Susan Coghill on telling the story of brand Australia
Susan Coghill, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Australia sits down with Mark Jones to discuss how to amplify impact through strategic collaboration and storytelling.
“Where the bloody hell are ya?” It’s been an easier question to answer over the past 18 months, as most of us have been in our homes.
It’s impossible to deny the tourism industry has been significantly impacted over the past two years. Susan Coghill, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Australia, has led a team through this trying time, adapting in the face of ongoing challenges in both domestic and international tourism.
The compounding challenges of bushfires and a global pandemic meant Susan and Tourism Australia had to reassess their activities dramatically. “We'd put all this time and effort, over a year's worth of work into this campaign that we unfortunately had to pull. One of the hardest decisions ever is to pause a piece of work that you love as much as we loved that campaign,” Susan says. “But we had to turn our attention very quickly to the domestic market. And it wasn't just about what we did to develop that campaign, and the insights of the domestic market, it was also changing our complete operational structure.”
Susan feels they have grown through the experience. “We now know what we're in for. So we are now able to be much more methodical about how we plan,” she explained. “I think we've kind of gone from last year trying to pivot without panic, to building up resilience and making sure that we're driving the best results we can for the industry, even though we are still in trying times.”
Tourism Australia has brought its iconic campaigns featuring Australian legends home, encouraging us to ‘Holiday here this year.’ “Overseas when we work on our global campaigns, when we get to work with someone like Chris Hemsworth or Kylie Minogue, for example, they are such amazing ambassadors, not just for our campaign or what we're trying to sell in tourism, but for the country itself,” Susan says, “We do work with a lot of talent, but that is because they epitomise that Australian culture and character.”
“We're able to work with the calibre of talent we do because we try and bring them great creative ideas. We welcome their input to make ideas better.” Susan says. “I think if you recruit the right talent, if there's true brand synergy there and you're not just trying to buy fame, you're actually buying somebody who lives and breathes your brand values, then I think that the creative collaboration just naturally occurs.”
How does Susan tell the story of Brand Australia? “It's my job to find the best of Australia. And the truth is, the best of Australia is still there. I'm just waiting to be able to package it up and share it with the rest of the world.”
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Transcript
Host: Mark Jones
Guest: Susan Coghill
Mark Jones:
“May you live in interesting times.” It’s a fictitious proverb, a wish with a hidden meaning, but like it or not, we’re certainly living in an interesting time as COVID-19 has put the world, and life as we know it, on pause. But for us marketers, uncertainty provides us with a unique opportunity to not only adapt and grow to build loyalty with a wider and different audience, but also to develop and enhance existing customer relationships.
Mark Jones:
So as a marketer, how are you responding? Are you maintaining and strengthening your brand? And are you acting consciously to help your brand come out the other side of the crisis stronger?
Mark Jones:
Hello friends! Mark Jones here. How are ya? Great to have you with us again on The CMO Show for a really exciting conversation with a brand that has had to pivot dramatically over the past two years. And yes, I did just use the word ‘pivot.’ My guest today is Susan Coghill, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Australia. And I can’t think of anyone who has had a bigger challenge on the marketing front with travel and tourism being significantly impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic - and of course, unfortunately that impact is ongoing. So we’ve invited Susan to the show to share her insights in how her team has remained adaptable in the face of ongoing challenges in domestic and international tourism. In this episode we look at scenario planning, and what it takes to pivot without panic, and how marketers can amplify their impact through strategic collaboration and storytelling. So let’s go to my conversation with Susan.
Mark Jones:
Susan Coghill. She is the CMO at Tourism Australia. Welcome to the show, Susan.
Susan Coghill:
Thank you, Mark Jones. It's fabulous to be here.
Mark Jones:
The first question has to be, how's it going? I mean, Tourism Australia - you traditionally have had this mandate to invite the world to Australia. Kind of a bit tricky at the moment.
Susan Coghill:
It is a bit tricky, isn't it? And we face not one but two, and I would actually even argue three crises, I guess last year. And the first was the bushfires - and that had a terrible impact on the whole country. And shortly after that, we had the start of the coronavirus and the international borders closing - which would have been our second crisis. But then I actually look at all of our internal state borders closing really as our third crisis. Because while we were hoping to be able to turn to domestic tourism to help make up, at least some of the difference in not having the international visitors, that was obviously slowed with the continual opening and closing of state borders.
