Inside the MFW Playbook: Do Advertisers Really Listen?

Our Executive Director Media and Data Ben Willee talks to Irene Hulme and Craig Bruce (two of Australia’s most experienced radio minds) about key metrics for radio trading, the Mad F’ing Witches, Kyle Sandilands, Karl Stefanovic and much more.

Listen to Ben speak here:

Check out the podcast here:

Game Changers Radio: Inside the MFW Playbook: Do Advertisers Really Listen?

Or read the transcript here:

Craig Bruce (Host)

Hello, Rene.

Irene Hulme (Host)

Hello, CB.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Hey, big reaction to last week’s episode. We were talking about the MFW and got a note from a long time listener, first time caller. Your recent comments on the MFW are bang on, keen to connect. And if you’re after a media buyer’s perspective on how we trade radio and how issues like the MFW impact commercial deals, I’d love to come on the podcast. They came at just the right time and we have been desperate to get a buyer’s perspective on the witches. Ben Willee, Executive Director of Data and Insights at Spinach Advertising. Hey, Ben, welcome to the pod.

Ben Willee

Oh, thanks very much for having me. I’m really excited. It’s great to be here after listening for so long.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Oh, thank you, mate. That’s very kind of you. Hey, can we start with one of your industry’s favourite words, awareness? So if I was to walk into any advertising agency tomorrow and mention MFW, would everyone know who I was talking about?

Ben Willee

If you walked into a media agency, they definitely would. I don’t know about a creative agency. And that’s one of the big problems with our industry is the creatives and the media people tend to be in completely different businesses.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Right. Okay.

Irene Hulme (Host)

So take us through what happens when, because they make a call to the advertisers. And then my assumption is that you get the call, that you then get the follow-up call from that.

Ben Willee

Pretty much, yeah. Look, if we’re going to jump straight into the MFW, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think most clients don’t really think about morality of talent. You know, if they did that, there’d be a hell of a lot of challenges because there’s so much varying talent out there. And, you know, advertisers think about risk. And then all of a sudden, this pile-on that they didn’t ask for comes on social media. And we get a call or a text message that says, help. That’s normally how it starts. And it started all the way back when Alan Jones was on air. And, yeah, it’s been going ever since.

MFW sound bite

Like, we were just sort of organising it, but we weren’t doing the work. There were tens of thousands of emails going out. There were companies that were just clogged. They couldn’t run their businesses because the email chains were so clogged. And yeah, I think it was just that the weight of anger was enormous. It was time. It took nine months still.

Ben Willee

And the interesting thing for me is some clients say, oh, this is terrible. We don’t like it. And other clients say, well, tell them to get stuffed. We don’t care. And it really comes down to the nature of the business and how affected they are by what’s going on in socials.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Hey, speaking of social media, so we’re living in this world of algorithmic media. And it seems to me, I was thinking about this the other day, it feels like in lots of ways, MFW kind of mirrors what the algorithm does. So, Kyle says something foul, MFW clip it, share it, intensify the message. And so it’s almost like activism in the age of social media. Am I close, do you think, on that sort of assumption?

Ben Willee

Yeah, I think activism is absolutely the right word here. And, you know, I’ll echo your sentiments that, you know, we’ve got a toothless tiger in ACMA. And because ACMA haven’t been doing their job, we have now the MFW who are the arbiters of what is good taste. Now, I don’t like an organisation that has an overseas director and a whole host of other problems being the arbiter of what good taste is, right? And not to mention, if they genuinely cared about hate speech, misogyny, racism and fake news, they turn their attention to where the real problem is, which is social media, right?

Craig Bruce (Host)

Exactly.

Ben Willee

I mean, going after advertisers is a bit like going after people for jaywalking when you’ve got this industrialised terrible stuff going on and the bank robbers are just walking down the street in social media platforms. I always found that staggering. And yeah, I’ve never got a decent response to that question from them.

