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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the conversation nobody wants to have \u2013 not least in an industry entirely built on confidence \u2013 but it needs to be said: Australia\u2019s marketing economy is in crisis.<\/p>\n
Pressure on marketing budgets, confidence and consumer spending is nothing new, but according to those Mumbrella spoke to, what\u2019s unfolding is not simply another cyclical downturn.<\/p>\n
Multiple senior industry figures believe the current environment reflects something deeper and more structural: driven by sustained uncertainty, rising caution and a wave of strategic overcorrection across channels, budgets and brand investment.<\/p>\n
The 2008 comparison<\/p>\n
Peter Vogel, chief executive officer of Wavemaker, likened current conditions to the global financial crisis in 2008, only this time, potentially worse for Australia.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhat\u2019s different now is how globally linked the economy is. Australia isn\u2019t insulated anymore,\u201d he told Mumbrella. \u201cWe\u2019re much more closely tied to what\u2019s happening regionally and globally, and that\u2019s having a bigger impact on clients. Market conditions are tougher.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Peter Vogel<\/p>\n
Or as Spinach managing director Nicole Miranda put it: \u201cAustralian consumer sentiment has spent the better part of a year scraping recession-era lows. When the consumer hesitates, it has a direct impact on the confidence of marketers to invest and make longer-term decisions.<\/p>\n
Much has been written over recent months about Australia\u2019s economic woes, from the recent plunge in oil prices to Henry Innis\u2019 analysis of both the nation\u2019s housing crisis<\/a> and the effects of recent capital gains tax (CGT) changes.<\/a><\/p>\n For Teresa Sperti, director of advisory firm Arktic Fox, events both global and local this year reflect \u201ca genuinely unusual convergence of pressures\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cConsumer confidence is sitting\u00a0at levels not seen since the Covid lockdowns, well below the decade prior, and that\u2019s creating real drag on discretionary spending and category growth,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re also in the early stages of geopolitical shocks that haven\u2019t fully worked their way through the economy yet.\u201d<\/p>\n Taken together, the picture points not only to the scale of the issues, but to a moment where simply waiting for the cycle to resolve itself is no longer viable.<\/p>\n \u201cMost brands have accepted that the current conditions aren\u2019t a blip \u2013 they\u2019re the new operating reality for the foreseeable future, so the focus has shifted to executing well within that reality rather than waiting for conditions to improve,\u201d Sperti said.<\/p>\n This view was also reflected by Adrian Roeling, chief operating officer of Hatched Media, who went as far as to say the market has been uncertain since Covid, but has now \u201creached peak uncertainty\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t ride this out, hold our breath and wait for things to get back to normal,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is our new normal. Things will not calm down, so you need to equip yourself with the skills to thrive in turmoil and you will thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n The paralysis problem<\/p>\n Before any brand or agency can think about thriving, however, many are grappling with a more immediate issue: decision paralysis.<\/p>\n Recent industry data, including TrinityP3\u2019s State of the Pitch report, points to longer procurement cycles and delayed decision-making, while anecdotal evidence from agencies suggests clients are taking significantly longer to commit to briefs and sign-offs.<\/p>\n Nicole Miranda<\/p>\n Spinach\u2019s Miranda said client confidence now \u201cfluctuates between being cautious and somewhat paralysed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe cost-of-living crisis and margin squeezes mean ROI scrutiny is intensified, and every dollar spent is being interrogated,\u201d she said. \u201cThis paralysis happens when marketers are forced to defend long-term brand support in a room demanding short-term visibility and performance.\u201d<\/p>\n She added that marketers are increasingly being pushed to reframe their role internally, positioning marketing not as a cost centre, but as \u201cthe central nervous system of the business\u201d.<\/p>\n For Australia\u2019s independent agencies, which do not have the same safety net as holding company networks, the pressure is being felt more acutely.<\/p>\n Bob Mackintosh, founder of independent agency Montoya, said multiple forces are now converging into a single pressure point.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some very powerful forces at play, all hitting at once, and for some businesses that is proving paralysing,\u201d he said. \u201cGeopolitical instability, AI, redundancies, cost of living pressures, interest rates, and general consumer caution. The challenge is that it\u2019s not one thing, it\u2019s everything, which makes it hard to know what\u2019s driving what.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob Mackintosh<\/p>\n From a practical standpoint, he said the impact is already visible in client behaviour, with a pullback in both the scale and frequency of briefs.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s also more pressure to extract greater value from existing work. Campaigns are being rerun, refreshed, or stretched further rather than replaced altogether,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom what I\u2019m seeing and hearing, a lot of businesses are in a holding pattern. Focused on the immediate term, preserving cash, waiting for clearer signals. Survival mode \u2026 simply a matter of riding it out.\u201d<\/p>\n More to lose, more to gain<\/p>\n Whenever there is an industry downturn, the marketing community is often met with a familiar refrain: \u201ckeep marketing\u201d.