Susan Coghill:
So yeah, it's been a tough year. And I guess I would say, look, the recovery has been, certainly in two phases, we have seen some parts of Australia doing really well. Those areas that are two to four hours outside of big international cities. But then other parts of the country, the regions that are a little farther flung are really struggling. And our experience operators are really challenged at the moment as well. And of course, as we record this, we certainly are back in lockdown in Sydney, down in Melbourne. So we're busy making plans around, how do we turn around and help the tourism industry get back on their feet after this current lockdown?
Mark Jones:
From a marketing and a brand perspective, I think one of the things that has always fascinated me about Tourism Australia is that I kind of see you as our, if you like, national zeitgeist. Maybe to put that in terms that I use in storytelling is that brands really need to be in tune with the narrative, which is, what's that broad arc of story that's shaping your audience or your target market? And then what stories do you tell into that audience that is thinking about the narrative? And are you trying to change the narrative or are you just simply reflecting it? So that's fascinating to me and I've always watched the Tourism Australia ads with that kind of mindset. And so that's kind of why I asked how's it going because really you're talking about, how are ‘we’ going? How do you think about that from a strategic perspective?
Susan Coghill:
It is such an interesting point that you raised by the way. And I look at that through two lenses. One is how do we do that internationally? And secondly, how do we do it domestically? Because the audiences are very different. And it's interesting to see when we develop our campaigns to run internationally, we have to be in tune with what that local market knows and loves about Australia. Which is not always, by the way, the same thing that Australians know and love about Australia or how they perceive themselves. Which I think is fascinating. When we did the Dundee campaign for the US, for example - and that was a perfect example of, we knew we were going to be investing big in the Super Bowl. One way to sort of de-risk a very large, arguably risky project was about finding the right creative partner for that.
Susan Coghill:
And so we went in search of an agency partner on the ground in America, because we felt that they needed to understand the zeitgeist. What was the temperature of the nation? We've seen a lot of brands go and do a big Super Bowl production and just get the tone wrong. And there's themes that pull through the Super Bowl every year as well. Sometimes they're quite patriotic, sometimes they're quite humorous. And we needed to make sure we had a partner that understood the moment. So that's when we worked with Droga5. They resurrected the idea of Dundee, which is a much loved property in the US. I would even say that I am a bit of a product of the Crocodile Dundee movies in the eighties and falling in love with Australia and ultimately living here and becoming a proud Australian citizen.
Susan Coghill:
But you talk to Australians about it and - at first there was a bit of cultural cringe. We used to present that concept and when we would reveal that it was a Dundee themed campaign, Australians would often be like, "Oh." And like, "No, no, no, no, no. Wait, stay with me. Stay with me on this. We're going to show you how we're going to take that story, we're going to move it on. We're going to twist it. We're going to layer it." So yeah, it's quite interesting then how we have to do that for all of our global campaigns and understanding the local markets. And of course, we always think about our Australian audiences, sort of 26 million stakeholders that always have a very strong opinion on what we do.
Susan Coghill:
And then certainly with our domestic campaign - where our consuming audience is Australians here within our market. We need to be very in tune with what the moment is for them. We need to make sure that we are not insensitive to what a lot of the country is feeling. Particularly last year when a lot of Victoria was in lockdown for so long, we had to be mindful about not going out and being all bells and whistles about travelling when part of the country was really suffering. So yeah, we are very cautious about making sure that we do track consumer sentiment.
Susan Coghill:
I wouldn't say that we follow it per se, because as a brand, you also need to be, I think, leading in your storytelling. And there's a moment when you need to know, what do consumers need, not just what they're telling you. So it isn't about holding a mirror up to your consumer all the time. Sometimes it's about understanding where they are and going actually, here's a moment of lightness and a moment of levity. And that's what we've tried to do with our ‘Holiday Here This Year’ campaign. As we have evolved that narrative, particularly since we brought Hamish and Zoe as talent into the campaign, we've kind of taken them on a journey from planning late 2020 in lockdown, to getting them out to seeing our cities, to finally getting out and enjoying an epic holiday across Australia.
Mark Jones:
And speaking of Hamish and Zoe, this is a perfect segue because I actually wanted to kind of look at this from a comedic perspective. The fun aspect of comedy is the setup and the punchline of course. So that expectation of going in a certain direction and then suddenly there's a twist. What's it like working with somebody like Hamish, and of course, Zoe too, which in her own right is an incredible professional and a talent. Was it a collaboration? How did you build on that comedic idea of how we effectively play with the narrative?
