Case Study Analysis: Strategic Marketing at Medibank MKTG602

This is a transcript for the video

Interview with Medibank

PARTICIPANTS

Rene Rached, Head of Marketing and Growth, Medibank

[Beginning of recorded material]

Tell us a bit about yourself and your journey as a marketing professional?

Rene: I've had sort of 20 years of global commercial marketing experience. And I think I've been really lucky. I knew really early in my University degree that I wanted to study Marketing. I started studying at Bachelor of Business, and in those days, you didn't really study business at school.

But when I got to university, you do Business so Accounting A, Accounting B, Finance, Statistics. Also, interesting in those times, we actually did Computing. So I was actually had one part of the course where I had to code in Pascal on a green screen. And I think after doing that part of the course, so I really knew straight away that marketing was something that I wanted to do. I really super clear on that.

And so from uni, I was really fortunate. I went to work at Westpac and I think the great part about working at Westpac was the ability to work in different parts of the business. So whether that be product, marketing, government affairs, which was really exciting, and really early on in digital. and that was a real springboard for my career.

I then went overseas and worked for AMEX in their global e-commerce team and that was for a few years in London, and that was working across global teams, so different regions and different countries. And that was a fantastic experience.

And then from there came back to Australia so down to Melbourne, and focused on the finance industry again, so working for NAB for a number of years, and then most recently at Medibank. And I guess the defining factor of a lot of those companies was just the nature and scale of the businesses. So large businesses, large customer bases, and large membership bases were something that I've been really fortunate enough to be involved in and lead through.

I guess in between I was worked agency side and did some consultancy work as well. So working with some small businesses. So for me that's been exciting, and for me today, I'm really thankful to be part of this program. I'm particularly energised and committed to driving an understanding of marketing and delivering actual outcomes for marketers. So I'm really excited to be part of this program today.

What are some of the key things you enjoy about working at Medibank?

Rene: The number one thing that drives me and that I really love is just helping the business grow just by being customer centric. I guess to do that you need to work with a broad set of people here at Medibank. So that includes technology, finance, product, legal, channels.

You know, working across all those teams, you know that that comes with a technical marketing skill, but also just this broader skill set of you know, just that that ability to connect and build relationships and that emotional intelligence is really key. So for me, I really like that breadth of role at Medibank.

Yeah, and just being part of a marketing team that's so connected within our organisation. I think what that does is creates opportunity, that opportunity to improve the customer experience. Which is also to get involved in different parts and learn new things.

I guess for me, I'll often invest time working in our stores as a concierge that's a fantastic experience or just call jacking and listening to calls with the phone teams.

Recently I was involved in a sales pitch for one of our major clients. So actually Rio was actually our largest client for Medibank and I was part of the pitch team with our CEOs that retained Rio.

I guess I was completely out of my depth and out of my comfort zone in that, but at the same time it's a fantastic experience, so I guess, for me, Medibank enables that, you know, for me it's that curiosity, as a marketer and as a person and something that I try to showcase for my teams as well, you know, get out there, be curious, be creative and your curiosity.

And you know get out there, ask lots of questions and for me that's really that blend of being able to try new things, be innovative. You know sometimes leading with your heart, leading with your head, but just doing that in a real connected way with people across the business and that's what I love about Medibank.

It's that diversity, you know it's not sort of you're in marketing role and that's all you do. It's sort of it's a real open role that's defined by how curious I am or how curious my teams are.

What is a general run down of Medibanks products/services?

Rene: We have three brands in the Medibank Group. So I think we're all familiar with the Medibank brand as itself, and that's our premium health insurance brand. We also have AHM and this is I guess our low cost health insurance offering. And more recently, we launched our Amplar brand, which is our health services brand and our health services offering. So I'll just talk a little bit more about those.

I guess historically Medibanks being known and we've built our business of being a health insurance company. I guess that's made-up of two parts.

So you've got your hospital related insurance and this is the type of insurance that you know you, you don't want to use, right. So it's typical insurance. So you might get ill or you might need a knee replacement, hopefully you don't and hence why that's the hospital insurance.

