| Accomplishment most proud of: Developing and implementing an organisation-wide, customer-focused strategy that resulted in approximately 100,000 incremental sales over a little more than a year.
Marketing mentor? I have mentored several people but never been mentored. Typically, mentors do not tend to volunteer their services and I have never been the type to look for a mentor as such. Having said that, I believe you can learn something from everyone. My marketing thinking has been strongly influenced by some of the extremely talented people who worked for me as opposed to my seniors. I learnt the finer aspects of direct marketing from Jodie Beckmann, market research and segmentation from Melissa Youlden, and new product development from Ray Cao. From a distance I have admired the work of Jack Trout and Al Ries, Seth Godin, Hugh Mackay and Steven Covey.
What brand do you most admire and why? Southwest, because they focus on staff first, then customers and then shareholders. They are one of the best examples in the world of truly ‘living’ your brand at every touch point. I also admire Apple because they are so cool and their products and stores are unique. When you look at the position they were in a few years ago before Steve Jobs rescued them, it is simply amazing.
What marketing program do you wish you had worked on? The current Old Spice campaign, making something old and daggy cool again. Check it out on YouTube.
What’s the most valuable marketing lesson you picked up during your career? That marketing is not just about what you ‘say’, it’s about what you ‘do’ and who you truly ‘are’. If you can truly engage your front-line staff you can achieve results that are not possible with the largest advertising campaign budget.
What has been the biggest lesson in your career and what did you learn from it? Persistence is the key to success. Once you develop an innovative strategy that all your experience and intuition suggests is right then never give up. I once presented a strategy to my executive nine times before it was finally accepted. You must change your approach, though, otherwise you are just nagging. When it went live it was hugely successful.
What are the biggest challenges facing marketers? The first challenge is dealing in an over-communicated world with increasing competition, media fragmentation, product choices, commoditisation and customers who are well informed and increasingly cynical. The second is about marketing taking on a leadership role within an organisation as opposed to being the fluffy brochure department. To achieve this, marketers need to speak in a language that is understandable and relevant to their CEO’s goals and objectives.
Best recent technological advance for marketing? Web analytics and potentially clever customer loyalty mobile apps such Foursquare. Look it up at foursquare.com
Do you think sustainability is a burning issue for marketing? It is an issue but not a burning issue. There are far greater challenges facing marketers such as over-communication, competition, new channels, social media and increasing customer cynicism.
What attributes make a great marketer? You need to be ‘creative’ (the ability to develop strategies and initiatives outside the box) and analytical (be absolutely surgical in terms of segmentation, targeting, ROI). Most importantly, you need to be focused on bottom-line results both short term and long term.
Future direction for the marketing profession? To take an organisation-wide leadership role where they drive customer-focused brands, product development, customer experiences, and value propositions that are designed to drive growth.
What does the statement ‘Value Creation Through Marketing’ mean to you? For me it means creating value for all three key stakeholders: customers, shareholders and staff. You achieve this by developing innovative strategies that drive customer loyalty and recommendation, increase shareholder value and developing strong staff engagement where all staff are strongly committed to making your strategy successful. Where organisations stumble is when they attempt to deliver ‘value’ to one stakeholder, such as shareholders, at the expense of the other two. This results in short-term benefit that is not sustainable in the long term.
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