6 Ways to Improve Collaboration

Media workflow is unique!

Surviving to Thriving

Managing Marketing is a podcast hosted by TrinityP3 Founder and Global CEO, Darren Woolley. Each podcast is a conversation with a thought-leader, professional or practitioner of marketing and communications on the issues, insights and opportunities in the marketing management category. Ideal for marketers, advertisers, media and commercial communications professionals. Tristan Ozinga is the Co-founder and Chief Vision Officer of Advvy. He discusses with Darren the transformation occurring within Media Agencies as technology such as DMP, programmatic trading desks, AI and blockchain make the business of media agency planning and buying more automated and efficient and in the process improves the productivity of the agency resources for the benefit of all involved. You can listen to the podcast here:

Advvy’s co-founders Chris Macaulay and Tristan Ozinga did not suspect that attending their first Microsoft Inspire in Las Vegas in 2017 would set them on course for huge global success. As they stood at a crossroad for their business, there were a few simple facts at play. They didn’t know what to expect. They were down to their last dollars. And they knew a lot was riding on what was about to happen. “It was a big gamble for us. We put some of our last money on the line to go to Inspire”, Chris reminisced. “Over the course of one week, Inspire changed EVERYTHING for our business.” Behind every successful gamble, there is an element of luck. For the Advvy team, this came in the form of Microsoft’s new One Commercial Partner model. Microsoft had an increased focus on business applications, data and AI; and there was Advvy with a compelling business application cloud platform at the ready. Chris and Tristan had founded their start-up to solve the frustrations of media and advertising agencies. Having worked in the industry themselves, the goal was to help agencies work smarter internally, and better with their clients and suppliers, by providing media and advertising workflow and productivity solutions. So as Microsoft Inspire unfolded, word spread about Advvy’s solutions and the ever elusive “buzz” started to hum through the right channels. Networking and meetings ensued, and Microsoft placed a bet of their own. Turned out it was the best kind of bet one of the biggest technology companies in the world can make on your start-up – it bet on Advvy’s success. Microsoft, like Advvy were familiar with the same frustrations for the media and advertising industry. They were also talking with clients (big ones) all over the world about how to partner on better workflows. And so, the offer to open doors was extended to the Advvy team. With a Partner Development Manager on-board, a global tour started across London, Paris and New York with global decision makers at some of the largest companies in their industry. Ultimately, with the company landing a large contract with one of the largest global media agencies. “It was amazing to have that kind of credibility of Microsoft walking us into the door,” Chris shared. “It was like they were saying: ‘Hi, Mr. CIO, we have been talking to you about workflow and digital transformation and Dynamics 365, here is Advvy and they do EXACTLY that for your industry.’ Having that kind of credibility was huge for us.” The tour was filmed, and you can watch the engaging series ‘Behind the Brief’ to learn more. It delivered some brilliant opportunities, and more followed including presenting to Satya Nadella and Microsoft’s senior leadership team in Redmond. Chris and Tristan credit Microsoft Inspire 2017 for skyrocketing them into these opportunities, and so it was a mix of humility, pride and pure excitement that followed them through the door as they arrived at the 2018 conference. And yes, this time around was a little different. People knocked on their door. So often in fact that the week disappeared in a whirlwind. Of course, there were a few other reasons for that. Amongst the networking frenzy, the team had multiple speaking engagements in keynotes and core notes, met with Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer, and threw together a huge pitch on the side. They may have also contemplated getting Advvy tattoos, but that’s another story. It was clear that Advvy had flipped the script. This was no fairytale ending, it was a fairytale beginning. Advvy won the 2018 Microsoft Global Partner of the Year – Media and Communications Award, just 12 short months after standing at a crossroad wondering what on earth was going to happen. Now, two years on from that first Microsoft Inspire experience, Chris and Tristan are proud to be co-founders of a successful global company, with an office in New York and one soon to open in London. They are looking forward to heading back this July to the launchpad that started it all and Chris has some advice for those companies still not sure if Microsoft Inspire is worth the gamble: “Just give it a shot! It’s a huge return on investment.” Once upon a time indeed. Reference: https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn-australia/microsoft-inspire-skyrocketed-advvy-just-one-week/

