Upon arriving in the business, Luxottica’s Jee Moon’s focus has been turning around the OPSM brand in A/NZ and regaining its position as number one in the optical category.

“We set the team, and the business, a challenge: Get clear about our sustainable point of difference in a cluttered, outspoken market. The agenda of brand as business was pushed across the whole organisation, operationally, culturally and experientially. To execute this, a season of change has commenced, operationally and structurally, in stores and all the way up to the global Luxottica team based in Milan,” Moon says.

To make this happen, Moon is manoeuvring around existing barriers and establishing new procedures, including global alignment, initiating and leading a project to redefine customer segments, and using this segmentation to develop a new brand strategy.

She says her proudest moment in the last 12 months as CMO has been in building a culture of confidence in the power of marketing, within the team and within the broader business.

From the CMO50 submission:

Demonstrating innovative thinking

In November 2015, Moon was tasked with turning around the OPSM brand in Australia and New Zealand. As part of the mission, she quickly identified how displaced the OPSM brand had become by new competitors within the optical category.

Moon and her team needed to even out the playing field and get clear about the company’s sustainable point of difference in a cluttered, outspoken market. The agenda of brand as business was pushed by Moon across the whole organisation, operationally, culturally and experientially.

To execute this brand repositioning, Moon commenced – operationally and structurally, on the ground in stores, all the way up to the global Luxottica team based in Milan.

Traditionally, OPSM strategy has been driven by Luxottica, based in Milan. Moon manoeuvred around this roadblock, which was drastically affecting how the company could take its products to market and opened up a dialogue with the Luxottica Global leaders, communicating the needs and behaviours of the Australian market and requested permission to go to market in different ways that would be better suited to the Australian market.

She also initiated and led a project to redefine OPSM customer segments. Previous customer research focused only on the optical buying behaviours of customers. Moon commissioned and championed research that focused on the customer’s identity as a complete picture, which ultimately shaped the way we developed our go-to-market strategy.

She also used the customer segmentation to commission development of a new brand strategy, look and feel and brand guidelines.

“All this work will culminate in a new TVC launching in September that will signal the start of the beginning of OPSM’s repositioning and take us from our current state to our desired one.”

Demonstrating empowered and strategic thinking

Jee has the foresight and experience to know that great strategy comes from great insight, and spending time with your consumers and customers is the only way to deliver that.

Moon says putting the consumer first is key to great strategy, and in building brand strategies to meet cusomer needs.

“OPSM’s customer research has traditionally been very grounded in customer purchasing behaviour,” she says.

As such, Moon commissioned research that explores the key attitudinal mindsets in the community. Defining the mind-sets in terms of life attitudes, behaviours, beliefs, needs, wants, desires, hopes and fears, giving OPSM a focal point for marketing and promotions, and ultimately the new brand strategy. The research used an exploratory approach to yield inspiration, not just information.

Additionally, Moon also recognised she joined a “broken team.”

“We had been without a direct leader for nearly a year, and were without a clear sense of direction. Consequently, the culture was badly damaged, and morale was low.”

Moon quickly identified how fragmented the team was, particularly with marketing functions reporting into different areas of the business.

She brought the marketing team back under her remit and redefined the roles in each team after understanding the needs of her team members. Each function now has clear responsibilities, set KPIs and are finally accountable for their output.

Demonstrating agility

On Moon’s commencement to the business, she encouraged the team to question every single established procedure.

“The culture had been to accept the costings and service as they were and not to push back. Nothing was taken for granted; every retainer, process and procedure was looked at from scratch and built up again, finding enormous cost savings along the way.

She empowers the team to ask questions, request information and expect accountability from agencies and suppliers rather than just accepting the expensive and sometimes poor service they provide.

“We inherited a relationship with a design studio and print supplier who provided little visibility in the way of pricing coupled with inefficient processes. Jee empowered us to manage the relationship and make changes that benefited the team and our business, including full price breakdowns for each job, monthly reports, regular reviews, moving design studio in house and setting clear expectations and targets for the supplier to meet.”

Demonstrating creativity

Marketing is often a silo within an organisation, mostly confined to communication and promotion - but Moon says she is able to push the agenda of brand as business across the whole organisation, operationally, culturally and experientially.