Irene Hulme (Host)

So Ben, the thing I can’t understand is, so they’ll call an advertiser and they’ll say, look, do you realise that your spots are featured in a, let’s say, Kyle and Jackie O show? There’s a brand risk and this is what they’re doing in terms of content. Now, they’re aware of that. The advertising will be aware of the show. So what is it that, what’s the issue? Is it the alignment with the show? Is it the reputational risk for the brand?

Ben Willee

It’s the reputational risk to the brand really. And what the MFW are really good at and really successful at is feeling like a movement.

MFW sound bite

So Australian Immigration Minister, a guy called Peter Dutton, sent a text message about a woman journalist to another politician, another male politician, but he accidentally sent it to the woman journalist instead. And that message called the journalist a mad fucking witch. So that’s how MFW started.

Ben Willee

So, I mean, advertisers, you know, look at what people are doing and saying about their brand on social. And if that becomes very, very negative, they see that as a brand risk. Now, in some cases, the MFW might send them a letter saying, we’ve heard an ad on this program we don’t like, we’re asking you to stop. But in most cases, the advertiser just wakes up in the morning or it happens that particular day, there is an absolute social media pile on. And the MFW are saying, how dare you? Why you shouldn’t be associated with this, et cetera, et cetera.” And then the advertiser will ring a media buyer, someone like me, and they’ll say, okay, well, what do you think about this? What are our options? What should we do?

Craig Bruce (Host)

So is controversy automatically unsafe? I mean, can a controversial personality still be commercially viable? Where’s that line between polarising and toxic in your world?

Ben Willee

Oh, jeez, what a great question. And I would say that Kyle and Jackie O used to be polarising, and then they became toxic over time. And maybe it’s a bit like going broke, it starts slowly and then it happens fast. I think what really made a big difference to Melbourne-based clients was when Kyle and Jackie O came on air here. And I mean, the first few episodes were just full on, right? And everyone went, hang on, we knew it was bad, but we didn’t know it was this bad. And that’s what gave added credibility to what MFW was saying. And that created much more of that momentum. And it also created more witches in Melbourne to go, hang on, we need to do something about this. This is bad for our children’s ears, sort of thing.

Irene Hulme (Host)

And so what do the advertisers do? Do they move day part or do they move completely off the brand?

Ben Willee

They tend to move off the show. And that’s the conversation that a good media buyer will have with their client. They’ll say, well, if you move out of that show, and there was a period it was, they were number one in Sydney, you say, well, hang on, that’s going to have an effect on your key metrics. And we’ll probably talk about what those key metrics are, cost per thousand, reach, frequency. And your advertising, your media dollar then becomes less effective. So do you want you to make our business decision based on that? Or you make an environment decision? And the media buyer might make a recommendation, they might not, but it really comes down to what the client wants to do. And it would be unusual for them to say, okay, we’re out of ARN. But what they would have said is, okay, I don’t want any ads on the Kyle and Jackie show, and I don’t want any on the Hour of Power and all of the other subsidiaries.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Which happened with ARN. We were talking to, I won’t name the breakfast host, but essentially every single live read that was circulated around the company for a period of time had a message on the top with an asterisk next to it said, not to be read on Kyle and Jackie O. So essentially the money was moved. And it’s unbelievably effective. And you have to kind of just got to put your hand up and go, that’s incredibly effective on their behalf to be able to do that. What does, just back on Irene’s point, so what does communication from the witches actually look like, Ben? So does someone receive 50 e-mails a day from these people? Or is it the administration? Is it a receptionist? What happens?

Ben Willee

Well, they go, I mean, the witches will go on to that particular company’s website and there’ll be a feedback or there’ll be contact us. And they will just bombard every single one of those e-mail addresses. And often it’ll be cut and paste. And sometimes there might be five variations. There might even be ten. But it’ll just be as many different e-mail addresses as they can get. And also those messages on social media. So directly on Facebook page, on Insta posts from that brand, why are you doing this, blah, blah, blah, etc, etc.

