Skyscanner revamps with marketing squads and tribes

Pippa Chambers
By Pippa Chambers | 5 June 2015
 

As marketing becomes more and more disrupted, marketers are looking for new ways to organise resources to deal with it.

Travel site Skyscanner has overhauled its marketing structure around a series of ‘squads’ rather than a more traditional, layered marketing structure.

The business is also upping its focus on the Australian market after seeing a 50% increase in traffic. It plans to inject more cash into marketing through content, video and brand partnerships, with tourism bodies and publishers top of
the agenda.

The new structure steps away from the “top down” layout and allows teams to approach campaigns from a local stance, using local knowledge. 

Squads can conduct local marketing experiments as and when they wish, without the bureaucracy of a global structure.

Each squad is made up of a core team of specialists – including a business intelligence expert, PR manager and social media manager – and separate managers for content, commercial and marketing.

Skyscanner’s senior marketing manager Oceania, Alana Saphin- Polchleb, said: “Australia and New Zealand are our biggest markets in the APAC region and, having a local focus – be that with with our site content, campaigns, marketing
or advertising – allows us to plan and create the right messaging for particular regions.

“We are producing more content than ever before. Our local content focus has increased and will continue to increase. While we have global coverage, we can also pick out and focus on local nuances, traditions and trends.”

Saphin-Polchleb – who, prior to the role, was regional digital director APAC and Latin America for Mindshare, and also spent two years as a digital strategist at Match Media – said Skyscanner handles its media planing and buying capabilities and creative work in-house, but as it grows its marketing function, that could change.

“You can never say never. If we wanted to commission a creative agency to do, for example, a lastminute
campaign next week, then we can do that,” she said.

The business aims to be channel agnostic, and has an even balance of owned, paid and earned media, but takes a mobile-first approach to any new product development. Mobile visits in APAC were up 85% last year, and 30% of its APAC traffic is on a mobile device.

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