By Hannah Tattersall, 29th November 2018, in the Australian Financial Review

A few years ago, Publicis Mojo chief executive Andrew Baxter was concerned his teams in Sydney and Melbourne hadn't spent much time together. A staff conference was organised on the Gold Coast and Baxter arranged for Grammy-nominated songwriter Ciaran Gribbin to perform and lead a team-building session on the importance of group synchronicity.

"It was about building mental resilience and getting a team from a seven out of 10 to a 10 out of 10," Baxter says. "We were keen for people to understand that it takes a bit of mental toughness, resilience and strong-mindedness to make that happen."

Marketing expert Andrew Baxter once pitched campaigns to Jarther Taylor, CEO of Datarati. Now Baxter is drawing on his own board career to mentor Taylor in his new role.

The rapid growth of online media in the past decade has seen “traditional” media – television, print, radio and outdoor – lose some of its once lustrous reputation in the marketing industry. Yet one of those traditional media, outdoor, has been able to buck the trend and reinvent itself in the digital era. And in doing so it has increased its audiences – and revenues.

The teaching of marketing related subjects at a tertiary level could become irrelevant unless Australian Universities engage with the sector as it goes through a period of rapid technology driven change, according to a leading marketing industry expert.

Andrew Baxter, who headed the communications agencies Ogilvy and Publicis here in Australia, made the observation after being appointed as an adjunct Professor of Marketing by the University of Sydney Business School.

“Marketing has changed enormously over the past 10 years and now more than ever, universities need to understand industry best practice in order to remain relevant,” Professor Baxter said. “Students need to learn the latest techniques from the sector itself.”

In his new role, Professor Baxter, will work to establish a dialogue between the Business School and the multi-billion dollar marketing industry.

“Technology has transformed the industry in recent years with a shift in focus away from traditional media and towards highly targeted digital platforms,” said the head of the Business School’s marketing discipline, Professor Vince Mitchell.

“It is essential that we engage the best talent available if our students are to be job ready when they graduate and join the workforce,” Professor Mitchell said as he announced Professor Baxter’s appointment.

According to Nielsen, 40 per cent of FMCG brands sold in supermarkets in the last 12 months were done so on promotion, up from 30 per cent in 2009. The research says that 48 per cent of these sales would have happened anyway, regardless of whether the product was on promotion. That’s $11 billion in sales discounting that didn’t need to happen.

That’s money that’s being diverted from advertising spend and product innovation, both of which are needed to drive the longer-term health of individual FMCG brands and the category as a whole.