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WPP AUNZ Chief Strategy Officer, Katie Rigg-Smith has highlighted the importance of including regional Australia on clients’ media schedules at the first Boomtown Masterclass for 2025. “We have a responsibility. It’s incumbent on us to spend our clients’ money wisely—and there’s a big opportunity and population out there. We need to make sure we’re considering […]

Drag queens, medical doctors, marketing professionals, financiers – Australia’s regional residents are as professionally diverse as metro consumers, younger than ever, and present a lucrative growth opportunity for brands and agencies willing to rethink their marketing and media investments. Here are just a few of the surprising residents you’ll find if you’re willing to take […]

Having grown up in regional Australia, Jamie Wood, global sales director at Boost Media International, understands the importance of local media. Here, he discusses just how powerful it can be, and why marketers should get behind it. I grew up in Gunnedah, New South Wales. Gunnedah has a population of about 8,300 – 4,300 of […]

I’m lucky to live in a place most people dream of. With just 300 metres from our front door to the beach, it’s wonderful to live and work in a place outside the stress and noise of our nearest major capital city. What comes with that is we are a haven for tourism. If you’re […]

Boomtown has officially announced its first 2025 Masterclass and the panel who will be featured in it. The announcement: Boomtown, the collective representing the 9.8 million people living in regional Australia, today announced its first Masterclass of 2025, featuring a panel of must-see industry experts, following a successful 2024 education program. Registrations are now open […]

The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2024 and forward to next year. Brian Gallagher, Chairman, Boomtown From a media landscape perspective, I am marking 2024 an “incomplete”. After anticipating a year of media sector consolidation, ad growth across most domestic media platforms and action on consumer data protections – which could stimulate […]

“Boomtown will boom your business” was the key message shared by three of the nation’s leading female marketing experts at the final online Boomtown Masterclass for 2024, which nearly 100 people tuned into. The masterclass, which was held online on Thursday 21 November, featured insights from a panel of senior women in media, including Lucy Formosa Morgan, managing […]

These are interesting times, and the challenges faced by Australian marketing and media are frequently diabolical. There is always opportunity in a crisis, but rarely a single solution that is easy to see. Many are worried, searching for answers, and seeking guidance from our best thinkers. At Mumbrella, we want to interview industry leaders to […]

Australia’s population growth has traditionally focused on urban centres like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. But recent shifts are rewriting the script. As the Queensland election results recently showed, regional areas now hold significant sway, with smaller towns influencing outcomes and shaping the nation’s direction. These shifts aren’t just political—they signal deeper changes in how regional […]

Regional media has never been more important. As Bernard Salt AM told a room full of Sydneysider media buyers earlier this year, not only is the smart money moving to the regions but smart people are too—in fact, Salt expects that at least a million people to move from metro areas to the regions over the […]

Travel and getting out and about is synonymous with an Aussie summer and Aussies are not giving up travel despite the inflation crisis. Boomtown remains the most popular place to travel over the Christmas/Summer period, with more than half (51%) of metro audiences travelling to regional Australia. And of those that live in regional, more than two […]

Investing regional advertising back into creating local content is crucial to ensuring a lively media landscape. Brian Gallagher, Chair of Boomtown, explores why this reciprocity is necessary, and how Boomtown is celebrating it.   It’s been five years since Boomtown, the collective marketing body representing the 9.8 million people residing in regional Australia, launched onto […]

The Masterclass will be held online on Thursday, November 21 from 10 am AEDT. A trio of Australian female marketing experts is set to offer their insights on the value of regional media advertising as part of the next Boomtown Masterclass. The November Masterclass will feature an expert panel of senior women in media, including Lucy Formosa […]

Boomtown recently kicked off a new trade ad campaign challenging marketers and buyers to cut through the cliché and invest in regional markets.  Their statistics are compelling but it’s their job to sell regional, so they are always going to be.  But as someone who independently measures ROI of media day in, day out, I’d […]

Chris Minns might be trying to get NSW public sector workers to return to the office, but don’t expect millennials who’ve migrated in droves to Australia’s regional areas for their forever homes to comply, says Bernard Salt. Even as unemployment figures inch up, and the cost-of-living crisis and softer economic climate give employers more power […]

Regional media spend is holding up amid broader market grind – and a new trade campaign is landing, challenging marketer bias and opening doors for Boomtown’s publisher-TV-audio collective. Now sales teams from Southern Cross Austereo, WIN Television, Seven Network, ACM, ARN, Nine, News Corp Australia and Imparja Television need to show what they’re made of and extract best bang from marketing buck, says […]