Craig Bruce (Host)

So what makes one complaint serious and another ignored? Because surely it wouldn’t be hard to realise that these people aren’t buying the product of the brand that they’re annoying the shit out of. That shouldn’t be difficult to work out, should it?

Ben Willee

I agree with that sentiment, but it doesn’t always come through. And when you’ve got someone saying, well, here’s 50 emails, there must be a lot of people. And someone else saying, well, we’ve counted 100 messages on social. It tends to be, this is all too hard. Ironically, the easier choice is often for clients to make a bad media decision or a bad business decision that makes their advertising less effective, than have to go around their business explaining to people that this is an activist group, and this is what they’re trying to do, et cetera, et cetera. And then the other problem is there’s a lot of people in those organisations who probably agree with the witches and say, no, no, we shouldn’t be supporting this program.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Right, yeah.

Irene Hulme (Host)

And so what is that? Is it having an impact on the industry?

Ben Willee

I think it’s had a really big impact on the industry. And it’s certainly, I mean, I’ve been following this pod very closely, and you’ve talked about Kyle’s business model and how he won’t necessarily have to deal with advertisers, or there’ll be a select few. I think Karl Stefanovic will be in a, possibly in a similar situation. So, you know, the industry has always, there’s always been little areas we know we had to be careful of. And now there are more and more traps for us. And certainly, the bigger traps are actually in news websites. Because everyone has a point of view that, that news is biased or that news is right or wrong, whether it’s left or right. And what we should be doing is teaching people how to have a debate, and how to politely disagree, rather than deciding we’re going to cancel everything we disagree with.

Craig Bruce (Host)

It all gets too hard. Client says, look, we’re getting bombarded, we want out. And is the fact that there’s just more options for you as buyers, and in ad world, for your brands to be able to reach a particular audience? Does it just make it like, let’s go back 15, 20 years, if this was happening. Well, if we’re not on radio, we’re really missing out. Whereas now there’s probably a different conversation. Is it as simple as that as well, Ben?

Ben Willee

Yeah, that’s definitely a key variable. And I mean, what’s missing from that conversation is the power of that medium. Just because I can reach someone with two seconds of a reel on Instagram doesn’t mean they’ve been impacted by my ad. Yet, you know, it’s pretty hard to skip audio ads when you’re sitting in traffic. So, I mean, we’ve got to remind ourselves that just because we can reach people doesn’t mean we’re effectively reaching people. And that’s a massive debate we’re having in the industry at the moment about, you know, what we would call upper funnel and lower funnel mediums and what is truly effective and what isn’t truly effective. And just because, you know, media buyers tend to be young and they tend to catch Ubers and go to rooftop bars and drink expensive cocktails.

Irene Hulme (Host)

Like you did in the 90s.

Ben Willee

Like I did in the 90s, yeah. Or whenever I’m let off the leash. So, just because we can reach people on TikTok and they’re spending four hours a day, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s as important as perhaps a parasocial relationship I might have with my favourite radio host who I’ve been through traffic jams with. I’ve been through the bushfires, birthdays, hangovers, late night. And sorry, I should explain what I mean by parasocial. That’s a, it sounds like a medical condition more than anything. In fact, it’s the way people feel about the celebrities and people who are in their life regularly. Because, you know, I might listen to 3AW and the guys at 3AW might have no idea who Ben Willee is, but I know a lot about them and I feel very close to them. And that goes back right, to audio was the first medium we invited into our bedroom.” Come on, I’m sure there’s an old clock radio in a cupboard somewhere, Craig, you know. It was the first medium we invited into the shower. So, you know, storytelling has been something that has been cultivated by this industry for almost 100 years, and people need to recognise the power of that, and media buyers and clients also need to recognise that. Sorry, I’m going up on a rant.

