The change-making power of First Nations perspectives
On today’s episode of The CMO Show, we’re taking a look at how Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing all have a profound effect on marketing campaign success.
Mark chatted to two special guests today - Michael Mehmet, Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Wollongong, and Alisha Geary, Indigenous entrepreneur and co-founder of skincare brand ThirstyTurtl.
Indigenous ways of work are collaborative, responsive, and relational.
When marketing efforts are tailored to respect and incorporate First Nations perspectives, they become potent tools for change.
The question remains – what can marketers learn from First Nation approaches when it comes to rethinking traditional approaches, and harnessing the power of marketing for the greater good?
For Michael Mehmet, Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Wollongong, the notion of decolonisation is one that comes up a lot in his research of First Nations healthcare.
"At the root of it, decolonisation is trying to pull apart the systems and really critique them – reflect on why they were set up. Often, they weren’t set up for great reasons,” said Michael.
"Decolonising healthcare is very human centric. This is exactly what makes a marketing campaign work best – a human centric, community driven campaign that is pushed through storytelling.”
For Alisha Geary, Indigenous entrepreneur and co-founder of skincare brand ThirstyTurtl, these elements of First Nations culture quickly become embedded into the Western way of living.
"I always thought when it came to Indigenous culture compared to western culture, they couldn’t be more different. You’re talking collectivism versus individualism,” said Alisha.
“Only now am I seeing that a lot of values that Indigenous people hold are being embraced by more westernised cultures, not just in Australia but around the world. More and more people value Indigenous values – working as a community, storytelling, and really humanising our interactions with each other.”
Michael and Alisha discussed with Mark how First Nations brands can think about brand identity in the lens of cultural relevance and personalised storytelling.
Tune in now!
You might also like:
Credits
####
The CMO Show production team
Producers – Rian Newman & Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
####
Transcript:
Hello, Mark Jones here and you’re listening to The CMO Show, a podcast made for and made by marketing professionals, brought to you today by ImpactInstitute in partnership with Adobe.
When marketing efforts are tailored to respect and incorporate First Nations perspectives, they become potent tools for change.
The question remains – what can marketers learn from First Nations cultures when it comes to rethinking traditional approaches, and harnessing the power of marketing for the greater good?
On today’s episode of The CMO Show, we’re taking a look at how Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing, all have a profound effect on marketing campaign success.
We’re chatting with two very special guests today.
I’m thrilled to introduce you to Michael Mehmet, Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Wollongong, and Alisha Geary, Indigenous entrepreneur and co-founder of skincare brand ThirstyTurtl.
Michael and Alisha bring to the table lessons on how brands can think about identity through the lens of cultural relevance and personalised storytelling.
It's wonderful to have you both.
Michael Mehmet
Thank you, Mark.
Alisha Geary
Thanks for having us.
Mark Jones
It's a pleasure. Alisha, let's begin with yourself. Now, just give us a bit of an overview of the work that you are doing. You are an entrepreneur with fingers in many pies. How do you describe yourself to people?
Alisha Geary
Yes, I have a problem saying no. So Indigenous entrepreneur is probably the best description, but at the moment, I'm only actively working on two businesses. So one of which you mentioned ThirstyTurtl, which is a skincare brand where we work with First Nations farmers to incorporate native Australian marine and plant ingredients into the products combined with clinical actives designed to help people with sensitive and sun-damaged skin in Australia. And the other startup is a FinTech, so a payments processor to help facilitate real-time payments to merchants and suppliers hoping to also help farmers.
Mark Jones
You're also an angel investor at Blak Angels, so that must give you even more interesting perspectives.
Alisha Geary
Yes, good to work with incredible entrepreneurs and investors and just people around the country through that work as well.
Mark Jones
Now, Michael, tell me about your perspective and it should be said, talking to you, because one of the reasons is that you've got a particular focus on marketing for equity and healthcare for First Nations peoples, keen to just get a quick sense of your background.
Michael Mehmet
Yes, I primarily supervise PhD students who research in indigenous First Nations areas, so I kind of act as a mentor guide in regards to methodological approaches so they can actually go solve real world problems and better understand real world problems and then, offer solutions to both practitioners and governments. So we spent a lot of time having interesting conversations with people all over the country and also talking to politicians and trying to get the message out there to better improve practice, both from a policy side as well as a marketing side.
Mark Jones
That must be said of course, that you are not a practitioner, but you do have some experience in the past, right?
Michael Mehmet
Whilst I'm currently not a practitioner, my mum and dad have been making me work since I was eight, so I've got a lot of years of experience working and I grew up actually down the south coast of New South Wales and was very immersed in everything business related from a very, very young age, both tourism and other ventures.
Mark Jones
Alisha, I don't want to make this about age, but you're not particularly old. You've kind of been working since you were eight though.
Alisha Geary
Yeah, you can probably tell, but mind you, one of the businesses is a skincare business, so that helps. I'm older than I look, but yeah, I would say that I got into startups, informally in high school and I didn't know that they were start-ups and not until actually university there.
Mark Jones
So tell me about the heartbeat of your work, if I can use that phrase. This conversation coincides with National Reconciliation Week as you know, and we're particularly interested in understanding First Nations perspectives to improve our work as marketers and really this is about understanding marketing through that lens. So yeah, again, I'm just interested what is it that drives you?
Alisha Geary
I grew up with mostly my mum who's a Torres Strait Islander. My dad is Aboriginal and we spent a lot of time growing up with relatives on both sides and we're a low economic family for sure. We started that way anyway. So for me, a lot of the drive comes from wanting to help my family, but by extension, my people I could see the situation that we were in Australia as a minority class group.
