it be cool if…
Wouldn’t
This week, we had the privilege of getting Up-Close with Adam Rostom, the Chief Marketing Officer of Many Pets. Adam has extensive experience as a former CMO of Babylon and OVO Energy, as well as his contributions to Dyson and his genius creation of the iconic knitted woolly hats on Innocent Drink’s bottles!
What is your career highlight to date? How has this influenced you as a leader?
When I was at Innocent Drinks, I came up with this idea of putting little woolly hats on the bottles to keep them warm in the fridges and to donate money to elderly people over the winter months. It was originally just a “wouldn’t it be cool if…” idea, but through serendipity I heard on the news that more elderly people die over the winter months in the UK than in Norway. So I put two and two together and came up with this idea. I guess that was a key moment of personal inspiration that happened 20 years ago. I am proud of it because it is still going now; 11 million little woolly hats have been hand-knitted in 10 countries around the world. What’s kept it alive for this long? It works on three levels. Firstly, volunteers benefit directly. The diligent knitters in Age Concern schemes come together to knit and know that money will go back to support them. Secondly, consumers benefit. If you watch people choosing their be-hatted bottles, you’ll witness levels of excitement that you don’t usually see around fridges. And lastly, Innocent benefits, as this helps sell smoothies – even better than TV adverts! I have been lucky to work for some amazing brands and there have been many highlights, but this is the one thing that sticks with me - I am really proud of it because it is still going and contributes to Innocent’s continued success whilst giving back to society too.
“I have been lucky to work for some amazing brands and there have been many highlights, but this is the one thing that sticks with me”
How do you think the role of a marketing leader has changed during your career?
Before, it was more about the campaign, the marketing and the execution side of things. Now however, marketing is progressively more and more measurable and, as such, the marketing role has become a lot more commercial. Of course, you still have to deliver stunning campaigns that cut through, but now there is a lot more onus on us to talk about the impact of our work and to be accountable for the pounds and dollars that we spend. To be fair, I think that is a good thing. Marketing now is so much more intertwined with sales whereas before there was the risk that we as marketers were seen as ‘the colouring-in department’ or the ‘making pretty things department’, but now I believe that really has changed – people see value in what we do.
What really cool trends have you see in your function in the last 12 months (new channels/ways of shopping; tools; measurements, etc)?
The opening up of different social channels I find really interesting. Our interactions have evolved, partly due to being stuck indoors during Covid, with things like the growth of Tik Tok etc. However, what I think is more interesting than just the emergence of Tik Tok creators is the whole idea of social and participative selling where people are almost taking us back to the ‘ideal home show’. Here there are live demos, people are seeing how products might work, they are able to interact and ask questions about the product and then make a decision about whether to buy or not. My time at Dyson taught me how important demonstration is because all sorts of companies make claims about superiority of their product, but if you can back that up with a compelling demonstration then that really drives the message home. More interactive selling through social could be a trend that has potential to change marketing in the future.
What does the future of marketing look like in 2025 and beyond?
Generative AI is already having a huge impact on our day jobs and it would be wrong to underestimate the sheer pace at which these technologies are developing. The possibilities for change and disruption seem near endless, as AIs will be set up to train and build AIs and we humans won’t fully understand how the technology is working, but two fathomable impacts I can see on marketing are in the fields of reporting and creating.
When it comes to reporting, tools like HubSpot’s ChatSpot can already give you pretty detailed reports on a competitor’s performance marketing. I see the availability of information, the ability to generate reports, even presentations, really easily as being a big boost to the marketer.
When it comes to creating, we’ve all witnessed ChatGPT’s ability to write and the amazing imagery created by Midjourney. This ‘fake personalisation’ puts pressure on marketers to come up with genuinely unique content. Work that genuinely pulls the heart strings, experiences that genuinely stand out, copy that truly speaks to a need.
At what stage do you believe a business needs to switch from acquisition-focused activity to heavier investment in brand?
