Behind-the-scenes of building a performance marketing culture

We live and work in the most data-rich and technology advanced time ever, but as marketing becomes more and more complicated, marketers are having to find new ways to engage and connect with audiences at scale.

So, how can marketers rewire their teams, cultures and ways of working together to grab the attention and imagination of consumers today? The Warehouse Group’s Chief Marketing Officer, Jonathan Waecker, along with Jane Stanley of Omnicom Media Group (OMG) tackled this question and more during their session at Advertising Week APAC in Sydney.

Waecker opened the session by sharing some startling stats from a recent USC study on the sheer amount of content people are exposed to today. “If you went right back to 1960 there was 82 minutes of content available for every minute used by people,” he said. “By 2005 this had reached 884 minutes available to every minute used. By 2015 the figure sat at a staggering 2,000 plus minutes available to every minute used.”

But at the same time, consumers are binge-watching hours and hours of the content they most want. “Today’s consumer is firmly in the driver’s seat of the content and advertising they consume, so as marketers it’s imperative that we have solid strategies that incorporate creativity and content to put the content consumers most want in front of them. It’s the only long-term way to deliver true return on investment.”

Sounds like a great idea, right? Unfortunately, the way most organisations work doesn’t always enable them to accomplish those goals. As Waecker put it,“The traditional hierarchies of campaign-driven timelines and budgets hold brands back from building long-term value with their customers, while the fragmented landscape of digital platforms, reporting and data doesn’t do marketers any favours.”

To address these roadblocks and develop a system to help The Warehouse Group refine its strategy to drive consistent, measurable return on investment, Waecker and Stanley put their teams together to design what a truly combined approach should look like. The result? Winning in the moment.

“We define winning in the moment as audience-led always on activations that consistently use intent to drive engaging creative, meaningful messaging, and therefore more profitable outcomes all around,” said Waecker.

Once they had an agreed definition of what they were looking to create, the real work began. In partnership with one another and their two biggest platform partners – Google and Facebook - the four cross-functional teams came together over 12 days of innovation to solve four key areas.

As a result of the shared effort, the teams collectively walked away with six primary learnings:

1. Clear purpose – it’s important to have one definition of your goal with shared, common language.
2. One team philosophy – new client, agency and partner relationships require a reinvention of the traditional ways of working.
3. More specialist, less generalist – It’s important to have the specialist roles closer to the centre of the decision-making process to truly drive impact.
4. End-to-end delivery – Everything needs to work together, from media to creative, technology to insights and beyond.
5. Starting blocks only – Frameworks and starting block ideas are initial thinking only, as success will be in the ongoing optimisation of those ideas.
6. Radical candor –The future must be about one agile team with blended and respected ideas.

Waecker closed out the session by sharing the programme's success to-date, saying that "The results so far have been great, as the teams have already removed complication and begun focusing on truly showing up for our customers and providing them with solutions when they need them."