So we threw a few left-field questions his way. 

Left & Centre with Lucien Bienvenu

What kind of problem do you love getting your hands on?
Anything that is interesting to research and takes you down a bunch of different rabbit holes. Problems that are a bit more obvious or restrictive tend to get a bit boring. 

What do people reliably come to you for? 
Someone to go to the pub with on a Sunday afternoon. I’d probably shoot at a 99% success rate of saying yes to these requests. 

What’s a recommendation you’ve forced on at least three people lately? 
Having two separate pepper grinders, one for black pepper and one for white pepper (stop buying pre-ground white pepper, it is foul). I reckon I’ve told at least 20 people that they should do this since the start of the year. 

What’s something you bring to a room that isn’t on your job description? 
Doesn’t come up all that often and hopefully won’t in the future, but I’m fairly elite at using Excel and have used it to build a bunch of different frameworks and models. 

What’s something uncool you stand by? 
Birkenstocks and socks. It has its place.

Welcome, Lucien. We’re looking forward to the rabbit holes, the Sunday pub availability and the very real possibility of Birkenstocks and socks in the office. 

And just for kicks, here’s a Lucky Lucien Leftie Limerick. 

There once was a Strat, Bienvenu,
Who loved rabbit holes and a strong point of view.
His lunch stayed unplated,
His pepper curated,
Now he’s right at home with the left-side crew. 

The post Left & Centre with Lucien Bienvenu first appeared on Keep Left.

This time, it was boy kibble that got the room talking.

Coming off the back of a Dairy Australia pitch, protein was already on our minds. Once this meaty man meal hit the table, it was hard to look away. 

If you’ve managed to avoid it so far, boy kibble is the internet’s name for a deliberately basic, high-protein meal of the blokey variety. Usually some version of mince and rice, maybe hot sauce if you’re feeling fancy. It comes from the protein-maxxing corner of the internet, where gym culture overlaps with the manosphere. 

The meal itself is not new. Bodybuilders, meal-preppers and gym bros have been eating beige food out of containers for years. 

What’s new is the label. 

More than meat and rice

Boy kibble is more than just a name for a meal. It packages a behaviour. 

It takes something repetitive, joyless and highly functional, then gives it a wrapper, a personality and a point of view. Suddenly, meal prep isn’t just efficient. It’s ironic. It’s self-aware. It’s something you can post.

Here, blandness isn’t a flaw. It’s part of the appeal. 

The whole thing signals utility over pleasure, discipline over indulgence, function over fuss. It turns a small act of self-optimisation into something culturally legible.

A lot of that work sits in the word boy. 

As a riff on Girl Dinner, the internet’s name for a cobbled-together, low-effort meal, it softens the behaviour with humour. It makes the whole thing feel playful, even ridiculous, which helps because underneath the joke is a familiar script: protein, routine, efficiency, minimal fuss. Keep it functional. Keep it moving.

It also works as a quick signal of belonging. It says: I’m this kind of guy. I eat for function. I care about gains. I’m not here for a beautifully plated lunch with micro greens.

That’s part of why it travels so well. It doesn’t just describe the meal. It signals a set of values and a subculture people can recognise instantly. 

Where culture kicks in

It gets more interesting when you look at it through the Cultural Frame.

At Keep Left, we talk about culture as the thing that shapes how people see the world, and how they see themselves in it. Which means it should shape the way brands think about messaging, media and ideas too.

Boy kibble is a gross yet great example. 

At first glance, it’s just a brown bowl of mush. But culturally, it’s doing a lot more. It’s a signal about identity, aspiration and a bro-coded worldview that’s easy to recognise and easy to perform. 

That’s why it spreads.

Not because it’s especially original. Because it’s frictionless.

The format is simple. The joke is built in. The meaning is carried in the label. A bowl, a deadpan caption, a nod to macros or gains, then off it goes into the algorithmic slipstream.

This isn’t really one meal hack. It’s a repeatable content format.

And repeatable formats tend to move when they let people do two things at once: express something about themselves and affiliate with a group without much effort. 

How the joke does the work 

The lesson here isn’t that brands should lean into the male-coded part of it. It’s not even really about protein. 

