Liam Fitzpatrick, head of comms, offering Forbes readers insights on combatting Covid-related falsehoods

US Surgeon General - Associated Press

At the end of last week, our very own head of communications, Liam Fitzpatrick, spoke with Forbes in the US to offer his thoughts on the ongoing fight against misinformation, particularly around vaccines to circulate across social media.

Liam Fitzpatrick, head of communications at Commswork, said business leaders can help combat Covid-related falsehoods by:

  • Improving the story with which we fight misinformation. Make it more personal and illustrate your argument with examples from across the country of how people have been directly impacted by coronavirus as a result of misinformation and lack of a vaccine. The closer an event is to a subject, the more open they’ll be to hearing the message.
  • Making the story stick in the target audience’s minds, storytelling consultancy Anecdote advises it needs to be compatible with what the listener knows, coherent, credible and believed by others.
  • Creating a network of companies that offer stories from their own unique perspectives from their workforce. Hearing the same message from the same type of people, won’t have the same power as the networked effect of professional leaders all offering their experiences. The responsibility falls on us all.

To read the article in full, head over to Forbes.

Client coverage – NATA CEO explaining Covid-19 testing on 7 News

The National Association of Testing Authorities is responsible for accreditation across 19 different sectors in Australia, everything from keeping our water clean through to roads and even pathology and diagnostics.

One rather newsworthy element is that there are more labs accredited for testing SARS-Cov-2, or Covid-19 testing to you and I, than are accredited for the common flu.

The pathology and diagnostics teams across the country continue to do stellar work ensuring we’re all able to get a result on our tests within 24 hours. That number could be reducing soon, stay tuned for more information on that to hopefully follow soon.

Jennifer Evans below on the 6pm 7 News.  

 

Client News – CampaignAgent secures <$13m from The REA Group

Big news to end the week.

One of our clients has today confirmed it’s off to buy a bigger net, to kick even bigger goals after receiving a sizeable investment from property industry heavyweight The REA Group.

The original Buy now pay later (BNPL) platform for property marketing costs in Australia, CampaignAgent, is expanding its operations and set to continue revolutionising the short term proptech lending space.

It follows the company securing an $80m warehouse funding facility at the end of last year. 

You can read more about the news in:

 

The Australian Financial Review | LinkedIn

the-australian-logo-1024x512 - Centre for Policy Development

FintechAustralia

iTNews

 

And also StartUp Daily, where Shaun featured on its daily show for…

AusBiz

AusBiz interviews Shaun Moriarty CampaignAgent

And TickerTV

Taken from Shaun Moriarty’s interview with TickerTV

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Entrepreneurship in emerging technologies with Vaibhav Namburi – Episode 14 – Cut the Cliches

Straight off the back of last week's bonus episode, we're turning now to emerging technologies. Think artificial intelligence, mixed reality, augmented workforces and other new shiny buzzwords in marketing and business. We get the insights directly from the source this week as I sit down with one of Australia's brightest entrepreneurs, Vaibhav Namburi, or V as he's more commonly known.

Disclaimer at this point is that V and I have worked together for a couple of years as we mention in the show.

I genuinely believe that he's one of the country's best and he's active on social channels. So after you've heard the show, check out some of his videos on LinkedIn. He's an engineer by trade who's now solving business problems using technology for some of the world's biggest companies.

He's already built a blockchain solution for the United Nations, mobile apps for the likes of William Hill and News Corp along with PwC.

Not only that but he's built his own product in the form of automated recruitment platform Laddr, a company built by devs for the hiring of devs. An automated and anonymised recruitment tool which allows engineers to portfolio their work and save time without the need to do multiple tech tests. Disrupting recruitment by reducing the shortlisting process for candidates down to a few clicks.

Vaibhav Namburi - Five2One founder - Emerging tech - Commswork best B2B tech PR agency Sydney Melbourne Brisbane

We delve into some of his insights as a founder and marketer of his own brand:

- We discuss how he got into the industry
- How to differentiate yourself in business
- Marketing methods he’s used in his business
- How to harness social media
- What’s next in emerging technology in the 12 months
- Ethics in AI
- Challenges he faced with building his businesses
- Branding
- Problem solving in growth marketing
- The biggest lessons he’s learned
- Why he focuses on marketing
- The importance of simplicity, messaging and trust in business
- Cliches

If you like what we’re up to at Cut the Cliches, please give us some online love in the form of reviews on your podcasting platform of choice. We welcome all thoughts and keen to hear more about what you’d like to see on the show next.

Data in Sport part 2, Ian K Partilla GumGum Sports – Cut the Cliches

Following on from last week’s episode from Sport Accord, Episode 13 was also recorded at the event. And in our second part of data in sport, we turn our attention to AI as we enlist the help of Ian K. Partilla, head of global revenue at GumGum Sports.

The focus of our chat was around the opportunities in sponsorship and digital media. 

In this episode we discuss: 

  • his role at GumGum
  • the opportunities for sports teams in how they categorise their digital and social assets
  • the role of ad-tech in sports
  • what the future of the technology could mean for brands.

Ian K. Partilla started his career in 1998 at the ESPN X Games before joining Disney and ESPN Media Networks focusing on the emerging sports streaming business.  

Five years at NBC Sports Ventures saw him take up VP roles in partnerships and sponsor strategy. 

In February 2018 Ian joined GumGum Sports  an Artificial Intelligence company that leverages computer vision technology to help brands, agencies and rights holders identify the full media value of sports sponsorships. 

