First in the new series of AANA's Marketing Dividends program sees CommBank CMO and Virgin Mobile's local chief debating what innovation actually looks like
Innovation must be on the board’s agenda and a driving force behind the work of the CMO, according to two of Australia’s leading marketers.
In the first in a fresh season of the Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA)’s Marketing Dividends program on Sky News Business, Virgin Mobile’s local chief, David Scribner, and Commonwealth Bank group executive of marketing and strategy, Vittoria Shortt, championed the role of innovation in their organisations as well as what it actually looks like.
At Commbank, Shortt said marketing is playing a vital role in its innovation labs by bringing together teams across the business, along with customers to work on ways of improving customer experiences.
“The emphasis is to create a culture of innovation across everyone in the organisation,” Shortt said, adding it’s the purvey of everyone, not just a few in the business or a dedicated R&D team.
For Shortt, innovation is a key component of planning for the long term, and something organisations must do if they’re going to be around for the long term.
“You also need to innovate for the short term as that’s important as well,” she said.
Scribner said innovation had to be on the board agenda in order to ensure adequate investment for the future. He positioned innovation as activity that still needs to move the needle commercially.
“Innovation has to be part of the growth plan, because companies have to be trying to be there for the long term,” he said. “But there has to be two sides to that story: One is making sure you get the right results, and one is getting adequate investment for that future orientation.”
Shott advocated a test-and-learn approach to innovation, saying it’s important to put innovations out to market to find out what works and doesn’t work. As an example, she pointed to CommBank’s ‘Kaching app’, which launched in 2011. Some aspects of the mobile app were quickly adopted on a mass scale, while others didn’t, she said.
“The simple learning for us was to take the pieces that worked very well and put them into our main app experience, and not the pieces that didn’t,” Shortt said. “It’s about getting the team to learn, pivot take what works and keep pursuing the innovation agenda.”
She also believed innovation sat on a spectrum, ranging from small steps to disruptive initiatives. “It’s not just about trademarks and patents, it’s about the accumulation of small iterations that sometimes make the difference,” she said. “We can get carried away with words... If you’re really trying to foster a culture of innovation, then accepting improvements as innovations big or small is an important part of the cultural piece.”
Scribner added getting an innovation mindset required brands to look beyond old rivals and their industries and striving to learn from other verticals and sectors to see what you can learn. Telcos, for instance, often look to the finance industry to take heed of things that do and don’t work with customers and what can be applied.
The latest AANA Marketing Dividends series will run for 10 episodes and is hosted by MEC’s James Hier and Sky Business News deputy business editor, Nadine Blayney, and kicked off on 9 June.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu
In the third and final episode of our 3-part CMO50 video series exploring modern marketing and why it’s become a matter of trust, we’re delighted to be joined by Telstra’s former CMO and now digital services and sales executive, Jeremy Nicholas, and Adobe VP Marketing Asia-Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan.
Flash back to the classic film, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Television-obsessed Mike insists on becoming the first person to be ‘sent by Wonkavision’, dematerialising on one end, pixel by pixel, and materialising in another space. His cinematic dreams are realised thanks to rash decisions as he is shrunken down to fit the digital universe, followed by a trip to the taffy puller to return to normal size.
Why is it there is no shortage of leadership development materials, yet outstanding leadership is so rare? Despite having access to so many leadership principles, tools, systems and processes, why is it so hard to develop and improve as a leader?
As a nation united by sport, brands are beginning to learn money alone won’t talk without aligned values and action. If recent events with major leagues and their players have shown us anything, it’s the next generation of athletes are standing by what they believe in – and they won’t let their values be superseded by money.