At Boomtown’s Masterclass last week, three marketing and media experts – Optus’ Lauren Dawber, The Speed Agency’s Rob Maxwell, and Kennards Hire’s Manelle Merhi – revealed that a sizeable portion of customers for national brands are outside capital cities. ‘More exciting’, ‘more effective’ and ‘double the impact’ were just a few of the insights from […]

TV IKEA’s CMO Kirsten Hasler and former Diageo and Domino’s CMO Adam Ballesty reckon there is plenty of value in pouring ad dollars in regional Australia, but only under certain conditions. Two of the nations top marketers have encouraged the industry to consider regional Australia. IKEA ANZ’s head of marketing Kirsten Hasler said that the […]

Boomtown, the media collective representing the benefits of advertising to 9.8 million regional Australians, has today unveiled a new multi-channel campaign developed by Thinkerbell, featuring the brand positioning of Population: Unexpected. The new campaign is designed to celebrate and reinforce the exponential opportunity that advertising in regional Australia offers businesses. The campaign shines a spotlight […]

The campaign aims to showcase why regional Australia is the ideal destination for brands this fiscal year. Boomtown has launched a new campaign urging national brands and agencies to incorporate regional Australia into their FY25 advertising plans, for five good reasons. The campaign, debuting today, aims to showcase why regional Australia is the ideal destination […]

Plastic money, driverless buses, Macca’s brekkie, and lockout laws. While you might not love all of these things or be as prone to a hash brown as I am, they all have a common thread: they were tested in regional Australia, specifically in NSW’s Newcastle and the Hunter region. The beta / test market approach […]

Boomtown, established by media owners five years ago, has found an increasingly strong appetite for regional advertising, according to an industry survey. The purpose of the study was to understand the awareness of regional media advertising and perceptions of regional media and Boomtown. The survey of 100 found regional advertising gave access to valuable local […]

According to the industry leaders at the 2024 Boomtown masterclass, advertising in regional Australia is an absolute must for agencies and brands. Advertising in regional Australia should be a ‘no-brainer’, according to national industry experts, who kicked off Boomtown’s 2024 masterclass series last week. Boomtown – the collaborative representing the millions of people living in […]

It’s always baffled me why investing in regional media is a topic worth talking about in 2024, let alone penning an opinion piece…yet here we are. Whilst more and more brands are beginning to include regional Australians in their marketing efforts the investment-to-opportunity gap remains woefully wide. In fact the latest Boomtown report shows regional […]

I penned a few thoughts late last year on the impact of data and privacy regulations on advertising and media. It’s an important topic and so I’m sharing a summarised version here in case you missed the original. 2024 will be no less disruptive than 2023. Efficiency and effectiveness will be the key themes, driven […]

The Big Rainbow Project, which was delivered during the recent Pride Season, including the World Pride festival, gave Tinder its best-ever brand-perception results in Australia and helped the business connect with regional LGBTQIA+ audiences. Tinder used unique insights about regional Australians’ desire for connection to create an innovative, dynamic campaign that encouraged the Gen Z […]

Boomtown is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets nationally and comprises nearly 40% of the overall population. Goodbye metro cities, hello Boomtown – the nationwide tree and sea change is on, and there’s no sign of it slowing down. The era of regional living has been dawning since the pandemic, when many Aussies seized […]

Despite its famous beaches, great climate and world-class restaurants, huge numbers of people are quitting Sydney for one big reason. Living in Sydney has become a financial nightmare and the ever-rising cost of housing, food and bills is forcing more and more people to call the city quits, new data shows. Removalist comparison website Muval […]

Don’t treat regional media as a charity, but a real growth opportunity: That’s the message from Boomtown’s final masterclass of 2023, attended by almost 100 media industry representatives from across the nation. The masterclass was part of a series of educational sessions, delivered by Boomtown, the media collective championing advertising in regional Australia. The sessions […]

2023 was a year of kinetic disruption. In the ad markets, the year defied all efforts to budget and forecast with accuracy. From the economic impacts of global unrest, rising interest rates driving domestic inflation (to replace the supply chain issues from the previous year) to specific ad industry issues such as the release of […]

In a world where advertising is decided by data, impressions and attention, it would make sense to start here when arguing the absurdity of our industry’s metro-centric view of advertising. Yet, whilst the numbers do indeed tell a story about just how important it is to advertise to regional Australia, it is Boomtown Chair’s Brian […]

The AdNews Agency Of The Year Award 2023 finalists have been revealed. The awards, with Samsung Ads as presenting partner, were judged by senior marketers and CMOs from across Australia. Read their insights into this year’s submissions here. The winners will be announced at a long lunch ceremony on February 22, 2024. The lunch will […]

