Jemma Downey is the Group Head of Commercial Excellence at Asahi Beverages. Before that, she developed a wide-ranging career spanning agencies, marketing, and commercial roles in numerous international markets.
Amongst other things, Ellie and Jemma discuss the transition to a commercial role from agency land, the ever-changing requirements of the in-house agency team and how to get the best out of them, the importance of KISS to any team trying to understand marketing effectiveness in a commercial context; and (in a first for Managing Marketing) Jemma’s stint working in the Bermuda market!
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It’s important to be really deliberate in how you partner and collaborate and also play to each other’s strengths. So, you’re all aligned on what success looks like, how you’re responding to briefs and actually showing up as one unified team to get better work.
Transcription:
Ellie:
My name is Ellie Angell, and welcome to Managing Marketing, a podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
And remember, if you are enjoying the Managing Marketing Podcast, please either like, review or share this episode to help spread the words of wisdom from our guests each week.
And today, I’m joined by someone very wise, she’s smiling at me. Jemma Downey, Group General Manager of Commercial Excellence at Asahi Beverages, Australia. Welcome Jemma, and thanks so much for joining me.
Jemma:
Thank you so much, Ellie, for having me.
Ellie:
You are welcome. So, there’s lots and lots and lots of things that I’d love to talk to you about. We’ve only got like half an hour, so I’m going to focus on some big stuff that I know we’ve discussed in the past. Let’s talk about agencies and particularly in housing of agencies. This is where we should probably start.
I think the in-house marketing agency model falls under your remit, one of the constituent parts of your remit. But because of experimentation and consolidation of agency, supply models has really been a hot topic for some years now.
And we’ve seen organizations enter and retreat and some like CUB prior to becoming part of the Asahi group, have really been front runners in this space, I think. And so, you personally, you’ve experienced that. What have you learned?
Jemma:
What have we learned? Well, I think it’s more what haven’t we learned on this journey. We’re still learning very much so but let me maybe talk about a few of the big things. I think the first thing is it’s not about building a agency services model.
I think really where a more strategic place to start is actually how you’re building capability, critical capability for your business starting there and then working back around what are the actual services that you’re looking to deliver. Because you’re pushing then upstream more and you’re actually solving some of the bigger business challenges.
And so, for us, really it was all around building a center of gravity around the consumer. So, once we understood that it was, how do we then supercharge kind of that goal, how do we drive actionable insight around the people who we’re ultimately trying to sell our products to?
And that has then led us to building our first party data ecosystem. How do we think about CX? How do we think about media and creativity, and how does that all work together as one engine? So, that’s probably number one.
I think the second one I would say is having a really solid approach to workflow and prioritization. It’s really important because you become all things to all people as the in-house agency and a real catchall for things and that’s part of your USP.
You can deliver things kind of at scale and have a lot of agility to that. But if you don’t actually define that workload prioritization it can become very, very challenging to manage. And I think about our team, we’d delivered around 3000 briefs last year across around 30 brands.
And for a team of roughly 65 people or so, it sounds like a lot, but actually when you look at that scale, it’s really quite immense, so how do you prioritize the work?
I think the third thing I would say is it’s really important to build great culture. And it sounds really obvious, but when you work in an organization, the organization already has its own culture that you subscribe to and you’re a part of. But I still think it’s really important for these in-house agency groups to define their own, because it’s key around how you can attract talent, specifically creative talent.
The fourth and final one, I’ll say is probably around the broader agency village. And it’s, I think, important to be really deliberate in how you partner and collaborate with the agency village and also play to each other’s strengths. So, you’re all aligned on what success looks like, how you’re responding to briefs and actually showing up as one unified team to get better work.
Ellie:
Well, look, that’s four. The phrase running through my head as you talk through those, it’s the obvious benefit of an in-house group. And by the way there’s obviously still role for external agency suppliers and you work with external agency suppliers, so this isn’t about us versus them.
But everything you’re talking about talks to … the phrase I had run through my head was just tailored to fit. And it’s an obvious kind of benefit. You are able to shape to your own image as opposed to completely relying on an external partner.
But so easy to say and so hard to do. I mean, those four things, how long has that taken? You’re still on the journey but that’s taken a long time, I guess, to really pull together.