It’s about how ideas move in culture. 

Useful behaviours travel further when they give people a way to signal who they are and where they belong. 

People are drawn to things that make everyday life easier. But usefulness alone rarely gets remembered, shared or repeated. What gives a behaviour momentum is when it arrives in a form people can recognise, perform and pass on. 

That’s where the joke comes in. It doesn’t just make the behaviour funnier. It makes it easier to clock, easier to share and easier to join. 

Back to protein

You can see that in protein, which has outgrown gym culture and the language of macros. For some people, it’s shorthand for health, function, convenience and having your life together. 

That’s what makes boy kibble more than just a protein joke. 

What looks like a bowl of beige slop is a reminder of how ideas spread. 

Make life easier. 

Give it a point of view. 

Wrap it in an identity people want to try on. 

And give them an easy way to show they belong. 

That’s when boring behaviour starts to travel. 

Even if it does look like a dog’s breakfast.

Thanks for reading

This is the kind of thing that gets our brains bubbling at Keep Left: not just what’s trending, but what the trend reveals about identity, behaviour and the way culture helps ideas travel.

That’s the Cultural Frame in action. 

Read more about our thinking on the Cultural Frame, or get in touch if you want to turn cultural signals into sharper comms, stronger ideas and work people actually choose.  

Until then, Keep Left. 

The post From slop to signal: How boy kibble turns routine into identity first appeared on Keep Left.

The part where we mention the awards

Over the past few months, Keep Left has had a decent run at awards season.

How Ya Travellin’? led the way with Platinum and Gold at the CPRA Awards, Best Regional Media Campaign at the B&T Awards, Best Use of Owned Media at the Mumbrella CommsCon Awards, a Spikes Asia shortlist in Integrated and two 2026 Webby Award nominations. Guide Dogs’ Blackout Friday also picked up Silver in Experiential & Activation, and Keep Left came in at number nine on Campaign Brief’s 2026 Small Agency Hot List.

We’re pleased, obviously.

But the more useful part isn’t the list itself. It’s what the list confirms.

When the same work keeps landing across different judges and categories, it usually points to more than luck. In this case, it points to something we’ve believed for a while – that behaviour change work tends to be better when it starts with a proper understanding of how people actually live, and the culture that shapes it. 

Behaviour change happens in the nuance 

A lot of marketing still talks about people in broad, polished categories. Age bracket. Income band. Interest set. All neat enough on a slide. Less useful when you’re trying to shift behaviour in everyday life.

The reality is much messier than that.

Behaviour change happens in the middle of someone’s day – alongside habits, friction, competing priorities and the many things we’ve trained ourselves to tune out.

That’s the common thread across the work recognised here. Not work built around abstraction, or the performance of purpose, but work shaped around the specifics of people’s lives – how they live, what they notice and what they ignore. 

A tale of two campaigns 

With How Ya Travellin’? For Healthy Heads in Trucks and Sheds, the starting point wasn’t a generic audience profile. It was a more useful truth than that – truck drivers spend long stretches alone, often in silence, and traditional mental health support doesn’t always meet them where they are.

So, the campaign went to them – into the cab, into their routines and into formats that made sense for the audience, from geo-targeted radio spots with wellbeing tips to podcast episodes built around familiar voices and stories that made people feel less alone. With Shane Jacobson as host, the whole thing felt grounded, recognisable and worth spending time with. 

And it landed. The campaign reached more than 12 million Australians, but what mattered most was its human impact on the drivers who needed it. We heard from people who said the work had made a real difference in their lives. One truckie shared that after hearing an episode about noticing changes, he went back into work and asked to speak to a mental health first aider: “You have no idea how close to the edge I was but that’s just changed everything.” It was a powerful reminder that the real value of the work was not only in the reach, but in the meaningful difference it made in someone’s life. 

Blackout Friday for Guide Dogs NSW/ACT began with a similarly clear insight. For people with low vision or blindness, online shopping can still be full of friction. So rather than explaining that through statistics or case studies alone, the campaign let sighted shoppers experience a version of that frustration for themselves. 

