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Australia's national public broadcaster, the ABC, is executing a significant marketing technology pivot by abandoning Salesforce Marketing Cloud for Braze's customer engagement platform. Revealed in the corporation's 2024-2025 annual report, this transition follows a comprehensive review of its martech stack and marks a strategic shift in how the broadcaster connects with audiences.

The ABC had relied on Salesforce's platform since 2017 but concluded Braze could better deliver "significant improvements in audience targeting, personalisation, operational efficiency and automated campaign delivery at scale." A spokesperson emphasized the need for enhanced capabilities:

“Our teams will now build and deploy audience communications via email, onsite, and third-party platforms, and drive operational efficiencies with reduced technical support needs.”

Strategic Implications for Public Media

This move reflects deeper pressures facing media organizations: With fragmented audience attention and rising content competition, precision targeting and personalization have become non-negotiable. Braze's cross-channel capabilities—spanning email, mobile, and web—offer ABC a unified platform to increase content discoverability while automating campaigns at scale.

For Salesforce, losing a flagship Australian public broadcaster underscores the intensifying competition in enterprise marketing suites. Braze's API-first architecture and specialization in real-time engagement have increasingly appealed to organizations prioritizing agile, data-driven audience outreach.

Operational Transformation Timeline

The migration is slated for completion by Q2 2026, with ABC emphasizing careful execution to "ensure continuity of service." This timeline suggests a phased approach, likely involving data migration complexities and team retraining.

The shift signals ABC's commitment to modernizing audience engagement amid broader digital transformation efforts. As traditional broadcasters battle streaming giants and social platforms, martech agility has become critical for survival—making this switch a bellwether for public media's tech evolution worldwide.