From our CMO50 2022 number 1 to AMP's brand reputation, diversity at Anytime Fitness, metaverse at The Iconic and bravery at Tourism Australia, here are our most-read profiles of the year
A significant recalibration towards brand building as well as driving purpose through sustainability, diversity and inclusion permeates right through CMO’s top 12 profile interviews for 2022.
As we wind down and reflect on yet another year of swings and roundabouts, CMO took the opportunity to take a look at some of the most read and popular of our marketing leadership profiles for this year, based on you, our readers.
From our inspiring CMO50 2022 #1, Mim Haysom; to the diversity efforts of Anytime Fitness’ Caitlin Bancroft; metaverse innovation at The Iconic; riding the waves of changing consumer behaviours with Fever-Tree, Telstra, Officeworks; and rebuilding AMP’s brand reputation, the scope of these interviews is vast. But all demonstrate the bravery and courage marketing leaders are needing to demonstrate if they’re to drive growth and brand momentum for their organisations.
For Suncorp’s Mim Haysom, data is the fuel giving marketers the power to influence. “It’s critical for marketing leaders to have the ability to access and use data to form your narrative for stakeholders, to build business cases, and to prove your impact as a marketer,” the EGM of brand and marketing advises.
But don’t think for a second this means Haysom isn’t willing to trust her gut. “You need a healthy mix of both. With experience, gut instinct can be incredibly powerful, particularly in steering how disruptive you can be, and how far you can push things. But you won’t secure budget and investment through gut instinct.”
In this special profile, created as part of the CMO50 for 2022, we explore how Haysom has made her way to the top of our top 50 marketing leadership list through her determination to drive resiliency as a brand and business narrative.
Read the Mim Haysom profile here
In the second episode of CMO’s video series on 2022 readiness, Telstra former CMO, Jeremy Nicholas, and Officeworks GM of marketing and insights, Jessica Richmond, joined us to discuss customer engagement when delivering marketing impact in the next normal.
The 3-part video series explored how marketers are coping with this Covid-19 hangover and the macro trends reshaping business. In this episode, the two marketing leaders and CMO50 alumni members talk about customer engagement and how brands can continue to be the customer’s champion.
The Covid-19 pandemic brought on many changes in consumer behaviour, but not all are here to stay. Indeed, for several marketers, the new normal is starting to look suspiciously like the old one.
This has certainly been the case for Caroline Wood, who landed the role of head of marketing in Australia for London-based mixers maker, Fever-Tree back, in late 2019. Wood expected to spearhead a procession of face-to-face activations, but like many other marketers, found her plans quickly usurped by social distancing and lockdowns. So Wood and her team turned to virtual events to help meet her targets – with surprising success.
In this exclusive interview with CMO, Wood talks through the shift in events strategy and adapting to rapidly adjusting but often familiar consumer behaviours.
Marketing practices have changed dramatically in recent years as new technologies, channels and processes have rewritten rules of engagement and delivery. But at its core, many key concepts – aggregating audiences, designing and delivering campaigns and driving conversion – remain essentially the same as they were when they were first refined in the 1950s and 1960s.
However, the world is changing rapidly, and is evolving towards what may be the next great revolution in digital technologies: Web 3.0. This promises to bring together concepts relating to identity, trust, decentralisation and immersive virtual environments.
Here, Solis details how he expects this to occur.
When Renee Howie told people she was joining AMP, she got more than a few raised eyebrows. But the marketing leader had good reasons for wanting to take on the brand and business challenge.
“What stood out to me was the fact this is a brand that has been fundamental in building Australia and our community for 170 years,” she says. “That’s very rare in our market. We have done a huge amount to enable Australians across our wealth portfolio, advice and insurance portfolio, which we don’t have today, but was once a fundamental pillar of what we did. So there are things outside not only what we offered Australians but things we did in the community that I felt were owed the right to regain respect.”
CMO speaks with Howie about the brand rebuilding work she's undertaking and why bringing customer data and insight closer to the work is critical to marketing success.
Read the in-depth profile here
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A desire to create a breakthrough brand narrative that stands out in a sea of sameness led Anytime Fitness to embark on a transformative diversity and inclusion program across the organisation.
As Anytime Fitness CMO, Caitlin Bancroft, explains, the initial brief for the new ‘Any body, Any time’ campaign has its roots in an advertising audit that highlighted the challenge gyms such as Anytime Fitness face achieving distinction in the category.
“Anytime has the biggest national footprint of any network but we get lost in the clutter of functional messaging and a sea of sameness. A key objective for us was to standout creatively,” she said. “For me, I wanted the agency to challenge us to be brave and do something really different within the category.”
Here, Bancroft steps through the journey from an idea to holistic diversity and inclusion across the business.
Foundational research, a classic approach to the marketing funnel, commitment to bold creative and a healthy dose of career bravery lie behind Tourism Australia’s latest global campaign, its CMO, Susan Coghill, says.