It took one of retail’s noisiest moments and turned it into something people could feel, not just read. That shift – from awareness as information to awareness as experience – gave the work its force. It also helped generate 18.7 million in earned media reach and strong feedback from the community, while bringing a largely invisible frustration into view for people who may never have considered it otherwise. 

A word from our judges 

The judges’ feedback on How Ya Travellin’? pointed to authentic storytelling and clear impact – exactly where we’d hope the work lands.

That’s why these wins matter beyond the usual credentials slide. They reinforce something we’ve believed for a while – that effective work doesn’t begin with noise. It begins with insight, context and a more honest understanding of people than demographics alone can offer.

More than anything, they confirm that work connects more deeply when it feels grounded in the audience’s world, not imposed on top of it. 

We’ll take it 

So yes, we’re proud of the wins.  

More than that, we’re encouraged by what they confirm. That there is still plenty of room for work with substance. That effectiveness matters more than ever. And that behaviour change tends to land harder when it’s built on specificity rather than assumption. 

That’s the kind of work we want to keep making.

If that’s the kind of work you’re after, get in touch.

And if it happens to win something along the way, that’s a bonus.  

The post Awards are nice. Behaviour change is better. first appeared on Keep Left.

For more than a decade, teens have grown up inside a constant feedback loop of likes, posts and personalised content. On the 10^th of December, Australia will take the unprecedented step of trying to disrupt a digital culture that has shaped an entire generation.

Under the new social media ban, teens will no longer be able to create, manage or post on personal accounts across platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X, Snapchat, Facebook and YouTube. The change is designed to act as a developmental ‘delay’, giving kids a few extra years to build the emotional and social maturity they need to safely engage with the online world. But beyond rewriting the rules of platform access, this shift has the potential to slowly reshape how younger generations perceive and interact with the digital world.

Designed to Be Addictive

From a behavioural science lens, repeated exposure to rewarding stimuli creates powerful, self-reinforcing habit loops. While we normally associate these kinds of loops with behaviours like gambling or substance abuse, social media operates in a very similar way, partciularly on young minds. Whether it’s seeing TikTok content pop up from your favourite creator or receiving some e-love on your most recent Instagram post, these psychological rewards are unpredictable, and highly addictive. It is this very same variable reward system that makes slot machines so hard to walk away from.

Up until now, there has been virtually no friction between teens and the endless cycle of checking, posting and scrolling on social media. This has paved the way for a widespread migration away from outdoor activities and face-to-face socilalising, and towards more isolated, indoor screen time. Smartphone ownership among 12- to 15-year-olds has more than trippled since 2010 to a staggering 87%, and almost all Aussie kids now say they use social media frequently.

At the same time, youth mental health challenges continue to intensify across Australia. Over the last 15 years, hospitalisations for intentional self-harm have doubled, with the highest rates coming from females in the 15 – 19 age group. Social media isn’t the sole driver of this trend, but it’s contribution to the growing emotional strain teens are facing is impossible to ignore. Many children report exposure to harmful content online, ranging from cyberbullying and misogynistic material to content promoting eating disorders. The risk within these online environments has simply become too hard to ignore, and has tipped the scales towards a formal nationwide intervention.

The beginning of a new digital relationship

Despite the overwhelming majority of Aussies supporting the governments proposed media regulations, critics have been quick to point out the enforcement hurdles and privacy concerns that come with a change of this magnitude. Rolling out an age-verification system at scale won’t be simple. Teens who are already active on social media will almost certainly attempt to work around the rules – and being as tech-savvy as they are, some will probably succeed. But if and when these teething issues are resolved, the ban carries the potential to create a long-term cultural shift among young Aussies.

Humans are social creatures, and a lot of what we do is shaped by what those around us are doing. We are wired to pay attention to and mimic the behavioural norms of our peer groups, a principle called social proof. When all your friends are posting and liking content online, stepping away can feel like stepping out of the social conversation altogether. But for the first time, an entire cohort will grow up without social media being a default behaviour.

This shift doesn’t just interrupt the social media habit loop, it reshapes the norms and expectations surrounding online life. With fewer teens on social media platforms, the cultural pull weakens, and the frequency of the behaviour decreases. This kind of cultural shift does not happen overnight, but when it does take hold, it tends to stick.