Jemma:
We’re absolutely still on the journey. And I would even say, I think another piece around it is always being dynamic as part of your DNA, because what made sense 12 months ago doesn’t necessarily make sense today. So, how can you have that as a principle around how you continue to optimize your model and your design? And ultimately how you partner in with your stakeholders is key.
And people ask me a lot, “Where do I start if I want to build an in-house agency?” And people are kind of looking to go into this space, and it’s not really about where I think they should start, it’s actually about where they think they should start for their business. And that will unlock really, I think the clues about what they should build first.
Ellie:
I mean, it’s really important because where we’ve seen — there have been organization, I’m talking globally and not just Australia who have entered into this thing and then pulled out of it quite quickly. So, the consistency that’s required to build what you’re saying obviously is longer than a 12-month, 24-month project.
And what we’ve seen in our work with others is it’s a classic case of kind of unrealistic expectations being placed on a group of people who really need to grow properly.
Jemma:
Yeah, for sure.
Ellie:
Is that ringing true with you? I mean that consistency you’ve applied over how many years you’ve been doing this now?
Jemma:
Yeah, definitely. And I think probably a key point of that is I just think that the actual financial model around an in-house agency. So, it’s actually somewhat easy to get up, to spin it up kind of a lean model. You are really looking at where you can find pockets of efficiency and then how you can then reinvest that into talent, so it is cost neutral.
But once you’ve exhausted that and there’s no more pockets of efficiency to find, it’s really about proving value. And actually, the job to be done is more around how you’re actually driving business or commercial measures and commercial outcomes that then continue to kind of validate the model.
Ellie:
And we’re getting a bit more into this now, but how about resourcing? Because I mean, I know on the agency side it’s really tough. It’s really tough to find people. How do you sell in an in-house option to someone who perhaps has worked in agency land for a long time?
Jemma:
I think we are quite fortunate here at Asahi because of our incredible portfolio of brands.
Ellie:
That is true. They’re all and I was getting thirsty just walking in, just looking at them all.
Jemma:
I think for a lot of people in the sort of in ad land really and kind of in agencies, it is a bit of a dream to work on some of these brands. So, I think that’s just a big tick. And then again, we just have to make sure that the quality of the work that we’re delivering is on par to the kind of quality of the work that they would ultimately get through the agencies.
Decent budgets, good meaty, interesting briefs. And then again back to that point I said before about the culture, again, being known to have great culture internally as well hopefully kind of as another.
Ellie:
Look, and the process, I mean, you’re talking about, you’ve mentioned media there, and you’ve mentioned creative of course that’s not always easy to get to get together. And I guess that’s a huge advantage of having it all in one house.
And if I was a person looking and someone came to me from Asahi, that would be a real, that would be interesting to me to actually really work with a conjoined team.
So, look, I mean, it’s great. You’re obviously kicking goals and you’ve learned a lot and clearly, you’re applying that, and which is amazing because I think a lot of organizations, like I say, don’t have the patience to really see it through. And of course, you have been part of CM, you’ve been around for a long time in this organization. That sounds terrible.
Jemma:
Like a dinosaur.
Ellie:
It sounds terrible. You are a wonderfully astute professional who has built a career here, shall we say that?
Jemma:
There we go. That sounds a better way to do it. We’ll be five years this April there. I’ve been with the organization.
Ellie:
So, you have been part of the organization pre and post-acquisition, I’m interested in that. Because clearly there’s probably been some evolution from a marketing perspective and some mindset shifts that you’ve had to make in taking on a much broader portfolio of brands and products. How have you found that?
Jemma:
Well, look, I mean, the obvious one is we’ve got bigger, haven’t we?
Ellie:
Yes, of course.
Jemma:
So, really that piece is how do we scale responsibly? How do we look at the kind of the portfolio at large? And again, the benefit that we sit in now as Asahi Beverages is we have a beverage for every occasion. We can appeal to that broad repertoire for people.
And so, that’s awesome. That’s an awesome proposition. But equally, it’s like how do you actually scale the resource accordingly around that?
And a big piece is how do we look at making our budgets work harder for us. So, really driving more for less, how do we make choices around the brands and the budgets and the work that we want to go after and the stuff that’s really going to move the needle. Back to that prioritization piece again, is absolutely key.
