this year’s focus was on both: ‘women living deliciously’, which is a book that not only enriches through HEALING [from patriarchy]... but simultaneously advances, also. Our Founder, Cherie Clonan, says the following; "International Women’s Day? Like … I guess we’ll do what we do every other day then, yea? We accelerate action for her [just like this year’s theme]. We take swift, decisive steps for her [just like this year’s theme]. We increase the momentum and urgency [just like this year’s theme]. We address systemic barriers and biases that women face. Is it hard to feel “celebratory” and like we’re making progress when at the current rate of progress, it will take until 2158, which is roughly five generations from now, to reach full gender parity, according to data from the World Economic Forum? Yea. Absolutely it is. Is it a horribly privileged position to be in this year as we’re saying “no cupcakes, thanks. We’ll opt for a great book on each team member’s desk” while women in Afghanistan, Congo, Palestine [and more] are going up against the unthinkable? Yes. Horrifyingly so. And so on this day, we’ll instead do as we do every day in TDP’s existence: we invest in women, and accelerate action. Not just our women, but as many women as we can impact from our little pocket of the internet. We; ?? Inject $36,000+ into their superannuation accounts [outside of the Australian norms for super, because WE KNOW that women retire with less for 1,001 reasons all related to patriarchy] ?? Celebrate a pregnancy announcement, and then proceed with the promotion [unlike other corps. who hold off on that promotion, because a-holes] ?? Make flexibility the norm [almost every working woman, and Mother, has described a flexible approach as being THE THING that not only helps them remain in the workforce … but advance within it, also] ?? NORMALISE 1,001 different humanistic and encouraging things that invest in women > accelerate their progress > COUNT HER IN Beyond our workplace; ?? We look out for women elsewhere, and donate accordingly: First Nations women, Palestinian women, and anything happening within our world where marginalised women need our support and *need* us to pay the rent in order to advance women. Imagine if we treated every day like IWD? … honestly … just imagine".

Can you believe we have not one, but *two* work’a’versaries to celebrate today! Lisa Pike celebrates x3 years with TDP today, and Jessie Zevaka celebrates x2 years… both of them having already made *huge* impacts within our business within x2-3 years, respectively. Lisa, our Account Director, joined us x3 years ago [in the absolute THICK of Melbourne’s never-ending pandemic-induced-lockdowns]... and has enjoyed a big promotion in that time, which skipped x1 position above her and went *straight* to AD. Boy oh boy has she not only delivered in her role… but hers is an impact that makes x3 years feel like x3 seconds [because of the way she makes the huge effort she consistently makes > look effortless], as well as those same x3 years feeling like twice as long [because of how big of an impact she makes as a leader here at TDP… and the way that “the Lisa effect” ripples out far beyond those who report through to her]. We’re lucky to have you, Lis! And Jessie, our Marketing Manager, began with us just x2 years ago… and brought BIG-JESSIE-ZEVAKA-ENERGY, entirely overhauled our business and simultaneously transformed it… and then *also* earned herself a big [incredibly well-deserved] promotion. Jessie’s impact in just x2 short years is one that has us UNABLE to remember what TDP was like before she arrived here… and we don’t know that you’d be able to find a bigger growth mindset, and transformative “can do” attitude than Jessie’s. We are so lucky to have you both here: happy 3 and 2, to BOTH OF YOU! ??