Irene Hulme (Host)

No, no, no, that’s so true. And media buyers, as you say, are quite young, so you’re probably not getting that piece, that very important piece. So do clients see an ad that’s sitting in the middle of a commercial break, do they see that as endorsing a show?

Ben Willee

I don’t think consumers see that as endorsing a show, but it is a kind of endorsement in a way. You know, a sponsorship is a genuine endorsement. This program is proudly brought to you by X Brand. But I think that they recognise when they’re putting money into a show, they are supporting that talent and that medium and that particular individual.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Hey, we were talking before about the ACMA problem. And, you know, there is a system in place to hold broadcasters to account. And it’s really, it’s a pain in the ass system, right? You’ve got to ring the radio station, you’ve got to write a letter, you’ve got to make an official complaint and nothing gets done. It’s too slow. It’s too laborious. And in almost every circumstance, it’s a complete waste of time. So the vacuum has been filled by something that’s much more efficient. What should ACMA be doing? And thinking back now about, particularly through that launch of Kyle and Jack, we were there front row seats every week with Wade and Irene and myself talking about the show and how it was just completely imploding in this sea of pornography, thinking who’s going to pick this up? What is, where are the regulators? What happened then, Ben?

Ben Willee

That’s such a great question, Craig. And I’ve got no idea, but they were asleep at the wheel. There’s no other description. And if there is a government minister out there who funds ACMA, I’d like them to stop and say, hang on, what is your charter? What are you obliged to do? Because it was an inexcusable failure, you know. And Kyle and Jackie O might not be in this position. ARN certainly wouldn’t be if in the very early days, there had been some clear warnings and some warnings that had some teeth that someone could have had that conversation. I heard your recent interview with Duncan Campbell, and he said he knew in the first 15 minutes that this was an enormous problem, right? Well, ACMA knew in the first 15 minutes as well, and it took them 18 months before they even issued a press release.

Craig Bruce (Host)

So let’s go to the flip side, Ben. So MFW grievances, is there a better way to channel them? I mean, like if you were part of the MFW, obviously, but if you were advising them, is there a better way where the message is out there, which is, you know, in some ways, I don’t disagree with some of their points around the kind of content that should be broadcast and available to young audiences. But could they do it in a different way, or have they got it exactly right? Certainly from an effectiveness perspective, it seems like they have.

Ben Willee

Yeah, look, I think they have an obligation, they’re really good activists, right? And I’m with you. Some of the things I agree with, some of the things I don’t. But they’re really good at affecting change. So why the hell aren’t they lobbying the government to regulate social media companies?

Craig Bruce (Host)

Hallelujah.

Ben Willee

I mean, these businesses aren’t short of a dollar. I mean, we’re talking tens and hundreds of billions of dollars of profit every year, and they keep telling us, well, it’s too difficult to keep the kids off, and it’s too difficult to regulate hate speech, misogyny, all of this other thing. I mean, it just defies belief that this continues to go on. Now, I will tell you, the under 16 ban has been an abject failure, right? They’re either an under 16 in my house, him and his mates are all over social media, we all are. So it is time for governments of all persuasions to say, hey, these people who by their own admission are affecting our kids’ health, need to have some regulation. I mean, it is absolutely staggering, but no one seems to give a shit, right?

Irene Hulme (Host)

Yeah. ARN going forward, how long will it take them to build that trust again with clients, considering, of course, Kyle and Jackie O to begin with, and then the most recent incident with Karl?”

Ben Willee

Well, advertisers want consistency, right? And we like drama when it generates ratings, but we like it within a framework. We like it within a maths framework where no one’s been prosecuted yet, but there’s been a lot of audience engagement. So what we want as advertisers is consistency of audience, and that’s ARN’s biggest challenge now. What are they going to do long term in breakfast? And how are they going to communicate that to advertisers? And are we going to start to see stability of ratings? Because I think it’s probably the rating situation for ARN. Certainly, Sydney breakfast is going to get worse before it gets better.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Correct.

