Two different companies. Two different industries. One thing in common: a failure to understand the basic principles of good internal communication.

When ANZ inadvertently announced 3,500 job cuts plus 1,000 contractor terminations and when Paramount declared creative teams “must sit together” we were reminded that the line between internal and external comms dissolved somewhere around 2019. Always remember, every leaked memo can now become front page news.

“Do you know about apples?” Sam asked during our weekly planning session, completely derailing a conversation about fictional brand campaigns based on mushroom poisonings. What started as an offhand question about his discovery of Envy apples (“I fucking love them”) led us down a rabbit hole that blows the gaff on one of commerce’s most fundamental challenges.

Andrew here. This issue, or a version of it, is something I’ve been harassing the rest of the team to greenlight for at least a year now. It only took a global phenomenon for them to agree I might be onto something with this “Korea gets marketing” thing.

What follows is long, dense and at times frenetic. Try and do your best to keep up. Promise you’ll learn at least two things and have a new favourite song.

Telstra has just dropped what the industry is calling “essentially a product demo, a very entertaining one” for its network security capabilities. But uh, forgive us, what was the product again? The 60-second spot features Steve Buscemi as an evil intergalactic emperor trying to unleash “scamageddon” on Australia, only to be repeatedly foiled by Telstra's mighty network. Not how or why mind you, just that it was.

Remember when horror was the genre you had to defend at dinner parties? The guilty pleasure you’d sheepishly admit to between your Criterion Collection name-drops? Well, horror has eaten 12.1% of the US box office pie so far in 2025 and suddenly everyone’s talking about elevated this and social thriller that, as if adding adjectives somehow makes the blood less bloody.

Reading Eleanor Olcott, Wenjie Ding and Leslie Hook’s piece in the AFR last week about China's lab-grown diamond industry tearing down the natural diamond market sparked one of those office conversations that spiraled into something bigger. What started as “Holy shit, De Beers’ sales have dropped by more than 50% in just three years” became a deep dive into artificial scarcity, value creation, accidental price wars and what happens when technology renders your entire business model obsolete.

The merger of Skydance and Paramount was approved. Stephen Colbert’s talk show on Paramount’s CBS network was axed and wraps in May 2026. The makers of South Park signed a $US1.5 billion deal with Paramount and a day later dropped a season premiere featuring Jesus Christ warning townspeople about ending up like Colbert. Jon Stewart called the axing of Colbert’s show “the path of least resistance for [the] $US8 billion merger”, while Colbert told Trump to “go fuck yourself” on live television.

Last week, Nielsen confirmed what every parent in pretty much every country in the world already knew: Bluey is huge. It dominated TV viewing in the US in the first half of 2025 with 25 billion minutes watched on Disney+. For a show that hasn’t released new episodes in over a year, it’s not the worst result.

We all love a crisis. We just don’t like to be in one.

Too many Australian CEOs still don’t understand that reputation management has become a business-critical capability that can determine the success of their company and their career. In an ideal world, no company would run into a crisis. But the world isn’t ideal. People, including CEOs, are fallible and make mistakes. The question isn’t whether a company will face a crisis: it’s whether it’s handled with the sophistication, authenticity and honesty that today's stakeholders demand.

The luxury fashion industry is having its “oh shit” moment.

Yes, it’s always been a cyclical business, but right now sales are dropping, shares are tumbling and the traditional playbook of heritage mystique suddenly feels about as relevant as a Nokia 3310. But what makes this moment fascinating from a corporate communications perspective is that the crisis is forcing luxury brands to actually talk to people instead of at them.

Now that we have a property expert (Tess O’Brien) on the books, it made sense for this issue of COMMPRESS to turn its focus to the housing market.

If there’s one thing Tess brings to the table, it’s a clear-eyed view of how off-course the conversation around property has become. For too long, the narrative has been fuelled by aspiration: prestige listings, lifestyle fantasy, investment returns. Meanwhile, we’re in a full-blown housing emergency.