What This Means for Marketers

The social media age restriction for Australian teens under 16 Aussie isn’t just a regulatory milestone, it’s the first structural attempt to interrupt the behavioural machinery that has kept young people online for two decades. Whether the policy succeeds, fails or evolves into something entirely new, it signals the start of a new digital lanscape, one where the next generation may grow up a healthier distance from the scroll.

For brands, communicators and the future of social media marketing, this moment is a reminder that youth culture is shifting, and with it, the platforms, behaviours and expectations that have defined the attention economy. As teens spend less time in algorithmic ecosystems, influence will redistribute and digital habits will realign.

The opportunity for brands isn’t to ‘reach’ young people differently, but to rethink how they show up in a world where wellbeing, boundaries and healthier digital norms are becoming a part of the cultural conversation. And in that world, its the brands who learn to respect, reflect and reinforce those boundaries that will be the ones young Australians choose to trust.

The post Australia’s Bold Bet on
a Healthier Digital Generation first appeared on Keep Left.

We’re stoked our purpose-led work has stacked the shortlists of the Golden Target Awards and B&T Awards 2025. 

From mental health campaigns to beauty industry shake-ups, all our recognised campaigns share one thing: they shape culture and make an impact. 🔥

Our (long) list of shortlists:

Golden Target Awards 🏆

• Best Integrated Marketing & Communications Campaign: How Ya Travellin’?

• Best NFP Campaign: How Ya Travellin’?

• Best Influencer Campaign: Boundless Beauty Summit (featuring Molly Burke)

• Best Experiential/Activation Campaign: Blackout Friday

B&T Awards 🏆

• Best Integrated Ad Campaign: How Ya Travellin’?

• Best Regional Media Campaign: How Ya Travellin’?

• Best Radio/Audio Campaign: How Ya Travellin’?

How We Got Here

We’ve produced podcasts for truck cabs, executed a Beauty Influencer Summit and hijacked retail’s biggest sales day. As finalists in Influencer, regional and radio categories, we’re certainly no one-trick pony.

How Ya Travellin’? for Healthy Heads in Trucks & Sheds

Let’s start with the truckies. They’re the backbone of the economy but also one of the most vulnerable groups when it comes to mental health. Working with Healthy Heads in Trucks & Sheds (HHTS), we wanted to find a way to cut through long hours and isolation to support their wellbeing.

Our answer? Audio. Drivers are constantly tuned into radio and podcasts, so we met them there. Fronted by comedian and licensed truckie Shane Jacobson, the campaign served up 24 geo-targeted radio segments plus a podcast series blending lived experience with expert advice.

The results were massive: 12 million Australians reached, 7,000 podcast downloads in five months (top 10% globally), and drivers sending heartfelt messages about how the series helped them in real time. Brand tracking showed trust in Healthy Heads skyrocketed. It’s proof of what podcast production can do when it’s built with empathy.

Boundless Beauty Summit for Guide Dogs NSW/ACT

Next stop, the beauty aisle. Beauty is for everyone… unless you can’t access it. That’s the challenge we tackled with Guide Dogs NSW/ACT by putting accessibility on the beauty industry’s main stage.

With influencer and activist Molly Burke front and centre, the Boundless Beauty Summit sparked big conversations about inclusive product design. As a finalist for influencer activation, it shows that social voices can drive real-world change.

Blackout Friday

Also with Guide Dogs, this one flipped retail’s biggest sale day into a campaign with heart. Blackout Friday recreated the inaccessibility of online shopping for people with low vision by asking Australians to shop “in the dark.” A bold activation that got people talking — and buying into inclusion.

Why It Matters

Being a finalist across so many categories proves our point of difference – our Wholebrain approach – really works. It’s how we democratise ideation and bring together Lefties with a diverse range of skills and perspectives, which tackle client briefs and solve business problems.

Put simply, it’s proof that when PR, Creative and Content join forces with red-hot strategy, good things happen.

Our MD Caroline Catterall says: “These nominations reflect our brilliant, tapped-in team at Keep Left and the trust our clients place in us to shape culture. But it’s about more than just winning awards – it’s about doing purpose-led work that genuinely matters.”