Brisbane’s thriving business community is putting on a strong showing in the 13th annual Lord Mayor’s Business Awards, with 55 finalists vying for a gong across the 10 categories. Lord Mayor Graham Quirk said the finalists exemplified the depth of talent within Brisbane’s business community and ranged from small businesses to larger corporations and individuals leading world-first innovations. “The Lord Mayor’s Businesses Awards are the benchmark for business excellence in Brisbane, showcasing our city as a great place to live, work and invest,” Cr Quirk said. “Every year the bar is raised higher with businesses and individuals taking our new world city reputation to the next level. “Demonstrating the impact of small business on the community, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland Award for Outstanding Small Business received the highest number of nominations. “After just two years of operation, finalist Active Truth has garnered a strong following for its locally made size-inclusive active wear. “Virtual Legal is empowering everyday Australians through its online legal platform, and Audeara – also a finalist in two other categories – is meeting a global need with its sound-tailoring headphones.” Cr Quirk said it was encouraging to see many finalists at the forefront of innovations in health, technology, social enterprise and the creative industries, with many manufacturing their products in Brisbane. “ANZ Award for High Growth Start-Up finalist, Vald Performance, is bringing laboratory-grade hamstring testing technology to elite sporting teams and has quadrupled its workforce over the past year to service 300 clients across the globe,” he said. “Australia Pacific LNG Award for Business Innovation finalist, Real Serious Games, is changing the way engineering and construction companies approach training with its virtual reality technology, and Tritium’s continual innovation is putting Brisbane on the map in the electrical vehicle market and creating more jobs in the process. “Inspiration can also be found among the Singapore Airlines Award for Young Business Person of the Year and Channel 7 Award for Business Person of the Year finalists. “Alex Moss of Canaria Technologies is commercialising an earpiece originally designed for NASA, which can predict cognitive fatigue. “Another finalist, Elliott Smith is applying artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer faster through his start-up Maxwell Plus. Another business leader, James Grugeon is growing The Good Beer Co. as a social enterprise beer company, and Tim McGahan, managing director of the Blacklab Group of Companies has carved out a globally recognised film and television brand and provided strong mentorship in the local industry. “The ingenuity and passion displayed among the 55 finalists is nothing short of outstanding. I wish all finalists the best of luck.” THE FINALISTS IN THE 2018 LORD MAYOR’S BUSINESS AWARDS ARE: ANZ AWARD FOR HIGH-GROWTH BUSINESS START-UP Advvy Lawcadia Outfit Vald Performance Reference: https://www.choosebrisbane.com.au/corporate/lmba/news/2018-lmba-finalists?sc_lang=en-au

TO POWER THE WORKFLOW OF ITS NEW MARKETPLACE BUYING MODEL As technology is increasingly being used to power media planning and buying decisions, agencies still rely heavily on offline briefs and documents to share knowledge between clients, departments, teams, and media suppliers. Advvy’s media agency workflow application is poised to bring much needed smarts and efficiency to the way the media agency teams perform their tasks and the way they interact with their clients and media suppliers. Advvy is a start-up with founders from the media industry who knew first hand the challenges facing media organisations on all sides. From his traditional media sales experience, Advvy co-founder and Chief Vision Officer, Tristan Ozinga, knew there had to be a better way to do business in the media industry. “I was literally banging my head against the desk each time there needed to be a change to my proposal, because with event a single spot changing, meant hours of manual rework” While the vision of Advvy has always been to improve the way the industry works together, it has been quite the journey towards signing the deal with MediaCom. Tristan says: “We raised some seed capital on the idea that we could improve the way radio is bought by agencies. We built a prototype that essentially showed how we could automate the way an agency could build a radio schedule. While it was well received by agencies as a step in the right direction, the networks were still trying to define what programmatic and all things automation meant for them. It was then we saw a greater challenge facing agencies, media suppliers and marketing teams alike, and that is around workflow and the information that is shared along the campaign creation journey. This then lead us to an amazing opportunity to work with Alex Kirk and the Mediacom team to develop our media agency workflow product” Advvy is one of the next generation companies building innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology – Microsoft Dynamics 365. The Advvy Media Agency Workflow application transforms inefficient campaign planning and buying processes into a cloud based solution that helps media agency employees work smarter, while giving management real-time visibility on campaign planning performance. Advvy co-founder and CEO Chris Macaulay says “We chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the underlying platform to develop the Advvy solution on top of because we knew the significant security and compliance requirements of enterprise media organisations. It also allows us to be super nimble when working with clients to configure the application to their needs, as workflows may be different by client, by team and by campaign type. And with most enterprise media agencies recently having, or are soon to be moving to, Microsoft Office 365, the application becomes a natural extension of the productivity tools standard in the industry. Email is still the number one way people communicate, so we naturally integrate with Outlook. We are also working with Microsoft on how we can leverage machine learning within the platform to help optimize people’s time and remove the need to fill out timesheets. It’s super exciting!” And Microsoft are almost just as exited as Advvy. Annita Sood Microsoft | ISV & Next Generation Partnerships Lead says: “Advvy came to us after they had built their solution. We were seriously impressed at their approach to use our Dynamics platform to solve an industry problem. Microsoft is a partner driven organisation and our global partnership with Advvy reflects our commitment to support our partners and to help them to accelerate their speed to market, global reach, and technical capabilities.” Dubbed the One Commercial Partner model, Microsoft is making it easier for partners to use their technology. With Co-Build, Co-Sell and Go-to-Market support, it’s a great time to be a Microsoft partner. While working with Advvy, MediaCom have been showcasing the technology in new business pitches. With Advvy’s help, MediaCom were a step above the rest when it came to answering the Victorian Government media account pitch brief. MediaCom COO Willie Pang says: “The brief was unique in that it wasn’t about us showing them our best answer to a campaign brief. It was largely around showing them “how” we will be doing the work for them. The Advvy application was perfect to help us respond. For the first time us and our clients can get real time visibility on the process of campaign creation, and we can get new analytics around the workload on our teams, while driving efficiencies across our business.” MediaCom has recently restructured their media buying teams dubbed “Marketplace”. The media buying teams are becoming a centralised unit that will be given briefs from all client planning teams to buy for. The Advvy Media Agency Workflow application was able to be configured to make this new process possible. Teams will now know exactly who is working on each campaign, and where there are any hold ups along the campaign journey. Willie Pang even says “Once we prove this in Australia and New Zealand, we’ll be looking to deploy Advvy globally to manage the MediaCom Marketplace in each country.”

