Providoor brings on first chief marketing officer
- 12 January, 2022 06:56
Eighteen months after launching its premium restaurant delivery service to Melbourne foodies, Providoor has recruited its first chief marketing officer to drive growth.
Michael McCash joins the business from DoorDash, where he was senior manager of consumer growth marketing for Australia. His resume also includes senior marketing roles with HotDoc, Assembly Payments (now Zai), Australia Post, MYOB and Eftpos Direct.
McCash told CMO he’d been watching Providoor's rapid growth with a keen eye since restauranteur and chef, Shane Delia, launched the enterprise in mid-2020.
“I've admired how Shane pivoted an established industry, food delivery, to cater to an underserved part of the market, premium restaurants, particularly when restaurants were struggling,” he said. “I’ve loved watching the Providoor brand grow and enjoyed the relentless focus to provide an exceptional customer experience. Even though I was happy where I was, opportunities like this, in an industry you're passionate about, don't come around often. So I jumped at the chance.”
As CMO, McCash reports to Providoor’s recently appointed CEO and former eBay leader and marketer, Tim MacKinnon. The job covers brand strategy, growth, retention and customer experience across the marketplace, catering to both restaurant partners and consumers.
Adding a CMO was critical to building out the right team, strategy, structure and reporting to support the growth plans across Australia and look at international expansion, McCash said.
Providoor expanded into Sydney and Canberra in mid-2021 after reportedly injecting $40 million back into Melbourne premium restaurants during the first wave of Covid lockdowns. The business model sees pre-prepared meals from premium restaurants such as Monopole, Rockpool Bar and Grill, Longrain, Cecconi’s and Taxi Kitchen ordered and delivered to consumers.
“For restaurants, we’ll provide an ongoing additional value driver to support the in-dining side of their business with opportunities to expand their menu and brand to delivery consumers,” McCash said. “For consumers, we’ll continue to make exceptional food experiences more accessible. Food is one constant that always brings people together and great food helps to elevate those moments into lifelong memories.”
McCash said he’s joined a talented team of four marketers focused on brand retention, CRM, social and design. The company is also looking to recruit a growth/performance marketer.
There are plenty of learnings from DoorDash McCash expects to be employing in the new post. Among his top three is access and availability of real-time data and having the systems, platforms and reporting tools in place to see results across multiple channels.
“This will be critical in making faster decisions and empowering the team to make larger bets comfortably,” he said.
With food often such an emotive moment, it’s also critical to set the right expectations with consumers, McCash continued. “Exceeding them is critical to building new habits,” he said. “The moment we fail to deliver on what we’ve promised, a consumer will look elsewhere.”
A third lesson for McCash is having empathy and support for restaurant partners. “It is important to understand recent challenges such as lockdowns, staffing shortages, menu changes and busy periods,” he said. “It's paramount we find opportunities to assist through the challenges and build long-term value.”
As to priorities, McCash highlighted supporting new restaurant and city launches, along with developing a playbook to support food creators and help them engage new customers, among the first things on his to-do list. He also spied opportunities to make improvements around the customer experience through the website and mobile to make everything more convenient. These stretch from choosing a meal to delivery and preparation.
“We will also begin top-of-funnel awareness building through a new brand campaign as we continue to expand across Australia,” he added.
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