Program
Day 1
Day 2
Day 1
9 March 2027, Brisbane Powerhouse
08:00 – 09:30
Arrive, grab a coffee, meet some new people, and check out what’s happening around the venue.
09:30 – 10:20
- Powerhouse Theatre
Welcome to Content Summit Australia
Presented by:
Zach Mander
Future Demand: Why the brands that win tomorrow are built today
Most marketing budgets chase the small slice of people ready to buy right now. But there’s a much larger group of people who aren’t in market yet, and that’s where long-term growth is won or lost.
In this keynote, James Hurman, Group Chair of Previously Unavailable, co-founder of Tracksuit and author of Future Demand, makes the case for building your brand among tomorrow’s customers. Drawing on his research, James unpacks why performance marketing alone hits a ceiling; how familiarity, trust and affinity built today can turn into sales later; and how to balance short-term results with long-term demand creation.
Packed with evidence, real-world examples and practical takeaways, this session gives marketers and brand leaders a clear framework for growing faster and more efficiently, and the language to win the internal argument for investing in brand.
Presented by:
James Hurman
We're splitting!
Pick a stream and location
- Powerhouse Theatre
Putting the brand in their hands: How Vaseline built around creators
While many global brands are still figuring out how creators fit into their marketing strategy, Vaseline has rebuilt its approach around them.
Fresh off a slew of Cannes Lions wins, Nathalia Amadeu, Global Brand Manager at Vaseline, unpacks the mindset shift behind the brand’s award-winning transformation, from treating creators as media channels to recognising them as co-authors of the brand itself.
She’ll explore what it means to believe “the brand isn’t ours, it’s theirs”, why participation is replacing promotion and how giving creators more influence can build authenticity, trust and ultimately, brand growth.
Presented by:
Nathalia Amadeu
- Augathella Spiegeltent
The great cultural overthink: Has marketing lost sight of reality?
Marketing has become very good at observing culture. Every week brings another emerging trend, provocative theory or cleverly named phenomenon explaining why people behave the way they do.
Individually, these ideas can be compelling. Collectively, they create an audience so contradictory that no real person could possibly fit the description.
In this session, Born Founder and Strategy Director David Coupland challenges the industry’s obsession with cultural commentary and the tendency to turn interesting observations into universal truths.
He’ll explore why realism and nuance matter more than novelty, why human behaviour is messier than our frameworks allow, and why understanding the stories that shape people’s beliefs can tell us more than endlessly cataloguing their behaviours.
A case for less labelling, more understanding and content that feels a little more like real life.
Presented by:
David Coupland
- Underground Theatre
Watching the watchers: What Gogglebox can teach us about audiences
For Kevin Yow Yeh, Bob Smith and Jared Hutchinson, watching content is part of the job. As familiar faces on Gogglebox Australia, they’ve spent years reacting to what’s on screen while millions of Australians react to them in return.
In this live conversation, Kevin, Bob and Jared will share what they’ve learned from life on the couch, from bringing First Nations representation into mainstream Australian television to navigating the praise, criticism and everything in between that follows on social media.
They’ll also turn the tables on Content Summit, giving content created by speakers and guests the full Gogglebox treatment live on stage.
Panel featuring:
Bob Smith
Jared Hutchinson
Kevin Yow Yeh
Facilitated by:
Stay tuned
- Powerhouse Theatre
The New Newsroom: Building a media brand for the feed
Traditional news has spent decades asking young people to come to them. The Daily Aus has built a news brand designed to meet the next generation where they already are.
For TDA, channel strategy is central to the product, not just the distribution plan. From Instagram explainers to newsletters, podcasts and digital-first storytelling, they’ve shown how serious information can be packaged for the ways young Australians actually read, watch and listen.
In this session, co-founder Sam Koslowski unpacks how TDA is rethinking the news model, helping inform the next generation and building trust through formats many traditional publishers were slow to take seriously.
For content, marketing and communications teams, it’s a practical look at how to choose channels with intent and build a content ecosystem that earns attention, trust and return visits.
Presented by:
Sam Koslowski
- Augathella Spiegeltent
Impact on a shoestring: How purpose-led businesses make their marketing budget go further
Marketing teams everywhere are feeling the squeeze on budgets. But for purpose-led businesses, making limited resources work harder has always been part of the job.
In this panel, marketing and comms leaders from charities, social enterprises and startups share how they find creative ways to build awareness, engage audiences and drive results without big-brand budgets.
From ambassador programs and strategic partnerships to campaigns built to punch above their spend, they’ll unpack the ideas and tactics behind some of the sector’s most effective marketing, and what other marketers can learn from doing more with less.
