Since joining REA Group 18 months ago, Melina Cruickshank has deliberately placed emphasis on being as transparent as possible with her team and making sure they know what’s important to her as a leader.

Want a recipe for marketing innovation? Well how about a pinch of creativity, two spoonfuls of trend-watching, a one-quarter cup of design thinking and a big bowl of customer insights?

In 2019, the Banking Royal Commission left Australians with distinct a lack of trust in the industry and CommBank. As CMO, Monique Macleod, puts it, the bank’s reputation was weak at a nine-year low. “We were a brand in reputational crisis,” she says.

If there’s one thing Aisling Finch has taken from the COVID-19 crisis so far, it’s the need for vulnerability and authenticity in leadership. As the Google A/NZ director of marketing puts it, presenting to the global leadership team wearing a hoodie was definitely a first this year, but an important one.

It could be easy for people to dismiss NRMA’s $10 a month fire and theft insurance product, launched at the height of the COVID-19 crisis, as a short-term or offer-led incentive. But for IAG’s Brent Smart, it’s not only been a strong brand and customer vehicle, it’s the first time he as CMO felt able to influence product in a meaningful way.

“We must, must, must understand the underlying commercial aspects of the business in order to take an integrated approach and be truly innovative over a sustainable period of time,” says A2’s Susan Massasso of the marketing profession.

As the coronavirus crisis began to emerge, Budget Direct did something almost counter-intuitive. The challenger insurance brand decided it would still bring out its 20th anniversary campaign, despite the rising sense of uncertainty and upheaval. "We made the big decision to bring forward the campaign. To effectively swim in our own lane," Jonathan Kerr told CMO.

There are two skills GraysOnline marketing and ecommerce chief, Natalie Ashes, is convinced are key to being a successful modern marketer. The first is talking to customers.

“Never forget that consumers are not rational and never will be - connecting with them on an emotional and rational level is the key to success,” says National Heart Foundation CMO, Chris Taylor. And it’s a commitment to the dualities of rational and emotional, creative and data-driven, commercial and inspiring that Taylor is committed to as he progresses through a transformation of the not-for-profit.

Data-driven decision making is growing apace across National Australia Bank’s marketing and product teams. But it’s by also gathering and providing context that the financial services provider will truly lift its customer game, says CMO, Suzana Ristevski.

​Marketers spend a lot of time focusing on efficiency and effectiveness. So while keeping one eye on both, over the last two years RMIT’s Chaminda Ranasinghe has put his other eye on the third E, experience.

There have been several significant learnings for Telstra’s CMO, Jeremy Nicholas, from the past seven months of crisis he sees influencing the way customers view and respond to the telco brand into the future.

If you want to make marketing innovative, embed an owner’s mindset, agility, empowerment and accountability, says Audi Australia’s marketing and customer chief, Nikki Warburton.

WW’s marketing and commercial director, Nicole McInnes, thought transferring 30,000 workshops globally from physical to virtual in five days was the most intense initiative she would experience in 2020. “What I didn’t know was this would lead to one of the biggest transformations the A/NZ business had undertaken in years,” she says of the COVID-fuelled task.

The COVID-19 crisis has been a time of old and new thinking for Southern Cross Austereo’s (SCA) chief marketing and communications officer, Nikki Clarkson. “While strategic pillars and growth areas for the SCA business remained constant, the way in which we targeted our audiences and the messages and creative we used to connect with them and evoke action during these times changed considerably,” she says.

The story of brand transformation for Lion Dairy & Drinks marketing and innovation director, Darren Wallace, began in late 2016. It was then the managing director of his business unit said to him: “This is the biggest smallest company I have worked for” and criticised the marketing team as “slow and unresponsive to the marketplace”.

It’s been a year of firsts for South Australia Tourism Commission’s Brent Hill as he’s worked to lead his team, organisation and the wider SA tourism sector through bushfires and then a global pandemic. He says one of the most unusual tasks was doing ads to say the opposite of what he’s usually paid to do.

​Want to be a truly innovative marketer? Then don’t copy anyone, ever, Guzman y Gomez CMO, Lara Thom, says.

There are two skills Tabcorp’s brand, marketing and product leader is determined to build across his teams. The first is speed.

Doing a pitch in lockdown was certainly a first for Catch Group CMO, Ryan Gracie. With five agencies starting the process in March, Catch eventually selected AJF GrowthOps as the winning agency to deliver a significant body of work, all produced remotely.

As a CMO, joining the group executive team of the Woolworths Group in 2019 was not only a positive step personally, but an important one cementing the marketing function’s contribution at the most senior level, Andrew Hicks says.