Aussie online art marketplace appoints first CMO

Australian online art marketplace, Bluethumb, has appointed its first chief marketing officer, nabbing SelfWealth’s marketing leader for the role.

Jarrod Purchase has spent the last four years as head of marketing for online share trading platform, SelfWealth, spearheading a significant rebranding of the fintech over the past 18 month, it’s first in 10 years. Prior to this, he spent just under 18 months as head of marketing for SportChamps. Purchase’s resume also includes senior marketing roles in the UK with car competition organisation, Best of the Best (BOTB), as well as digital marketing with GE.

Bluethumb co-founder, George Hartley, said Purchase’s track record of scaling businesses and brands was a key reason for his appointment.

“We’re extremely ambitious at Bluethumb, spending the last 10 years working hard for Australian artists to help them move art from studios to walls. Our next few years will take the company and brand beyond that and we believe that Jarrod is the right person to help us to achieve our growth objectives,” Hartley said.

Bluethumb was established in 2012 by two brothers, George and Ed Hartley, and now represents more than 20,000 emerging and established artists from Australia. It also works with 20 remote Aboriginal Art Centres to onsell artworks. In addition, the organisation runs a hefty art prize in Australia, offering a $250,000 prize pool. The 2022 competition is open now and will be judged by celebrated artists including Archibald Prize winner for 2022, Blak Douglas.

“Bluethumb has a vision to help artists quit their jobs, which is an extremely exciting and powerful future to aspire towards one of the biggest challenges for artists is finding the time and channels to sell their art,” Purchase commented. “It’s a tough nut to crack and also takes artists away from what they love doing, making art. Bluethumb tackles this issue brilliantly by backing Australian artists and empowering them through technology, unparalleled customer service, marketing support and one of the biggest platforms for distribution in Australia.”

Ed Hartley added the CMO role is all about growth, not just in the Australian market but to support Bluethumb’s expansion into other geographical markets as well as the NFT and generative art space.

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