He says that by analysing live TV broadcasts, social media and digital streaming, GumGum Sports provides accurate, timely, and comprehensive media valuations. 

Here’s this week’s episode, please let us know your thoughts below:

Cut the Cliches Episode 12 – Data in fan engagement with David Melia, Global Web Index

We headed to the Gold Coast in May for Sport Accord. We were lucky enough to speak with some of the speakers at the event and first up we have David Melia, head of sports at Global Web Index.

David Melia (left) and Liam Fitzpatrick (right)

GWI is the world’s largest survey of online behaviour and we quiz David on how data is increasingly being used in sports to improve the fan experience.

In this episode we discuss his role at GWI, how he got into the industry, the challenges he’s faced, what he does on a day to day level, the opportunities for brands in the sporting space and what we should look out for in the next 12 months. 

Look out for our second part on data in sport next week, also from Sport Accord, which will include Ian Partilla from GumGum Sports.

In the meantime David’s episode is below, let us know your thoughts:

Cut the Cliches episode 11 – Psychology of Choice, Lauren Fell

Episode 11 looks at the psychology of choice and we’ve got someone who is very familiar in the workings of this area, we have the help of PsytAssist co-founder Lauren Fell. 

Our head of communications Liam Fitzpatrick first met Lauren following a global design contest for NASA which she had won.

As someone researching how we can predict human behaviour, Lauren discusses: 

  • how we make choices every day
  • the role of intuition/nostalgia
  • how we can reframe choices, including anchoring
  • how unconscious bias influences us
  • trust
  • how shopping is a form of gambling
  • decision fatigue
  • bias in interviews 
  • and her upcoming research project. 

Lauren is co-founder of PsytAssist – a startup aimed at bringing technological solutions to psychologists. She also works as a Customer Insights Consultant, research assistant, as well as in various positions within the mental health space. Her main research interest is in the application of quantum physics principles to cognitive phenomena such as decision making, looking at the ways in which classical laws of probability fail to hold true both in quantum physics as well as in the way humans make decisions.

We hope you enjoy this week’s episode, please leave your feedback below:

Cut the Cliches Episode 10 – Super Bowl Advertising – Liam Fitzpatrick hosts live Networx panel

Cut the Cliches hits Episode 10 and to celebrate we’re bringing you a special live edition which looks at the issue of Super Bowl advertising.

Our head of comms and host Liam Fitzpatrick acts as facilitator in this session which comes from Victoria Park Ballroom in Brisbane, and is part of the Networx event series.

The panel includes:

  • Sarah Kelly, associate professor in law and marketing at University Queensland
  • Rob Hudson MD at Clemenger BBDO
  • Luke Wheatley, head of creative and content for Flight Centre.

We discuss this year’s most successful spots, which ones failed, whether paying $5m for 30 seconds can deliver on ROI for brands, the power of competitive interference, lessons marketers can take away, as well as the panel’s favourite all-time Super Bowl ads.

This week’s episode live from Victoria Park Ballroom, enjoy:

Here are some of the ads we discussed:

Bumble

Kia

Carl Junior gives the Super Bowl its first plant based burger ad

Pepsi subverting a common preconception about its brand

Off-brand effort from Olay with Sarah Michelle Gellar

Newcastle Brown Ale runs spot in 2014 about the ad they would have made with the right budget

The original ad which launched the “you’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign for Snickers

Volkswagen “The Force” remains the most watched ad of all time

Dollar Shave Club’s humourous ad was Luke’s all-time favourite ad

Cut the Cliches – Episode Nine – Roland Storti

ICOs are soooo last year, well the first half of the year anyway. It’s all about Security Token Offerings (STOs) if you’re looking to raise capital in the crypto space now.

Regulation is needed in the space, according to our guest this week Roland Storti, who joins us for part two of our blockchain special. This week we pick up where we left off, with London-based founder Storti who was in Brisbane for Urban Motion at the end of 2018. We caught up with him backstage so apologies for any background noise from speakers.

A picture of Liam Fitzpatrick and Roland Storti taken at Urban Motion in Brisbane
Liam Fitzpatrick and Roland Storti at Urban Motion

We speak to Roland about:

What Minfo is and how it started.

Why he’s focusing on events and developing a LinkedIn meets Tinder functionality.

He walks us through the difference between ICOs and STOs.

Regulation in the space.

How technology is democratising the investing.

The importance of building a community.

How to run an STO, what you need to know.

Token models in business and the immediate future for STOs.

The future for Minfo. And we close on the importance of weekends and a social life for founders.

Cut the Cliches – Episode Eight – Tom Nash

This week begins our blockchain technology special.

For Episode 8 we caught up with Tom Nash, CTO and co-founder at Flex Dapps back in September 2018.

Tom guides us through the language in the industry along with:

Tom Nash

A brief history of ICOs
Explaining Dapps and what he's doing with Flex Dapps
The potential for blockchain
The barriers for the technology
The importance of data security
And regulation in web3.0

 

Tom is a Software Engineer of five years and CTO and co-founder of Flex Dapps. He's been working with the Ethereum blockchain since 2016. He has a deep interest in everything decentralised and has run countless beginner and intermediate level workshops over the last 18 months. If you ask around for technical blockchain experts in Australia, Tom’s name is one that will pop up time and time again.

Cut the Cliches returns a week on Sunday with part two of our blockchain technology special.