The New York Knicks are out. After their best run since 1977, the dream is over for another year (RIP Coach Thibs). But somehow – despite an NBA Playoffs series so full of drama that it watches more like a series of The Real Housewives – the most compelling story to emerge from their playoff journey had nothing to do with basketball: a skinny French-American actor became the unofficial mayor of Madison Square Garden.

Your favourite conference-special-edition newsletter is back, sort of.

Last year we took you on a rosé-fuelled Riviera journey in Cannes. This year we’ve swapped out that pink-coloured vino for mojito-flavoured tropical chaos at the Cairns Crocodiles last week.

Crocodiles was an absolutely unbelievable event, well-produced and even more well-attended, but where is the Australian industry at when it comes to sparking smarter conversations? Well, let’s say we have a bit of an authenticity problem… it’s just not the one you think.

Something remarkable is happening in cinemas across the globe. Young audiences, armed with snacks and meme knowledge, are turning Minecraft movie screenings into interactive social events dubbed “chicken jockey” screenings – and cinema chains are absolutely losing their minds.

The phenomenon has spread like wildfire from America to Europe to Asia to Australia: groups of primarily young boys transforming cinemas into participatory playgrounds, shouting references, throwing popcorn, and turning what should be a routine kids’ film into an unplanned Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Somehow, against all odds and good taste, Coachella matters again.

It’s easy to dismiss Coachella as an overpriced brand orgy where rich kids take photos in fringe vests while ignoring bands. But something was notably different this year. Despite many writing the festival off as shorthand for everything wrong with cultural appropriation, trend jacking, vapid celeb watching and humanity in general, the festival has performed the marketing comeback of the decade (for the real, ultimate, comeback of the decade, see our Creed issue).

What do Caspar David Friedrich, plates on walls and Substacks about running have in common? They’re all signs of a major cultural shift: the Romantic Revival.

The Met’s recent Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature exhibition has been a blockbuster, a tribute to the 19th-century painter whose landscapes made nature a mirror of the soul​. Friedrich’s work championed individual perception and feeling over cold rationalism, ideals that a The Guardian cultural critic notes are “still vital today”​. Friedrich’s apparent revival has led commentators to herald a “new romanticism” – a nascent rebellion against Big Tech’s cold empiricism in favour of subjectivity, individuality, emotion, mysticism and awe in the face of nature.

Let’s be real: this is a comms scandal everyone’s already heard about. It’s the talk of the town. Literally. Two finance bros walking behind us in Martin Place yesterday were really chopping it up.

We’re not publishing this emergency issue to tell you what happened, as you know the beats. A Signal group chat. A misplaced invite. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, suddenly looped into military chatter. He sat quietly. Took notes. Watched it play out. And when the story was inevitably downplayed by all involved? He published the whole thing.

If there’s a PR team deserving an award, it’s the one behind The White Lotus resorts. Despite a suspiciously high body count across their properties, guests keep flocking in. That’s some old-school spin doctoring.

Beyond its fictional woes, The White Lotus has another issue: there’s a moment in every great magic trick when the illusion stops working, when the audience sees the wires. It’s not always because the trick changed. Sometimes, it’s because we’ve seen it too many times.

Welcome to SKMG’s 2024 Advent Calendar

Because you’ve already bought the Cadbury one. Introducing the SKMG Advent Calendar:

25 days, 25 of our favourite articles from 2024.

No frills, no spoilers, and minimal work chat. Just a series of great reads behind mysterious, clickbaity, unnecessarily obscure titles to keep your curiosity piqued and good chats rolling through the merry season.

Society has proven time and again that some of the smartest, most impactful exchanges have taken place in quiet rooms, between people whose names may never make the headlines.

But here’s the rub: whether the conversation is quiet or nothing short of theatrical, it’s got to drive action. Otherwise, it’s just noise.