Panel featuring:
Lilly Caldwell
Caterina Hrysomallis
Daniel Allen
Moderated by:
Stay tuned
- Underground Theatre
Content coming soon!
Watching the watchers: What Gogglebox can teach us about audiences
For Kevin Yow Yeh, Bob Smith and Jared Hutchinson, watching content is part of the job. As familiar faces on Gogglebox Australia, they’ve spent years reacting to what’s on screen while millions of Australians react to them in return.
In this live conversation, Kevin, Bob and Jared will share what they’ve learned from life on the couch, from bringing First Nations representation into mainstream Australian television to navigating the praise, criticism and everything in between that follows on social media.
They’ll also turn the tables on Content Summit, giving content created by speakers and guests the full Gogglebox treatment live on stage.
Panel featuring:
To be confirmed
To be confirmed
To be confirmed
Facilitated by:
To be confirmed
12:00 – 13:00
Lunch
12:20 – 13:00
- Rooftop Terrace
Table Talks – Interactive Roundtables
The interactive roundtables give speakers and delegates a chance to decompress, ask questions, and start forming a plan for execution. Each table will host a specific topic for discussion, moderated by subject matter experts from brand and agencies.
Topics coming soon!
Presented by:
To be confirmed
- Powerhouse Theatre
Content coming soon!
Content coming soon!
Content coming soon!
Panel featuring:
Lilly Caldwell
Caterina Hrysomallis
Dan Allen
Moderated by:
To be confirmed
- Augathella Spiegeltent
Reading the room: What audiences want across platforms
Most marketers know they should create platform-first content. The challenge is understanding what actually works in each space and why.
In this panel, marketers from LinkedIn, Reddit and Snapchat will unpack how audiences use their platforms, and the types of content they’re most likely to engage with.
They’ll explore what makes each audience different, where brands commonly misread the room, and the best practices for each platform that can help brands create work that’s not only accepted, but embraced.
Panel featuring:
Danielle Zikman
Hayley Saddleton
Julia Wyatt
Moderated by:
Stay tuned
- Underground Theatre
From internal truth to external impact: How to build a B2B brand campaign people actually believe
In professional services, trust is hard won and easy to lose. When every firm is promising expertise and results, a campaign only cuts through if it’s grounded in something real.
In this session, Grant Thornton’s Liz Burger and Mikala Spark share the story behind Reach for Remarkable, the firm’s brand platform and ambassador campaign with Jess Fox. Rather than launching advertising first and expecting culture to follow, Grant Thornton spent three years embedding the promise across its people, client experience and firm culture before taking it to market.
They’ll unpack how that internal alignment helped create a credible external campaign, how the partnership earned attention in a crowded B2B category, and how the team connected brand storytelling to measurable commercial outcomes.
Panel featuring:
Liz Burger
Mikala Spark
- Powerhouse Theatre
Oh no! The feed ate your marketing plan
You can map the perfect customer journey. Good luck getting your customers to follow it.
There are more ways to encounter a brand than any media plan can neatly sequence. A customer might first meet you through a creator, a paid ad, an employee’s LinkedIn post, an event, or an outdoor placement recirculated online. Your carefully planned campaign might be their introduction, or they might arrive with five unplanned brand interactions already behind them.
So how do you build a content strategy that accounts for all of that?
In this session, you’ll learn how to build a content system designed for the modern media landscape, from diagnosing what your content actually needs to achieve, to protecting the parts of your brand that need to stay consistent, so you can better connect creators, paid media, brand activity and real-world experiences into one coherent system.
Presented by:
Maddie King
- Augathella Spiegeltent
Content coming soon!
Beyond the logo: The new era of brand partnerships
As the battle for consumer attention intensifies, brands are being pushed to rethink where they invest, how they show up and what meaningful audience connection actually looks like.
Sport has long dominated the sponsorship landscape, but major properties are becoming increasingly crowded and competitive. At the same time, new opportunities are opening up across entertainment, culture and creator-led platforms, giving brands more ways to build distinctive relationships with audiences.
Drawing on her experience across major sporting events and entertainment, Britt Wickes will explore the evolving relationship between brands, fandom and culture.
She’ll look at how brands can move beyond traditional sponsorship and visibility, using live experiences, creators, digital communities and entertainment partnerships to become a more meaningful part of the things audiences already care about.
The session will also consider what the next era of brand partnerships could look like, and where marketers should be looking as the sponsorship landscape continues to change.
Presented by:
Britt Wickes
- Underground Theatre
Return on Ideas: The case for creativity
We measure return on investment. But what about the return on the idea?