Ben Willee

And you two are more the experts in that department. So I think what we’re really looking for is who have you chosen? Give us some consistency of audience, and then we’ll start making commitments with money.

Irene Hulme (Host)

So when Stevo says we can offer you a brand safe environment, is that at all appealing?

Ben Willee

Yeah, look, it’s not really a word we use, to be honest. We just talk about an environment or a day part or something that has an amplification of the creative message we’re trying to put out. So we don’t talk about brand safe and brand unsafe. We just might talk about certain brands shouldn’t be around certain people. And I’ve had clients along the way who loved Kyle and Jackie O. They were like, more pornography, more controversy. I want more people listening. So it really depends on the brand and what they’re trying to say.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Yeah, brand and bland rhyme, guys. And I worry about where we might be heading. Hey, one of our listeners based in the US, Ben, he said that pressure groups like MFW rarely get traction there because audience would just tell them to fuck off essentially. But I think that’s missing the point. Like audiences aren’t trying to cancel Karl or Kyle. Their audiences aren’t. People that don’t have the affiliation with them are. And this is the problem. So we’re in this situation now where Kyle is gone from broadcast radio, unlikely to come back. And Karl is gone from broadcast TV. Well, who’s next?

MFW sound bite

We believe that nine were very concerned before we made any announcements and we’re already having talks based on Karl’s behaviour over recent weeks on a number of issues. But we do think that our involvement was probably the final push they needed to take action.

Craig Bruce (Host)

So who is the next target? Because look, this only works if they have a new target. And it’s a business model for Jenny Hill and her family. No targets equal no money from their supporters. So who’s next?

Ben Willee

Yeah, that’s a really, really great question. And I’m wondering, and I think about Karl Stefanovic and this sort of, oh, I’m free now and, you know, everybody needs an enemy. And of course, if you’re an independent podcaster, you need an enemy. And isn’t the mainstream media an easy target? I mean, who would have thought journalistic standards, regulation, all of those things aren’t important. They’re very important. So he’s going to be looking at the mainstream media to be a target. But ironically, I’ve followed a few of his topics. And I notice he’s in the UK at the moment. Maybe they’ve got more wokeness over there than they do in Australia to attack. But I actually wouldn’t be surprised if Karl or Kyle attack the MFW as part of their creating an emotional connection with their audience. These people got me canceled. We should hate them. These people don’t care about free speech. We should hate them and all of that sort of stuff. So I suspect they will get targeted by someone on the fringe, whether it’s far left or far right, will attack the MFW and then all of a sudden, they’ve got a reason to exist.

Craig Bruce (Host)

I’d hate to see that. I’d really hate to see that. We’ve had our audience, lots of them are Kyle and Jackie fans are going, oh, tell us more and what do we need to do? And I don’t want you doing anything. And certainly nothing that mirrors what they’re doing to people like yourself and advertisers and brands. But I’d hate to see that play out, Ben, but there’s a chance that it will, because these audiences have had to move in. It would be much easier listening to Kyle on the radio. And yes, he’s been his own worst enemy in lots of ways, but I’m not sure whether a complete cancellation is a win for anyone, really.

Ben Willee

Well, you guys have both talked about it’s bad for the industry because it potentially will take a whole bunch of listeners out of that segment who might have been switchers, might have done other things. And it may make my life harder. If all of a sudden commercial radio in Sydney loses 300,000 viewers, well, I’ve got to find other ways to reach those viewers. So I agree with you. I don’t think it’s a good thing. And my personal opinion is if you don’t like Kyle and Jackie O, don’t listen. I mean, the fact that you have to cancel something you disagree with. And find me someone who changed their opinion on any hot issue because of some social media post someone else did, they don’t. So I mean, really, the effect on our community is just adding to the division. And I think that division is bad not just for advertisers and brands, but it’s bad for the whole community. Because I want to teach my kids if you disagree with someone or someone disagrees with you, you go, oh, that’s interesting. Tell me more about why you disagree and lean in. And that’s not that hard, is it? The truth is not so fragile that it can’t be thrown around and debated and our own perceptions can’t be layered over it.