Bring On Awards Season

Seven shots to bring some shiny trophies to our new Hardie Grant office. We are one proud agency. Whatever happens, we’ll keep doing what we do best – shaping culture with work that matters. Stay tuned.

The post Shaping Culture, Stacking Shortlists first appeared on Keep Left.

This move marks a new chapter in our story, and we’re proud to be teaming up with one of Australia’s leading independent marketing groups, whose specialist agencies span digital, media buying, content, PR, influencer, and production.

Founded by Caroline Catterall back in 2001, Keep Left has grown from a Melbourne-based PR shop into a fully integrated communications agency, with offices in Melbourne and Sydney and a client roster we’re genuinely proud of – Australia Post, ANZ, Guide Dogs, Experian, Great Southern Bank, Charter Hall, and St Vincent de Paul, to name a few. Today, we deliver work that blends PR, content and creative thinking to earn attention in all the right places.

More capabilities, more collaboration.

As part of the acquisition, Keep Left joins Hardie Grant Media’s family of agencies, which includes Reload Media (digital and media), Heads & Tales (content agency), Tide Communications (PR & influencers), and Sherpa (production studio). It’s a group that shares our values, respects creative independence, and is focused on doing great work that makes an impact. 

Same Team. Same Values. Even More Firepower.

Importantly, nothing changes about who we are. Caroline and Gill (who joined in 2009 and became a shareholder in 2015) will continue to lead the business as Managing Director and Head of PR. Our team – including long-time ECD Blair Kimber and Head of Creative and Content Johanna Murray – is staying together and will move into Hardie Grant’s offices in Melbourne and Sydney.

The day-to-day? Still PR, creative, and content. But now with even more firepower behind us – access to deeper specialist capabilities, a broader national footprint, and new opportunities for collaboration across the group. 

As Caroline puts it: “It’s been an incredible journey building Keep Left into the agency it is today. Gill and I are so proud of the team, the work, and the client partnerships we’ve nurtured over the years.”

“Joining Hardie Grant Media marks an exciting new chapter for us as a levelled-up Indie. For our clients, it means access to even more integrated thinking, specialist capabilities and creativity. For our team, it opens new growth opportunities and a network that truly values its people and culture. We’re energised by what’s ahead.”

Doubling Down on Innovation

The acquisition also includes our homegrown earned media measurement tool, The Impact Score, which recently got a major upgrade to include OpenAI to automate coverage logging. Now available by subscription, it’s being used by agencies and in-house teams across Australia and around the world.

Nick Hardie-Grant, CEO of Hardie Grant, said: “We’ve long admired Keep Left and its reputation for delivering meaningful work. In addition to the impressive team, the Impact Score is a genuinely exciting product with huge potential and a real point of difference for our agencies. With the support of the broader business and continued investment we’re looking forward to helping it reach its full potential.” 

Following the acquisition, Hardie Grant Media comprises 130 staff across Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.  The broader Hardie Grant Group, including its publishing arm and venture studio HGX, employs 220 people. Key clients include Mercedes-Benz, Yamaha, Nintendo, SodaStream and BIG4.

We’re pumped about what’s ahead – and can’t wait to see what we create together.

The post Big news: Keep Left joins the Hardie Grant Media network first appeared on Keep Left.

Inside agency production teams, we’re not replacing jobs with algorithms. We’re using AI as a collaborator to reduce grunt work, spark creative momentum and tighten workflows across the board. It’s the difference between “how will AI change things?” and “what can we do now that we couldn’t before?”.

To show how far we’ve already come, and where we’ve recently landed, here’s a detailed look at how AI is reshaping podcast production for us across both video and audio formats.

Concept Development: Rapid Prototyping from the Start

Projects may be led by a creative team or a director, but they all begin with the same goal: original thinking that can hold shape under pressure.

Concept decks used to be built slowly and laboriously, one reference and one copy line at a time. Now, generative AI allows for rapid creation of concept art, tone references, and polished draft copy. This makes early iteration faster and more cost-effective, enabling teams to test ideas at speed and spend more time refining the work itself. We can test a tone or visual style in 10 minutes instead of an hour, freeing up the team to craft rather than just build.