Tourism Australia officially took the wrappers off its new global campaign, ‘Come and say G’day’ on 19 October 2022 after previewing its new animated Australian mascot, Ruby, at an event led by the Minister for Trade and Tourism, Senator the honourable Don Farrell, in Tokyo last week.
Coghill well knows the decision to take a different approach to destination marketing and adopt an animated brand ambassador character is a brave one. But she notes the wealth of research backing it up as well as the need to cut through the sea of sameness as Australia truly opens its arms to international visitors.
“It’s a very different way to do destination marketing, a completely new direction for Tourism Australia, and I’m sure it will be the source of much debate,” she tells CMO. “But creating a unique and distinctive way to tell our story in international markets, that will cut through the clutter, has never been more important with the tourism landscape more competitive than ever.”
Here, Coghill talks about the 18 months of planning leading up to the global campaign launch and what it has taken as a marketing leader to actually deliver it.
It’s the brilliant basics TAB’s inaugural chief customer officer, Jenni Barnett, is counting on to deliver growth as she brings a unifying focus to CX across the wagering and media organisation.
Bartlett was appointed TAB’s first dedicated customer chief in May 2022 with a leadership remit across digital, data, product, revenue, brand, marketing, sponsorship and events. Her appointment came hot on the heels of the demerger of Tabcorp Holdings from the Keno and Lotteries businesses, with the latter now known as The Lottery Corporation. Tabcorp as an entity now focuses on wagering, media and gaming services via its brands, TAB, Sky Racing and Sky Sports Radio, and MAX.
As to the CX playbook, Barnett has developed four dimensions to her customer strategy. Here, she reveals her game plan to CMO.
Personalising content more effectively and at scale, refining digital capability using AI and unifying channel experiences are in the sights of Petbarn’s digital chief as the business looks to take the next leap up with its martech stack.
Speaking to CMO during the 2022 Adobe Summit in Australia, Greencross the Wellness Company GM digital products and ecommerce, Sandra Sinclair, explained how the company has executed a rapid extension of its martech capabilities over the past 18 months to meet changing customer experience expectations. Greencross owns both the Petbarn and City Farmers retail brands as well as Greencross Vet Clinics.
Here, we detail this personalisation plan in action and how it’s delivering commercial results.
It was the combination of founder passion, startup mentality, fast-growing and disruptive business model and ASX-listed backing that enticed Alastair McCausland to become the chief marketing officer of Camplify.
Camplify has grown to encompass 6400 vehicles across Australia, the UK, Spain and New Zealand and listed on the ASX in June 2021 with an IPO of $11.5 million, more than four times its pre-IPO capital subscribe rate. Since then, share value has increased three-fold, leading Camplify to reach 17th place on the AFR Fast 100 for 2021.
“Camplify in a lot of ways is a simple marketplace: We connect people with RVs, motorhomes and caravans to people wanting to go on a holiday,” McCausland says. “A lot of vans are just sitting idle on the streets. We’re connecting available capability with a need. That excited me as that’s what marketing is about: Connecting the consumer insight with product that’s available.”
In this CMO profile, McCausland details the brand and marketing smarts he’s applying to spearhead Camplify’s next phase of growth.
Building social and metaverse muscle to deliver modern-day marketing and customer obsession have been priorities for The Iconic’s chief customer officer in the first year of the job.
Dean Chadwick, who joined the pure-play retailer last year in the newly created role of chief customer officer, caught up with CMO following the successful return of the brand’s Runway X fashion show to an in-person event format on 2 November 2022. The sixth edition of the production, a noted event on the Australian fashion calendar, was both a display of diversity and inclusion as well as mixed reality immersion, with a Web 3.0 component introduced to the event.
“We were known historically for taking Runway X in new directions. As we were thinking about this year, we thought about the vision of the organisation and how we want to have a nod into the future,” Chadwick said. As well as the first foray into the metaverse, this year’s Runway X for Chadwick represented a clear case study of modern-day marketing.
“This was an excellent example of how we brought that to market. It’s a physical entertainment and great production, but the lens was very much a social-first one,” he said.
Read more about Chadwick’s first-year efforts at The Iconic here.
Seventeen-year-old Australian QSR and food producer, Oliver’s, was arguably doing healthy and inclusive food before it became trendy. But thanks to a combination of business restructuring, an explosion in health-oriented competitors and lack of internal strategic marketing, the brand has spent several years without clear direction and energy.
Enter a new business strategy, CEO, board members and James Wood, the first marketing director for Oliver’s in several years. Appointed six months ago and with a clear remit to reinvigorate the brand, Wood has been working to introduce new visual design, digital capability, customer insights and more to achieve just that.
In this exclusive interview, CMO chats with Wood about his ambitious marketing strategy and efforts to drive a new era for Oliver’s.
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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.