We've also got our extras insurance and that's the things like optical and dental, it's an insurance but it's not really, right. So, you know, you would hope that you get your teeth checked, you hope you can get your eyes checked. And so I guess more and more consumers are not seeing them as an insurance, but probably more of a value cover.

So we're definitely changing the way that we position those in market. And I guess over the past 10 years because of the brand that we've built that's so recognisable, we've got actually large membership base between the two brands of well over three million, nearly four million members. We've been able to offer other insurance products as well.

So that includes a lot you know like life insurance, pet insurance, travel insurance, motor insurance, and we see those types of diversified insurance growing and that makes up around 5% of our profit today.

And I guess more recently we've started to offer health services and that's predominantly B2B pay. And so we offer services to governments, other health funds, and also hospitals. So, some examples of that.

You know people might know this, but you know, Medibank was the health services provider for our Armed Services. We we've lost that contract but there was a major contract for us. We've managed services for Beyond Blue, Nurse On Call, 1800 Respect, and more recently we're starting to do more of a direct play, investing in GPs. We've got a brand that we do direct GPs that's quite small.

And more recently in day hospitals. And we made an announcement at our end of year where we've got an investment slated between 150 to 250 million to continue that growth.

So I guess that's really ties nicely into our vision. I think it's worthwhile talking about the Medibank vision. And it's really behind that. It's the core idea of growing this health side of our business, so that health offering. Today it's relatively small, we'll under 5%. However, you know the idea for us by 2030 is we see that representing you know at least 20% of our profit.

What is the balance of your business in terms of the percentage of B2B and B2C?

Rene: So it's probably not something we measure today, but if I put an estimate around it, I would say it's probably 70?Cand 30?B. And I'll go into why that's a little bit of a blurred line.

So I guess in terms of the split historically being a health insurance company, the vast majority of where we've been, it's been B2C. And that's by our health insurance and our financial services products.

Within that B2C rely predominantly on direct channels for our Medibank brands. So you know obviously through our website, through our stores, through our phone, and it's a real multi channel experience, whilst the AHM, it's predominantly a digital and phone based offering and I guess from a B2C perspective that relies heavily on direct but also very heavily on aggregators. So intermediaries such as iSelect and others and Compare the Market.

And that volume at the moment is probably 50-50 for the AHM business. So that's a big part of our B2C model.

I guess when it comes to B2B I talked a little bit around health and that is predominantly B2B. But the part that becomes quite interesting, I think, certainly from a marketing perspective, is our corporate and overseas business. So I'll talk a little bit around corporate.

It's essentially, what this is and you might be familiar with it, but if you work for a large corporate, you know that could be anyone from Rio to NAB, any of the companies that I worked for. Health insurance companies will do deals directly with those companies and organize certain types of services and products specific for those businesses that come at a specific discount.

And I guess what you see in that model is, obviously to set up those deals, it's very much B2B driven. So we've got a significant sized B2B team that strikes those deals.

But at the same time that B2B2C component becomes extremely important, because whilst the products have a discount, we still need to sell directly to those consumers. So I guess that's where it gets a little bit blurred.

I guess at the same time, it's the same with our overseas business, so you know from a volume perspective, you know all the overseas students, anyone coming on a working visa as well as those who are coming on an extended stay, these are also need-to-have health insurance as a mandatory component of entering the country, sorry.

And so that's a huge business for us and of course the B2B side is the universities and also the migration agents. So we have significant teams working to set up those day-to-day relationships and sales. But again the B2B2C component is as important for that business to be successful. But I put the split it around 70-30.

What formal marketing models do you use when planning strategically?

Rene: I sort of think about it in sort of three parts. So we've got models that really help us strategically around the why. And we also have models and frameworks for the what and the how. And so I'll talk a little bit around that now.

So if we were looking at planning the year and thinking about our vision and thinking about our road map for getting there both from a product perspective but also from an experience perspective.