Susan Coghill:
Yeah. And look, by the way, I would echo your point about Hamish and Zoe. They're both amazing creative minds, and we are so lucky to be working with them. We have a longstanding relationship, particularly with Hamish. This is the first time that we were able to use him and his talents in a campaign. His idea to bring Zoe in as well - and I think that has actually rounded out the storyline to be not just about one comedic character, but actually reflecting broad Australia. Families and how they travel.
Susan Coghill:
So we worked with them with our creative agency, M&C Saatchi on this. They develop a core idea, but then Hamish absolutely goes through the ideas, makes sure that we are setting them up in a way that he's comfortable with the storytelling. He puts fine touches on the script. And we're now at the point in working with them where we've got Hamish actually pitching some creative ideas back to us. So we've got a couple of fun things in the works that he's actually developing himself. So it's a pretty great partnership actually.
Mark Jones:
And I got to say, that is a very, very unique place to be from a traditional, ‘bring in the influencer’ or that sort of third party expert. So, how do you get to that point? Because firstly, there's only one Hamish and one Zoe out there. It's not easy to replicate them. But I think in terms of your peers, that idea of how you bring in and work with an ambassador, that's a tricky one. How do you get that right?
Susan Coghill:
Yeah, it is a tricky one. And I guess we - at Tourism Australia, we are creatively ambitious and we don't feel like we need to play by the same rule book, I guess, as other brands. We try and keep things fresh as well. And we make sure that we are zigging and zagging to make sure that our storytelling is always interesting and a bit unexpected. We do work with a lot of talent, but that is because they often - they epitomise that Australian culture and character. And overseas when we get a chance to work on our global campaigns when we get to work with someone like Chris Hemsworth or Kylie Minogue, for example, they are such amazing ambassadors, not just for our campaign or what we're trying to sell in tourism, but for the country themselves.
Susan Coghill:
So we are lucky with the type of people who want to work with us. And domestically, Hamish and Zoe fit that bill very much as well. And I guess we were able to pick partners that want to collaborate with us. They don't just want to work with us for the money. And I'll tell you, anybody who's worked at Tourism Australia will tell you that we don't have the biggest budgets. We often appear that we do, but that is because I think we punch above our weight creatively. But we're able to work with the calibre of talent that we do because we try and bring them great creative ideas. And we want their input. We welcome their input to make ideas better.
Susan Coghill:
And if I look back at everything that we've done, if I look back at what we did with Dundee, it was Chris Hemsworth's suggestion to work with Danny McBride. And that made the campaign that much better. Paul Hogan helped us craft the ending of that. If I look at Matesong in the UK with Kylie. Kylie, she had input on the lyrics, she had input on the storyline. So she made that idea better. And it's the same thing with Hamish and Zoe. I think if you recruit the right talent, if there's true brand synergy there and you're not just trying to buy fame, you're actually buying somebody who lives and breathes your brand values, then I think that the creative collaboration just naturally occurs.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, that's the lesson there, isn't it. The creative collaboration and actually working with them - not just we have a partnership, which quite often you see. I think that's fascinating. You mentioned too, working with these incredible agencies. Tell me about the research side of things. And I think there's quite a few different ways of thinking about it in the times that we're in, but really taking your time to do proper research makes all of the difference. When you get that unique insight. And we talk about trying to find the clean air or the uncompetitive spaces or whatever it might be. What's the approach that you bring to that process?
Susan Coghill:
I'm a big believer in doing as much of the research as you can upfront. I'm a big believer that the inputs that you have into a process is far more important than copy testing or creative testing at the end. I think if you understand your consumer, if you understand what's happening in the broader environment or society. I think if you understand your brand, if you've done your homework to really understand the perceptions around your brand. If you get the zeitgeist - to use your word from earlier - if you know what's going on in culture, I think all of those inputs are so much more important. And then, you know what? You've got to invest in the very best creative partners that you can, and you've got to trust them in their storytelling.
Susan Coghill:
Now, I'd be lying if I said that we don't do some creative testing, because we need to understand how it's performing. We are very accountable for what we produce. We're spending taxpayer dollars. We need to be very responsible about that. But again, for me, the waiting has to be in there. The research that you're doing upfront to understand your consumer, your brand and culture.
Mark Jones:
The interesting thing about now of course is that - and you mentioned, we're in lockdown here in Sydney and Melbourne, and who knows what's going to happen tomorrow generally is the zeitgeist. It's very hard to plan. So that is a different environment. So not only have you, for quite some time now, had to look at the domestic market, as you referred to it, but you've had to actually deal with a very unstable domestic. A lot of uncertainty. So how do you think about the research and really moving to that goal of the real time data idea that a lot of people talk about from that sort of data-driven marketing perspective?
