Marketing Mavericks: Google’s Aisling Finch

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Marketing Mavericks was a supplement in the latest mag, featuring some of Australia’s most daring and bold marketers. Today, we’re bringing you Google director of marketing Aisling Finch.

Whole Brained Ear Wiggler

With a marketing career spanning 20 years, Aisling is currently the director of marketing (ANZ) at one of the world’s biggest tech giants. Having previously worked for the likes of Telstra and with time spent on ADMA’s advisory board, Aisling now sits on the AANA’s board of directors. She is a true marketing maverick across the tech, media and telco space.

At the start of my career I had no idea what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’ (when does that happen?!) Now I know I love how marketing brings together both sides of the brain. There’s the data, science and rational insights side. Then there’s the emotive side: the creativity, ideas and gut feeling about what inspires and motivates people. I’m always learning: from my team, peers in our industry, and what other businesses and brands are doing. And nothing brings me greater joy than when I see marketing activity have a deep impact.

I count myself as someone who’s lucky enough to love coming to work every day. One of the great things about my role is the unique lens I get thanks to two very distinct parts: there’s the B2C side of things, where I’m connecting consumers with our products and then there’s the B2B part, where the audience is advertisers using Google’s ads products and platforms. I get to see best practices from a digital lens, as well as invest across all channels. It wouldn’t be very cool if Google marketing wasn’t good at using Google products!

My favourite ad of all time (even though it’s so hard to pick just one!) it would have to be Generation Voice from Spark, which is a New Zealand-based telco. They took a very human insight about kids and demonstrated the enabling power of new technology. Also, it’s a very funny ad. As a marketer, we consistently see humour as a top driver of performance. It just works.

Two pieces of advice I’ve received that I’ve never forgotten and always refer back to are

The value of a good leader can be measured by the quality of their questions and
Your legacy (more than any project!) is the way you make people feel.

Further to that, if I could offer any advice for marketing graduates it’d be don’t get caught up in debates about head vs heart, brand vs performance, art vs science or channel vs channel. The reality is the best marketers bring both sides of their brain to any challenge. Insights, empathy and creativity will always be important, as will demonstrating value and measuring real business impact.

Your best party trick?

I can wiggle my ears.

Last book that you read to the end?

Ronan Farrow’s Catch and Kill

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Latest comments

Nadine Neate says:
28/04/2020 at 11:12 am
I too have recently adopted an “it’s how you make people feel” philosphy – learnt from an unlikely source – The Rock!. Coming from a ‘doer’ work mindset, it has taken me a long time to figure this out. I love your other point Aisling, about measuring a good leader by the quality of their questions.
Please don’t think your Marketing Mavericks advice is only for marketing graduates. We can all learn from your wisdom and experience!

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