Hal Crawford

Sydney

Editorial Director at Mumbrella

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Articles

Sad cobblers and other social scams on the rise: ACCC

1 week ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Consumer watchdog the ACCC has confirmed an increase in foreign retailers pretending to be Australian in social media advertising. The regulator’s warning comes amid a rash of AI-generated ads for fake closing down sales on fake Australian businesses online: the so-called “Sad cobbler”. The ads, as reported in Unmade and The Guardian, typically invent back-stories for businesses that are supposedly selling inventory cheap as part of their closing down.
Expert plea for a walled garden exchange

1 week ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Premium Australian video and audio ads should only be sold within a walled-garden exchange, according to an industry expert who has pointed to intermediary fees and subprime bundling as evils that must be fixed. Former Dentsu investment executive and Schwartz Media CEO Ben Shepherd wrote on LinkedIn that because ad platforms and aggregators were incentivised to maximise volume, their interests were not aligned with media networks.
Buyers sniffing around Gumtree's Hotcopper

1 week ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Classifieds business Gumtree Australia is considering selling its investor forum Hotcopper, according to an ASX announcement. Gumtree – previously called The Market Limited, The Market Herald, and Hotcopper Holdings – has had a rocky ride since 2022, with the ouster of a CEO, an official rebuke from The Takeover Panel, and significant board turnover. Company accounts show the business losing money through 2024 and into this year.
Sea of green as media (and everyone except China) win Trump reprieve

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Australian stocks have spiked with the opening of ASX following US President Donald Trump’s 90-day reciprocal tariff pause. Media stocks have also benefited, with the Unmade Index reversing heavy losses of the past few days. On opening at 10am, the S&P/ASX200 index rose almost 5% (4.91%) wiping out falls in the past five days. The Unmade Index, which is comprised of 14 Australian media stocks, also rose close to 5% in early trading.
Uncertainty hurts as media braces for tariff impact

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

The presumption was that Trump would be great for business. Not even three months into the Trump presidency, that belief is being pretty thoroughly tested. Since the introduction of his tariffs last Wednesday, the S&P 500 plummeted nearly 11% – wiping $5.2 trillion off the stock index. For media, it’s not only tariffs but also changes in the regulatory environment that are having a detrimental impact.
‘Is principal media evil?’: Public clash over a divisive practice

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Panellists clashed over the ethical status of principal media at yesterday’s Future of TV Advertising conference in Sydney. Principal media is the practice of agencies buying advertising inventory on their account and then reselling to clients. Critics say this undermines the agency-client relationship because as resellers, agencies may no longer be incentivised to provide the best deal.
‘We see hope everywhere’: Mike Sneesby heading to the Middle East

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Former Nine CEO Mike Sneesby is heading to Saudi Arabia to take up the CEO role at MBC, the biggest broadcaster in the Middle East. The job is a big one for Sneesby, with MBC – the Middle East Broadcasting Center – claiming 140 million daily viewers across the region and with a bigger streaming operation than he headed up at Nine. Sneesby has prior experience in the Middle East, having worked for a video startup in Dubai in the early 2010s.
Oztam launches new streaming video panel

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Oztam has announced a new streaming video panel that approximates the old ratings boxes for linear TV and finally corrals streamers such as Netflix into a head-to-head ratings system with broadcasters. The Streamscape system monitors internet usage at the home router level, meaning that all digital video traffic is picked up regardless of the original source.
‘Do you Yahoo?’: The monster task of healing the brand that won’t die

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Last week Yahoo hired a new chief marketing officer. Josh Line, formerly chief brand guy at Paramount Global, faces one of the toughest gigs imaginable. The job is to take what is effectively a living fossil and invigorate it. Line must transform Yahoo – a brand synonymous with missed opportunity and decline – into something new and vibrant. He must do that in an environment where even the companies that buried Yahoo two decades ago – Google and Meta – are existentially challenged.
QMS to buy rest of Mediaworks in push across Tasman

2 weeks ago | mumbrella.com.au | Hal Crawford

Outdoor company QMS has expanded its footprint in New Zealand, announcing its intention to buy up the remainder of radio network Mediaworks in a deal that prepares it to pounce on rich contracts under tender from Auckland Transport (AT). QMS has agreed to buy Oaktree Capital’s 45% stake in Mediaworks, subject to regulatory approval. Mediaworks is primarily a radio network, but through previous mergers with QMS also owns QMS’s former NZ OOH operations, which include a print production business.