Justin discusses the marketing effectiveness opportunities for Australian brands, why he admires a campaign by the Honest Egg Co, and the importance of wellbeing.
You joined Gain Theory in January this year, what are you most excited about?
I am really excited about helping marketers in Australia to embrace data-driven decision-making.
Gain Theory has a brilliant, talented team based all around the world and a great range of solutions that will enable ambitious Australian brands to do this and drive growth.
As part of my onboarding, it was amazing to learn about Gain Theory’s 50-year heritage in the marketing effectiveness space and discover some of the innovative new ways we are helping marketers to make data-informed decisions.
What are some of the key marketing effectiveness opportunities for Australian brands at the current time?
There are three opportunities that I’d pick out: understanding your strengths and weaknesses with benchmarking, gaining access to granular insights at speed, and managing what will happen in the future with foresight.
First, benchmarking provides a critical perspective on your marketing performance relative to industry peers, both within Australia and globally. This can be enormously helpful as it enables you to map the maturity of specific capabilities and helps to identify barriers to and opportunities for growth. Benchmarking is one of the most important things you can do to set your marketing effectiveness program up for success.
Second, marketers can access granular near-time insights with privacy-compliant geographic data. When combined with other data – including business KPIs such as sales and third-party sources such as local weather reports – and advanced analytics, you can build an accurate picture of how campaigns are performing. Insights generated from this enable marketers to optimize across different channels, partners, campaigns, tactics, creatives, and audiences.
Third, marketers are all too aware of the speed at which change happens today. Whether it’s advances in technology, sudden pivots in consumer behavior, geopolitical events, or macroeconomic volatility, it can be hard to keep on top of what’s happening. This is where mastering the power of foresight can really help. Data-driven foresight techniques enable you to establish a probability for a range of different eventualities and to plan proactively and with more certainty for what might happen in the future.
What’s the best campaign you’ve seen recently?
In a world full of greenwashing this brilliant campaign by Victoria-based Honest Egg Company connected human behavior – counting the number of steps we take – to chickens. By building a pedometer for their chickens, the company was able prove just how free-range the eggs they sold are. They even printed the number of steps on the eggs themselves!
The campaign won numerous awards and drove awareness of how chickens that are not free-range are treated in a way that was easy to relate to.
We’re big fans of continually improving ourselves at Gain Theory. How do you improve yourself?
I think investing in your own well-being is one of the best things you can do, so I highly recommend “The Science of Well-Being” on Coursera.
Led by Professor Laurie Santos, it challenges you to engage in a series of tasks designed to improve your overall wellbeing.
You’ll learn about common misconceptions surrounding happiness and how our minds can sometimes lead us astray. Professor Santos also shares research-backed strategies for cultivating happiness and well-being in your life.
By the end of the course, you’ll be equipped with the tools and knowledge needed to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your daily routine!
Contact Justin to discuss any of the issues raised in this Q&A