Casting: Organising the Chaos

In the world of branded podcast production especially sector-facing work casting is often handled client-side. Traditionally, this meant receiving disjointed notes, scattered bios, and long email threads. Now, large language models like ChatGPT can clean, sort and matrix this information. They help identify personality fit, relevant expertise, audience alignment and tone of voice, all based on the client’s own notes. The result is a clearer, more structured process that frees the team to focus on creative and strategic suitability instead of administrative slog.

Pre-Interviews: Smarter Conversations from the Start

A producer and creative typically run pre-interviews. In the past, that meant juggling active listening with frantic note-taking, hoping to catch the most useful lines. Today, automatic transcription runs live during the call, allowing everyone to focus, annotate key takeaways, and build sharper outlines immediately after. This shift frees the team to focus on nuance, rather than capturing everything. It’s improved both the quality of the interviews and the speed of the follow-up.

Episode Planning: AI as Editorial Sparring Partner

Once interviews are complete, the creative lead shapes the story arc and develops key talking points. AI now acts as a sparring partner in that process. It suggests alternative angles, checks alignment with messaging priorities and generates structural variations that sharpen both clarity and purpose. These tools can highlight gaps or opportunities based on transcripts and help speed up editorial decision-making.

Production: Live Annotation and Real-Time Collaboration

During filming or recording, live transcription feeds directly into a shared document accessible by producers, creatives, and clients in real time. This enables group annotation on the fly, capturing standout lines and flagging issues as they happen. Whether in the studio or listening remotely, everyone involved can highlight great moments immediately. That shared attention means fewer missed gems and less time spent trawling footage later.

Post-Production: Where AI Delivers Most

This is where the impact of AI podcast production is most transformative:

• Text-Based Editing: Editors now cut assemblies directly from the transcript. Silences, filler words, and double-ups can be deleted in seconds. 

• Select Pulling Made Collaborative: Editors and creatives collaborate using transcript-based platforms to quickly pull selects for VO or sync. 

• Placeholder Voiceover: AI-generated voiceovers now stand in during rough cuts, making timing and tone testable before pick-up lines are captured. 

• Multi-Format Outputs: Once approved, AI tools speed up podcast versioning for web, internal platforms, and social. Reformatting for LinkedIn, YouTube, and reels is faster and more consistent. 

Where We’re At

Many of these steps are already baked into our day-to-day. Automatic transcription, AI-assisted note-taking, and text-based editing are standard in most agency podcast workflows. Others, like live collaborative annotation or casting support via large language models, are more recent but proving their value quickly. 

None of these tools replace the human layer. The creative gut still matters. So does the producer instinct. The editor’s eye also remains crucial to shaping something that feels alive — something not just polished, but emotionally true. Because even in branded podcast content, we’re building character, tension, and payoff. What’s changing is how much faster we can get to those moments, how much easier it is to test them, and how much smoother our path from concept to delivery has become.

AI isn’t replacing us. It’s sitting beside us. It may not always be right, but it’s always ready to help. 

The post AI Podcast Production Is Already Here: A Real-World Workflow Update first appeared on Keep Left.

Today we announced the global rollout of a major update to our proprietary earned media evaluation tool, Impact Score, along with expanded subscription options for brands, in-house PR teams and agency partners. 

Already the earned media reporting platform of choice for agency networks and multinational organisations in more than 15 countries, Impact Score helps PR teams demonstrate the value of strategic media relations, with an online, sharable dashboard that provides a benchmark to track performance against brand and campaign objectives.  

The latest release introduces a new OpenAI integrated feature that allows users to log media coverage by simply pasting coverage URLs into the platform. The Automated Coverage feature captures coverage screenshots and extracts key article details ready to be scored against a pre-determined set of qualitative and quantitative success metrics. 

“Impact Score was already helping PR teams work more effectively by bringing structure to reporting, creating consistency across markets, and aligning earned media to business goals,” said Impact Score Product Manager, Tim Lele.

“With AI now embedded in the coverage logging functionality, the platform drastically reduces manual effort, speeds up reporting, and provides smarter insights at a time when the demand for accountability and ROI in PR has never been higher.