But also, I just think a big part is also around the consumer. Actually, going back again to that center of gravity that we’ve talked about how we’ve been building around is really with such a broad and vast portfolio that can appeal to so many different consumer needs, how do you actually truly understand the modern consumer and what they want.
So, we can be more targeted and more tailored and more personalized and ultimately how we’re showing up in the market to be more distinct. So, again, that has been like an even deepening, I think of that capability as we go there.
Ellie:
I was going to say that because I was thinking about that as you were talking. Clearly, there’s no doubt, I mean, budgets don’t just increase exponentially, you are clearly going to have to do more with less. And from a portfolio management and a prioritization perspective, yes, of course.
But then aside coming into this organization, presumably your data capability and the amount that you have to play with is probably a lot. You can go a lot deeper and a lot broader. Which then has halo effects on other brands that you’ve been working on.
Jemma:
Absolutely. And really taking that category mindset.
Ellie:
Yes. Okay. Well, I mean, so from a marketing perspective it’s like challenge but massive opportunity. I mean, there’s just massive opportunity, that’s really interesting. But of course, marketing isn’t actually all of your role. We’ve not even covered all of your role yet.
It encompasses marketing, but you are heading up a commercial excellence team and I’m interested in that because of marketing and it’s attributable value to sales, which is, it’s like been a holy grail for so long and it’s really challenging.
Of course, everyone wants marketing to be integrated and be attributable to commercial success. And I’m betting that you’ve got some pretty big keys that you’ve used to try to lock wind in that space. How have you done that? What are the secret … well, I’m asking for your secrets now, I might as well ask you what are the secrets?
Jemma:
I can give you a few secrets.
Ellie:
What’s the secret sauce here?
Jemma:
Well, look and we’ve spoken about this previously before and I love this question. Again, I think we are on the journey of working through this. I think the steps we’re taking number one is ensuring that everyone is on the same page when it comes to what success looks like. You have to get that alignment across in-house, marketing exec, agencies, everyone shooting for success through the same lens is really key.
So, once you’ve done that, it’s okay, well if that’s what success looks like, and that’s what we’re going after, commercial success, commercial results, what are the metrics that matter? Actually, how do we measure that?
And we’ve just done a big piece of work actually on really streamlining how we think about digital and performance in digital and what we’re actually measuring there and the real focus around that. And equally, we also have a MMM or MROI platform growth OS which is through the Mutinex team, which is, again, we’re really lucky to have great partners with them and a great sophisticated tool.
It’s dynamic and we can look at the data and dynamic dashboards that help us understand creative and geography and channels and really interesting kind of insights. But it’s super hard to embed that, it takes a cultural shift.
Not only just getting people comfortable with the tool itself and actually have a look at the analytics and actually then drive insight from that and build that literacy, but also even just getting it operationalized, making sure good data’s going in there, so you’re actually getting good insight out.
So, that’s been a journey for us, but it’s a critical one that really will sit at the heart of kind of what we do and how we think about commercial outcomes. And then I think once you’ve landed that and you’ve landed your tool and you’ve landed your technology, you know what kind of your metrics, you know what you’re measuring, it really is building repetition.
And it is really building kind of the literacy and the capability around understanding the data, understanding the insight, and then applying that in consistent ways to everything we do and building that culture around it.
Ellie:
It’s such a brilliant answer, and you covered pretty much everything, but do you know what I think the most critical thing you said in all of that, and we see this all the time, and I saw it in my agency career all the time, was once you’ve operationalized it, once people are using it properly, once they’ve learned it, I’ve never seen an area where the KISS principle, keep it simple stupid having that North star because it’s so easy to get lost.
And one indicator over here has the board jumping up and down over there and having that aligned North star, what are we measuring here? I honestly, I think you can have as the cleverest systems and the cleverest people in the world, if you don’t have that it falls over. It generally falls over.
Jemma:
Absolutely. And it supports more than just being performance driven or kind of understanding what kind of the commercial returns are. It also supports innovation because then you’ve actually got this sort of this framework or this kind of sandpit to play in that allows you to test and hypothesize around things and leverage the data to actually test your hypotheses to drive creativity and drive innovation without straying too far out that it becomes something that’s really unrealistic.
