A rooftop pool where the team can hang out, shoot content, work poolside and actually be excited to come into the office every day? It sounds like a silly joke someone’s had after one too many beach days.
Well for Budgy Smuggler’s head of global marketing, Phil Chester, it’s anything but that.
While it may seem like he’s pulling a leg, Chester insists it’s a genuine business goal for the swimwear brand—and one that sits surprisingly high on the brand’s priority list as Budgy Smuggler continues its next phase of growth.
Now into our second season of B&T’s CMOs To Watch, presented by Zenith, Chester joins a growing list of marketing leaders reshaping the industry in their own unique way. The series celebrates those balancing creativity with commercial impact—and having a little fun while they’re at it.
We caught up with Chester to chat about TikTok Shop, why everyone’s suddenly become a marketing expert, and why the best media moments happen away from the screen.
As the iconic Aussie swimwear brand doubles down on creator partnerships, social shopping and TikTok Shop, Chester is focused on building a brand people don’t just buy from—they want to be part of.
B&T: Let’s get to know you… What three things would you take to a desert island?
Phil Chester: A good pair of Smugglers (may as well work on the tan), something to write on (half my best thinking happens when I’m not at a screen), and my wife. She’s a teacher, she’d have us organised, sheltered and running a new curriculum within 48 hours.
B&T: What is your passion outside of work? If you weren’t a CMO, what would you be doing?
PC: My boys, full stop. Everything I do is ultimately for them.
If I could walk away from it all tomorrow, I’d be a stay-at-home dad. No hesitation.
I’d pack up the family and spend a year or two on the road, travelling Australia properly. Not the highlight reel, the real thing. Remote communities, places most people never get to, the kind of country that makes you realise how little of your own backyard you actually know.
There’s so much of this country that deserves to be seen, and I can’t think of a better way to see it than through my kids’ eyes.
B&T: What was your favourite campaign of all time?
PC: Spotify Wrapped. How can you fault it?
It takes data every platform in the world already has and does the one thing almost nobody else thought to do—make the user the hero of their own story. It’s personal, it’s perfectly timed, and it creates a genuine cultural moment that Spotify doesn’t spend a dollar of media budget to distribute because 150 million people do it for them.
B&T: Now let’s talk shop. What is your brand’s top priority for the next 12 months?
PC: I’m not joking. That’s genuinely the vision—a rooftop pool where the team can hang out, shoot content, work poolside and actually feel proud to come to work every day. It sounds like a punchline but it’s a legitimate north star for our owner, Linny.
Beyond the pool, we’re a brand that’s earned a passionate following in Australia. The priority is making sure the content, creators, community and performance engine are all built properly so the growth compounds rather than plateaus.
We want to be the swimwear brand the world knows, not just the one Australians are proud of.
But first, the pool.
B&T: What channel is exciting you the most and how do you split your marketing budgets between long and short-term?
PC: TikTok. Not just as a paid channel but as a content ecosystem.
The thing that genuinely excites me is the compression of distance between content and transaction.
A genuine fan of the brand can create content, tag a product and drive a sale with almost no friction between inspiration and purchase.
The brands that figure out how to build real infrastructure around creator relationships—not just one-off posts but ongoing commercial partnerships—will have a durable advantage.
Social shopping is still in its early chapters in Australia. We’re backing it hard.
B&T: What is the biggest challenge you currently face in the marketplace?
PC: Shifting algorithms and too many experts.
The platforms change the rules constantly and the moment you think you’ve cracked the code, the code changes.
What’s harder is the noise around it. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a framework and everyone is selling a masterclass. The signal-to-noise ratio in this industry has never been worse.
B&T: What are you most excited about in the marketplace?
PC: Social shopping.
The gap between someone discovering a product and actually buying it has almost disappeared and, for a brand like ours, that’s an incredibly exciting place to be.
B&T: Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
PC: We’ve built something really special.
The next five years is about proving what makes this brand magnetic continues to resonate. I genuinely believe it does. The world needs more Budgy Smuggler and I want to be part of the team that makes that happen.
B&T: Speaking hypothetically, what’s one brand, product or category you’d like to sink your teeth into right now as a marketer?
PC: Honestly, nowhere but here.
There are shinier categories, bigger budgets and more “serious” brands. But there are very few products in the world that make people smile the moment they see them.
Budgy Smuggler sits at the intersection of humour, confidence and genuine Australiana and, as a marketer, that’s an absurdly fun place to work from.
B&T: Zenith believes there is untapped media potential we need to uncover. What is your prediction for media this year?
PC: Get off the screen and into the world.
Everyone is fighting over the same pixels, the same placements and the same Meta versus TikTok debate while the cost of being there keeps climbing.
The brands that win this year will be the ones creating real moments in the real world that are so good people can’t help but pull out their phone and share them.
