This document summarizes an interview between Adam Joseph (AJ) and Terry McCrann (TM), a financial columnist. Some key points: - TM sees marketing holistically as key to the corporate dynamic, not a separate component. It needs structure but also needs to be holistic. - Brand management is the number one issue for a company - if the brand is damaged, the company is damaged. Though not responsible for day-to-day brand strategy, the CEO needs to prioritize brand management. - When assessing brand damage, TM looks at indirect factors like bad publicity and direct results like bottom line impacts. Brands impact quickly now. - Apple is seen as the best brand in

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Terry McCrann
Terry
McCrann
Adam Joseph talks marketing
with Terry McCrann, financial
columnist and associate editor –
business at the Herald Sun.
32 | Professional Marketing April - June 2011

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Terry McCrann
AJ: What does “marketing” mean to you? management has got to be the No.1 ongoing week- AJ: Do any of the big four banks successfully
TM: I don’t think about marketing as a separate to-week issue for a CEO. differentiate themselves?
component of a corporate dynamic. I see marketing TM: Not really. NAB has been trying to do this
in a ‘big picture’ sense as a key part of the whole AJ: As a CEO, how do you know when over the past 12 months with its low interest rate
corporate dynamic. I don’t think you can separate “brand damage” is happening? strategy, but I don’t think people see the NAB as a
marketing from advertising. You can’t cleanly TM: Firstly, an indirect process, which is what sort significantly different bank to the others.
separate marketing from the relationships you have of bad publicity you’re getting. Secondly, it’s just the
in the community because a key component of tangible bottom-line results. I think we live in such AJ: Do some people just like to have a whinge
marketing is good community relationships. And it a 24/7 world now that things will impact quickly in and banks are a good target?
also makes your advertising more effective; it’s free terms of the positive and the negative. It’s not like TM: That’s part of it. People expect a free lunch
advertising if you’ve got a good corporate profile. this will take a year or two years to happen. and the banks are not in a position to deliver
one. There is a perception that my basic banking
AJ: Do you see marketing as a department or AJ: What brands are being well-managed? shouldn’t actually cost me anything. “I should be
as a philosophy of doing business? TM: For brand development in the big picture able to go to an ATM,” “I should be able to walk
TM: You need to think of it holistically. To some sense, the big one in my mind would be Apple. into a bank,” but there’s not a cost involved in that.
extent it needs to have structure, it needs to be They have created this whole image globally of a And it intersects with the notion that “this is my
compartmentalised, because if it gets too ‘soft’ you cutting-edge, funky, innovative product which they money. Why should I have to pay to deal with my
lose touch with the ‘hard’ side of marketing and then expand in terms of actual devices. In my mind, money?” It’s extraordinarily difficult for the banks
that’s a very important part of it. To be effective, unambiguously, Apple is the No.1 brand in the to deal with those perceptions. And I think they’ve
marketing needs structure, it needs segmentation, world today. And then there’s brand management been arrogant too in the sense that you don’t have
but it needs to be holistic across the whole company. on an ongoing basis. Coca Cola is probably the any choice, ultimately. If you walk out the ANZ door
stand-out brand in terms of sustainability. And and go to the NAB, that’s okay because somebody’s
AJ: What is the “harder” side of marketing? what happened with New Coke demonstrated going to walk out of NAB and into the ANZ. You get
TM: If you take a retail brand, ‘hard’ marketing is how you can really stuff up your brand by doing arrogant and you get lazy.
your discount strategy, your relationships with your some very stupid things. But then the ability to
major customers and suppliers. Marketing mostly retrieve ground, to walk back from that and to AJ: Is there complacency in other sectors?
is about projecting out, not projecting backwards basically emerge as strong as you were before - this TM: If we go back to Apple, Google and those
or inward. It’s all those sorts of things... where demonstrates the undying strength of the brand and companies - Microsoft was able to create the brand
you spend dollars, where you’ve related it very I guess after the stuff-up, it demonstrates a revival because IBM was arrogant and lazy and dominant.
specifically to product design. of brand management and marketing strategy. And then Microsoft became arrogant, lazy and
dominant and allowed other people to steal their
AJ: Would the ‘softer’ aspects of marketing AJ: Was “New Coke” was a genuine stuff-up lunch. Microsoft didn’t anticipate that it needed to
be about intangible things such as brand or a clever PR stunt? broaden its brand and product range into the sort
management? TM: A genuine stuff-up. When Pepsi advanced of things Google did when Yahoo first appeared.