Ellie:
I’m actually not a fan of the term performance in the sense that we’re using it here and I understand why we use that term, and I use it all the time but fundamentally, every single piece of communication you put out, regardless of where something is on a linear funnel or on any kind of planning map should be performance driven. It’s just the definition of what performance is.
Jemma:
Yes, exactly.
Ellie:
And that is I think so many — that’s a big stumbling block for a lot of people not in marketing to get their head around. And it comes back to this attributable value. It’s not just what is the attributable value, it’s what criteria are you placing around? What definitions do you put against attributable? And that’s something that again, I think can really trip organizations up who have so many talented people.
Jemma:
Yes, yes. And also, the wealth of data that we have at our fingertips. I mean, let’s be honest, you can make it tell the story. You want to and so if you are not really clear and aligned on your sources of truth, and then actually what that’s telling you, then again, it just becomes just way too unruly.
Ellie:
I love the integrity in that because you can tell any story, but at the end of the day, if it’s simple enough that everyone’s got a north star, and there’s nowhere to hide, you can stand or fall by that and stand up and be counted if something isn’t working.
Okay, fine. And it’s your point, innovation. Okay. Well, the whole point of innovation is test and evolve. Which of course links back to if you don’t have that culture embedded it’s all coming together. It’s almost like you thought about this quite hard.
Jemma:
And living and breathing it every day.
Ellie:
I love this conversation, I love these when I say so am I from a different angle, but in a much smaller sort of part, so am I. But I do love these because the answer as you talk about it more, it becomes circular in a really good way, everything is linked, everything.
You’ve talked about process, prioritization, structures, strategy, culture, and that is all linked to operationalizing. Oh, my God. It’s alright. We can edit that … because I probably too much coffee this morning.
Jemma:
I will say one thing though too, and I’m always super honest about this with anyone I speak to. Is that we’re not perfect. It is continually a journey. It’s continually how you think about how you need to push the needle, evolve, and grow and it’s the progress of perfection.
Ellie:
But again, it’s cultural Jemma. If you have the license and the remit to be able to say, we’re not perfect in a world where everyone’s trying to pretend that everything is perfect, you’re going to get better results.
Because you’re able to course correct without having to worry about someone leaning in from the wrong angle. So, I mean, it’s great. I love hearing about your success. You haven’t always worked clients either, have you?
Jemma:
No.
Ellie:
And I don’t say this to everyone. I mean, I’ve got the term the truly remarkable, purely because yes, it spans London, New York, and Australia. And fair enough, a lot of people have worked in Asahi. Bermuda, you just studied Bermuda. I mean, amazing. So, you’ve dealt on agency side, brand, partnership side, and now marketing and client and commercial side.
And I did spy on your profile as you do. And I’m particularly interested in your move from VICE Media in 2017, that’s when your sort of your, if I can simplify your journey to client side began and lots of people do try and make that shift. And I think it’s quite hard to make that shift personally.
What skill sets did you have to really pick up to be successful as you have been versus what skill sets did you bring from fresh from the outside that you felt actually benefited where you were going?
Jemma:
That’s a good question. I mean, well first just coming from VICE into a corporate organization was-
Ellie:
It’s like your world must have exploded.
Jemma:
That’s a baptism of fire for sure. That was super interesting. And not to mention, obviously the move to Bermuda on top of that, so like from New York to Bermuda so that was definitely just a cultural shock. A good one though.
I think the stretch for me was really sharpening my commercial acumen, because obviously I had the marketing chops and I’ve been in ad land and kind of working with brands for pretty much my whole career. So, that part of it I felt very comfortable in.
But really what I had to learn about was where all the other parts of the kind of the commercial organization, what are they, what do they do, how do they fit sales category, trade, marketing, innovation, revenue growth management, really having to kind of look at all those different components coupled with actually how do you grow brands through marketing and media and so forth.
So, that was definitely a learning curve, a stretch for me. And I’ve continued to really try and lean into that in my career here at Asahi Beverages, just knowing that’s where I’ve really wanted to build more competencies around.
And then what did I bring to them? Well, I think really, because I came from VICE, they were looking for something I think to help bring more of that cultural relevance piece to the brands at the time that I was working on the particular brand, I was working on, Grey Goose, which is still one of my favorite brands to this day had become quite old and pretentious and white I would say.
