Alison Walsh.
Chatime has begun hiring marketers with varying skill sets to establish a model similar to an in-house agency, AdNews can reveal.
This follows the appointment of Alison Walsh as chief marketing officer, who previously spent 18 years at Guzman y Gomez (GYG).
Walsh told AdNews that GYG ran a similar robust-like agency model, that helped the brand’s understand the commercial impact of its marketing.
“I'm very commercially driven, and there's commercial accountability that comes with running an in-house model versus an agency model,” Walsh told AdNews.
“There will always be a need for agencies. Agencies are brilliant for big picture thinking, macro landscape. But the missing link is the commercial impact that they're having, because there's a limit on what data can and can't be shared.
“And when you run an in-house model, you grow that commercial accountability, and the internal teams IP, skills and expertise in becoming agile commercial marketers.
“So for us, we're swinging more towards an in house model, and we've started to put the plans in place to do that.”
Chatime has appointed an in-house video and photography director to produce both TVC style and everyday content marketing.
“We have an in-house senior graphic designer, and are bringing on a digital marketing manager,” Walsh said.
“We've got a national marketing manager, so it's really bringing the headcount into the team.
"We'll plug into a media buying agency as needed, but otherwise we're bringing everything internal.”
As a Taiwanese Bubble Tea brand launched in Australia in 2009, Bubble tea had seen a commercial boom around 2017 due to its exposure in the CBD and regional areas.
Walsh said the brand is focused on building national momentum.
"Bubble tea hasn't really cracked that mass market Australian audience, and that's where we see ourselves going,” she said.
“The product still feels quite unfamiliar to some customers, so a big part of our marketing plans this year are product education and storytelling.
“We need to help people understand what bubble tea is, and Chatime will rise out of that as the leading brand in its space.”
The rise of Asian popular culture into the Australian market has supported the rise of Bubble tea brands in Australia – including other brands such as PopMart, K-Pop and Asian beauty brands.
“We've got quite a strong, loyal Asian customer audience that are familiar with it and attached to the product, because It's cultural representation for them,” Walsh said.
“We want to make sure that we have products that are appealing to them.
“Then there’s the university cohort, and the young cohort of customers, age seven to 10 years, which is coming off the back of the explosion of Asian pop culture into the Australian market.
“A bit of the challenge is the millennial parents that maybe don't understand it, and they control the purse.
“Our job is to help the parents understand what it is and make them the hero in their kid's eyes.
“Help them give that experience to their younger kids.”
Previously working as the head of sales and marketing at Guzman y Gomez, Walsh said that customers in the QSR space all want a great quality product, value and a brand that feels relevant and authentic to them.
“GYG plays to a younger demographic and Chatime fit in that space as well, so there's crossover and learnings that I can bring across.”
Walsh said that CMO’s should ensure they are evolving to emerging technology and driving commercial growth.
“Technology is always going to evolve, and CMO's need to be at the forefront of it, because if you're not adapting to it, you are going to be left behind,” she said.
“AI is such an incredibly powerful tool for any marketer, so I encourage any CMO or marketer at any level to be across what's happening in AI and learn about the tools.
“There is also a need for driving commercial growth.
“Marketing is no longer about those vanity metrics. CMO's love to talk about brand tracking, social and great social engagement, but the CMO role now is sitting in the driver's seat of commercial growth and commercial outcomes.”
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