TM: Well, obviously brand management can be its flavour Coca Cola would have thought they For Microsoft, the warning bells should have been
tangible, but it probably expands more into the had to respond by modifying their product. When ringing. But they didn’t, because we’ve got this
‘soft’ areas such as when your product suffers. For the brand is under attack, when your product narrow focus on your product without thinking
example, with Qantas, you could probably separate is under attack, how do you respond to that in holistically. And it’s tough to do so. Google didn’t
it into two categories; one is the brand management terms of marketing? Brand rejuvenation or brand exist five years ago. And, clearly, the company that
as in projecting all the things you need to project modification or brand reinforcement? I mean all was best able to grow that brand would have been
there – security, value for service, responsiveness those things that, at the end of the day, if it worked Microsoft in my judgment. Similarly, Woolworths
to issues that arise from the consumer end. On they would say, “Well that was a brilliant strategy”, spent 10 years watching Wesfarmers develop
the other hand, there is the defensive aspects of but if it doesn’t work “You’re an idiot”. Bunnings without going into that space.
responding to a situation when it occurs, whether
it’s a crash or it’s a series of late delays and so on. I AJ: What about the marketing efforts of AJ: If you had $5 million to reshape a business
don’t know how you separate that out, but it’s both the big four banks? and be its CMO, who would you choose?
projecting, it’s both offensive and defensive. TM: They’ve done a bad job in managing consumer TM: My first thought is I don’t want to be fighting
expectations about the changing environment in evolution. I’d look for the space where there
AJ: Who should be in charge of the brand? which banks operate in. What the consumer gets is intrinsic organic growth because of the way
TM: The buck stops at the CEO’s desk. But within in 2010 is immeasurably better than in 2005 and in consumer incomes are going, the way consumer
an organisation, functionally, who should be in 2000 in terms of value, service and what you get for spending patterns are going, the way technological
charge? I don’t know. I’ve never thought of it in your money. Yet the customer thinks they are being development’s going. That leads me towards new
those terms. I think in the modern world ‘brand’ screwed. And that tells you something is wrong. technology-type focuses. I’d also be looking at a
is probably the No.1 issue for a company. If your A specific example of bad branding is the ANZ company which might be in the wholesale space,
brand is damaged, your company is damaged in campaign where they are telling you “Banks suck” where there’s a huge retail opportunity not being
a way that overrides anything else. If your costs but “Our bank doesn’t suck.” It reinforces consumer captured. I’d go through that process of top-down,
are getting out of line, you can attack that, but if perceptions that all banks suck and that, at best, the thinking, “what’s happening in the economy?”;
you suffer significant brand damage you have a ANZ might not be as bad as the others. But I don’t “what’s happening in the global business
serious, terminal problem on your hands. In that even think it works in that direction. I don’t know environment?” and I’d arrive at a company in the
sense I don’t think the CEO on a day-to-day basis that customers value the brand and have confidence entertainment/technological space.
can manage the brand strategy, but the CEO has in the brand and trust it in the same way that they The next step might be to say, “Which is the Pepsi
to have brand management as a key component would Coke. They use the banking product because to the Coke in that space?” I’d be looking for a
of his working week. And he or she needs to set they have to use a banking product, not because company that could be a challenger to Apple, where
up the structures to ensure they’re getting all the they choose to use a bank… they don’t drink ANZ there’s a clearly defined market leader, but it’s in a
information they need on a timely basis. Brand because they don’t want to drink NAB. growth market.
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