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Building McCain’s brand presence in Australia and New Zealand across an ever-growing range of potatoes, vegetables, pizzas, appetizers and ready-meals is the key priority for its local managing director, Lyn Radford. But what consumers want next is in her sights. As the former Chobani boss works to refresh the privately-owned FMCG’s strategy eight months into her tenure – all while supporting declining guest counts in QSR channels – she’s also brought onboard the first local marketing director of growth, Olivia Dickinson, to help plan the future. Dickinson’s not the only former colleague doing it again at McCain.

The job market for marketers has come full circle: talent is no longer in the driver’s seat; employers have regained the upper hand. Meanwhile, remits are so complex and commercial, and recruitment so conservative, it’s a tough ask for those looking to switch categories or who don’t have a solid grasp of the commercials and full 4Ps of marketing, say Hourigan International’s Stuart Tucker and Perceptor’s Mark O’Connor. The good news is salaries are holding and employers are keen to keep hiring strategic and creative marketers – if they can prove their value. But for the top roles, the competition is unusually fierce – and there’s more senior talent heading back from overseas.

With three new electric vehicles is its latest car line-up, the largest Countryman SUV ever offered, and a fresh product brand to educate consumers about, the job for the Mini marketing team just got a lot more complicated as the target audience and competitive set opens up. But for local marketing lead, Nikesh Gohil, building brand awareness still has to hold firm to what makes Mini unique first, and everything else comes second.

Rich consumer trend insights, API integrations with Salesforce Marketing Cloud to match data and advertising options that stretch across the funnel have led Flight Centre to up its investment into paid activity on Pinterest by 1,000 per cent. The platform is delivering “very competitive” ROAS as both reach-first and targeted audience plays pay off, says retail advertising leader for campaigns, Rachael Green. Even so, Hello Social head of data and insight, Daniel Hill says Pinterest isn’t commonly on the media buying plan for brands until they’ve exhausted other channels, hindered by a lack of awareness, bespoke creative and misperceptions of how attention works against other social channels. In fact, it’s a distinctly different option to social media, both insist, thanks to the search-based nature of how consumers engage with content in the platform.

The Chief Commercial Officer of Hawaii’s iconic Turtle Bay Resort, Robert Marusi, was the AI and marketing superstar at a recent Salesforce marketing and commerce conference in Chicago where his plan to revolutionise the Hollywood darling that’s featured in blockbuster films like Hunger Games and Pirates of the Carbibean came in chunks to prove incremental revenue gains that reassured his nervous c-suite to try the next deployment. Turtle Bay has now “absolutely swept away our competitors to the point they don’t know what I’m doing. It’s magical”, said Marusi.