One of the silver linings of 2020 was the way marketers stepped up to assist their colleagues in sectors in need. So in September of last year, Share With Oscar launched a new campaign to alert its customers to the availability of unused hotel parking spaces around Sydney.
The marketing sector is no stranger to enthusiastic debate, but the battle between privacy advocates and the holders of customers’ personal data has become especially impassioned.
Long before COVID-19 made it an essential service, Menulog faced a challenge. Australia’s original online multi-outlet food ordering service had come under pressure from well-funded arrivals such as Deliveroo, DoorDash and Uber Eats, which had connected better with Gen Z consumers.
There’s much to be said for the commercial benefits of providing exceptional customer support. But no matter how that support is provided, there is always a cost somewhere.
An irony of the data age is that while it is mostly B2C brands lauded for their data prowess, the companies supplying them with analytics tools tend to be B2B. And for this latter group, that means they don’t always get the bask in the glory of what they enable.
Few retailers would be as far from claiming ecommerce leadership as charity op shops. But when COVID-related lockdowns descended across Australia last year, charity stores were forced to close their doors along with everyone else considered non-essential.
When COVID-19 led to the postponement of major sporting competitions around the globe, there was one form of contest that surged – even if some pundits might not recognise it as such. The esports sector was the clear winner in 2020, with burgeoning player participation and viewer numbers coming through on platforms such as YouTube Gaming and Amazon’s Twitch.
Most data teams are constrained by the resources available to them. So when those resources aren’t enough for you do everything, you could be doing to help your organisation, you can either live with the situation, or find ways around it.
The meaning of the word convenience has changed a lot in the digital era. For 7-Eleven, which has built its brand on convenience, understanding exactly what that word means to consumers is going to go a long way to determining its long-term success.
In the era of cancel culture, one poorly thought-out message can do sudden and severe damage to a brand. But marketers today find themselves on the hook for more than just what brands say to the world. Bad executive behaviour, supply chains issues and poorly thought-out operational decisions, such as the dynamiting of sacred sites, can quickly damage brands, professional reputations, and the bottom line.
When someone books a rideshare car there’s a good chance they are thinking more about when it will arrive and how long their trip will take than about the company itself and how it treats its drivers. But Rajesh Vuppala believes that if riders knew more about how the industry worked, they might choose a service they thought treated its drivers more fairly, especially if it gave back something to the local community.
An investigation of Australia’s bathroom cabinets is likely to reveal an assort of expired and neglected skincare products, used only a few times and then consigned to posterity as expensive follies, never to be purchased again. This, however, was not a fate general practitioner, Dr Ginni Mansberg, and her husband, Daniel Rubinstein, were prepared to accept when they launched their cosmetics brand, Evidence Skincare (ESK).
Rapid uptake of ecommerce was an inevitable outcome of the events of 2020, and naturally, those companies that supplied the picks and shovels of the digital goldrush were among the biggest winners.
Andrew Birkic has no trouble recalling the day of his first interview for a role with the Ford Motor Company of Australia.
When Farzeen Quadir-Hegde joined Taipei-based technology maker, ASUS, as its head of marketing for Australia in October 2019, her goal was to localise what had previously been a headquarters-centric marketing program. Her timing was fortuitous however, with COVID-driven lockdowns soon highlighting the need for on-the-ground experience.