Susan Coghill:
I guess, we never have we invested more in research and data. We have our consumer sentiment tracker. We've created a green light tracker as well, so that we can understand all of our international markets about how they are feeling, where are they at stage of vaccination, with which vaccination, when are they open, et cetera. We've done a piece of work with BCG around the future of tourism. We're investing more in third-party data. Particularly as much as we can, upper funnel upstream data. So we're looking more at share of search on things like Skyscanner, we're looking at forward bookings. How we synthesise all of this data down though because it's very easy to drown in all of this sort of information. It's incredibly important that we focus, I guess, our analysis on the things that do matter most. In the past year, we've created a standalone strategy and insights unit. We've invested in putting more resource into that team as well.
Susan Coghill:
So look, I think we're on a bit of a journey in terms of building out our data maturity, but we're getting there. And I think we've created a model for understanding the metrics of our business as well. We've got a bit of a pyramid approach. At the bottom of the pyramid is our sort of zero to three months metrics around our campaign. So what's our media metrics, our social media metrics? How are we going with PR? How are our partners going with bookings and leads and conversion? Sort of in the middle of that pyramid, we look at our consumer sentiment. Our intent and our consideration. And at the top of the pyramid is understanding where we sit in terms of driving visitation and expenditure. So having a real role and purpose for every bit of data and then understanding how each of those measures impact on both the short, medium and long-term.
Mark Jones:
That's fascinating and everything about what you just said was like, can I do that?
Mark Jones:
You've got the creative, you've got the data, you've got the synthesis. How does that focus you in your role? Because we've talked a little bit about Tourism Australia itself and the all the macro fund strategy stuff. Tell me about your role. How do you think about it and what's your focus? Where do you find yourself gravitating towards?
Susan Coghill:
My background is coming from creative agencies. And it will be no surprise then if I were to say to you I gravitate to the strategy and the creative side of what we do. But I make sure that, I guess, stretch that interest and that passion across the breadth of my remit at Tourism Australia, which is quite broad. I'm responsible for global marketing. So both here in Australia now as of the last 18 months or so, but also in New Zealand and in our 14 other markets around the world. So I look after our brand and marketing strategy. I look after all of our creative and campaign strategy. I manage a media budget of $50 to $60 million worldwide. I look after our storytelling in our owned and earned channels. So PR, content, social, our advocacy and ambassadors.
Susan Coghill:
I've got MarTech in my team now and we're building out that data team. So marrying all of that with digital. And I've recently taken in business events marketing as well. So adding in a bit of B2B marketing on top of that.
Susan Coghill:
It is about selling Australia to the world. Whether ‘it's come down, spend a week or two - or more. Live like an Australian for a couple of weeks’. Or whether it's ‘bring your business event down in Australia and have an experience like no other’. I guess it's applying the same discipline. It's telling the same brand story.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. And look, that just sounds fascinating. And from just meeting you and talking to you, the energy you've got's incredible, which you must be fed by all of that.
Mark Jones:
I think that's part of being a CMO is that everybody wants to meet you or say hello, which is entirely kind of normal. There is a unique function that the CMO plays in any organisation, which is that decision maker, the visionary, the strategist, the how do I bring all of this together?
Susan Coghill:
My colleague Rob Dougan has recently summed it up for me as being the quarterback. And yeah, I guess the CMO role, to use an American turn of phrase is a bit of a quarterback. Particularly at Tourism Australia, because look, we are a marketing organisation. Every corner of our business really is focused on marketing Australia either to consumers or to businesses, or in fact supporting the tourism industry, which has been a little bit of a turn for us. So because we have been so focused on driving international visitation, part of getting back into domestic has been not only the marketing that we're doing for consumers, but it's also been a little bit of how can we support the tourism industry through this difficult period?
Susan Coghill:
And we've done things like - we've started our industry assets program. We're funding, I think $12 million or so. A local video and photography programs for tourism operators. 1200 or 1500 different tourism operators. We're actually helping them refresh their photography and their video assets so that they are ready to market themselves not only domestically in the short term, but that they're ready to go out and put their best foot forward internationally as well. So we're starting to think about different ways that we can support the tourism industry - different than we've ever done before.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. That's great. Well, just to build on the quarterback analogy, I was wondering whether you could give us a quick example of a recent campaign, whether it's the New Zealand campaign you did, ‘Be the First’, or another one that comes to mind about how you brought the elements about. I think we can learn from your experience, when you're free to actually step into that role, when you're allowed to be the quarterback by your senior executives, that's when you can really shine, isn't it?