We've got three models that we use really at that strategic level from a why perspective in the marketing team.

The first one that we align around is our strategic segmentation. So this is the, the high level segmentation that guides not only the marketing team but also our commercial decisions, our product development as well as our channel distribution and strategy. So that's an underlying model that cuts across the whole of Medibank.

We also use our brand blueprint. So this is really our brand vision, our promise and associated proof points for what we want to stand for, by brand, within Medibank. And that really guides our marketing teams, but also the organisations to think about what we're delivering, what we're building, certainly from a contextual lens of the brand and the customer.

And the third one that's really important for us, and I guess we're seeing this more and more in in companies, is our experience strategy. And we call them our commandments.

And that's really a view of, you know, what are we looking ahead in terms of our multi channel vision, what's our promise today for the experience we want to create for our new customers, but also our members. And what are some of the minimum standards, and minimum, I guess, hurdles that we know we need to overcome before we either introduce a new product or new service into the market.

So I guess that's really the why.

And we use these strategies to guide our teams and influence the broader business. So they're artifacts and tools that we make sure each and every one of our marketing teams has access to and is trained on and knows how to utilise and influence using those tools.

But then we also have some models that we use that sort of focus on the what. And this is really if you're thinking about taking new products or services to market, thinking beyond the strategic segmentation but more into where are we playing, what's the target audience, you know, and how does this start to fit together and integrate with our existing experience and, you know, the type of models that we have there, you know, really are focused on those type of audiences that we want to personalize certain journey architecture and experiences.

And that becomes really important because if you're introducing a new product or service, understanding what you have today and the journey and the experience of someone's undertaking today. And integrating the two becomes really important to have a really clear customer experience.

So that idea of targeting the journey and then the merchandising and positioning. Obviously we have quite an extensive merchandising positioning program today, and understanding how that either flexes or changes depending on your decisions is a really important step that we take around the what.

And I guess below in the how we have a lot of training for our teams around I guess what we call either our go to market or just general BAU activity in terms of how we apply those in market to make sure that we're getting the most out of any investment we make around advertising through our own channels.

Below the line we have a lot of training and support for teams to make sure we execute that in the best possible way.

What has been your most successful marketing initiative?

Rene: Every business in the world is battling it out for customers, so looking to win customers it wants is a big part of what I look for and define as a success.

I guess it's been a constant across my career that I've been able to look for, which is that ability to drive change. And certainly for marketing teams or business, those ones, you know those businesses that I've been involved in that were really close to customers and that's a little bit of a cliche, but you can really tell the difference about customer centric organizations and marketing teams and those that aren't.

I think when you combine that with making difficult decisions or really making decisions that help a business stand out and be different. For me that's absolutely critical and so I can give a couple of examples that really stand out for me that bring that to the fore.

I was really fortunate enough to be leading some B2B marketing programs at NAB, and this is back just after the GFC.

And obviously during the GFC that had a huge impact on businesses and access to liquidity in finance and we were able to grow our market share in that bank in that B2B space from, it was around 17-18% to over 23% in just a number of years. And that took NAB to being number one in that sector.

And market share changes like that in the banking sector certainly here in Australia are almost unheard of. And so really the big differentiator at that time post GFC was, you know, the business decision to continue to lend to businesses when every other bank didn't. So essentially liquidity dried up.

However, NAB did the opposite and that was a really brave decision. It was a risky decision, however, being so close and having people in the business who were previous business owners keeping tapped into customers in terms of where they are at and how they were seeing the economy.

And opening up that liquidity, you know our customers absolutely loved it and so from a marketing perspective, having something that was different, was fantastic. That doesn't often happen, but it was obviously a simple message as well. You know, we ran a really simple positioning around, we lent others didnt, and we ran it for a number of years.

The consistency behind it was just you know it was a thing that really resonated with business not just six months after we launched it, but for a number of years because obviously there's so many businesses that didn't make it during that period.

So for me that that's a standout and to be part of that was really special, but I guess also similarly at Medibank. You know, working in an industry that traditionally hasn't had a lot of differentiation and that sort of comes through a lot of the brand tracking that we do. You know, people don't see a lot of difference across what we are today.

However, I've been fortunate enough to be involved in the launch and startup of what we call our Live Better program, and our Live Better program has three parts to it. It's really around health and well-being.

The key part of it is our content and our inspiration. We also have activities around helping people access things like Park Run and other free events to keep active.

But underpinning it was, we invested and built what we call our Live Better app, which is really at the core of it rewarding people for taking healthy actions. So you know, if you connect your Fitbit up to the Live Better app and you do your 7000 steps a day, we'll reward you with some points that you can use to redeem on a whole bunch of things, you know, including a premium reduction if you choose, or you might get gift vouchers or an Apple Watch or whatever you want to spend those dollars on.

And I guess I mentioned that as well because it was sort of a brave decision and a lot of the journey along the way, it's been very bumpy. However, I think underneath it all, even though it hasn't been the smoothest, I guess launch and scale, we've learnt so much.

I think the business is stuck at its core, which is this idea of becoming a health company, investing in health and well-being. And what we've seen over time is our people embrace it, our frontline embrace it. They didnt initially because it was something quite foreign, but now we're coming up to three years in and we've now had our 550,000th person actually join the program and been able to redeem, I guess health and well-being rewards for taking healthy actions.

And I think what that says to me and looking back over my career, a lot of these things are defined by being close, long term and really investing in that customer experience and trying to do something different.

I think this is another example right now and I'm really super proud of not just for the results but also, you know, just the investment in, you know, really the vision and trying to make Australians and our members healthier and so I'm really excited by the outcomes and the success and also what it stands for.

How central are your customers to your marking decisions?

Rene: In my career as a marketer and particularly in my current role, I fully understand that that the powerful advantage that can be gained from research and insights indeed recognising you know that that we market is not the consumer.

I think that's a really important point and we must always prioritise looking at the world, the world, look at the customer or the user, wherever it might be, and actually tapping into that and really listening and learning as being one of the most important lessons we can learn.

I think for me, you know, real respect for the customer. Being customer centric starts with listening and trying to understand them. I mentioned that because, you know, like many organisations I've worked in, you know what a good way of looking at that is and playing that back to the organization sort of starts with your strategic segmentation.

In my career I've seen many versions of this. And I guess underlying it is probably how hard it is to land something that can you can apply right across your business. So, I see them out there. How well theyre used, really, is patchy, but I guess that at Medibank part of what I really like about our segmentation and the way that we've built it is its flexibility for commercial use, but also its application for marketing use.

The way that we've looked at it, we've actually broken the market up into 7 segments, and there's actually 2 dimensions, and I think the first one is health status. And for me, that's probably the reason why it's embraced here at Medibank probably more than other organizations that have been involved in. Because we sort of understand health and we understand how health and our health status changes over time. We're naturally healthier, younger, younger and obviously we run into greater issues as we get older.

So that health status is one lens and the other lens that we combine that with is this idea of confidence with finance. So we obviously know that we've got a lot of self-directed people, a lot of people who understand and confidence, not just with health insurance or insurance, but also they're broader finances and we've actually seen a real strong correlation between the two.

For me that was a big surprise, but that's a really nice underpinning of our segmentation which this idea of Looking after your health, having a strong health status aligns really cleanly with confidence and investment in in finance.

So that's a real big driver for our business and you know something that as a marketing team we use that, that's sort of our high level guide.

And of course below that as you start to look at those different segments and you start to plan and then you can start to get even deeper and start to think about certain audiences and tailor experiences and to really think about the personalization you can apply, you know, and we obviously have all the tools today, right across digital, but you know Digital Direct part of our business but also in our frontline to be able to tailor those experiences where scale and size make that worthwhile.

How is your brand perceived, and is this an area of concern or focus?

Rene: From a brand perspective you know working for an organization like Medibank with such a long history in Australia, that comes with a lot of responsibility, and certainly from a brand perspective and I guess our brand purpose, we're really, really clear as an organization and that our brand purpose, I guess our vision is to empower more people in Australia to choose their path to a better quality of life.

And I guess for us this is really about unlocking and enabling human potential, you know and how ways and organization can support that motivate and encourage really all of Australians to fulfill their potential.

And for us it really is about all Australians when we think about our brand. Obviously from a health insurance membership perspective, you know, that's quite a significant cost on Australians, and we do see a divide there between our membership base in terms of those who can afford it and those who can't. And so for us this idea of human potential really applies to all Australians.

What's interesting, weve recently been working with our agency, we're working with Colenso, fantastic agency, refreshing our brand. It's more of an evolution because of this idea of a better quality of life and a better way of life through health. That's been something that has been a cornerstone certainly for the time that I've been here at Medibank.

And we came across this term called you're only human. And it was something that we thought we really wanted to challenge, you know, that idea of the things that people do, you know, everyday things are somehow not special. You know, we wanted to flip that.

And for us, you know, sometimes it's a walk, sometimes it's a small inspiration, sometimes it's a small emotional thing that you do that could help you start to fulfill your potential and live a better way of life. So we really liked playing around with that. That's been a big part of our refresh.

And for me, I guess it's really quite exciting that many banks got this purpose and this vision, it's consistent and I guess for us it's really important because I guess being a legacy brand here in Australia and thinking about the way that we're perceived today.

There is this aspect of being a five star brand but also being perceived as sort of I guess an older brand. And so that's something we need to deal with and we're always looking to challenge, but with that comes with a lot of benefits.

So if you think about our, our prompted awareness, it's in the 90s. So literally over 9 in 10 Australians know who we are. But I guess the flip side is you know the attributes that we think about and the brand of things that all brands really want to be is that idea of being modern.

You know we're working on those attributes, we need to lift those and we sort of come with a lot of maternal type attributes that we really want to shift in another direction as well. And I think this idea of human potential focusing on health is really helping us drive that. So I guess it's still early days for us in terms of our current refresh.

But the health insurance industry hasn't traditionally had a lot of differentiation we're actually starting to see our sales start to actually move some of those metrics and starting to separate ourselves from our competitors. And that's really important.

And so I guess as marketers having your brand trackers set up to really track the performance and I mentioned some of those, but also really starting to look at those. Brand attributes and have that stacks up from differentiation is really important because we'll use those to help guide our next evolution, you know, adapt our current in-market brand activities.

And I guess you know for us having those trackers and that performance in mind, I think we do that quite well and you know for us that's a big part of making sure that we are on track to achieving our vision.

How is innovation and creativity handled within the company? How innovative do you think the company is?

Rene: When organisations that I've been involved in, when you when you reach a certain size, I think things just generally tend to slow down because you're trying to do so many things versus a very small nimble organization. So in a way, I think that's essentially the definition of bureaucracy.

And we've got a huge focus here at Medibank, certainly from our CEO David Koczkar, you know, he spent some time, visiting a number of different organisations, and was studying with Harvard Business School and he sort of came back a couple of years ago with this idea of human-ocracy. And that's really around empowering our people to really work together in small teams, to really focus on custom solutions and get them to market quite quickly.

And I think this idea of human-ocracy and empowering teams, you know, it's got a lot of agile principles below that and it really is this idea of cross functional work. Empowerment. Experimentation. And really bringing that to market quickly, more and more with your technology team.

So technology and platforms are a big part of that and being able to do that at speed and in small teams is really the big unlock that we're looking to achieve.

I think today you can see, Medibank, we do a lot of planning in smaller teams, but we also come together on a quarterly basis. So literally the whole organization touches base every quarter on our planet, and really that's to ensure that while we might have these small programs and small projects and that's a really agile and quick way of avoiding bureaucracy, we still need to be clear on our priorities.

You know, what we're going to work on, what we're not going to work on as well. That's just as important and being really clear what we're discovering now, what we're going to build and what we're going to take to market. So I think that idea of how companies work is really, really important and that mindset of, you know, being close, avoiding bureaucracy, is really key to that.

I guess I've also seen other models that in the past you might see these ideas of labs or collabs, innovation teams of creative thinkers that come in to disrupt the business and you know, I guess I prefer from what I've seen these, you know, these ideas of ingraining people, you know, rather than helicoptering people in, I think getting people are ingrained and people adding a few people who are more proactive and can stimulate ideas.

I think that's always a good way of doing it. You know, getting people who are very emotionally intelligent, because I think in a lot of organisations, certainly in Medibank, you've got your core business, you've got your insurance business, you know, delivering huge amounts of profit for the business, and trying to disrupt that and bring things in and bringing people in that are sort of telling you how to do that differently and how to innovate.

In my experience that doesn't go too well.

So I think this idea of emotional intelligence, people with strong relationship skills that can really get buy in from a lot of people and be connected to do the work. And get the relevant funding, I think that's super, super important.

So at Medibank specifically now obviously I've mentioned the way of working which is our whole team and that's a real innovative way of taking all our work to market. But we also have some what we call new venture teams and they're predominantly looking at health innovations. And really ways of disrupting and improving the health industry.

The things that we're looking at the moment, that includes everything from the experience of going to the GP and whether or not you can do that.

You know I guess with a more digital or telehealth perspective. And that's something that we've introduced to the market and have been scaling quite rapidly.

Or looking at the way that a person might engage end to end with a psychiatrist where we're building a virtual hospital. So we're seeing these new venture teams really delve into health and that's really exciting, the work that that's being done there.

Within marketing, that idea of creativity and innovation, you know, we're always looking at ways to stretch the brand. I think I've spoken about that. Our customer experience, how can we do that differently?

And there's some really exciting things that we've been trialing and doing that tie into health. So that idea of preventative health and health and well-being is opened up a whole bunch of new innovations that have been quite exciting and I think that ties into the health and well-being app as well, so yeah, there's sort of three levels, I guess, of innovation happening.

And I think what that does is there's opportunity what they said, there's opportunity for everyone, I guess in the way that we set up our innovation at Medibank.

What are some of the risk factors to consider when working in Marketing?

Rene: I guess the more you can get integrated with the business and the more you can connect with your colleagues, the more you can understand around you know how your corporate plan process works, how your product teams work and how business works, technology works, I think that really opens up the opportunity to get in early and really influence not just the marketing aspect of the business, but also the broader strategic part of the business.

And I think what happens is, when you're able to play that role and you're adding value to the business, what tends to happen is you tend to head off the really bad ideas nice and early, and I think that's a really good position to be in.

As opposed to what can happen, certainly in some organisations is, you know, are decisions being made, whether that's rightly or wrongly, insights, research has been done in a certain way to endorse that decision.

And then at some point as a marketing team, you're then being asked to take something to market that doesn't feel right in your guts but also in your head, you know that this is not going to work out really well.

I've been in that position before and I guess that's, you know, when you land in that position, you can probably almost already write the script in terms of how that's going to play out, so I guess to me, I just wanted to raise that.

I guess the antidote to that is really that I've talked a little bit about it. It's that emotional intelligence. It's that relationship. It's those power skills within the organization that you need as a marketer to make sure you're upstream so that you don't get in that position.

But I guess another example now that I might share that that might bring it to life. It's probably less product related, probably service related and I think this sort of comes down to this idea of the business for as a multi channel retailer that we are you know we're always under challenge because the buying dynamics are changing.

So we're seeing more and more people move to digital. However, we've got a significant store footprint and people in stores that you know we're looking at new ways for them to engage and deal with customers.

And I think part of that is our business strategy of you know in the old days our frontline stores were very transactional. Like the bank teller, you know, taking claims processing claims was a big part of what they were doing. Taking payments was a big part of what they're doing and we're looking to change that.

And I guess there was a real push to make a step change. And we were part of, what the business was looking at was, can we actually take payments out of the stores? And I guess for us as marketers being upstream, hearing that, the first thing we did was go and ask customers. And of course for a big chunk of Australians, certainly, you know, younger Australians, certainly people like myself, you know, we've already adopted digital channels to do that.

However, there was a core group of, you know, without putting them all in a box, but certainly a lot of our older members who really still rely on those stores to make decisions.

And I guess what we found ourselves in was this idea of a commercial decision, so freeing up, you know, our store and significant cost savings from moving those payments out to being in conflict with what our customers wanted.

And I guess what we found was a really healthy debate around that. And as a customer champion we really pushed hard to put against that decision and in the end it was rejected.

And I think that's a good indication of where you know there's healthy relationships, healthy tensions, but also in the end what I think was the right outcome for the customer.

How do you determine and communicate success?

Rene: I might just talk a little bit about how our previous CEO, Craig Drummond, used to talk about success and he had a really simple way of positioning it and I guess it was essentially, as a team, he just asked us to work together.

So that idea of relationships and you know, that emotional intelligence and if we did that, what he wanted us to do was just to add value to the customer experience. And if we were adding value, then the idea would be always that we would win. So I really liked that message from Craig as a CEO. It was really simple.

But underneath it, it's really clear and I guess what I find and have found is if you do that and if you do the right things for the customer, you differentiate them. The lag indicators, so the financials, the market share and the other metrics in terms of business growth, they'll follow.

Now they're really, really important. But I guess in a lot of ways they are the lag indicators and I guess what I really like is that idea of the lead indicator and what that looks like. And so for me that team harmony, and the way that you work together efficiently as teams and adding that value of the customer is really key.

But also you know the other I guess longer term lag indicators and we know what they are which is you know shareholder returns, community employee returns, I guess they're, they're really important and you still want to measure them over the long term, I guess after the fact in the long term as well.

What common tools do you use to perform situational analysis or general marketing activities?

Rene: The type of access to tools and situation analysis I think differs in terms of the size of the organization you're in and I guess the access to resources, but also training to help you do that and I guess I've been really fortunate in a way. I've worked in a lot of large organisations and one of the benefits is the investment in research and customer insights to help guide your strategy and plan the marketing activity.

In most successful companies I've been in, it's this part of the marketing team. You know, they tend to be the best resource and are always in demand. And I think when you see that your organization is is leading with the customer and I think that brings in tools, and I've mentioned them, which is you know, start with your situation analysis, have your brand trackers in place, have your performance practices in place, have your Net Promoter score trackers in place so that you're always listening to the customer and you're feeding that customer insights into your business on a daily basis to drive report performance.

I think that's critical to success and I think then, you know, when you use that in your day-to-day, being customer focused makes a big, big difference around that.

So how do we use that? I guess for all our marketers, because obviously we have those tools we go through I guess when we're ready to take something to market, we go through a really clear go to market process here at Medibank and we train every marketer on that process.

So I understand the strategic guardrails for making decisions, but they also know the how in terms of taking things into market and that's very consistent.

And I think I've touched on some of those previously, but that idea of how to look at an audience and a target audience to be very clear on who you're going after. Being clear around the journey and the customer experience, you know, we very much document those journeys and we do that for a reason, because it's fantastic for marketers to be understanding how you're looking to take people forward.

What that journey might look for a new customer, but how does that actually then translate into your ongoing relationship with that customer?

So journey mapping and really working with others around the business to bring them on that journey together is a really fantastic process that all our marketers work on.

And I guess then from a positioning perspective that becomes really important as well.

So whether it's a specific product that you're looking to join take to market, whether it's a service, understanding how to best position that that can work right across our multi channels is really important.

Anyone who's working with sales teams or customer service reps will clearly understand that. That's a critical point not just for the customer in terms of positioning but also how you position. Nice products and services for your frontline. Here at Medibank, if you add up all the variations of our products that you can, you can cut, you're talking hundreds and hundreds of different solutions for our customers.

So that's a really complex I guess solution that we could that we could have, but part of the challenge of taking that to market is making that simple for our frontline so they can do it, but also for our customers through those channels. So that's really our go to market process.

Why is training/coaching/mentoring something that you are passionate about?

Rene: I think I've touched on training and I think part of what's really important for a successful marketing team is making sure that you invest in training.

So you know having a process for tapping into guardrails and the strategy and the brand and customer experience is critical but guiding your names and keeping them not just technically adept at what they can do, but also the process of how to do that and how to do that across the organization.

I would highly recommend that is a way of training your team. Coaching, mentoring, training, certainly when you get into larger organisations, you know, that's a critical part of my role and certainly I'd say all leaders in Medibank, I guess part of it is for instance obviously bringing in strategy and influencing a lot of those power skills that I mentioned, but the same time you know working as a team and making sure that, you know, I'm each day empowering someone in my broader team to add value to the customer and the organisation.

It's probably more important, you know, without the team and certainly with the broad marketing team we have here at Medibank, we've got well over 100 marketers. We certainly won't be competitive or remain competitive and I guess what I found at Medibank was we work cross functionally. That's a big part of what we've set up. We actually call our agile process B Well, that that stands for better ways of working.

And what we've found is part of that process and we've been on that journey for a few years now, teams that have a really clear way of working and structure and can communicate that to the rest of the business tend to really get things done and tend to influence. And I think the digital technology folks at Medibank have been really clear earlier around that.

And I guess we saw a lot of that in ourselves as a marketing leadership team. So we knew it wasn't just the training to improve our market as it was important, but it was the training to get some consistency around that level, around that understanding of the discipline of marketing, so that more of our teams could interact with other groups.

And again, we're working in smaller agile teams, but add the right strategies, bring that those guidelines and artifacts to the table and be able to influence with I guess the knowledge and support of the marketing leadership team becomes critical to that.

So yeah, for me, that's what training does. It's uplifting your team so they add value, but at the same time it's helping the organization because you're bringing a level of consistency to it.

What advice do you have for aspiring individuals who want to work in this field? Any words of wisdom you can share?

Rene: This idea of emotional intelligence and relationships and you know being able to connect up in organisations, certainly the larger organizations. Now that comes with a range of skills that I've touched on. So I guess technical marketing skills are just one of them, but those power skills to really act and coordinate and really work alongside your peers and influence them are really, really important.

So when I think about my own successes and my own performance and what's helped me is, you know, being able to take forward that customer agenda is really important and inspiring someone in my team to do that.

And I guess the other skills like coaching and enabling people to be great marketers, teaching them these techniques, skills, you know, this is all part of that.

And I guess that idea of executive leadership and building relations to help you know everyone you know generate change is really critically important.

So yes I think this idea of emotional intelligence is critical. I think the other part, and it comes into a little bit of my experience, is that idea of travel. I was fortunate enough to travel and I encourage everyone to do it.

I spent time in a global role, working in different countries and really experiencing different cultures first hand and I guess when you're in that position you really learn that you're not the target audience and I think that's the connection for travel certainly as a marketer because I guess what I would say is you can, you can't, you should never really make that assumption that you are your target customer and that'd be my biggest take away.

Never make that assumption.

And I think travel really is a good way of highlighting that and it certainly was a big eye opener for me.

So I'd encourage you, if you want to become a better marketer, travel. And if you can't travel, just remind yourself you're never the target audience.

And I think the other part is I touched on it getting out with customers and I know in a lot of roles that that's a hard thing to do. But from my perspective, some of the best decisions I've ever made is just off the back of spending time with customers every day.

Yeah, frontline sales teams, you know, they're really the ones who know the customers best and it can often be the richest source of inspiration, so for me to be those three things.

And yeah, I think if you combine those together, certainly that emotional intelligence that I've that spoken about and really tapping into the customer pushing your organization to be different. Yeah, and listening can be a good way to do that.

I think that's a great recipe for the success of any marketer today. So that would be my three things.

[RMIT University logo animation]

[END of recorded material]