McDermott leaves Seafolly
- 02 March, 2020 08:02
After three years at the marketing helm of one of Australia’s most iconic swimwear brands, Adriane McDermott has wrapped up her role as CMO of Seafolly.
McDermott was behind the brand’s repositioning, which moved away from formulaic celebrity endorsement to embrace a more authentic narrative connected to the brand’s DNA, and as a result featured in the CMO50 list in 2018 and 2019.
In 2018, McDermott was recognised in the CMO50 after she tapped into data to uncover the most likely profile of customers to shop in-store, as well as those who booked or intended to book a holiday to someplace warm. Working with a data analytics and trading desk, Seafolly’s transactional and member database was combined a custom audience of travel intenders. The marketing team then built a much larger look-a-like audience and served up digital advertising featuring the products and creative headlines matched to the top five most popular travel destinations.
In 2019 she was recognised for her brand positioning work, which required Seafolly to rediscover its purpose and approach the category in a way that’s genuinely empowering to women both internally and externally.
During last year’s Salesforce Connections event in Sydney, McDermott joined a panel to reiterate how the swimwear brand was endeavouring to be more inclusive. She said inclusive marketing is about narrowing the gap between reality and how brands position themselves, and saw inclusivity and brand purpose as one and the same thing, and intrinsically linked to delivering exponential value and wins for every stakeholder in a business including team members, end consumers, suppliers, board members, community and the environment. It’s an idea that takes its cues from the book, Conscious Capitalism, by John Mackey and Raj Sisodia.
While at Seafolly, she launched a new brand platform, based on giving women the confidence to ‘own your folly’ with Thinkerbell, Havas, and One Green Bean. Shortly after the campaign’s launch, which achieved a significant media reach in traditional and digital channels, she pushed the brand even further with diversity of talent, even putting herself among other staff in a digital campaign to round-out the representation of women.
McDermott told CMO she is open to new opportunities and is currently offering marketing consulting and mentor-coaching services for ambitious leaders and retail brands.
“I draw on my global experience from brands including Nike, Diageo, Banana Republic, David Jones, CAMILLA and Seafolly to consult on brand positioning, retail service and customer experience design, brand marketing planning and execution,” she said.
There is no news as yet on whether Seafolly is seeking a replacement.
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