Robbie Brammall.
Robbie Brammall, the former chief marketing officer of Hobart’s Museum of Old & New Art (Mona), has challenged marketers to “find the unlock” when it comes to gaining support for brand investment from the C-Suite, and avoid becoming addicted to short-term "performance marketing crack".
“Now more than ever marketers need to make their brands both unignorable and memorable,” Brammall told marketers attending the launch of marketer consultancy The Emma Logan Project.
“We all know the answer is not to just sell, sell, sell, but to consistently invest in brand as well.
"The hard bit is gaining support for that investment from the C-Suite, especially as budgets come under pressure. So, as an industry, how can we marketers better un-lock that support?”
Brammall said marketers know what they need to do to build brands and grow the business but it’s internal structures that often push them in the direction of performance marketing, which prioritises short term revenue generation without a similar investment in long term brand building.
“There's never been more alignment on the science of effective marketing and brand growth,” said Brammall.
“Thanks to the likes of Mark Ritson, Byron Sharp (and the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute), and Les Binet & Peter Field marketers know to invest in the long and the short, but the reality is that many businesses can’t seem to get off the performance marketing treadmill.
“I know when I became Mona’s CMO there were absolutely parts of the business that were purely on the performance marketing crack. It was the rhythm of those businesses. It took time to win internal support for investment in brand, and then it took runs on the board to convince them it was working."
Brammall made the comments giving the inaugural CMO address at the launch event for marketer-focused consultancy The Emma Logan Project.
“We live in a marketing world where algorithms are the taste-makers, where imitation is the only source of innovation, and where progress is measured in relentless micro optimisations. The result? Consumers end up with a tsunami of sameness, a blancmange of beigeness,” he said
“At Mona we called this ‘the drift to the middle’, and it was to be avoided at all costs. Working for David Walsh (Mona’s owner) I learnt that this was his unlock - he was hard-wired to take risks that would keep Mona from drifting to the middle, so applying that philosophy to Mona’s marketing instantly gained his support.”
The former Mona CMO has now launched his own marketing and creative consultancy, Brandango.
“My challenge was how can I use paid media to grow awareness of Mona, but in a way that didn’t totally betray Mona’s counter-culture ‘show don’t tell’ roots,” Brammall said.
“So, what we did was something hugely ill-advised, potentially libellous and the complete opposite of what tourism brands would normally do. We went to TripAdvisor, found our worst reviews, and then turned them into Mona’s first brand campaign. David’s response?
“I hate advertising but I like these, because they tell the f***ing truth.” Visitation went up 25% and the only people who threatened to sue us were Pink Floyd - asymmetric upside."
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