Rhipe, Velrada, Vector Risk, Adopt & Embrace and Advvy are among the Australian Microsoft partners named as winners in the vendor’s Inspire Global Awards tally, while Datacom has been tapped as a finalist. While Microsoft’s Inspire industry event doesn’t kick off until July, the tech giant has identified the winners and finalists of the 2018 Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards, with more than a few Australian partners making the cut. In a further demonstration of local success, it should be noted that Microsoft received over 2,600 submissions from 115 countries for this year’s Inspire Awards, with high calibre of submissions, according to the vendor. Local publicly-listed cloud software distributor Rhipe has been awarded the gong for Australia’s country partner of the year for 2018. According to Microsoft’s One Commercial Partner area director for the local market, Mark Leigh, Rhipe currently claims an alliance with more than 1,700 Microsoft partners in the local region. In February, Rhipe revealed that, as at 31 December 2017, it had over 186,000 Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) Office 365 seats, compared to 126,000 as at 30 June 2017. “Leveraging Microsoft Azure and the rich array of Microsoft tools and services, Rhipe and its partners are working with organisations in every sector and geography,” Leigh said in a blog post. “Innovative solutions, such as Rhipe’s PRISM cloud portal that simplifies cloud billing and provisioning, and its smart marketing support for partners is what sets it apart and has led to significant growth over the last 12 months for Rhipe and its partner ecosystem.” Other winners named from Australia’s partner ranks include Perth-headquartered integrator and advisory firm Velrada, which won this year’s Dynamics 365 for Field Service Award. With offices in four capital cities around Australia and another in Paris, Velrada specialises in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Azure and Office 365, along with digital transformation and consulting services for a legion of top tier clients such as Santos, Mitsubishi and BHP. “Testament to the power of those solutions is the fact that Velrada itself is seeing 30 per cent revenue growth – and 300 per cent growth in its facilities management business,” Leigh said. The vendor’s 2018 Financial Services Award, meanwhile, goes to local cloud-based risk software solutions provider Vector Risk, which taps into Microsoft’s Azure, HPC Pack and SQL Server offerings to develop solutions designed to help financial services businesses comply with compliance obligations. At the same time, media and advertising workflow digital transformation provider Advvy has been was handed this year’s Media and Communications Award. Built in Dynamics 365, and leveraging Office 365 and Azure’s analytics capabilities, the company’s media agency workflow solution has been widely deployed to reduce administrative overhead, turnaround and response times. Consulting and professional services provider Adopt & Embrace, which works with Microsoft partners and customers to consult and improve Office 365 adoption, was awarded Microsoft’s Teamwork Award for 2018. According to Leigh, the company demonstrated how it is possible to drive broad adoption of Office 365 by aligning closely to C-suite business priorities, in turn securing benefits for all employees across the organisation. While not among the winners’ ranks, New Zealand-headquartered IT services powerhouse Datacom was named as a finalist in the App Innovation Award this year for its work developing a customer service app for the electricity industry. “There are also a number of other partners that I wanted to highlight that are also playing a profoundly important role in the transformation taking place right across Australia,” Leigh said in his blog post, noting that IT training provider DDLS claims the largest community of Microsoft certified trainers in Australia. Other local Microsoft partners of note highlighted by Leigh included Advance Computing, which has leveraged its understanding of agribusinesses to deploy solutions such as an Azure and IoT system developed for Australian Consolidated Milk. Advance Computing said in November last year it was poised to roll out its milk monitoring platform, built on Azure, to over 180 dairy farms around the country. Leigh also made mention of KPMG and the Commonwealth Bank, which have developed a new cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) provider named Wiise to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grow, leveraging Microsoft Dynamics 365. KPMG Australia, Commonwealth Bank and Microsoft revealed in May that they had banded together to launch Wiise in the local fintech market. “I’d like to add my personal congratulations to all our winners and finalists this year and look forward to celebrating further success throughout 2018,” Leigh added. “It’s always a particular delight to be able to acknowledge our standout partners each year and to demonstrate how they have gone above and beyond to ensure the success of our customers.” Reference: https://blogs.partner.microsoft.com/mpn-australia/microsoft-inspire-skyrocketed-advvy-just-one-week/

Advvy today announced it has won the 2018 Microsoft Partner of Year Media and Communications Award. The company was honored among a global field of top Microsoft partners for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.