Hello and welcome to the fourth and final instalment of the ‘Face 2 Face’ series, brought to you by Facebook. And we’re coming home strong with a final whack of marketing know-how from two of the best in the business.

In today’s conclusive video and podcast, Jules Lund speaks to Carmen Bekker, partner of the CMO advisory at KPMG Australia; and Dean Chadwick, CMO of Velocity Frequent Flyer.

Together, they talk about a mobile-first strategy and keeping the human connection.

You can check out the highlights in the video below and the full stories in the podcast at the bottom of the page.

For Bekker, the lesson for every savvy modern-day marketer is that being personable and showing integrity are essential for a brand.

“We’ve just done some global research which shows in Australia the two key things [that matter] for customers in terms of an experience are personalisation and integrity,” she explained.

“And integrity, it’s really interesting because it’s sort of a newer shift in priority and it’s all about, ‘Does this company that I’m dealing with, do they have trust?’ ‘Do I trust them?’ ‘Are their values clear?’ ‘Do the values come to the fore?’ ‘Is there something going on that I don’t like?’

“And if there is, the integrity is dropped off. And it’s particularly relevant for brands that have a high social traffic because if you’re not transparent through social, you’ll have a big issue with integrity.

“So, it’s very interesting that no matter what platform, no matter what you do if you do have those two things, personalisation and integrity with Australian audiences is key.”

Chadwick takes us through how they launched one of Velocity’s most successful ever campaigns, based on the idea of a marketing balls up by the intern.

“We were sitting around at the agency and I think it was a Tuesday night, it was about 10pm after two months of really hard work and everybody thinking about the idea we wanted to go for,” he said.

“So, what transpired was at Velocity we had ‘Tim the Intern’ who was working with us and the insight was, ‘Let’s kind of talk about Velocity. Let’s talk about the intern. And let’s talk about the intern that made a mistake’.

“We talked about the insight. We talked about an intern kind of giving away the points. I remember I was on The Spit Bridge and we were going to give away half a billion points and my wife said to me, “Why don’t you just make it a billion”? And I said “Yeah, a billion. That’s a great idea.” So we phoned up the agency, “Let’s just make it a billion points.

“So that turned into the campaign – the billion points that should’ve been the million points giveaway.”

To hear the full stories in the podcast, you can listen in below, or check them out on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify… wherever you get your podcasts from.

That was the final edition of the Face 2 Face series. But dry your eyes, because next week B&T – once again in partnership with Facebook – will bring you a brand new series on innovation in the marketing realm. You don’t want to miss this one folks, so stay tuned.