And we wanted to again make it more appeal to a younger audience and a more diverse audience. And so, again, I guess I kind of brought that cultural perspective and that cultural insight to help reposition that brand.
Ellie:
Look, it’s the really interesting balance. But that explosion you talk about, that’s such a steep learning. I think you’re underplaying it. I think that’s a really steep learning curve. And I think agencies — I do so much work with agencies, is incredible how limited a perspective they actually have on that when they’re putting forward ideas or talking about marketing and just no concept of actually the stakeholders you guys have to manage internally.
And it was a baptism of fire for me on the consultancy side when I came out of agencies. And we do structural work, and we do, we talk, with our clients, we look at how marketing is structured as part of an overall organization with its agency.
And I remember being surprised 10, 15 years ago when I started doing this. There was so much complexity even then. And I’m not accounting for the last 15 years of additional sort of things.
Jemma:
What I tell my team is now like one of our principal, you’ve got to know the numbers. You’ve got to get comfortable with the numbers and the numbers that come through and acronyms and all sorts that just as a different language to certainly to some people, particularly agency people sometimes.
But it’s really important at least to know the foundations and the basics so you can actually, your pitches are strongly, your pitches are more commercially robust and you really know what you’re kind of driving for your partners.
Ellie:
Well, kudos to you so far, particularly for Bermuda. I just love that. I love that you worked in Bermuda. So, you are the first person I’ve ever met, you worked in Bermuda.
Finally, let’s talk quickly about the future. Lots of talk about AI and that’s just in society as much as anything else. Lots of talk about diversity or lack of it in advertising. I mean, International Women’s Day is coming up, people have very mixed views about that.
And lots of talk around the inefficiencies of the programmatic media supply chain as well. I mean, I’m picking three at random there, but what are your big callouts for the future? What’s on your radar both internally and with your agency partners?
Jemma:
I think a big one for us like what’s on our radar right now is how we continue to evolve our media model. And the media model, meaning everything from our team to how we’re working with partners and media owners into the platforms, understanding the algorithms, modern media mechanics, how we’re, again, creating that firepower in our engine around having a modern media model. So, I think that’s a big one.
Really thinking about, again, continuing to be, we’ve talked about this, being ecosystem driven, having put the customer at the heart, the consumer at the heart, being less channel led through our planning approach. And so, that’s a big piece of work I think for us at quite a portfolio level and how we kind of drive that more kind of modern media model forward in our organization and embed that.
I think looking at AI, since you mentioned it, how can you not be thinking about that? But what’s I think really important for us is what are the value-based initiatives or use cases for us that make sense in our business and we’re looking at a number of those in our world. There’s some obvious ones that make sense.
But how can we start using AI to really challenge us to think about how our products can be better and how we can be adapting consumer needs, obviously how we can be more efficient. We’re driving automation and all that stuff, but how can we be more predictive? So, I think that’s a big one.
And then I think another big piece for us is, again, it’s tying into that sort of the modern media world, but it’s bigger. It’s when we look at our organization and all the touch points that we have across physical and digital, how is that, how are we connecting that and how are we connecting fragmented tech touch points, fragmented data sets, and really kind of creating advanced analytics around that not only to support our business, but also be better partnering with our customers and our retail partners, again, to be driving shared outcomes with them.
Ellie:
I mean, it’s not surprising that you go there, particularly the media piece, but you really articulated that well, what spreads beyond, not least of which, because really these are the biggest lines on your budget. I mean, at the end of the day, the investment into these, what you’ve just talked about is massive.
So, I mean, you said it a couple of times and you are right, it is a continuous curve. No one’s ever perfectly in this space because it’s constantly moving on. But channeling that technology, particularly AI as well, I mean channel as a force for good as opposed for anything else I think is a massive one too.
So, look, those are big watch outs. You have your workout, no more going back to Bermuda for any time soon for you, that’s for sure.
Jemma:
No holidays for me.
Ellie:
Hey, look, I’ve loved talking with you, Jemma, it’s been really interesting. Your insights are really remarkable and as is your role here. I wish you continued success, more success at Asahi Beverages going forward.
Jemma:
Thank you so much. It’s been great to talk to you, Ellie.
Ellie:
Thank you.