“Whether you’re managing PR across multiple departments or working with agency partners around the globe, Impact Score brings all your earned media into one place—so you can see what’s working, what’s not, and how to improve.”

PR professionals are under pressure to deliver more with less with research finding nearly half spend at least a quarter of their time working on reporting alone, the third most time-consuming part of the job after media relations and thought leadership. That’s more than a day a week that could be redirected to higher-value strategic work.

The pressure is industry wide. In a global survey of 3,000 PR professionals, one in five agency leaders said measurement was their top challenge, and one in four reported active investment in analytics tools. 

Developed in partnership with Empirica Research and hosted on a secure, cloud-based platform, Impact Score is one of the most advanced tools available for evaluating media performance. Its algorithm grades each piece of coverage aligning it to campaign objectives like tier-one reach, key message penetration, call-to-actions and spokesperson visibility. 

Unlike traditional clip counts or reach metrics, Impact Score gives PR and marketing teams a more meaningful way to demonstrate ROI and align earned media with business strategy.

“We’ve always passionately believed in the value of quality earned media over quantity,” said Caroline Catterall, CEO of Keep Left.

“Impact Score is a great example of Australian martech innovation, developed to solve a universal problem for PR teams: proving the value and effectiveness of the craft. Now, through automating the most manual parts of reporting, it also frees up PR team to focus on strategy, creativity and results.”

The platform is now available to all brands and agencies via monthly subscription. It offers: 

• Real-time evaluation of coverage quality and impact
• Centralised dashboards across teams, markets or clients
• Consistent reporting frameworks that simplify results and spotlight ROI
• Custom KPIs and evaluation metrics for every campaign or department

Impact Score is now available globally via subscription. To book a demo or free trial visit: www.impactscore.digital

The post Launching the newest evolution of The Impact Score first appeared on Keep Left.

Welcome to the 2025 federal election, where TikTok isn’t just a place for dances and day-in-the-life videos – it’s where the next generation of voters are consuming their news, forming opinions, and, in some cases, deciding who gets their vote.

This year, Millennials and Gen Z will officially outnumber Boomers and Gen X in the electorate. That demographic shift is huge. And where are they spending their time? TikTok.

Over 9.7 million Australian adults are on the platform, spending an average of 42 hours a month scrolling, watching, commenting, and yes, engaging with politics. The question isn’t should politicians be there. It’s how should they show up.

From Parliament House to the ‘For You’ Page

We’re already seeing politicians on TikTok.

Anthony Albanese is doing a decent job balancing polished policy and trend participation, with the prevailing commentary skewing toward scepticism. Peter Dutton’s team is showing up too, though the content on his page doesn’t feel like it really “gets” the platform.

On the party pages, we’re seeing big swings between standard political ads and trend-following nonsense. The Greens are leading the pack with a strategy that feels native: educational, lightly playful, and very fluent in platform language.

And while I would be the first to admit that I haven’t read every single comment on their pages (I do have a life), the type of comments I saw was telling. Some of the videos with the highest reach and engagement rates were riddled with satire.

But here’s the catch: engagement doesn’t necessarily mean you’re getting their vote.

TikTok ≠ TV

Too many political comms teams still treat TikTok like a vertical TVC slot. Crop the ad. Add captions. Post. Repeat.

The problem? TikTok doesn’t care about polish. It rewards relevance, speed, and authenticity which are three things politicians historically struggle with. Add to that the fact that most people spend just a couple of seconds on each video, and it becomes clear: you have to grab attention and mean something.

A perfectly framed policy speech won’t cut through. Neither will a politician awkwardly lip-syncing to a trending sound. Voters — especially younger ones — can smell the pandering from a mile away. And while they might cringe-watch, they won’t necessarily convert that engagement into a vote.

Cringe Is Not a Strategy

There’s a myth that going viral equals changing minds. It doesn’t. Engagement is easy to fake; trust isn’t.

The danger with turning politics into content is that it can easily become performative. And performative politics leads to shallow campaigns, not real conversations. We risk rewarding those who play the part, rather than those who stand for something.

