Arvind Hickman
Arvind Hickman is features and analysis editor at B&T and covers the business of media and advertising across agencies, platforms and brands. His work stands out for detailed coverage of media agency reviews and account shifts, paired with explanatory features on how technology, sport and regulation are reshaping advertising. A background spanning business, crime, politics and sport feeds a broad view of how commercial decisions in media connect to wider economic and political dynamics.
Media agency reviews and account shifts
Media agency reviews and account movements are the core of Hickman’s reporting, and he treats them as consequential business stories rather than routine diary items. He has chronicled ANZ’s media agency review over time, from the decision to restart the process after a pause to the eventual retention of PHD following a long, stop–start pitch, including timelines, rival agencies and client history.
His coverage of Medibank’s move to shift media planning and buying to Accenture Song goes inside the tender, detailing incumbent arrangements, competitive dynamics and contract negotiations, and framing the win in the context of Accenture Song’s broader client roster. He applies the same approach to other major accounts, reporting on Publicis winning PepsiCo’s media business while withdrawing from a Coca‑Cola pitch and situating that decision within holding‑company strategy and client portfolios.
Across these pieces he relies on named company statements and off‑the‑record industry sources, and he consistently links pitch outcomes to market share, agency positioning and the flow of budgets through the media ecosystem.
Leadership, talent and agency strategy
Hickman reports closely on leadership changes and senior hires inside media and advertising agencies, treating people moves as indicators of strategic direction. His story on Havas Media Network’s senior appointments in new business and AI performance sets out the remit of each role and connects them to the network’s growth, performance and technology ambitions.
He has covered PHD hiring a former Woolworths analytics lead into an effectiveness role, emphasising how data and measurement expertise are being embedded inside media agencies. Board‑level changes also feature, such as Nine’s appointment of Leigh Terry, which he places within the broadcaster’s corporate governance and broader media strategy.
Hickman writes recurring “Best of the Best” features profiling media sales leaders, strategists and holding‑company agency bosses, drawing out their commercial responsibilities and how they navigate client demands, trading pressure and market change.
He supplements these with pieces like “The Talent Pulse: What Olympians Can Teach Us About Careers In Advertising,” which connects elite sport lessons to agency career development and culture. Taken together, this strand of his work maps how leadership, talent and organisational design shape the competitive landscape of media and advertising.
Sports, streaming and new ad platforms
Sports and streaming rights are a recurring thread in Hickman’s coverage, often tied directly to emerging advertising opportunities. He has reported on Nine securing a multi‑year Athletics Australia broadcast deal, linking the rights to content strategy, audience reach and the network’s commercial offering.
His pieces on Kayo Sports’ record‑breaking Masters and AFL Gather Round audience numbers examine how premium live sport drives subscription, viewing behaviour and advertiser interest on streaming platforms.
Hickman follows DAZN Media+ closely: he has covered the Foxtel Media rebrand to DAZN Media+, the DAZN Media+ upfront positioning itself as an integrated sports business rather than a traditional broadcaster, and plans to offer cross‑media measurement across its platforms, consistently tying these moves to how brands buy and measure sports inventory across TV and in‑stadium environments. Event‑driven coverage such as the inaugural padel invitational sponsorships, hockey’s resurgence as a brand opportunity, and Vanuatu Tourism’s “Vanuatu Uncovered” campaign shows a focus on how sport and travel are packaged for advertisers and sponsors, including creative routes and brand fit.
He also writes about new formats like programmatic 3D digital out‑of‑home (3DOOH) activations run by QMS and Garnier, and campaigns linking broadcast and outdoor placements, underlining how advertisers are experimenting with attention‑grabbing, cross‑channel executions in and around sport and travel content. His work on Electronic Arts launching a platform to help brands buy in‑game ads extends this sports‑and‑screens lens into gaming, highlighting inventory, targeting and brand suitability inside virtual environments.
Technology, AI and the future of advertising
Hickman devotes substantial space to technology and artificial intelligence, especially where they intersect with regulation, politics and market structure. He has written about AI‑generated political ads and warned that such advertising could influence future elections, setting out risks around manipulation, misinformation and regulatory gaps in campaign oversight. His coverage of operations like “Portal Kombat” examines coordinated information campaigns and urges readers to scrutinise sources, connecting AI tools, disinformation and geopolitical narratives. On the industry side, he reports from events where leaders such as Mandie Van Der Merwe and Josh Faulks discuss AI’s impact on brand safety, creative standards and proposed bans on gambling and alcohol advertising, drawing a line between technology adoption and policy battles.
Hickman also tracks how organisations structure for AI and data, as in the Havas Media Network story where he describes the creation of an AI performance role and its integration with organic growth and optimisation functions. He writes analytical pieces on platform dominance and competition, including articles on Google’s monopoly “cracking” and the challenges marketers face reallocating search budgets, and on Google arguing that breaking up the company would harm national security and innovation, reflecting his interest in antitrust, innovation and the legal framing of tech power. Related work covers the Trump administration backing OpenAI in a legal dispute with The New York Times and invoking national security, reinforcing a pattern of reporting on how governments and courts treat advertising‑adjacent technologies as strategic infrastructure.
He complements these themes with data‑driven analyses of formats such as digital out‑of‑home, where he reports findings that DOOH can trigger positive outcomes within one active second and outperform other digital formats, and with stories on TV and YouTube ad sales that connect inventory to measurement and effectiveness debates.
Across this body of work, Hickman blends exclusives on pitches and account moves with longer features on technology, sport and regulation, reflecting a reporter who treats media and advertising as a connected system rather than a series of isolated campaigns.
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