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CMOs calling time? Customer chief Stuart Tucker exits Hipages to become Hourigan headhunter, predicts senior marketer shake-up as remits explode 10x, 'grind' bites

Hipages Chief Customer Officer Stuart Tucker is swapping the tradie marketplace for the talent marketplace. The former Commbank, Aussie and Optus marketer is joining executive search firm Hourigan International and expects brisk trade at the top end of town as CMOs question the "grind" amid exploding remits while businesses eyeing growth shoots seek creative analytical problem solvers – skillsets increasingly prized. For marketers ultimately eyeing the C-suite, Tucker warns it's neither for the faint-hearted nor narrow specialists, and predicts radical change.

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Warning signal: Fosters, Milo, IGA, QBE, RACV, Commbank watch brand strength slide; ‘cost of business to rise for Qantas’ amid brand fallout – biggest declines ranked

Fosters, Milo, IGA, QBE, RACV and Commbank face potential financial impacts due to falls in key brand health metrics including customer service, familiarity, recommendation, consideration, reputation and trust. These are some of the developments challenging blue chip brand managers over the past year, according to analysis for Mi3 from the 2024 Brand Finance Australia 100, which values and ranks the top 100 Australian brands on value and their reputational strength. Qantas faces further “significant” turbulence due to ongoing brand strength declines, according to Brand Finance MD Mark Crowe. He thinks the airline now faces increasing business costs as a result of sustained brand damage. Whether it can ever fully recover its brand peak is “probably in doubt”, per Crowe, though a category tailwind could deliver a bounce. Other airlines locally and globally are powering in the equity markets and that could help Qantas if it can stem bad news. Brand Finance’s methodology posits any declines in its brand strength index scores are a proxy for future brand value, and the ability of strong brands to both insulate from market challenges and create financial network effects. This year, 20 firms scoring the biggest brand strength declines in the firm’s Brand Strength Index (BSI) are early signals for more attention on brand management for company leadership and boards, Crowe says. Nine, Coles, NAB, Myer and Woolworths, per Brand Finance’s calculations, may also have cause for concern. On the flip side, Westpac and ANZ’s brand strength gains are outperforming the banking category, IAG and Suncorp scored huge insurance brand value gains, while in retail JB Hi-Fi and Carsales are pumping.

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Uber Eats and Planet Ark partner to drive sustainable packaging in Australian restaurants

Uber Eats has announced a multi-year partnership with environmental organisation Planet Ark, aiming to assist Australian restaurants in transitioning to more sustainable packaging. The partnership is part of Uber Eats' commitment to help its restaurant merchants switch to reusable, recyclable, or compostable packaging options by 2030.

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Brand acrobatics: Adobe wrestles with ‘category awareness’ for CX, plots brand-demand offensive; B2B CMOs pump 2024 budgets as CFOs greenlight creative spend – MYOB, Canva, MailChimp nailing it

It’s taken a couple of years, but the LinkedIn-backed B2B Institute’s mission to flip business-to-business marketing’s focus from performance to brand building – encapsulated by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute penned 95:5 rule – is starting to land, crucially in the boardroom and exec leadership echelons. LinkedIn’s polling of B2B CMOs and CFOs suggests most are planning to spend more on brand this year and are beginning to grasp that rational, product-focused messaging doesn’t cut it. The likes of MYOB, Canva and MailChimp are setting the creative standard, reckons LinkedIn’s Global VP of Customer Science and B2B Institute Global Head, Melissa Furze. But there’s still a long way to go, as Adobe’s APAC and Japan VP of Digital Experience Marketing, Duncan Egan will attest. Adobe, he admits, is challenged with building brand awareness – or more accurately, category awareness – when it comes to being known as a CX company versus its Photoshop legacy. He’s hoping to change that with a full-funnel push – and convince the sales-focused, short-termists that brand both fuels demand and ultimately speeds conversion. 

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