<\/p>\n Indeed, this is an approach strongly advocated by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute and leading marketers such as Mark Ritson, who reiterate that long-term cuts to marketing budgets will ultimately erode sales.<\/p>\n That principle, however, is often easier said than done for a marketer sitting in a boardroom where decisions are being made under the weight of job security, cost pressures and near-term performance scrutiny.<\/p>\n However, for Vogel, there is nuance to this conversation.<\/p>\n \u201cIn times like these, client response becomes critical,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s always that narrative that when the economy dips, it\u2019s the time to invest, and while that\u2019s true in theory, the reality is more complex.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen things are stable or growing, it\u2019s actually very hard to gain market share; even half a point or one percent. But in uncertain times, the opposite is true. You can see much bigger swings in market share. You can gain it quickly, or lose it just as fast.\u201d<\/p>\n This is also a view shared by Roeling, who points to a split in how experienced marketers are responding to the current environment.<\/p>\n Adrian Roeling, Hatched Media<\/p>\n \u201cMost of our clients are fairly experienced marketers who have been through peaks and troughs over the past few decades, and generally adhere to the motto of \u2018keep calm and carry on\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cMost understand\u00a0 and can demonstrate the genuine impact advertising has on their business in any conditions and are well-positioned to maintain investment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe braver ones see the opportunity to take advantage of a soft media buying market and are accelerating growth ahead of their competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n The subject of downturns almost inevitably prompts familiar platitudes around effectiveness, return on investment and media mix optimisation, as brands are forced to \u201cdo more with less\u201d while reassessing the role each channel plays in driving both short-term performance and long-term brand equity.<\/p>\n Yet for Spinach\u2019s Miranda the brands that will ultimately emerge stronger are those that resist over-indexing on short-term tactics and instead maintain balance across the broader ecosystem.<\/p>\n \u201cThe brands that will come out of this stronger are the ones that hold their nerve and keep the ecosystem balanced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe brands that will win are the ones that treat social and content as vital parts of a connected strategy, rather than the whole strategy. They will use these channels to turn passive buyers into genuine fans and communities, rather than just flooding the feed with AI and influencer-generated messaging. They\u2019ll remember that content is just a delivery mechanism; it cannot come at the expense of strategic, creative, and distinctive brand communication.\u201d<\/p>\n Sperti, meanwhile, argued that the real divergence between successful and struggling brands is not simply about who cuts or spends, but which brands are using the downturn to reposition for what comes next.<\/p>\n \u201cThe separation happens between brands that are heads-down managing margin today, and those who are doing that and asking: are we set up for what\u2019s coming?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She identified three structural forces underpinning that divergence, the first being a generational shift, with Gen Z\u2019s growing presence in the workforce and rising spending power forcing brands to rethink how they show up<\/p>\n Teresa Sperti, Arktic Fox<\/p>\n The second is the reconfiguration of commerce itself, as platforms like Amazon and Temu take a larger share of Australian spending, adding that \u201chas real implications for both retailers and brands \u2014 distribution strategies, pricing architecture, loyalty strategies and more\u201d<\/p>\n Lastly is what she describes as innovation under constraint. In slower-growth conditions, the instinct is often to compete on price, but she notes value is only part of the equation<\/p>\n \u201cShoppers will still pay a premium when a product genuinely warrants it, or when a purchase feels like a treat. The brands finding pockets of growth right now are the ones actively looking for them \u2013 not waiting for the category to recover.\u201d<\/p>\n For Vogel, who has navigated multiple downturns over a 36-year career, including the GFC and Covid, the danger of the current moment lies in over-correction<\/p>\n \u201cIf clients focus too heavily on the short term, they start to drift down to the bottom of the funnel and, in doing so, risk neglecting the proven marketing principles that sustain long-term brand strength, ensuring brand health is strong and service standards are right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that matters, because if you let a consumer down at this point, you may never win them back.<\/p>\n \u201cThe clients who take those shortcuts and become too extreme in their short-term focus will regret it, because it ultimately compromises the business \u2014 certainly over the next 12 months. You see it across the board, whether in marketing, politics, or elsewhere: when you lose sight of the consumer and what they actually need, the consequences follow quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Note that several of the above quotes from interviewees were given as written responses over email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the conversation nobody wants to have \u2013 not least in an industry entirely built on confidence \u2013…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[339207,339208,64,63,339209,99,164,339210,195171,339211,339212,11602,339213,339214],"class_list":["post-695436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-adrian-roeling","tag-arktic-fox","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bob-mackintosh","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-hatched-media","tag-montoya","tag-nicole-miranda","tag-peter-vogel","tag-spinach","tag-teresa-sperti","tag-wavemaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Nicole-Mirnda.jpg\")
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