Our Young Gun profile takes a look at some of the young talent across the advertising, adtech, marketing and media sector in Australia. It aims to shed light on the varying roles, people and companies across the buzzing industry.
Today we speak to unitely founder Rechelle Coombes.
Time in current role:
Four months, following four years leading the financial services marketing team at realestate.com.au
How long have you been in the industry?
13 years: I was still at uni when I landed my first role as a marketing coordinator.
How did you get here? Was this always the plan?
I always wanted to do something that helped people see the good that can come from the marketing industry - I just wasn’t quite sure what. After some life changes in 2020 that forced us to move from Melbourne into regional Australia and a six-month career break I knew starting a business centred around ‘making marketing great again’ was my calling so I quit my ‘dream job’ to go it alone and start unitely.
Who is your right-hand person?
Starting an agency from scratch is no easy feat especially when you’re building it alone.
In the early days I would call upon my “business bestie” Jess Jones, founder of the Burnout Club to help make the days easier to laugh about the mistakes or slow days and to hype each other up when we have small successes. It's actually great to have someone who isn’t intrinsically linked to the business and is there for the day to day (our iPhone message history is full of to-do lists and gifs!).
With unitely growing I saw an increase in brands (especially startups) needing general marketing support and advice so I’m now working with my co-founder Camilla Jeffries to build out that business model. Its in its infancy with a few (but mighty) clients but we’re so excited about what we’ve got planned to better support brands and agencies.
What is the best thing about the industry you work in?
Knowing how much we can influence the way people think, behave and act and the potential to really use that power for good. I also love the rapid pace, creative thinking and pure ambition from the people I get to work with.
And the biggest challenge?
Finding the sweet spot when marketing for social impact. Authenticity, relevancy and representation are key and I think some brands and agencies don’t always get the balance right and come off looking out of touch and offensive in some ways. But when you include the right people, have representation and are authentic to your brand values you can really hit home.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
Aside from the one I have now, perhaps the Prime Minister’s. My dad always wanted me to be the first female Prime Minister in Australia (Julia you beat me too it!). I actually really hate politics, however the ability to make some serious impact in helping direct funding into the right areas and focus on things like renewable energy, sustainable materials and diversity in government supply chain sourcing would be at the top of my to do list.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
I’ve always done a lot of driving and walking and hate sitting down so podcasts have been my thing. I really love hearing stories of people overcoming adversity in their lives or business and just having that ‘never give up’ mentality. A few of my faves include How I Built This with Guy Raz (listen to the Brian Chesky Airbnb pivot during Covid story), Masters of Scale and Conscious Chatter. I also love Seize the Yay and The Mentor with Mark Bouris for more local-oriented stories. I’ve recently also been getting into True Crime to help me zone out of business mode.
My favourite advert is:
My all-time favourites are many of the older Nike ads like ‘I am not a role model, ‘I'm so pretty’ and the original ‘Walt Stack’ - they were really ahead of their time in terms of representation and standing for more than what they were. I mean they don’t have the greatest track record in terms of their supply chain but their ads are super impactful.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you?
I’m a pretty open book so most people know everything about me however I used to make custom upholstered bedheads on weekends as a side hustle, I used my SEO/marketing skills to build a website and was #1 rank ahead of Captain Snooze and Harvey Norman and other big brands in keywords with ‘bed’ in them. I built it on a WIX website back in 2016 for $9 (yeop $9!!). I had so much demand I couldn’t keep up. My bedheads were featured in The Block Shop after appearing on Reno Rumble.
In five years’ time I will be:
Running for Prime Minister! No, definitely not doing a Kanye but fingers crossed unitely will continue to grow beyond my wildest dreams and I’ll still be working with some of the best brands, agencies and marketers to 'make marketing great again' (see what I did there haha). My mission is to impact the lives of 10 million people with our social-impact led campaigns, so hopefully we’ll have gone beyond that.
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