Mobile and internet service provider, Belong, says it has experienced a significant boost from its inaugural Boomtown campaign, leading to a strategic shift towards regional advertising. The campaign, which was rolled out in eight regional markets including Cairns, Newcastle, Wollongong, and Darwin, aimed to drive sales, brand awareness, and share of voice. The results have […]

Forever has the flow of people been from the town to the city, from the country to the metro. Enter one pesky virus, and all of a sudden that’s been turned on its head. Suddenly we realised life was better beyond the big smoke and disposable incomes are healthier as well. No wonder we call […]

A new marketing leader has been recruited by regional media collective, Boomtown, following the departure of current marketing lead, Prue Tehan. Regional marketing and advertising initiative, Boomtown, has brought on former Koala and Athena lead marketer, Leanne Glamuzina, as its new marketing lead. She takes up the reins from early November and replaces current marketing […]

According to the latest data, Boomtown remains resilient and upbeat, despite rising cost-of-living pressures New research from Boomtown has revealed the similarities and differences between metro and regional Australians when it comes to sentiment and spending. The study has found regional Australians are feeling happier and generally more positive about life than city dwellers, despite the […]

The Suncorp Group and AAMI’s regional advertising campaigns have generated significant results, according to the insurance and banking group. The announcement: National insurance and banking company, Suncorp Group, has notched up significant results from its investment in advertising in regional Australia, pairing clever creative with audience insights for a sizeable lift in brand consideration, sentiment, […]

The larrikin, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who passed in 2019, would have downed a few pints and shouted a few more to this one: Hawke’s Brewing Co, with an established foothold in Eastern metro markets as a loveable premium challenger brand, had a blind spot – rural Australia. The beer company he helped establish […]

Sam Buchanan: “Regional media buying is an important area of education for agencies and marketers nationwide” Independent Media Agencies of Australia (IMAA) has launched Regional101 – a deep-dive into the regional media landscape as part of its IMAA Academy education program. The e-learning module is the latest course in the IMAA Academy’s eight-part education program and is a collaboration between the association and Boomtown […]

Boomtown has launched its multi-platform ‘Untapped and Uncapped’ campaign, featuring a number of the country’s top marketers touting the benefit of regional media buying. The campaign is aimed at marketers and media agency strategists, and features an instructive video series, and the launch of a free e-book: Untapped and Uncapped: Seven Lessons in Marketing to […]

Brian Gallagher, former chief sales officer at SCA, has been appointed as Boomtown’s independent chair. Gallagher has served as chairman since Boomtown launched in 2019 and, as independent chair, will provide continued strategic guidance and alignment to Boomtown’s marketing and education efforts, contribute to marketing activity, and collaborate with relevant industry bodies, among other activities. […]

The agency’s director Adam Arndell spoke to Mediaweek about its recent exceptional growth and being a leader in the niche space C7EVEN Communications was launched by Adam Arndell and his business partner Sarah Crowe in July 2015. The duo saw an opportunity in the marketplace for a specialist marketing and communications agency that focused wholeheartedly […]

New reports from Boomtown has revealed Australian regional cities are experiencing population and economic growth as people move away from metro areas, leading to a new spotlight series. Launching today, Boomtown’s ‘City Spotlight’ series places the spotlight on nine key regional hubs that are experiencing a renaissance as Australians continue to embrace sea and tree […]

Regional business is booming, ladies and gentlemen! In fact, Boomtown currently represents a seriously substantial 9.1 million people living in regional Australia. That’s 36 per cent of our population, or if you prefer, almost TWO New Zealands! Boomtown is an Australian-first media collaboration of major regional media owners – SCA, WIN Network, Seven, ARN, ACM, Imparja, News […]

Boomtown’s National Virtual Masterclass on Thursday will see panellists Emily Moss (Commercial Director, Canberra FM Radio) and Philippa Moig (Business Director, OMD) sharing their tips, hints and real-life examples on how to best connect brands with regional audiences. The Masterclass, a series of 90-minute virtual sessions facilitated by marketing expert Gaye Steel (AANA) that kicked […]

Gallagher also talks about the importance of the IMAA and the consolidation of the market With Australia beginning to open up again following the Covid-19 pandemic, Boomtown, the million-dollar regional trade marketing campaign, believes it is in a good position to drive even more ad spend into regional Australia, Mediaweek caught up with Boomtown chairman and […]

Boomtown’s campaign results for pasta brand San Remo have demonstrated the power of regional media. The announcement: A multi-platform Boomtown campaign has delivered exceptional results for leading Australian pasta brand San Remo, demonstrating the power of regional media to boost brand awareness and sales. In one of the most comprehensive cross-media case studies released by […]