Marketing now more science than art, says ANZ head of marketing
Bendall
ANZ’s head of marketing Carolyn Bendall has said the profession is now more science than art in the digital-led world.
She told a conference the shift from traditional to digital has led to a “rapid” change in how and where money is spent, revealing how the bank will spend three times more on paid search marketing this year than it did in 2014.
She added that the rise of content, and content marketing, was “rapidly replacing” much of the role of traditional above and below the line advertising.
Every brand is “facing the challenge” of how to create engaging and sharable content, Bendall told the CMO Disrupt conference in Sydney this morning.
She said the shift is “having implications on how we allocate our budgets, the skills we are hiring, agencies we are engaging and the tools and platforms we need to build”.
Bendall said the marketing professions was now more concerned with science than art.
“I am applying social and behavioural science, analytics and data driven marketing every day,” she said. “We have jobs in our team and skills we have hired for that didn’t exist even a couple of years ago. My head of analytical marketing has a PhD in neuro science.”
Bendall added that share of voice was now virtually meaningless as she urged CMOs to create their own disruption.
“Share of voice is no longer meaningful and CMOs need to be prepared to disrupt their own businesses and their own business models,” she said.
“Today’s marketing discipline is far more science than art and it is here to stay.”
Despite the conclusion, Bendall acknowledged there was more to modern marketing than digital, identifying out of home and sponsorship as areas that provide “brand experiences that digital cannot do”.
She also conceded that creativity remained critical in the development of “meaningful, relevant and engaging content”.
“There is absolutely a still role for art and our GayTMs campaign is a great example of that,” she said.
Steve Jones
Man, these marketers are such herd animals.
After the “we don’t make ads, we shoot films” comment a few weeks ago, I’m confused as to why she’s now siding with science against art.
Content isn’t replacing advertising, it’s just a new name for it. How is creating “engaging and shareable” content science? They’ve got 10,300 views in a month for their most recent ad, sorry piece of content. What’s that, a fifth of their employees? Guess something’s wrong with the formula.
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Bendall at best seems a little confused – an an ANZ shareholder and marketer I just don’t understand why she would let go of… or downplay the enormous power of creative to drive paid search – it’s naive, confused and confusing – It seems the “We Make Films” statement of last month has sudenly transformed “We Do Paid Search” its a no brainer that Art will always be King and science is how we better measure art’s emotional gravity. Love to be in the boardroom on this one.
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Anyone who has worked on a bank client advertising account ( I was in account service on three brands), will know that banker advertiser clients are very savvy on the numerate side of the brain. That’s why they’re in banks. That’s also why they are hugely deficient on the literate or creative side.
And that’s why they are such bloody complicated clients – like Carolyn – to be able to ever really nail (with a couple of exceptions) great creative campaign ideas. I didn’t need a PH d in Neuroscience to know that.
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Maybe this explains why ANZ ad’s are so bad
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Let’s start here: Who would want to watch a ‘Film’ made by a bank?
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Imagine if one of the big 4 banks, scrapped ATM fee’s (for using a rivals). Didn’t charge so much for late payments. Offered the lowest mortgage rate. Made more ethical investments (Abbott Point as an example of a few…).
– They might not need to spend so much money on advertising and marketing then.
Serious question:
– In this day of business disruption, is a new model going to kill the banks?
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