Two Market Signals We Can’t Take Our Eyes Off

A$120 million in estimated additional sales from one campaign

Further advertising restrictions reshaping one major Australian industry

Two very different stories.

Both say something important about where marketing is heading.

This month, we are looking closely at the commercial impact of regulation and the value of creating brand experiences people genuinely remember. As AI gives us more ways to understand customer patterns, improve efficiency and strengthen processes, the bigger shift is that real brand awareness is becoming harder to simply buy through advertising alone.

Whether that pressure is coming from the rise of GEO, changing discovery behaviour or tighter regulation, the brands with the strongest advantage will be the ones people understand, remember and trust.

Ooshies showed the commercial value of being memorable

Woolworths’ Disney Ooshies promotion is estimated to have generated more than A$120 million in additional sales.

The number is impressive, but the behaviour around the campaign is what makes it commercially interesting.

Customers collected the characters, swapped them, searched for missing ones and talked about them well beyond the supermarket aisle. The promotion became part of everyday behaviour, not simply another retail offer.

That is where the value sits.

The Ooshie itself was simple. The brand experience around it was not.

Woolworths created anticipation, participation and repeat interaction, and that translated into real commercial impact.

For us, the lesson is not about collectibles.

It is about memory.

Brands do not need a national supermarket footprint to create something people remember. A strong client event, a signature part of the service journey, a thoughtful collaboration, a membership experience or one unexpected detail can all create the same underlying effect.

The question is not always how much content a brand can produce.

It is whether the customer leaves with something worth remembering.

The Posh Position | Memorable brands create participation, not just impressions. When the experience is strong enough to influence behaviour, brand and commercial performance begin working together.

Regulation rarely stops at advertising

Australia’s gambling advertising reforms have brought renewed attention to an industry that has been operating under increasing regulatory pressure for years.

Having spent years working inside wagering, this has captivated our attention long before it became headline news. Hours have been spent forecasting the projected impact of regulatory change and one thing becomes very clear very quickly.

It is rarely just about the advertising.

The impact moves much further into customer experience, segmentation, promotions, acquisition, retention, brand trust and the wider marketing model.

That is why we think the current shift is worth watching closely from an aesthetics and wellness perspective.

The industries are vastly different, but the regulatory pattern is instructive.

TGA and AHPRA requirements are already changing how aesthetics and health-service businesses can communicate, advertise and build demand. If history tells us anything, those businesses that prepare early will be better placed than those that wait for each new restriction to dictate their next move.

The opportunity is not simply to stay compliant.

It is to build a stronger marketing model around education, authority, brand, customer experience and trust so growth is not dependent on tactics that may become harder to use over time.

The Posh Position | Regulation should be built into growth strategy early. The businesses that treat it as a strategic input, rather than a final compliance check, will be more resilient as the market tightens.

The Posh Position

These two signals come from very different parts of the market, but they point in the same direction.

Strong marketing is becoming less dependent on the individual advertisement and more dependent on the system surrounding it.

Regulation is forcing businesses to think harder about how demand is created. At the same time, campaigns like Ooshies remind us that customer behaviour changes when brands create something people genuinely want to engage with.

For us, that is where the opportunity sits.

Build stronger brands. Build better experiences. Build customer relationships that remain valuable even as regulation, platforms and behaviour continue to shift. We can leverage AI to better understand our customer’s patterns, be more efficient with processes and compliance but real brand awareness can no longer be bought, by ads whether it be the rise of GEO or regulation.

That is the market movement we are not ignoring.