The proposed ban on social media for teens has polarised industry and academia with warnings aplenty it could backfire. Ex-Facebook ANZ MD Liam Walsh argues rather than a ban, dumbing down the algorithms, forcing algorithmic transparency through regulation or removing them altogether – could actually be the solution if fears of the effects of algorithmically-generated dopamine addiction and attention-hogging dark patterns on teenage mental health are the primary problem.“If we took that out, how many problems do we have with social?” he says. Walsh warns society has no structures in place to deal with fallout that could land in nine months’ time when the Albanese government proposes a new age limit on social media use. “If you take away kids’ whole network, how they commune with others, that’s kind of a big deal.” Walsh doubts teens will “suddenly start hanging out in the park and helping old ladies paint the fence.”Erica Thomas, Principal at private girls school Kincoppal in Sydney's Rose Bay, agrees teenagers will “seek other things” to fill the void “and that is one concern” but warns there is no time to wait for a protracted legal battle with tech giants in attempts to curtail or open up the algorithms. She sees daily, first-hand, how badly action is required. Across a 30-year career in education, she says social media is “the most damaging influence I have ever seen”.Concentration levels are plummeting with teachers struggling to find a fix, girls are being conditioned to perfectionism from a young age, boys exposed to increasingly extreme violence, toxic influencers and highly sexualised images and bots of girls and young women – and in the last five years, “it’s got worse”.Brands have long championed ESG and purpose. But they’ve been strangely silent on the proposed ban. Katie Palmer-Rose, a social media marketer who has worked with the likes of L'Oreal, PepsiCo and Aldi and now runs influence agency Kindred, thinks many are waiting to see how it plays out. But she says they face a “moment in time where they tend to think very differently about how they show up in social media, how they build communities and connectedness in a digital world that doesn't live in social media,”Production company Finch’s Rob Galluzzo and Greg Attwells fully expect legal challenges from tech platforms – who they claim have told staff to “stonewall” 36 Months, the campaign they founded with Nova’s Michael ‘Wippa’ Wipfli to push for a social media ban for under 16s. Dumbing down algorithms won’t cut it, says Attwells. Keeping regulation about health, not tech, and moving fast is key, they suggest – with more backer brands about to be announced. The next phase is designing the massive educational and societal infrastructure required to fill the looming gap.

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The latest analysis of SVOD growth rates from tech and telco analyst Telsyte proves one thing: fear of streaming services losing subscribers by pivoting to ads is overblown: They’re growing – though some more than others. MD Foad Fadaghi says ads, plus AI personalisation, integration and format innovation, will power the next growth cycle but streaming growth has peaked.

Omnicom investment chief Kristiaan Kroon suggests Stan, Nine’s ad-free SVOD holdout, should heed that lesson because Nine has something globals like Netflix and others do not: “A really sophisticated, at scale, sales infrastructure, which means they could make really good money from an ad tier.” There’s more competition incoming from HBO and Disney. But Kroon reiterates that the best sales wins because unlike the US and UK, Australia’s premium end of town doesn’t operate on fully automated systems and open exchanges. “They are still very much handheld markets.”

Who’s winning right now? “Amazon Prime and then Binge and Kayo. Why? They have come to market with scale, both have sales teams, both have sophisticated data infrastructure,” per Kroon. He thinks streamer ad tiers will eclipse his earlier predictions of $75-$100m take in 2024 with Amazon, Kayo and Binge taking most of the pie. Next year, he thinks SVOD ad tiers could beat $200m, but there’s debate about how big ad-streamers like Amazon and Netflix actually are. Fadaghi suggests 80 per cent Telstye’s estimated 4.8m Amazon Prime subscribers could technically receive ads. Kroon puts the active Prime user base around 2-2.5m, broadly on a par with Nine and Seven. There’s also an effectiveness debate, with data from Adgile suggesting streamers can’t yet match TV’s results. Kroon says the MMM-effectiveness-ROI debate has become “very finger pointy in recent months”, but agrees there’s a gap to close.

Ultimately, he thinks local content integration could prove decisive in determining winners and losers – and for some of the globals, Australia may prove too small.

“I don't see how we can support that many BVOD, SVOD [players] – and we haven't really even talked about YouTube and the amount of ads that are served on CTV now,” says Kroon. “There's only going to be a certain number that can be supported.”

Fadaghi predicts the streamers will triple in size to 10m subscribers in the next four years, “with more than a third on ad tiers.”

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For anyone in ecom or performance marketing, this podcast is a must listen. Forget ROI and ROAS, think unit economics, says former investment banker (her last big deal was the Myer float) turned entrepreneur Carla Penn-Kahn. She was early into ecom and left Credit Suisse to launch four of her own –Kitchenware Australia, A Gift Worth Giving, Everten and Buy My Thing. But she sold her last venture last year when she realised it had hit peak profitability. With performance ad prices doubling in four years, and Amazon reaching full speed, the unit economics weren’t going to get any better. Penn-Kahn thinks direct-to-consumer trailblazers have likewise lost their mojo – and their moats – and face the same dilemma, because they can no longer sustainably scale through advertising and VCs are sharpening their bottom line focus as much as the top.

Meanwhile, Amazon has just signed an exclusive deal with Australia Post to deliver on weekends. “I can’t see other brands like Myer and DJs getting Aus Post to do the same for them … which 100 per cent gives Amazon an edge in this market over Australian businesses.” Hence she’s cool on the outlook for many, but particularly the likes of The Iconic, Temple and Webster, Adore Beauty and Australian marketplaces like Woolworths-owned Catch, which last week put a $96m dent in Wesfarmers’ balance sheet. Loyalty programs and retail media offers a lifeline for some, per Penn-Kahn, but most DTC brands don’t have the latter option.

But Amazon might not have it all it’s own way. She suggests Microsoft might be gearing up to buy Shopify (which in Australia lays claim to controlling 25 per cent of all ecom transactions). If it happens “they will own the space”, suggests Penn-Kahn. “You will be advertising on Bing through the Shopify network as an ecom brand and leveraging Microsoft's AI to build your website, build the content. It could be a full ecosystem roll up if it happens. It's very possible.”

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