In the U.S., we saw this with the “brat-ification” of Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, Trump — banned from most platforms — managed to keep a hold on his base through other means entirely. Australia has compulsory voting, which removes one big hurdle, but the real challenge is still emotional: making people care.

So, What Do Young Voters Care About?

If you’re a political strategist thinking TikTok success comes from vibes, think again.

Young voters are clear about what matters to them:

🌏 Climate
🏡 Housing
🎓 Education
🧠 Mental health
💸 Cost of living

They don’t just want entertainment. They want policies that speak to their reality. And while the delivery matters — it has to match the medium — the content of the content matters more.

That means no more trend-chasing. No more fake relatability. Just actual solutions, communicated in a way that feels human.

Everything Is Content But Not Everyone Should Be a Content Creator

Since the printing press, media has shaped how politics is delivered. TikTok is just the next evolution. But being good at TikTok shouldn’t be the bar for public leadership.

Our politicians shouldn’t be chasing likes, they should be chasing outcomes. If you want to earn a vote, don’t show me how cool you are. Show me what you’re going to do.

Will TikTok Decide the Election?

Not on its own.

But ignoring it? That’s like pretending radio didn’t matter in the ‘60s or thinking Facebook was a phase in 2013. TikTok is where culture lives right now. And culture shapes conversations, shapes sentiment, and yes — shapes decisions.

So, let’s not overhype it. But let’s not underestimate it either. Because in the end, it’s not about whether a candidate can trend. It’s whether they can lead.

The post Will the 2025 Election Be Decided on TikTok? first appeared on Keep Left.

While the Netflix ‘binge model’ might be dominant in the streaming era – look no further than Adolescence – bonafide cultural phenomenons like Apple’s Severance and HBO’s The White Lotus continue to prove that the traditional week-to-week ‘event’ television strategy is far from dead.

And that’s for two very simple reasons: emotional contagion and FOMO.

Emotional Contagion and FOMO: Why We Can’t Wait

By giving each episode room to breathe, these shows build intensity and develop character and plot in a way that strings out the strong emotional responses from their viewers. Responses that are more likely to be shared online, creating a snowball effect of emotion, discussion and hype.

This social buzz creates a sense of immediacy and urgency among viewers to stay up-to-date and stay part of the collective conversation. Nobody wants to be the last to see the latest episode.

Tapping into the Peak-End Rule

But where The White Lotus really excels is by tapping into a cognitive bias known as the peak-end rule.

This heuristic states that we judge a past experience not in its entirety, but based on its emotional peak (its most intense moment) and its end (read: finale).

Every jaunt to a new White Lotus resort begins with a body and builds (week by week) to a blood-soaked finale that turns into instant cultural canon. And season 3 was no different, with unexpected deaths, a surprise revival, and long-held secrets surfacing.

Creating a Cultural Phenomenon

The recent finale party ensured that the show’s last big emotional hit would be amplified through cast reunions and media hype, making the show’s climax feel like a true event.

How Social Currency Drives Conversations

Another psychological principle The White Lotus leverages is social currency – the value we gain from being seen as in-the-know. Being able to drop references or talk about the latest twist or fan theory lets viewers signal that they’re plugged into popular culture.

The show’s collab withCoffee Mate to release a limited-edition piña colada creamer is the latest talking point, with viewers eager to point out the flavour’s link to a certain poisonous plot point in the season finale. Coffee Mate themselves have responded, steering into the awkward timing to engage viewers further.

So what are the learnings for brands?

► If you’re looking to start a contagion or spark a conversation, don’t expect to do it overnight. Like HBO does with their weekly releases, give your activations room to breathe and leave room for your audience to connect with your message, make it their own, and spread it for you.

► Conventional wisdom tells us that we need to optimise the entire customer experience. But the reality is that not all moments are created equal. Think about what you can do to produce an emotional peak for your audience and ensure their journey ends with a bang.

► Give your audience something to talk about, and make it valuable. Help them look good in front of others by giving them a way to flaunt their cultural literacy or show that they’re in-the-know. And if a story breaks that could make good fodder for social currency, fan the flames.

The post Why was everyone obsessed with The White Lotus season 3? first appeared on Keep Left.