What do car insurance, frozen yogurt and hygiene and health products all have in common? Senior marketers who prioritise curiosity and determination, both in themselves and their teams, to help their brands navigate a constantly evolving landscape.
Speaking on a panel on Day 3 of Cairns Crocodiles, presented by Pinterest, Oliver Allis, brand director of Yo-Chi, Auto & General Holdings’ chief growth officer, Jonathan Kerr and the marketing director of Reckitt ANZ, Florence Paoli discussed the importance of building teams that possess those traits in order to keep growing in an ever-changing landscape.
“From within the brand team, we’re really focusing on creating a culture of curiosity. We want our team to read more books, listen to more podcasts and come to events like Cairns Crocodiles. On top of that, we then always encourage them to challenge us more. I want to hire people who are better at things than I am, who can then challenge me to ultimately make things better,” said Allis, the mastermind behind the extraordinary frozen yogurt craze.
For consumers and marketers alike, Yo-Chi appears to have become an overnight sensation, exploding in popularity over the past few years. But for Allis and his parents, Janine and Jeff, success did not happen overnight. Instead, it was a six-year slog to build the business into the “cool” frozen yogurt phenomenon it is today.
Allis attributes part of that success to the people Yo-Chi hires, not only within its brand team but also across its front-of-house staff.
“You don’t see the service and the training that we put into our teams to make every experience into one that you love, and you feel better for,” he added.
These carefully curated decisions have helped turn Yo-Chi into a “cool” hangout spot for Gen Z and Millennials — something that still surprises even Allis, who said guests will sometimes wait 45 minutes or longer for frozen yogurt.
Kerr of Auto and General, the parent company of Budget Direct, also sees how invaluable curiosity and drive are in his teams to continue to evolve the marketing of car insurance in a world with fragmented audiences.
“When I think about the type of people we need in the business… we’re looking for very curious people with a lot of tenacity. I want people who have invested in themselves. They’re not waiting for the next corporate training rollout,” he said.
Kerr explained that this is precisely why he prioritises hiring people with curiosity and tenacity. In his view, these are the kinds of employees businesses can help unlock the potential of and, in doing so, create teams that continue giving more back to the business as they strive towards ambitious goals.
He pointed to the early days of Budget Direct as an example. When he and his team were first building the brand, Kerr said he deliberately hired SEO specialists who possessed those traits, who ultimately helped navigate through the changing SEO era.
“When we first built Budget Direct from not a lot, the first people I hired were all SEO people, and the reason why is back in the day, SEO was awesome. It was just like the wild west, but you had no money back in those days. It was a no-money era, and I was like, if they can do that with no money, wait till I give them some money,” he added.
“It’s this re-finding within the person the desire to fulfil their potential. And in doing that, they give and give and give to the business and the team whilst trying to deliver on their big goals.”
These same ideas around curiosity, resilience and self-improvement also extend into the global health and hygiene category.
“I’ll probably go back to a growth mindset. That’s the number one thing now that when we interview, that’s the one thing we look for: is that someone that will get out of the comfort zone, will try something new, will fail quickly and will get back on it,” said Paoli, who heads up the marketing for the parent company that owns Nurofen, Strepsils, Vanish and more.
She used navigating the current AI era as a reason why Reckitt prioritise curiosity and drive as the main factor in hiring.
“When we talk about AI and how you mentioned people are worried about the job, and if we stop seeing it as a tool and more so as an enabler, it can make you great at your job. AI is there, whether you want it or not,” she added.