Susan Coghill:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the ‘Holiday Here This Year’ campaign was an incredibly challenging campaign to develop because that was really born out of the bushfire era. We had to make the very painful decision to pause the Matesong campaign in the UK. If you want to talk about a quarterback decision, boy, that is one. We'd put all this time and effort, over a year's worth of work into this campaign that we unfortunately had to pull. One of the hardest decisions ever is to pause a piece of work that you love as much as we loved that campaign. But we had to turn our attention very quickly to the domestic market. And it wasn't just about what we did to develop that campaign and the insights of the domestic market, but was also changing our complete operational structure.
Susan Coghill:
Inside of about two weeks I had to create a domestic team. We had to hire a GM to essentially help us reestablish ourselves in Australia because we hadn't been in this market for eight years or so. We needed to pretty quickly start running some research to understand how consumers were feeling around the country. Again, we had been kind of watching the response to the bushfires globally, which was devastating to see the headlines around the world, but we needed to understand how were Australians going to respond to any sort of campaign. So very quickly getting out there doing some quick dips of consumer research that really showed that Australians felt a real desire to support the tourism industry. That there was a bit of a patriotic duty, I guess, that they felt.
Susan Coghill:
And that's part of the insight, I guess, that went into the campaign. And we had to work, I guess, sort of hothouse the idea very quickly with our agency, with M&C. And unlike other campaigns where we spend months or sometimes years developing the core creative idea, even the creative elements, this was born in inside, I swear, about two weeks, and it was gone to market inside of about three or so. You can tell from the first execution, it was really just a bit of a montage of tourism operators around Australia recorded on their phones, recorded on their own cameras. But then to take that property and go, wow, we've just come through one crisis. We are now facing into another unheard of crisis in this pandemic. Does ‘Holiday Here’ still hold water? Is it still relevant? And we very quickly, again, a bit of consumer research, a bit of just creative collaboration with our agency partners. And all of our agencies. Not just M&C, but certainly with UM, Digitas, pressure testing the concept and going, how can we stretch that notion of doing your patriotic duty of holidaying here this year, but continuing to support the tourism industry ongoing? And we pretty quickly proved that yeah, actually that line has 100% relevance. We actually built an incredible amount of equity in a very short period of time. We would be crazy to throw that out and start from scratch. So how do we stretch that and bring that story forward?
Mark Jones:
The speed there, of course everyone talks about and the question then becomes, how long will we have to keep working that fast? Maybe that's not a fair question because how does anybody answer that? But there is an impact from team perspective, isn't there on all of that work. To do that amount of work at that speed from a sustainability perspective, how are you thinking about the future?
Susan Coghill:
Yeah. And look, it was certainly challenging. It was certainly a superhuman effort on the part of my team, and it's not a pace I would want to keep up. I kind of described last year as running on passion for the industry. My team - Tourism Australia as a whole, takes the tourism industry very personally. And to watch them suffer the way that they did and what each of these businesses went through was really hard. And so everybody ran at that problem wanting to help solve it. We ran on a lot of good intention and good internal relationships. And we ran on a lot of adrenaline. But 12 months, 18 months later, it's hard to sustain that. So I think we are now in a place where we are able to be more measured. We are still having to be more agile. We're still having to scenario plan.
Susan Coghill:
Look, these latest lockdowns show you that - we had a shoot planned for our business events team and we had to put that one on pause. So we are replanning that for when we think it's going to open. We have another shoot scheduled hopefully for early September, but I guarantee you, my team are contingency planning that one as well. But we now know what we're in for. So we are now able to be much more methodical about how we plan. We built up a bank of creative and of work that we can also repurpose in the year ahead. So I think we've kind of gone from last year trying to pivot without panic, to building up resilience and making sure that we're driving the best results we can for the industry, even though we are still in trying times.
Mark Jones:
I think it's a difficult place to be in, and something that your comment before really triggered a thought process for me about ‘we're a marketing organisation.’ You're actually representing brand Australia. And we touched on the comment about the zeitgeist. I think this idea of you've brought together all of these elements and you're trying to reflect brand Australia. I wonder what's your take on how well brand Australia is actually doing? Because obviously you've got to find all the best bits. Is the job getting harder or easier? I think you're probably uniquely placed to have a particular view on this.