Irene Hulme (Host)

Yeah, that’s fair. I’ve got another question about ARN. So when Steve-O says that all of the clients that left us during Kyle and Jackie O have now returned, is that how immediate it is?

Ben Willee

Look, it’s very fast and it’s a really fast moving environment. So onto the things we trade. I mean, ultimately we trade a cost per thousand audience. So I want to reach a thousand dollars and I want that to cost four bucks or five bucks or whatever it is. And my target audience might be women 16 to 39 or whatever it is. So I will also look at reach and I will also look at frequency. So those briefs and those discussions and that trading happens with all of the major networks. And the irony of it is, is you’re looking backwards because you’re always doing it on the last book and the last survey results. So a lot of those advertisers will say, well, we’ll give ARN a brief now and we’ll look at the reach and frequency numbers based on what they delivered in the past. And then we’ll have to make a judgment call on how we think that’s going to impact our three key metrics.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Right. It can return really quickly for them.

Ben Willee

It can return very quickly. But the other issue we share, because the money follows the ears and you know, where the ears are going is usually related to share. And that’s what’s usually related to share or Cume, TSL not so much, time spent listening, not so much, but share and Cume really have a big impact on the numbers we look at.

Irene Hulme (Host)

Are you doing ratings projections?

Ben Willee

Yes, we are. So we’re doing ratings projections that give us a CPM of reach and frequency, and then we might adjust some of them up or down based on something. So for example, if there is a footy season, we might say, okay, the people at SEN, we’re going to put it up. And if there’s an election coming, we might say, okay, ABC might go up a bit or this might go down, et cetera.

Irene Hulme (Host)

You should be doing our predictions.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Yeah, what do you think is going to happen next Tuesday? So KISS Breakfast Sydney will drop again?

Ben Willee

I don’t like making predictions about advertising because it makes the silence of astrology look reputable. But it would be very strange to me if audience didn’t go down in Sydney based on what’s going on there. And it would cause more questions and answers. So yeah, I’m a betting man. You know, the World Cup’s on. It’s a good time to bet. And I bet that ratings will go down a little bit for ARN Sydney.

Irene Hulme (Host)

Okay, locked in.

Craig Bruce (Host)

One last piece of feedback from a marketer who thinks that the rhetoric around MFW is part self-serving propaganda and part truth. And it made me think about, you know, the classic scene in The Wizard of Oz when the curtain is pulled back and it’s this sad old guy screaming into a megaphone. And what are we all worried about? Are there any similarities there with MFW, do you think?

Ben Willee

Yeah, I think so. I mean, what do they say? Old man shouts at cloud. There is a little bit of that, but we would have to, I think, on balance, you’d have to say they’ve been very effective. And I mean, you and I don’t like being told what to do, Craig, and who we can and can’t listen to. But in this case, they’ve been very, very effective. So even if they are shouting at a cloud, they’re marshalling the troops and they’re doing it in a good way.

Craig Bruce (Host)

Sadly, they are. Ben Willee, Executive Director of Data and Insights at Spinach Advertising. Good to see you, Ben, and thank you for coming on the podcast, We’ll get you back again soon.

Irene Hulme (Host)

You’re a regular, Ben.

Ben Willee

Thanks very much for having me. Thanks for the in-depth analysis of audio. I mean, I’ve learned a lot listening to your program and I’d encourage any other media people out there to do the same because it’s really brought me closer to the medium and how it works. And your assessment of situations, both of you is almost always right, which is a bit annoying. But other than that, it’s been great to listen to. So thank you very much for having me.”

Craig Bruce (Host)

Brilliant, thank you, Ben.

Irene Hulme (Host)

You’re a good man, Ben. Thank you.