Stories by Brad Howarth

For the past few years, Scott Koetsier and the sales and marketing team at Emerald Foods have been pondering exactly where the boundaries lie for one of his company’s most prized ice cream brands, New Zealand Natural, and asking how they can be expanded.

Rebranding a company is rarely easy, and that task can be made even more difficult when you are also trying to change perceptions of the category within which you operate. But then to do that in an economy already been buffeted by COVID-19 lockdowns and a looming recession?

With Australia entering the uncharted waters of a pandemic-driven recession, it is becoming harder and harder make predictions about future customer sentiment and behaviour. There are signals and trends, however, that are evident today which begin to describe likely scenarios and outcomes. So here are four factors marketers need to prepare for in the post-COVID recession.

The words ‘new normal’ have quickly emerged as the go-to phrase for describing the world created by the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the economy and national psyche. But have we even reached the ‘new normal’ yet?

It has been 15 years since Australian workers were given the ability to choose which superannuation fund would manage their retirement nest egg. While many funds have used that time to create sophisticated marketing functions to attract and retain members, the ability for them to differentiate in the eyes of customers has at times proved challenging.

Some businesses owe their rapid growth to being in the right place at the right time. But such a feat should almost be expected of Sydney-based startup, Spacenow, whose entire business model is based on putting clients into the right space at the right time.

Telecommunications can be a brutal game, with brands coming and going faster than Australian prime ministers. So for Australian-born Boost Mobile to have survived for 20 years is a noteworthy feat, especially given that many of its much larger US carrier partners, including Nextel and Sprint, have come and gone in that time.

It’s been 35 years since Australian motorists first started saying ‘hi to Hyundai’. But while the massive Korean manufacturing conglomerate has done an amazing job of building recognition as an automotive brand, some of its other its other products are not so well recognised.

Despite the COVID-19 crisis and subsequent clampdown on conferences and seminars, lead generation still needs to come from somewhere.

For Australian linen and homewares brand, Lorraine Lea, decline had set in long before the COVID-19 crisis hit.

Cambell Holt is not the first marketer to concede there is a lot in his professional realm he doesn’t fully understand. But what does make Mercer’s chief customer officer different to many of his peers is who he turns to when filling in those gaps.

As recent months have clearly shown, having a strong digital marketing and commerce capability has been one of the defining factors of those organisations that have best coped with the COVID-19 crisis.

A few years ago, century-old South Australian-born company, National Pharmacies, decided to update its mission.

When the COVID-19 crisis pushed Australian consumers online in unprecedented numbers, ecommerce and auctions company, Grays, turned to an unconventional channel to help fuel its growth.

It was 12 March 2020 when Elma Beganovich saw the world suddenly change. As co-founder and chief operating officer at New York-based influencer-led digital marketing agency, Amra & Elma, she had been monitoring rising concern regarding the COVID-19 health crisis among the global influencer community and their followers.