Media got messy.
We built the fix.
Senior Strategy, Senior Talent, Real Results
Independent media consultancy
Built on trust. Powered by experience.
Media Words is an independent, senior-led media consultancy founded by Elise Hedley-Dale — built on transparency, talent, and trust.
We help teams make better media decisions by bringing clarity, judgment, and experience into the room — without layers, theatre, or noise.
Clever. Dynamic. Focused. Fresh.
Elise Hedley-Dale founded Media Words in 2014 after 25 years inside Australia's biggest agencies — working with global brands and building teams that delivered.
She left the agency model behind to fix what’s broken: clients getting senior expertise without the handoffs, layers, or junior teams pretending.
Elise leads every engagement personally and stays on the tools — working across all media, not just digital. She brings strategic thinking, commercial judgment, and the kind of industry relationships and negotiation skills that come from decades in the room where deals get done.
She works embedded or advisory, depending on what’s needed. She brings calm, clear decision-making under pressure — and she’s honest about what she does and what she doesn’t.
Media Words is how Elise works now: senior-led, hands-on, and built for clients who want the adult in the room.
What We Do
What We Do
Media Words brings senior media leadership into teams — embedded or advisory — to help make better decisions across strategy, planning, buying, and campaign management.
But here’s what makes us different:
We don’t hand off your work to junior teams. We don’t hide behind jargon. We don’t optimize in silos.
You work directly with senior expertise. Every time.
We start with your audience — not assumptions. Every plan is anchored in real behavior, not vanity metrics. Insights from each campaign inform the next. Strategies adapt. New opportunities get explored based on the evolving market and what your audience actually does.
Our Approach: Conversation, consideration, and collaboration.
We start with how your audience actually behaves — not how we assume they behave.
Strategy isn’t a deck. It’s a clear point of view on who you’re talking to, where to find them, and what will actually move them. We identify audience patterns, pull apart their media consumption, and build a plan that aligns channels to commercial outcomes — not vanity metrics.
The result: fewer wasted dollars, clearer decision-making, and a strategy that holds up under pressure.
A great media strategy sets direction and saves time and money. We work with you to set clear objectives and specific goals and objectives that answer your business challenges.
We identify your audience and pull apart their behaviours and preferences that inform media channels that align with the overall strategy and goals.
We make informed decisions using market analytics and insights that provide audience-first media strategies.
Audience-led, clear direction, cost-time efficiency.
We plan and buy media across every channel — TV, outdoor, radio, print, cinema, digital, social — not just the ones that are easy to measure.
We negotiate rates, manage partnerships, and ensure your budget is working as hard as possible. No markups. No mystery fees. No junior teams executing while seniors take credit.
You get a clear plan, transparent costs, and someone in the room who’s actually done this thousands of times before.
Plan, execute, adapt, and succeed.
We don’t disappear after the plan is approved. We stay in the work — monitoring delivery, checking performance, and making sure what was promised is actually what happens.
We track campaign health, flag issues before they become problems, and adapt when the market or your audience shifts. You get clear reporting that explains what’s working and what’s not — no vanity metrics, no excuses.
Accountability means someone senior stays accountable. That’s us..
Media Words operates on an “Inner Circle” approach — tapping vetted specialists rather than pretending to master everything in-house.
Twenty-five years in this business teaches you who actually delivers and who just talks a good game. Our inner circle isn’t big. It’s selective. These are the people we’d bet our reputation on — because we have.
We bring in specialists for creative strategy, data science, production, or research only when they genuinely add value to the outcome.
We do what we do well. We’re honest about what we don’t. When specialist expertise is needed, we know exactly who to call.
Staying in our expert lane: seamless, cost-effective solution.
We implement and monitor your campaign, making real-time adjustments to optimise and explore new opportunities based on the evolving market and consumer behaviour.
Our beliefs? Data should be accessible, and it’s important to communicate complex information in a straightforward and transparent manner.
Our Dashboards give real-time data visualisation, and we provide custom reporting that draws meaningful conclusions and key information that ladder up to your KPIs.
Transparent data, meaningful insights.
Media Words In The Press
BIC Australia’s EasyRinse razor gets a campaign from Media Words and The Reactor
As featured in Mumbrella
BIC EasyRinse shaver launches new OOH + digital campaign via The Reactor and Media Words
As featured in Campaign Brief
BIC Australia launches Easyrinse razor with integrated campaign
As featured in Mi3
The risks of unfiltered content as advertisers juggle brand safety
As featured in AdNews
Media Words taps into healthy new year plans for Ocean Spray OOH campaign
As featured in Media Week
Ocean Spray PURE Cranberry champions new year health in latest OOH campaign via Media Words
As featured in Campaign Brief
Work
We’re updating our full portfolio. Here are a few recent highlights: