This is Got Marketing, where we unpack marketing news and what sticks
Mia Feilman: Most marketing has the shelf life of a trending sound. This is Got Marketing, where we unpack campaigns, marketing news, and what actually sticks. I first met Megan Winter online, and over the last few years, we've become part of each other's worlds through Marketing Circle and her ads training programme. Earlier this year, we decided to attend Cairns Crocodiles Together, which is one of Australia's largest marketing and advertising conferences, and I invited her to stay at my place while she was in town. It turned out to be one of the best decisions of the year, and our friendship has really blossomed as a result. Megan is a marketing strategist who has worked with brands like Heineken and Lexus and has built a business with multiple revenue streams while raising four kids. In this episode, we unpack our biggest takeaways from Cannes Crocs and the ideas that had us thinking long after the conference wrapped.
Hello, Cairns Crocodiles. I am so excited to dive into this episode
Hello, Cairns Crocodiles. The debrief.
Megan Winter: Yes. I am so excited to dive into this. I know that you have given me the brief of keeping it short and snappy, so I'm really hoping that we can keep it to one episode, but there is so much to go into.
Mia Feilman: I know, I know. First of all, top line. Amazing. Yes. Absolutely loved it.
Megan Winter: Yes. I loved it one, because I actually got away from my desk. I think that's always so important, being around other people, other creatives again, just so inspiring. And then doing it with you, I thought that was really cool.
Mia Feilman: That was really good. I liked it so much of the talks and so many of the panels, but the chats that you and I had in between before, after. Over a wine. Yeah. Was really my favourite part. All right, let's dive right into it.
Amy Keen gave us permission to be weird in our ads
Day one, you go, I go.
Megan Winter: Okay. So day one for me, Amy Keen. Absolutely. Stand out hard. Agree. Yeah. Just, uh, the permission. Not only the permission, but the encouragement to be weird. We're all so beige. We're also boring. We're also safe. You. You know, she had this amazing video where, uh, every ad basically sounds the same now, and we have to be different to be memorable.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. What I really loved about that talk was it felt like a circuit breaker, and it could have gone down like a balloon in that room because it is like, all the ads she showed were like, WPP Ogilvy, and they were sitting in the room. So I absolutely love that. I wrote three pages of notes for Amy Keen. Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year isn't learning enough. And what I really loved about what she said is that we need to Honour the ridiculous in each other. And you and I have spoken about this, that for both of our campaigns, it felt really scary before we launched it. For you. It's not you, it's them. For me, the gurus we deserve. It was really outside our comfort zone. And both of those campaigns have built our brands.
Megan Winter: Yes. And it's like the cringe and the. And the scary is actually what we should be leaning into. So I feel like if it's scary, do it.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: Cool.
Across the three days, podcasting was a massive theme
Anything else on day one that was a standout for you? I mean, I think the only other one that I really would want to talk about was the imperfects.
Mia Feilman: Okay, great, go.
Megan Winter: So, I mean, for them, it was just the complete duality of creativity and commercialization. And I. I just love the way that they spoke about that. I think it's something that we can all ponder. Doing the things that you want to do for your audience versus how to commercialise that and walking the line between keeping the lights on and staying true to your integrity. I think that was. I don't know, I just love that.
Mia Feilman: Yeah, I love. And this is not necessarily day one, but across the three days, podcasting was a massive theme that was running through and I thought that it was a very deliberate choice to have the imperfects. John Evans, the uncensored cmo, and then yesterday where we had an entire podcast panel. Abby Chatfield, Jan Fran and Osman Faruki, who are all independent podcasters. So what we took away from that is go all in on the podcast and not worry too much about video, but particularly audio.
Megan Winter: Yeah, I nerded out on a lot of the stats around the day, three days. A lot of like, the key speakers for me were the ones that actually backed it up with stats. I couldn't tell you what they are now, but I know that like there was some stats around, like listens versus watching watches and. And something that I also really took away from that is if somebody is just like consuming your content on Instagram, it's so easily forgettable. Whereas a podcast, they're putting it in their ears.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: They're like focusing on it. 20 minutes to school or driving or whatever. It's like it's such a. In the attention opportunity as, you know, it was kind of phrased by.
Mia Feilman: Was it the.
Megan Winter: The Uber Eats marketing manager, Ali, I
Mia Feilman: think her name is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Megan Winter: And it was just, uh. Yeah, I thought like going hard on long form content, things that are actually going to add value is definitely what I'm going to be doing going forward.
Mia Feilman: Yeah, absolutely. I will say that not a lot of the talks were very practical. Um, so there wasn't a lot you could go away and implement straight away, which is a huge contrast to something like Ripple.
Day one of the conference didn't really talk about AI too much
But back to Amy Keen and Paula Bloodworth, which is day two, which we'll move on to in a second. They were probably the most actionable. I love that Amy Keen gave tangible examples of weirdness and what exactly she does to embrace her weirdness.
Megan Winter: Yeah. Both of them are also, like, what not to do. Actually, day one, like, the whole conference didn't really talk about AI too much, which I really loved. Or tactics. One thing from day one is who was the AI Najo? The former Najo Gittari.
Mia Feilman: Is that her name?
Megan Winter: So her keynote was all about AI. But I really liked how she said that we are, uh, chasing this productivity illusion.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: And again, like, AI is not a differentiator, which I loved that we weren't focused on that. Like, nobody at the conference was really focusing on AI. It was more about how do we actually be creative.
Mia Feilman: I love that too. I was not expecting that. I thought it was going to be so pro AI. I thought all the sponsors were going to be some new martech tool that AI's the shit out of your marketing. It was not that. And also, also very top line. Very little conversation about social media. Yep. That is not where the CMOs of the biggest brands in Australia and in Asia Pacific are focusing their marketing.
Megan Winter: Any tactics? Yeah, yeah, Any tactics.
Mia Feilman: It's growing for sure. But they are, uh, we are talking. This whole conference was about strategy. Creativity was about prioritisation and, like, very little conversation about, as you said, tactics.
Megan Winter: Yeah. But I think both. Both you and I were frothing on that.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: So good. So good.
Mia Feilman: If you're listening to this and thinking, I need to get my marketing sorted, that's exactly what we do. Inside Marketing Circle. It's a marketing community for up to 45 women building brands, where we focus on strategy first, then execution. So you're not just doing more, you're doing the right things. I'll link it in the show notes.
John Evans talks about decreasing the distance between your product and your customer
Okay. Day two, uncensored CMO John Evans. He shared such an incredible storey, which is that he was fired from his role as, uh, CMO because he suggested that they reformulate an energy drink because of a sugar tax that was coming into the UK and it spectacularly failed. And he was the one holding the bag. And he actually started a podcast because he was finding it incredibly difficult to get meetings with potential employers. They were, like, ghosting him, essentially. But then he would say, oh, hey, do you want to come on my podcast? And they would reply within minutes saying, uh, yeah, absolutely. And we've noticed that too, as podcasts that brands that we want to work with and leaders that we want to talk with, we get absolutely crickets until we say, hey, do you want to come on the podcast? And then suddenly we can pull Jay Schwedelson, we can pull really whoever we want. And his idea was eventually to go back and get it a CMO job. But the podcast took off to the tune of a hundred thousand listens per month across all platforms. So I really love John Evans.
Megan Winter: I think that, uh, like goes into the idea that what's the, what's people's favourite topic? Themselves, themselves. And that's also with your customers. Like your customer's favourite topic is themselves. Yeah, totally, yeah.
Mia Feilman: He also kind of threw a bit of shade at the CMOs, which was again, m interesting because the room was also full of CMOs, saying that when he was a CMO he spent 5% of his time on creative, the rest was outsourced. And it was all these agencies with 20 year old account executives driving the creative for these global brands. And he talked about the importance of getting down on the customer level and being at the cold face of your customers. And it reminded me of a storey of l', Oreal where when I joined l' Oreal, every employee needed to go and spend a day at a retailer. And I was the senior brand manager of Maybelline New York. And so the primary retailer for me was Priceline. And when I joined in the same week our, uh, market research manager joined. So they sent us both to Priceline in Southland in Melbourne and we had to wear like black T shirts with Maybelline. And we were basically just bitches, the shot bitches, the shop bitches for the price size stuff. They told us what to do, which cartons to open and what to do and all sorts of things. And we were there to interact and see how people were shopping for cosmetics. And what I absolutely loved about that day was right at the end of the day, after spending the whole day basically as a shop assistant and a very humbling experience considering both the market research manager and I, you know, we were on a hundred K plus salaries, the general manager of l' Oreal Australia came to visit us and to talk to us and to say his name was Marco Keefe. And he came and he was like, oh, thanks so much for doing this girls.
Megan Winter: What did you learn?
Mia Feilman: Like it was unbelievable that this was the ethos and like there is not a lot of things that I loved about l' Oreal as a company, but that was genius.
Megan Winter: I also. So that kind of goes into what John Evans said, which was about their founder led energy and the founder led mentality. So even like these really big brands, he looks for the employees, the managers that have that kind of founder led. And I think you and I were both kind of looking at each other going, well, yeah, that's just what we bring every day because we are the cmo, the cfo, the CEO of like all of the hats and bringing that founder uh, energy is I think like what he really found was like the standout because if you're decreasing the distance between your product and your customer. I don't know if this was him who said this or actually someone else, but decreasing the time between customer and product and then decreasing the time between insight and action. When we have these big organisations that can kind of get eaten up. But as small businesses we're so agile and we can like, we can move quite fast.
Mia Feilman: Oh yeah. Without the three layers of approval.
Megan Winter: Yeah.
Mia Feilman: It was interesting for us, right, because so many people mentioned founder energy, entrepreneurial spirit and we're like, maybe we should work with bigger brands because they want what we've got.
Paula Bloodworth was my favourite speaker of the three days
And moving on to Paula Bloodworth who I'm calling it best speaker of the three days.
Megan Winter: Yep, I loved Paula. Yep. Yeah, she was a perfect follow on from Amy, who was my favourite from day one and then Paula was favourite from day two and so they had a lot of similarities.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. So Paula was talking about how one of the things that she absolutely stands by, you know, the hill that she will die on, is impatience. So time to action. And Paula is the CMO for Idris Elba's company. She's actually a co founder of the company called Alien Baby. So Idris Elba is this incredible actor but he wants to have this creative agency where he creates impact in the world. And Paula Bloodworth is ex Nike and he recruited her as the co founder and CMO of this agency. But she was very anti marketing best practises and marketing science and the rules. But her rules were so interesting. They were impatience. So doing things quickly and like you were saying, like agile as opposed to 12 months birthing an idea by that point it is so watered down and diluted that it's all the creativity totally
Megan Winter: irrelevant by that point.
Mia Feilman: Anyway, naivety and uh, what was the last instinct? Yeah, and yeah, she was saying that what's really left is taste and instinct, where as marketers, with all these measurement tools and all these martech tools, we've overriding our instincts as marketers.
Megan Winter: Yeah, I really loved with Paula's way. She said, we don't want to neglect human behaviour, we want to find the edges of it. And I thought that was brilliant. Her, uh, kind of, you know, she did spend most of her presentation talking about how we need to get rid of frameworks. And then at the end she did give us some actionable kind of frameworks, which is get attention, be different, focus on change, react, which, you know, I think as small business owners we do so well. But I also went away from her talk thinking, do we maybe react too much? Like, is there that balance of actually taking some time to write an idea out and kind of seeing it through? Whereas I know, like a lot of people, especially in marketing circle and the clients that I work with, we kind of go into an idea and then we get bored of it and then we're onto the next thing. Yeah, I think maybe this was day three actually. But the Bonds marketing manager, um, or maybe even the Uber Eats marketing manager said we get bored of our own ideas before our customers do. And Paula was also kind of, you know, leaning into that as well, is like really finding the edges but then executing it and just, you know, rolling it out again and again, like sticking to one singular idea.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. She's like, when you see an idea you love, you remember why we got into this game in the first place. And it's like, I think passion and excitement is massively underrated in marketers. You know, everything needs to be tested and focused, grouped and making sure people aren't going to cancel you online. And as a result, you lose all of that excitement that you had in the beginning.
Megan Winter: Yeah. One of the questions that I wrote down is, are we too scared to get it wrong that we don't swing for the fence anymore? Like, are we to say her, uh, kind of guiding principles to herself as well? Is, Is it true? Is it simple? And is it big?
Mia Feilman: Yeah. Is it big enough?
Megan Winter: Is it big?
Mia Feilman: Yeah, totally.
Pinterest was major sponsor of Cannes Crocodiles
All, uh, right, let's talk about Pinterest. Day two. So Pinterest, major sponsor of Cannes Crocodiles. So much money. Holy moly. The welcome party. Okay, so luxury coaches left Cairns City, uh, Hemingway's Brewery, and there was like five of them and took the attendees out to Sugarcane Field in Yorkie's Knob. You and I drove because, you know, we can.
Megan Winter: I live here.
Mia Feilman: And they had transformed a barn into Coachella. No expense was spent, spared. The catering was Nunu, which is the best restaurant in Palm Cove. Free flowing drinks, art installations, live band and then a drone show which we missed because.
Megan Winter: And a dj. They didn't just transform a barn, they transformed barn. It was like. It was, it was an overload of the senses for sure.
Mia Feilman: Apparently someone mentioned that so many of the residents in Yorkie's Knob thought that aliens and were spotted UFOs. UFOs. Because who is putting a music festival in a sugar. And this was all funded by Pinterest.
Megan Winter: Yeah.
Mia Feilman: So you and I were both questioning like, what did Pinterest get out of this?
Megan Winter: Yeah, yeah, it was a question. Especially on day one. I was thinking like, there's no call to action to actually use the platform. There's no encouragement to be mentioning Pinterest other than, you know, their logo was on some of the activations. Day two though, uh, my questions were answered.
Xanthi Wells said Pinterest is a reason to go offline
Yes. So Xanthi Wells was the, is she the marketing manager?
Mia Feilman: The global marketing manager.
Megan Winter: Yeah, yeah. Uh, of Pinterest.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: I, again, I mean, I know I didn't put her in my, in my favourites but I actually really love, I love.
Mia Feilman: Well, there's too many.
Megan Winter: I mean, yeah, pick a favourite child. But I mean maybe she's up there with, with them for sure. And so her insight like, huh, their marketing has been really insight led and they actually did deviate from what Pinterest is and they tried to become some of those other platforms by putting, you know, silly videos and things. And she did say how that spectacularly failed. So then they worked out what their insight was, which is actually people feel regret when they're on social media. They want to get off social media. And so Pinterest's whole premise now is the platform that people use to work out how to get off the platform and get into real life. So you search recipes and you get into the kitchen faster, you search holiday destinations, you get, you know, you get holidaying faster. And I was like, oh, I get it now.
Mia Feilman: I totally get it. Okay, so the new brand platform is the best thing you can find online, is a reason to go offline. And honestly, it gives me good goosebumps. And it's so true about Pinterest, right? Like you go on there to get party ideas and costume ideas and then you go and have the party. Whereas she was saying that most social media is the hangover without the party. And I thought that that was incredible. And now this makes sense why Pinterest, uh, sponsoring a three day advertising and marketing conference because it is all about us as marketers experiencing that firsthand. We got offline and came together in the room and now we can talk to our clients and our customers about that and potentially use Pinterest for that for those brands.
Megan Winter: Yeah. I also think, like, bringing this idea into the other platforms was really enticing. So I, you know, I teach people how to run meta ads, right? Like, that's my kind of the tool that I've gone deep in. And I really like the idea of our job is to get people off meta. Like, as advertisers, we want people to see an ad click and adding, go to the platform and buy the product. And I think when we're focused so heavily on metrics and measurement and, you know, like the stats that are around the platform and attribution and we go for those quick wins, like, we can miss the point. And the point is to actually show people how they can use your. Your product in real life. Like, for reals. Yeah, Like, I'm gonna be really, like, honing that to my students.
Mia Feilman: The biggest theme that came through all of Cannes Crocodiles for me was this idea that attention is not enough. We need to go beyond attention. And Xanthi summarised this so perfectly that put your brand second and put the customer lives first. And so this idea of leading with value, leading with generosity, giving people what they want, and then as a result, our brands will benefit. And John Evans mentioned this, Paula Bloodworth mentioned this, everyone mentioned this. So that I think we need to stop thinking in attention and thinking in intention.
Megan Winter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We also, we then. So there was like a main stage. There was actually a couple of auditoriums and then they also had some smaller kind of panels and debates and things at, uh, Hemingway, Hemingway, Hemingway Brewery. Very cool brewery. Yeah. And we saw a panel with Tully Walter, Mike Wilson, Lee Lavery and Kim Anderson, and they were talking all about fandom. And the thing that I got out of that, which was similar to what you just said, is, is this idea of like finding your people, but in real life. So, uh, like, it's about finding people like me. And so we, we heard from Kim, who has been on the podcast before. Yes.
Mia Feilman: Go and listen to that episode. She's the ex CMO of the FIFA Women's World cup and she's a friend of mine. We had lunch with her yesterday, but she was incredible.
Megan Winter: Yeah, she was such a powerhouse and such like a. What's it called? And you're like an unassuming, like, boss bitch. Like, she was just like so sort of chill.
Mia Feilman: Assassin.
Megan Winter: Assassin. But like everything that she said. Oh, like she was absolutely my favourite from that panel and the insights that she said. But again it was just like working out that one core insight and like understanding how to bring it to the people.
Mia Feilman: I loved what she said. Right at the end they were running low on time and we had to go because I needed to go and get the kids from school. She said when I took on the role as FIFA, uh, CMO for the Women's World cup, advertising was the last thing in my mind and they needed to sell out stadiums. They needed to sell out 45 stadiums of women's soccer. And she said it was honestly the last thing we did. Right at the end. We did some advertising, but that's not what we did first, which is so interesting. What she did was tap into micro communities, not just football fans, because the football fans, football fans were going to come anyway and find adjacent interests. So could the Swifties also enjoy women's soccer? Could music? Could like people who uh, love attending festivals enjoy coming to women's soccer and tapping into those and building fandom is what managed to sell out the these stadiums?
Megan Winter: Yeah, I really loved that.
You went to a conference in Brisbane with your husband and your two kids
Okay, so that was day two. I, day one and day two were definitely my favourite. Day three, maybe we were fading, maybe like we had a lot of. You had a lot of logistical. Do you want to just like talk about that? Because I think that's actually really important, like the behind the scenes logistics that it takes to actually attend. But you just chose to do it. I think that was really impressive.
Mia Feilman: Oh yeah, it was. Uh, honestly, someone needs to give me an Olympic gold medal or a FIFA World cup for, for it. So my husband, um, had to go to Brisbane for the whole week. Um, my son had school camp. They have basketball, they have netball and I wanted to attend a three day conference. And it was honestly so tricky. And then a teacher at my son's school said to him and other kids that if they're tired after school camp, they don't have to come to school. And that was Thursday during the day. And so my son had got it into his head that he didn't have to go to school yesterday. Meanwhile, you know, we've paid quite a bit of money to attend this conference. And just the guilt and the resentment that I felt that, you know, I had let him down because I wasn't able to spend the whole day at home with him. In any case, he pulled a sickie and I wasn't going to make him go to school. If he was legitimately sick. And so I had to get a babysitter, uh, very last minute, like an hour before we went to the conference. So it cost me an additional $210 to attend the conference yesterday because I had to pay a babysitter to be with my son and had a little cry. Not going to lie. Just because, you know, I feel like sometimes I build this business in the cracks of life, you know, And I really would love to know what you and I would be capable of if we could just get on a plane, go to Brisbane for five days, do our work without knowing that your four kids, my two kids, are all just being taken care of.
Megan Winter: Was it worth it?
Mia Feilman: Yeah, absolutely. It was worth it.
Megan Winter: It was. Yeah, it was. I just love that you made the decision. You're like, I'm going to. Like, this is for me. I'm going. I'm gonna make it work. You'd, like, juggle 10,000 balls. And you decided that you were going.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. And it's sad, but I think that's the only way. Otherwise, I would have been even more resentful if I had missed out on going yesterday just to be at home with my kid. And I would have taken it out on him, taken it out on my husband, taken it out of myself. Anyway.
Megan Winter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whole nother.
We're doing a panel on marketing strategies for small businesses at Ripple
I mean, we should talk about this in Ripple.
Mia Feilman: Well, I think we are.
Megan Winter: We're doing a panel, uh, just exactly on that topic at Ripple.
Mia Feilman: So we're having a conversation, you and I. It's going to be really great.
Megan Winter: Yes. So day three. So, I mean, day three. So Jonathan Kerr, Uh, I got. So who was Jonathan Kerr?
Mia Feilman: The budget direct guy. Yes. Yeah.
Megan Winter: So they had Ollie, Alice from Yochi, they had yet Budget Direct. And who else was on that panel? Oh, uh, it's all merging into one big one. It doesn't really matter. But. So the first kind of panel and the first experience that we had on day one was Jonathan Kerr was talking about, like, making kind of advertising a product and marketing a product that you hope you're never going to use insurance. And it's like, so, um, unsexy. But again, like, they were just really talking about more of that. How to get into people's lives, how to really break through. Like, he again spoke about spending so much time on the insights and the research before going anywhere near tactics. The thing that he said that really stood out to me was don't take a survey of one and then believe your own bullshit, which, as small, uh, business owners, like, we can really do that. Like if we're not out there, if we're not away from our desk and talking to our customers and being where our customers are, we're missing out on so much.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. I loved what the marketing dude from Yochi said. Jonathan. Was that is it? No. Ollie. Ollie. They only partner with small businesses and they have a rule in their business that they will not partner with anyone bigger uh, than themselves. Which is so interesting. Right. Because so many small businesses want to partner with big businesses. He wants to do the opposite. They're really going for underdog energy.
Megan Winter: Yeah.
Mia Feilman: And I see that with mingle seasoning as well. Like she's realised the brand has realised that being small, being the underdog, being like the little player with the big conglomerate, Master Foods and whatever has really played to their advantage. But now they're really not a uh, small business anymore.
Megan Winter: Britney Saunders does this. I think she like, she only kind of champions people that are smaller than.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: And it's actually really good for her brand because she's seen to be like the champion and to small business and
Mia Feilman: to lift other women up with her.
Megan Winter: Yeah.
Mia Feilman: Um, so I thought that that was so interesting and what a, what a great opportunity for small businesses to potentially partner with Yochi on a local level. You know they seem to be down for anything.
Megan Winter: Yeah. One of the things that he did say which I have questions about was he said they only spend 2% of their revenue on marketing which means they have a very healthy marketing efficiency ratio. My question is one, does capital come into that? So like do they have funding that they're not including in that sort of spend to revenue ratio? And or what was the percentage of revenue that they spent on marketing in the establishment phase? Because once you've built a brand and you've kind of got this cult following and you like are. And really you know, cult brand. Of course you don't have to spend money because you've already earned. Huh.
Mia Feilman: That.
Megan Winter: But like I just think it was a little bit, I don't know, like he wasn't telling him his truth. Like I'm sure that is true now. But my question is for us, uh, who are uh, like the small businesses trying to get to that point, you know, is 2% realistic?
Mia Feilman: Yeah. I don't know. He said yo, uh, Chia brand first earned first, organic first. And I think it's a P and L dissection that needs to happen. I would suspect that they have full time content creators and social media managers whereas other brands would probably do more paid. They over Invest in organic. So it's kind of like six of one and half a dozen of another.
Megan Winter: His last name is also Alice.
Mia Feilman: Yes. Um, read what you will into that. And uh, the Boost Juice founder's last name is also Alice.
Megan Winter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So coincidental.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: I mean again in that panel they were talking about being memorable over measurable.
Mia Feilman: Yes, totally.
There were three panels on day three that I absolutely loved
All right. There were three panels on day three that I absolutely loved. The first one was a bit of a cpg, uh, panel which was Bonds, Tony's and Uber.
Megan Winter: Uber.
Mia Feilman: An all woman powerhouse panel. Absolutely loved it. So many takeaways.
Megan Winter: I want to be Ketter when I grow up.
Mia Feilman: I want to be Ketter when I grow up. That's the Bonds cmo.
Megan Winter: Head of marketing.
Mia Feilman: Head of marketing. Incredible. I loved that they are partnering with Sail gp.
Megan Winter: Mm mhm. So clever.
Mia Feilman: It's like.
Megan Winter: Yes.
Mia Feilman: So they are also trying to tap into new audiences and going outside of the big players, outside of Google, outside of Meta and they're just like, what if there's an overlap of people who like sailing that could potentially buy our products?
Megan Winter: Yeah, that was, I mean it wasn't my favourite panel at all but there was like a really kind of luxury brands panel. I think it was a little bit, I don't know, like unrelatable I guess, like people who. But there was one thing that they said which really did tie back into that, which is basically like you don't always have to amplify everything. You can just go where your customers are.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: So like for example, Moet Hennessy have a, or might have um, one of the other brands, I don't know. But they, they have like a really private 10 person dinner. Yeah. And that for them is like the RO high on that because they're champagne collectors. You don't actually have to amplify that on socials. And so like with Bonds going and sponsoring these like physical kind of niche weird activations, like it's, it's only a five year sport.
Mia Feilman: Yeah.
Megan Winter: But they're going where the people are and of course they're going to amplify it all on, on socials and all of the other mediums. But it's just such a, I don't know, like such a, a correlation of like get. Actually going out there into the real world, getting where your people are, uh, and doing that first but also borrowing from overseas.
Mia Feilman: So I believe skims. So Kim Kardashian's brand has partnered with volleyball which is a really fast growing sport in the US and so I feel like Keter is looking across the globe and going, all right, what makes sense for us at the Australian level to get in? And it comes back to that fandom, right? Like if you are a sailing fanatic and then you go and do this sail GP and it's quite non traditional sailing and then Bonds is everywhere. Do you feel more affinity and love for the Bonds brand because they are in the places that you love? Yeah, yeah.
Megan Winter: Ah, there was so many like through threads around, like the. All of the days, all of the speakers. Like, my brain is just this like little web of, you know, like those, like detective. Yeah, yeah. Like I just, I just need like a moment. And when I get on the plane, I'm not going to do anything other than just like sitting. Think about it. My key takeaway from that, which I actually just mentioned before, is that like we get sick of our own content before our consumers do. And identifying a really killer insight and then developing a singular messaging and just tweaking that. Like one of the things that, like I always say is if you feel repetitive, congratulations, you're marketing. And like, I have to remind myself that Uber said that they went down this sort of, uh, you know, really weird rabbit hole last year where they micro segmented their audience and they had different messages and different platforms for different like segments. And then they couldn't actually measure anything because like the attribution was just all over the place. And so it was really about again, like having one big idea. Not worrying so much about like the micro measurements, but like taking a step back and going, is it memorable? Like, does it drive the needle? Does it actually feel good in our gut? Because, like that instinct piece comes back from what Paula was saying. Like, they were so smart. And then we had Abby Chatfield's panel.
Three independent podcasters spoke on podcasting at Cairns Crocodiles
Mia Feilman: Yes. Okay, so I said to Megan, let's move closer to the stage because I was really excited about this. I love Jan Fran. I love, you know, some of what Abby Chatfield says. Not all. And that's okay. You don't have to love every single thing. And so, like we moved really close to the stage and five minutes into the panel, my phone started ringing and it was the school twice. So I had to unceremoniously walk out from the front of the room and go outside and take a phone call. But really loved a dedicated panel on podcasting and there was a different mood when those three walked in. They really brought the energy and really high personality. And you could tell that the audience interaction and participation was just huge. And it's because those podcasters, they have this incredible bond with their audience. Whereas other speakers were just there speaking and the audience would happen to just be there. You could tell that Osmond, Jan and Abby were all about making sure the audience experience was supreme, not that they were sounding smart or sound.
Megan Winter: Yeah, they were all engaging with the audience from it. And that was like a really good placement for them because I think people would have waited around rather than just ducking off to the bar on the end of day three.
Mia Feilman: It was like three o' clock on
Megan Winter: day three, but like there was still people in the room and like you say the energy was high, whereas uh, like we were fading but they brought the energy and they walked out and they were like, hi everybody. Whereas like the other speakers kind of, you know, it was just a completely different energy. Like you say it was very like two sided.
Mia Feilman: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just want to say a massive hats off to Cairns Crocodiles programming team and organisation. To have three independent podcasters talk about breaking up with networks when Listna is a sponsor of Cairns Crocodiles and Abby Chatfield just recently left their network to be independent was bold and great.
Crocodiles is like an Asia Pacific conference, not just Australia
And then the other panel we haven't spoken about on day three was the IKEA panel. How's this for genius? They got so um, cans. Crocodiles is like an Asia Pacific conference, not just Australia. They got the CMO of IKEA Australia New Zealand, the CMO of IKEA Korea and the CMO of IKEA Japan on a panel to talk about localization of marketing. And I loved that panel.
Megan Winter: I loved it too. Like just even their own uh, individual personality to see how the marketing kind of was hitting differently just by the way that they were. And like the Korean cmo, she was just like the best, the best.
Mia Feilman: I don't know what brand did you walk away going, I want to work for her or in her team. I IKEA was up there. Bonds and Bonds. Yeah.
Megan Winter: Although like I've never really been a bonzies girl before, but if I had her as a leader or like that team and the freedom, like one of the things that obviously they talked about the Robert Owen campaign and it was more just I need to get a clap from the audience and uh, appreciation from all the women. But one of the things, like I looked at Mira and I said I've never realised. But Bonds actually changed the cultural narrative around Robert Irwin. Like Bonds changed Robert Irwin's brand. And again that was like a theme throughout. It's like, look at culture. Our uh, brands changing culture. Like we had the CMO of Driscolls do a big presentation.
Mia Feilman: Berry brand.
Megan Winter: Yeah, I actually had to duck out at that. Well, I didn't have to. I chose to duck out in that presentation to get a tattoo. Pinterest had an activation. I just thought it was so cool and so weird and like all of the things from throughout the three days was like, be weird, don't care what people think. Like Ned Brockman, uh, said, we're all going to die anyway. And that was kind of like, yeah, stuff it. I'm just going to go and, you know, duck out and get a tattoo. Okay. So the head of Driscoll's marketing said that we have this responsibility around marketing because we actually get to change the way that people think. We have this huge opportunity to change the culture. Yeah. Like we are there. We're like literally change makers. I get goosebumps when I think about that. And all of them, you know, all of the speakers were talking about like the responsibility that we have around that. So I thought that was pretty cool.
Mia Feilman: Yeah, I thought that that was a really clear message that came through that, you know, pick good brands, pick brands that are doing good things. Because when talented marketers go and work for big polluters or they go and work for pharmaceutical companies, the world gets worse. Whereas, like he told this storey about his life and about his grandfather and Coca Cola and he's chosen to go and work for a family run berry business who injects more of their profits back to the actual growers.
Megan Winter: M. Yeah, I didn't know a lot about Driscolls. Like I feel like they can really increase their marketing storey and like their brand positioning because like everything that I learned just from their presentation, I was going, oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Like they really need to get better at brands market. Maybe we should like contact them and see if they need help in Australia.
Mia Feilman: Hey Jin, we, uh, are ready, willing and available. Loved your talk. Give us a call. Okay.
I loved the format of How Can's Crocodiles. I just really liked the format
So that was the three days overall. Absolutely loved it. Oh, debate and then all the debate. So that was the last thing that we saw. What a great way to end on.
Megan Winter: I. I just really liked the format. I thought it was a little bit less, I don't know, like one on, like talking to as more participatory could see kind of both sides and it was a debate. So obviously people were bringing like the opposition and the affirmation kind of arguments. But I think the topic which was do your customers really give AF about sustainability? And it was very thought provoking. But I Just loved the format.
Mia Feilman: I loved the format. I thought that it was really great. How Can's Crocodiles had the two streams different formats. They had interviews, they had panels, they had keynotes, they had debates. It was really, really great.
Megan Winter: Yeah, really great.
Sparrow: That was an underwhelming interview with Taika Waititi
Five stars.
Mia Feilman: We haven't spoken about Taika.
Megan Winter: Uh, Loose Cannon.
Mia Feilman: Loose Cannon. Okay, so Taika Waititi is an incredible director. Uh, he's done Jojo Rabbit. He's done Oi. That was a very underwhelming conversation.
Megan Winter: He was obviously a big draw card. Like, the room was full. He was on the programming. He was highly promoted as being on the programme. People were there to see him. I don't know if he was high or drunk or both or if that's just how he is. Maybe a little bit of column A, B and C. Yeah, I think he's very creative, very talented at what he does. Maybe just being in front of a room of people, like, makes him super uncomfortable.
Mia Feilman: But advertising people.
Megan Winter: Yeah, it didn't. It didn't.
Mia Feilman: So we were talking about how they could have done that better. And I have two suggestions, if you're listening, Sparrow. I'm, um, also, also willing to help. One, um, he's an artist. So he does painting. Is that. They could have sold it as an add on that you can do painting with Taika and take a section of Cannes Crocodiles and people can just be in conversation with him. I don't think he can answer those questions about brand and what makes a good campaign. And he wasn't interested in doing that. Um, so that could have been a really incredible add on. Or the other thing. It could have been taking snippets of his movies and saying, oh, my God. Tell us the backstory. Yeah, Explain what happened there. How did this come about? Because this seems really fucking random and really creative. And I reckon he would have been so much more comfortable explaining how that scene came to be or how that idea came to be. But asking questions like, what's your favourite brand? What's your favourite campaign?
Megan Winter: Yeah. Uh, yeah, maybe it was the format and the questions that didn't hit. But, like, when they did ask little, you know, they. They did show little snippets of his video right at the start. And he got so animated and he's
Mia Feilman: like, that's a real storey.
Megan Winter: This happened from, you know, this, this and this. And this is how I take inspiration. And he, like, completely stole the priest's monologue in, uh. Which movie was that? Um, Was a boy. No, uh, where the wildebeest. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mia Feilman: And I, uh, went to a. He went to a funeral with his girlfriend and then the priest went on this, like, tangent and then his girlfriend looked to him and said, you're totally gonna steal that, aren't you? And he's like, yeah, yeah.
Megan Winter: But it was just such a cool insight because you could see how his brain kind of like stores and catalogues, like, real life human interactions and then brings him. Like, we were all frothing over that kind of stuff. And then the mc, the interviewer was like, oh, cool, okay, so what's your favourite, like, brand? And we were like, back to the storytelling, mate. Like, that was awesome. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Underwhelming moments? No, I wouldn't say anything was underwhelming
Any other underwhelming moments?
Mia Feilman: Underwhelming moments? No, I wouldn't say anything was underwhelming. It was incredibly well run. So much money. Byron Sharp and the Ehrenberg Bass Institute were mentioned.
Megan Winter: Yeah.
Mia Feilman: So many times.
Megan Winter: Mark Ritzen was a mention. Mark Ritz was positively and negatively.
Mia Feilman: So if you're listening to this and you haven't read how brands grow, that's probably the number one thing that you can go and do.
DBAs is distinctive Brand assets, which is important for small businesses
There wasn't too many acronyms, which I was thankful for, but one acronym that appeared a million times was DBAs, which is distinctive Brand assets. Yeah. And again, this is so important for small businesses because we have shiny object syndrome and we're like, let's do a brand refresh. Let's change up this, let's change up that. And this idea of, like, distinctive brand assets, whether that's sonic branding, whether that's visual, whether that's messaging, like, consistency, consistency, consistency.
Megan Winter: 100%. Yep. Yeah. I mean, I loved it. I'm so glad that I came. I'm so glad that I got to do it with you. Thanks for having me. Mia's a delicious cook as well, so I got to experience some delicious Greek food while I was in Cairns. And, uh, yeah, definitely going to do it again next year. Really, really good timing for Ripple. I'm so excited to have a different format but the same kind of experience, like actually getting away from my desk. So, yeah, locking it in for next year.
Mia Feilman: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much.
Megan Winter: Thanks.
Mia Feilman: Thank you. You listened all the way to the end. If you're enjoying GoT marketing, make sure you're subscribed so you. You don't miss what's next. Want the backstage pass to Got Marketing? There's now a substack. It's the ideal companion to the podcast and it's linked in the show notes. Podcast reviews are like warm hugs and one of the best ways to support a small business. You can connect with me, mia Feilman on LinkedIn and Instagram, and I always welcome your feedback and questions for future episodes.
