Robbie Brammall is taking back to the agency world the expertise he honed as CMO for eight years at the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart, Tasmania.
Brammall, now in the newly-created role of chief marketing and innovation officer at Bullfrog, told AdNews that he joined the agency after working with them as a client in the business he founded, Brandango.
“I've been helping with their positioning over the last few months and as we progressed, I got more excited about the system that they were bringing to market and the positioning of it," he said.
"It naturally turned into a conversation of, 'what if we made this a permanent thing? Can that work?'
“Now I get to do all those things that I loved about my time at MONA and Brandango, which is working with really ambitious brands that are motivated not by ads but by growth.”
Brammall's experience ranges across many creative roles, including creative director at DDB Melbourne, The Campaign Palace and roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, George Patterson Y&R and Clemenger BBDO.
Brammall takes that expertise into his work, which he describes as a role to influence brands in more than just their comms.
“At Bullfrog, we're interested in helping brands grow," he said.
"It is super important that you're helping influence all four Ps, not just having a creative director influencing the comms.
“That's the sort of role that we've carved out here, where I can help and collaborate and conspire with the brands that we work with, working on their marketing strategy, brand positioning and creating these distinctive, differentiated starting points, to execute down the line.
“If you're just trying to do good ads then maybe you don't need a CMO.
“But for us, we're a growth company and that means you need to be up the funnel, having those conversations that are more about the strategy of the brand, rather than just the executional elements.”
Brammall’s philosophy "death to boring" is what helps him seek out the best brands to work with.
“It's marketing effectiveness 101. Being able to get noticed is your number one task as a marketer," he said.
“Then make sure that whatever you're communicating, meaningfully differentiates you from the rest of your competition.
“Then doing that cohesively through everything that your brand touches.
“That’s the marketing theory of it, distinctiveness and differentiation, and summed up for me by death of boring.
“Because no one cares about marketing and brands, they care about their families and jobs, and if you have the opportunity to materialise in front of them, you've got to take that opportunity."
When speaking on what's working in the industry at the moment, Brammell said that brands have become aligned in speaking the same language and understanding "marketing effectiveness" as the formula of success.
“The really great thing about marketing effectiveness is that distinctiveness is absolutely at the heart of it,” he said.
“What in advertising would have been called creativity and disruption, that's now distinctiveness.
"The riskiest thing you can do now is not be distinctive, creative or disruptive.
"But that’s the really exciting thing, that clients are all aligned on how to achieve growth.
“And that gives those that are creating those assets a lot of ammunition. That's marking effectiveness 101.”
Brammall's key to success in marketing effectiveness is to not focus on the end goal but the strategic processes within it.
“We’ve got real momentum in the science of marketing effectiveness, and that's where we can add the most value to brands, by bringing that knowledge and expertise to them, rather than just ads," he said.
“And yes, creativity is the heart of that, but not in hyper focusing on the end result, but instead speaking to the strategy and the way of creating that works.
"That can win back credibility with clients and industry.
“So we should focus on the creativity that has impact because of these areas of distinctiveness, or because it differentiates itself from the competition.
“As an industry we could have a lot more credibility than if we just try to compete in a diminishing pool of tactical execution.
"Trying to get the conversation more strategic. Get up the funnel into that strategic area, rather than just the tactical area.
“The conversations we're having is starting to head in that direction. That we're much more focused on the rules of effectiveness and the measurement of what is great than what's okay. That’s the way the industry is heading, and for the better.”
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.