At Innocent Drinks, we had very little money to do above the line advertising, paid marketing etc., and performance marketing was not really a thing as social did not exist at the time. As we had massive budget constraints, it forced us to be creative to get our message across. So why did we write on the side of our bottles? Well, it was because we could not afford any advertising on the tube, bus stops etc. Why did we dress up our vans? Because we did not have the money to do TV adverts. Why did we run festivals? Because it was cheaper than advertising, etcetera, etcetera. Innocent even included messages on every pay slip to say thank you to its customers. This is all to say that when talking about building a brand, you need to use every single touchpoint you have with the end consumer. Therefore, I do not think it is an either/or. Yes, you need to do performance marketing and interrupt customer journeys to bring people to your website, but that should not be instead of doing all the interesting and creative things that you can do to build your brand on the side. From day one, you should always be focussing on both; using every opportunity and possible touchpoint to build your brand and create that positive impression in the end user’s head, whilst also doing the nuts and bolts of driving traffic to your website so people can find you and understand that your product exists, why it is different and why it is better.
“when talking about building a brand, you need to use every single touchpoint you have with the end consumer.”
How do you strike the right balance between acquisition activity and brand building on an ongoing basis?
I have seen it in multiple companies now - brand building essentially drives people to the top of the funnel and therefore helps your conversion lower down the funnel. So brands need to run controlled tests to understand their funnel to make sure they are striking an appropriate balance of bringing people in at the very top. Once you are doing that then the conversion rate lower down the funnel improves. In essence, if you have got a strong brand, it means your performance works better.
“Generative AI is already having a huge impact on our day jobs and it would be wrong to underestimate the sheer pace at which these technologies are developing.”
Do you believe both can be measured in similar ways?
Brand campaigns needs to be measured on brand metrics. Those campaigns are about raising awareness and you can measure awareness. Performance is about acquisition and CPA. So no, I do not believe they are measured in the same way. One is about brand building, which is creating impressions in peoples’ minds, forming your reputation and changing opinions. The other is about driving conversions. One can influence the other, so a strong brand can influence performance metrics, but I do not think there is a common measure between the two of them.
The War-Time CMO – How has the current economic and market context impacted your strategy?
Broadly, there has been a shift towards a focus on profitability in business as the funding environment has changed. Before, it was growth at all cost; now, it is about ensuring that the underlying profitability makes sense. That steers marketers – and I think rightfully so – to consider ROI, as each investment is scrutinised. Furthermore, more thought now goes into procurement because marketers are often one of the chief spenders of money in a business. I think this shift is timely as these are things marketers should be thinking about anyway. I have therefore always made good friends with finance and procurement to ensure there is no waste and if there is, how we can minimise that as much as possible.
“a mentor once told me to not always take the same route to work and to not always read the same paper, and I adhere to this. I believe that as marketers we need to understand what is going on for everyone out there”
What would be your advice for CMOs leading through economic challenges for the first time?
This degree of change that has come about is an opportunity for a company to gain an advantage. This has been proven through many different studies on how companies have responded to recessions. The formula that seems to work is that companies get lean and fit and make sure they are operationally efficient, while maintaining their brand investment in order to be able to rise out of the ashes of a recession faster than any other company might be able to. Fight hard for your brand investment and ensure that you are best buddies with the CFO because it is all well and good to mark your own homework, but it is always best if the CFO says that your marketing investments are working. Additionally, it is also worthwhile reconsidering your product market fit and what innovation opportunities might come out of a change like this. Marketing is not just about adverts, websites and CRM. There is also a strong NPD (new product development) angle to what we do and therefore you need to really represent the needs of the consumer as you are the voice of the consumer in the business. As that consumer attitude changes, it is up to you to relay that to the business and use that to hold the rest of the business accountable as it comes out of a recession.
How do you keep up to date on the latest marketing practices, tools, tech, channels?
I find some investment podcasts really interesting, so I listen to the A16 Z podcast to get an idea of what investors are thinking about. That podcast is put out by Andreessen Horowitz. Additionally, On Strategy Showcase is a key one for me and I listen to that whenever it comes out. Additionally, I am a real fan of behavioural science so I enjoy content like The Nudge podcast, and content that is pushed out by Richard Shotton. More broadly speaking, I read long-form articles from the Guardian or listen to long-form podcasts that focus more on the state of play generally and trends in society etc. I also keep an eye on what is trending on Twitter, and watching search trends every now and then is a good thing too.
Finally, a mentor once told me to not always take the same route to work and to not always read the same paper, and I adhere to this. I believe that as marketers we need to understand what is going on for everyone out there, so I think there is a need to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones in our day to day lives by watching programmes that you do not normally watch and making an effort to understand opinions that you might not necessarily gravitate towards because we need to force ourselves to interact with people in different ways to get exposure to what is going on in the real world.
