Marketing bosses at Tourism & Events Queensland, ANZ Bank and Officeworks provided some forthright views about the role of the CMO and where marketers are going wrong in a Cannes in Cairns session hosted by the AANA CEO Josh Faulks.
Three of Australia’s leading marketing chiefs have urged their peers to double down on delivering results and speaking the language of their c-suite colleagues to thrive in challenging economic times.
The Australian Association of National Advertisers CEO Josh Faulks hosted a panel – titled ‘The Good The Bad & The ugly: Top Marketers Cut to the Chase’ – featuring Kim McConnie, group executive marketing, Tourism & Events Queensland, Sophie Smith, head of marketing at Officeworks and Sian Chadwick, the GM of marketing at ANZ to understand what is on the mind of senior marketers and what they need to do to thrive.
Under pressure to do more with less, today’s marketers have to deal with a series of internal and external pressures, such as soaring inflation and the cost of doing business, tightening consumer purse strings and uncertainty about when economic relief will occur.
McConnie, a former PepsiCo marketer who has worked on Super Bowl campaigns, said: “The role of the CMO is to deliver results, such as profitability, efficiency, growth, cost savings, people retention and so on…we often debate all of this marketing theory, but at the end of the day, if you’re not delivering results you’ll pretty quickly find your way out of the door.”
Chadwick added that marketers are also brand custodians and need to make sure the brand has a “lived experience” through touchpoints with customers and how employees “live and breathe” with the brand each day.
Smith, a former Tesco and Coles marketeer, said she doesn’t believe in the “death of the CMO”, arguing: “We are more credible around the boardroom table because we’re not just talking about advertising.; we’re not just the colouring-in department anymore.”
“Our natural ability to understand customers and the data that they now collect means the function has grown in credibility… we are increasingly seen as a trading function, not just advertising.”
A seat at the top table?
The rise in credibility of the CMO means they are now far closer to the CFO and finance function than previously, or at least that is how the relationship should go.
ANZ’s Chadwick said that she spends more time with her finance counterpart than with any other stakeholder in the business.
“It’s a relationship that has taken a long time to nurture, but it’s now to the extent where he’s going in and having conversations about the value of marketing, even if I’m not in the room defending the investment,” she said.
What has been critical to developing this bond is creating a “single source of truth” around the numbers.
“So rather than tje marketing’s view of how we’re thinking about accountability, and finance and product thinking a little bit differently, we are bringing that all together and it is fundamentally changing the conversations around the board table and within the ExCo.
Chadwick is a strong advocate of using market mix modelling to illustrate to how marketing investments will deliver positive impacts for different parts of the business.
Cut the crap
It’s a point that was shared by the other panellists. McConnie said that marketing, in general, has a “language problem”.
“There is a language problem, because you lose people. I find it really frustrating when you’re in a meeting and people start talking marketing brand language.”
Smith added: “Sometimes you’ll get a 25 year old guy coming in and they sound really smart but I have no idea what they are talking about. I think it is just crap, tcut the bullshit. What we do is pretty simple and we’ve made things incredibly complicated.
“If we want to carry on driving that credibility, we just need to cut the bullshit and start to speak in a language that people understand.”
Faulks pointed out that it is also incumbent on the CFO and CEO to understand marketing, because it is “a critical driver of growth and profitability”.
Be bold, but not for the sake of it
The conversation moved onto the role of creativity and top tips for marketing.
McConnie believes that “boldness will drive success”, but that does not mean indulging in creativity for the sake of it or to win awards. She was speaking in Cairns days Queensland released a new Bluey campaign to promote the state.
“It’s competitive. There are so many options (in tourism) post-Covid and what we are seeing is every man and dog is going to Japan or everyone’s all White Lotus and wants to go to Italy.
“Because it is a sea of sameness, it’s important to come in and showcase what is distinctly Queensland, which is why we looked at Bluey and maximising those shoulder seasons.”
McConnie said that it is important to allow teams the
Chadwick also said that creativity is an important driver for growth and cited ANZ’s move to bring back the ANZ falcon after decades in hibernation, and creatively tailored in ways that are suited to different formats to ”make the creative work harder”.
Smith warned that it’s “not creativity for the sake of it” or “about winning awards.
The trio ended with some tips for individual marketers: keep educating throughout your career; be authentic and true to yourself; beware of false prophets and exercise a healthy dose of cynicism; and, be kind to yourself as its a marathon, not a sprint.
It’s useful advice at a time when short-term results, being asked to do more with less, and a myriad of shiny new toys are being lobbed at marketers faster than most can keep up.