THE ICONIC’s CMO Joanna Robinson joins ‘Moments with Marketers… in Uber Rides’ to discuss how she balances data with empathy and why emotional connection is key to turning retail spikes into long-term brand impact.
When it comes to retail marketing, few know the art of balancing spikes and substance better than Joanna Robinson, chief marketing officer at THE ICONIC.
In the latest episode of ‘Moments with Marketers… in Uber Rides’, Robinson got into the back seat with Uber’s Michael Levine to unpack how she’s reshaping the role of brand in one of Australia’s most competitive retail categories.
With a career spanning both decades and categories, Robinson’s most recent highlight is close to home: the ongoing ‘Got You Looking’ masterbrand campaign for THE ICONIC, now in its second year.
She is also an inductee to the 2025 B&T CMO Power List.
She says: “This campaign is really about getting people to lean back into THE ICONIC again and bringing back to the forefront everything that we represented when we launched 14 years ago.”
It’s a strategy built on strong foundations: brand relevance, emotional connection and timely participation in the moments that matter – whether those are commercial retail windows or deeply human cultural conversations.
Robinson deeply believes that emotional connection in particular is essential for any brand looking to resonate with its customers.
She explains: “You need to be empathetic to what your customers are experiencing in their lives at the moment.”
As an ecommerce brand, THE ICONIC has access to large and varied data sets, which means data plays a big role in the brand’s strategy. With such a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips, Robinson is intentional about how the brand chooses to utilise it.
Robinson says: “One of the things I always say internally is remember that there’s human beings at the end of all those data sets. We do a lot of data and analytics… but then we overlay that with actually talking to our customers.”
When it comes to key yearly moments, Black Friday and Boxing Day will always be crucial – which is what THE ICONIC now calls “the season of sales”. But this is just the start of the brand’s strategy.
Robinson has looked beyond these retail moments to other cultural events that resonate with THE ICONIC’s customer base in an effort to connect with consumers in ways that reflect their real lives.
One example of this is THE ICONIC’s recent involvement in ‘So Hot Right Now’, a high-profile event on perimenopause and menopause that was held at the Sydney Opera House. Robinson identified this event because it is something that deeply affects a significant base of customers for the brand.
Robinson explains: “That’s how we’re trying to really personalise the experience – not just for our consumers’ passions and their hobbies but also what they’re going through at that moment or stage in life.”
For Robinson, the key to making these moments work – and to keeping them going – starts with putting the customer at the centre and staying anchored to clear insight.
She says: “I’m a big believer in insights. If you get that bit right up front, you will naturally have good momentum off the back of a campaign or an activation.”
Stay tuned for upcoming interviews including Alex McLean (general manager, marketing at BMW Australia) and Matt Cassidy (head of dcomm and retail media at Mars).
