MAY - 2023MARTECHOUTLOOK.COM9and that your marketing interactions with customers should be positive and authentic. I love technology and the possibilities, but I also worry about the social impacts it has on all of us and what role marketing is playing in that­marketers have a social responsibility, but I fear this is often forgotten.The other question that I often ponder is the balance between brand (long term) vs. direct marketing (short term) strategies and activity. I came from a commercially and data-driven marketing philosophy and was a staunch supporter of short-term vs. long-term. But as we know, the data was always there to support brand and longer-term marketing strategies, but it had not been articulated well. Today I believe in a strong mix of both depending on the situation and at QBE today, you will have seen a mix of short-term tactical marketing with longer-term brand-led marketing. Can you tell us about the latest marketing strategy that you have been working on, and what are some of the technological and process elements that you leveraged to make the strategy successful?Most recently, at QBE in Australia, I have been working on developing and rolling out a new brand platform called `Before & After.' The Before and After brand platform perfectly captures the essence of our customer ambition. We don't simply offer insurance. We're all about being there before and after­helping our customers to protect and prevent the `what ifs' and being there to support if anything goes wrong. The platform ensures alignment to QBE's purpose and consistency in brand execution and articulation while maximizing ROI. Rolling out this platform required a complete review of all assets across the QBE Australia Pacific business, as well as engaging with and understanding the needs of our customers, partners, and business divisions. To ensure consistency, I also implemented a marketing operations platform that allowed us to store all approvals and assets in a central location and made this the single source of truth for marketing assets with an integrated Digital Asset Management (DAM). Using this technology has enabled us to maintain the intent of the brand platform and purity of execution post-launch. Which are some of the technological trends which excite you for the future of the marketing space?Voice had been touted as an area to watch but has not yet delivered on that promise, and I believe that's because `most' marketing today is not invisible and is often unwanted. For voice and other emerging technologies to work with marketing in a different way than it does today, then it will need to be permissive and contextually based. A great marketing experience is the one that you tell to your friends and that they tell to their friends. Yes, word of mouth still works!The future of marketing should improve from its position today and make sure it does not go down the path envisioned by Nolan Sorrento's character in the movie Ready Player One!How can budding and evolving companies reach you for suggestions to streamline their business? LinkedIn­the world is only a click away! MTFor too long, marketers have relied on 3rd party data, and this has meant they have not invested in their own data capability, and it has led to complacency
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