In a world racing to produce more AI slop, Bespoken’s Sarah Morgan makes the case for investing in creative thinking and problem-solving. She’ll explore creativity not as a lightning strike, but as a muscle we can build and a practice worth protecting.
Sarah will connect unexpected stories with practical ways to break familiar patterns, challenge tired briefs and find fresh angles. She’ll invite marketers, communicators and content creators to step away from the screen, stretch their creative muscles and turn everyday curiosity into marketing campaigns and media stories that mean something.
Presented by:
Sarah Morgan
14:30 – 15:00
Brain break
- Powerhouse Theatre
The age of age is over: How today’s demographics are shattering the stereotypes
For decades, marketers have relied on generational labels like Gen Z and Baby Boomers to segment and sell to audiences. But in 2027, age alone is telling us less of the story.
Longer lifespans, declining birth rates, technological change and a historic transfer of wealth are reshaping how people live, spend and see themselves.
In this session, WGSN Senior Strategist Tully Walter explores the cultural shifts challenging familiar generational stereotypes, from the Boomer rebrand and Gen Z’s multiple storylines to midlife reinvention and the rise of the inner-child market.
She’ll look at what changes when we move beyond birth year, and start understanding audiences through mindset, life stage and lived experience.
Presented by:
Tully Walter
- Augathella Spiegeltent
Content coming soon!
The great debate: To test or not to test?
Creative testing promises to take some of the guesswork out of advertising. But when does feedback make the work better, and when does it start sanding off the things that made the idea interesting in the first place?
In this live debate, two sides will make the case for and against testing creative before it goes out into the world. They’ll tackle the value of audience feedback, the risk of optimising for the test rather than the real world, and the moments when instinct and creative conviction still need to win out.
A lively look at how much confidence marketers should place in the data, when to keep refining and when to stop testing and let the creative do the talking.
Panel featuring:
Stay tuned
Stay tuned
Stay tuned
Moderated by:
Stay tuned
- Underground Theatre
Eavesdropping on the internet: What weird online communities can teach us about people
The internet is full of strange little communities built around incredibly specific behaviours, from eating oranges in the shower to stapling bread to trees.
But beneath the weirdness are very ordinary human needs to connect, belong and participate.
In this session, Reddit’s Hayley Saddleton and Omnicom’s Daniel Klug take a trip down some of the internet’s strangest rabbit holes, using an interview with Everybody Loves Raymond creator and Somebody Feed Phil host Phil Rosenthal as a jumping-off point for a bigger idea: the most specific details can reveal something universal.
With the audience choosing which communities to explore, they’ll show how unusual online behaviours can surface real human insights, and how those observations can lead to stronger creative hypotheses and content ideas.
Presented by:
Hayley Saddleton
Daniel Klug
15:50 – 16:30
- Powerhouse Theatre
Content coming soon!
Content coming soon!
Content coming soon!
Presented by:
To be confirmed
16:30 – 17:10
- Powerhouse Theatre
Vertical growth: How the Macfarlane Brothers build stories for social
Lachlan and Austin Macfarlane spent years making videos before their work really took off. Then TikTok changed the trajectory, helping them grow an audience, land paid work and eventually leave their day jobs to create full-time.
In this session, the Brisbane-based directing duo will share what they’ve learned about making stories work across TikTok, YouTube and more traditional formats, including why understanding your audience matters more than trying to crack the algorithm, how they approach hooks and pacing, and what has to change when a story is built vertically.
They’ll show how they pre-visualise and plan every second of a video, and how that discipline has helped them turn social media momentum into opportunities across the wider entertainment industry, from set visits and studio collabs to their own professional productions.
Presented by:
Lachlan and Austin Macfarlane,
17:30
Buses leave Brisbane Powerhouse for Welcome Party
18:00
Welcome Party
Barrel Hall, Howard Smith Wharves
Keep the ideas flowing and the conversations going at the official Content Summit Welcome Party. Join hundreds of your fellow delegates for an evening of food, drinks, entertainment and next-level networking.
With sweeping views of the Story Bridge and Brisbane River, it’s your chance to unwind, swap stories from the marketing trenches and make new connections. And with activations and a few surprises in store, it’s one party you won’t want to miss.
17:30
Buses leave Brisbane Powerhouse for Welcome Party
18:00
- Barrel Hall, Howard Smith Wharves
Welcome Party
Keep the ideas flowing and the conversations going at the official Content Summit Welcome Party. Join hundreds of your fellow delegates for an evening of food, drinks, entertainment and next-level networking.
With sweeping views of the Story Bridge and Brisbane River, it’s your chance to unwind, swap stories from the marketing trenches and make new connections.