The Unmade podcast: Rich Curtis on the biggest names on the FutureBrand Index, election campaigning and Meta's reputation recovery

Welcome to a Thursday edition of the Unmade podcast featuring the CEO of FutureBrand Australia, Rich Curtis. In the conversation, we talk about the top global companies featured in this year’s FutureBrand Index, and how he ended up helping win an outsider election campaign.The FutureBrand Index is an exploration of perceptions of the world’s top 100 global brands by size.Just two Australian-headquartered brands are big enough to make it onto the list - BHP and CommBank.Among the surprises is the improvement in Meta’s ranking since the rebranding of Facebook’s parent company. And the number one company on the index has almost no profile in Australia - Curtis explains how it got so far up the list.During the interview, Curtis reveals the behind-the-scenes role he played in the last Federal election, and offers his own verdict on the trajectory of local brands including the head-to-head battle between Coles and Woolworths, and the decline of Qantas.Audio production on Media Unmade was courtesy of Abe’s Audio This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit unmade.substack.com