Susan Coghill:
Great question. And it's a challenging one to answer if I'm honest. I think that it's been a little bit of a roller coaster for us. The brand certainly took a bit of a knocking through the bushfires. Some of the headlines around the world were really devastating, and I was thinking long and hard about how do we come back from that? Then cut to how we've managed the coronavirus over the past 18 months or so, and I think we've gone up in travellers esteem, consumers esteem. We are seen as a very safe destination and that has only heightened in fact over the last year or so.
Susan Coghill:
And actually, other brand attributes we're seeing are going up. So, our natural beauty, our wide open spaces, these things are starting to kind of naturally, I guess, go up in consumers' minds as they become much more desirable in terms of what they're looking for when they travel. Look, we obviously will need to see our way through our current situation with the borders and the fact that we will be opening later than other countries. And that is no doubt going to be a business challenge, a marketing challenge for us. But as you say, it's my job to find the best of Australia. And the truth is, the best of Australia is still there. I'm just waiting to be able to package it up and share it with the rest of the world.
Mark Jones:
That's amazing. And you're really quite right about the safety component.
Susan Coghill:
And look, we've always enjoyed, I guess, perceptions as being a safe destination. It's not something that we would go out and explicitly say, "We are the safest of destinations," but it's certainly something that we are organisations -
Mark Jones:
We're the Volvo of countries.
Susan Coghill:
Exactly. We may not be able to live up to that, but yes. And I can talk about the crocodiles. But we do think about how do we convey that sense of safety and security across the breadth of our communications? Certainly.
Mark Jones:
I think one of the things that strikes me about your own career is you've brought a lot of experiences, particularly in the creative agency side. And I was interested in how you continue to learn. So apart from obviously on the job, which is what you are doing and just having great people around you, what's your own personal style to learning? Because when you think about change and speed of change, that's one thing. But what it does mean is that you've got to deal with new experiences and new domains where you don't honestly have the experience. So how do you deal with that? You've still got your responsibilities and you have to execute. So what's your advice for learning and how do you do it?
Susan Coghill:
I guess one of the first things I would say is make sure that you have your own personal board of directors. I have a suite of people that I do reach out to if I either need advice, if I need direction. Even if they don't have the answers, they're often able to kind of send me off in the right direction. Secondly, I guess I would talk about having a learning mindset as well, and knowing that you don't always have all the answers and that's okay. So making sure that you are continuing to invest in yourself to learn. As much as I send my team off to do courses and - they've been doing ADMA courses over the past year. I've had my team in Sydney plus my extended global marketing team all do the Ritson courses because we could do that collectively around the world, kind of in our own time zones.
Susan Coghill:
I throw myself on those as well. I am just as keen to kind of sharpen both my core marketing skills, but then also making sure then that I'm leaning into as much as I can - the evolving, I guess, technological side of marketing, which is again, a broader part of my remit now that I've got marketing technology in my team. There's a lot to learn there. There's a lot to keep up there. So making sure that I'm working with our partners, we've got great partners in Adobe and in Digitas, et cetera. So yeah, really leaning into those relationships, I guess. And again, just hiring the best damn marketing team in Australia and trusting in them to make sure that we are delivering what we need for the country and making sure that they're teaching the rest of the team and myself as we go.
Mark Jones:
It sounds like boots and all, that's kind of how I'd summarise all of it.
Susan Coghill:
Absolutely. You've got to throw yourself into it though. And I guess the other thing is I'm a bit of a marketing nerd, I have to admit. I love what I do. I love my job. I love TA. And I guess I really enjoy learning new skills. I love learning about things that will make a difference in what I deliver, I guess, for the tourism industry and for the business.
Mark Jones:
Well, Susan, your enthusiasm is infectious. I really appreciate everything that you've had to share with us on the CMO Show today. Thank you so much for being our guest.
Susan Coghill:
Thank you, Mark. I had a great time. I really appreciate you inviting me.
Mark Jones:
So that was Susan Coghill. Tourism Australia, I think, is a great example of a brand that has successfully changed its strategy without panicking, and used its learnings from 2020 to inform its short and long-term thinking. I really loved her advice to CMOs and senior executives about leading with storytelling, and her belief that marketers not only need to listen to what consumers are telling them, but to know what consumers need. So that’s nearly it for this episode, but before I go - make sure you “subscribe” to The CMO Show on your favourite podcast app - if you haven’t already. And if you want to hear more from us, you can follow The CMO Show and ImpactInstitute on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you for joining us on The CMO Show. As always, it’s been great to have you with us. Until next time.