So definitely driven through that to build ventures that not only help my people financially, but also, my direct family, but also, help them from an education perspective inspire them that there's a bigger world out there and hopefully, there are amazing ripple effects from that.
Mark Jones
That's awesome. I've got a lot of questions. We'll come back to your perspective in a minute. Michael, what's been your driver? What is the heartbeat you feel like behind your work in studying First Nations and working with students to help them make their contribution?
Michael Mehmet
I actually have been pretty much motivated by some lived experiences that I've actually seen around me. I went to a high school that had a lot of First Nations students and grew up in communities with a lot of First Nations people. So I've been immersed in it from a very young age and I come from a migrant background as well and I was pretty much the only ethnic kid in my entire town for a long time. I kind of never felt like I would fit in to the community. And then, as I grew up I started to associate myself with different ways of thinking, which kind of aligned with a lot how First Nations people thought and that kind of gave me a lot of comfort.
So a lot of my motivations now are very much driven by trying to help people have a voice and make sure that that voice is heard by people that need to hear it. So that's kind of where I've ended up is just hopefully helping those who need a voice and want to speak their truth.
Mark Jones
Fantastic. So Alisha, when you were talking about some of those drivers, andby the way, my first child is a girl who's very similar to yourself in terms of being that driven and responsible and all that kind of stuff. I can understand the drive there, but I'm interested, when it comes to a First Nations perspective, what have you found really stands out in your work because you've got a unique perspective in which you can compare and contrast different ways of thinking and really, for me, I'm fascinated by worldviews and our belief systems that inform the way that we see the world. So what have you found that really stands out from a First Nations perspective?
Alisha Geary
So growing up, I grew up with one foot in each world, you can think of it as, in that I grew up in my indigenous culture, but went to schools that are embedded in western education, that have people from different backgrounds. And actually, I think the main difference is unlike a lot of my cousins for example, who we tend to be shy and want to just hang around other indigenous people, I made an effort to get to know other non-indigenous people who have different ways of thinking, obviously, because I moved around so many schools, I think is the reason, and I was always a new kid and it wasn't ... sometimes just not a lot of other indigenous kids to bond with.
So in doing that, I learned the non-indigenous way of thinking and the western way of thinking and had that basis for comparison, which I think really helps in building these businesses now because building businesses in the way that we're building them in this society is in a western way to achieve a western form of success, which is monetary success mostly. So what I had to do, building those businesses that I figured ... kind of worked, is blend the two worlds and blend the two ways of thinking because for example, a big difference is that collectivism that comes from my indigenous culture versus the individualism that is celebrated by western culture.
So I would carry over aspects like building a community we would know it as marketers, as building a brand, but focusing more on building a community around your brand or product and service that I found works really, really well and is a really powerful tool for business.
Mark Jones
Yeah, that is fascinating and it's a great example. Do you find in blending those two, it can be a challenge when it comes to your target audiences as well. So just sort of keen to understand a bit more about how you think in terms of those community groups.
Alisha Geary
Yeah, so it does get risky for example, when a lot of the times in indigenous culture, because we weren't a particularly materialistic culture in the sense of the western lens of materialism and wanting to acquire materials, things. I find you do have to do more justifying of why you're building a business and what you plan to do with the success of that business afterwards, than you would for example if you were a non-indigenous person who grew up in western culture and has western people around them. So one thing that carries over from that indigenous culture is the sense that I will always build impact businesses, for example, businesses that aren't just there as vehicles to make money, but actually vehicles to make change.
Mark Jones
When we think about that from a big picture point of view, what I heard you say was that you are focused on telling your story so people can understand, but you're also having to justify and explain yourself, I think in ways that the western mindset wouldn't necessarily consider as being a significant point of focus. Is that right?
Alisha Geary
Yes, particularly with my indigenous culture and indigenous people, because a lot of times in our culture, just because looking back at history, money wasn't a thing and money can be seen as an evil thing actually that came to this country. So the way of commerce that was here before was actually trading things, always trading things. You get something and I get something, I scratch your back and you scratch mine. And those are actually values that I take into my business in the sense that when I say I build a community around me, it's not just the audience but my partners, my collaborators, my suppliers, there's a focus there on I win, you win and that's an important value that I took over from my indigenous heritage.
Mark Jones
Michael, what are your reflections on what Alisha's just been sharing in the context of your work? Because you've been doing a lot of work in this space and I'm thinking with particular reference to this paper that you wrote on decolonizing healthcare services and the role of marketing. Can you just connect some dots there for us? How do you reflect on Alisha's story?
Michael Mehmet
Well, it is really interesting listening to Alisha talk about having to justify her actions. Almost the exact same thing happened within that birthing on country where when it first started, essentially, doctors and politicians didn't see a problem taking mothers away from their families to give birth in hospitals in Darwin. And it actually took many, many years to actually convince them that a traditional model of giving birth on country was actually probably the preferred way and actually the better way for the entire family and society surrounding the child and the mother. So there was actually a lot of time spent convincing and partnering with organisations like the medical intermediaries and politicians who are more open to it as well as the universities to actually build up a body of evidence to justify traditional practise.
People have been living on the land for 60,000 years. They've been giving birth for 60,000 years. I think they know what they're doing, but it was amazing how the whole thing that really turned it around was creating a brand ambassador and building knowledge and supporting that brand ambassador into spreading news and using local symbols and local languages to disseminate the message of a new practise and actually getting buy-in from not only politicians and medical associations, but also, from the ground up. So there was an active marketing campaign to actually get members of the community on board. So it ended up looking absolutely wonderful, but it was a constant state of negotiation and evidence providing and using a myriad of marketing techniques.
Everything from storytelling to digital storytelling all the way through to email campaigns, to actually get a group of people together and become so empowered that really nothing could stop them. Now obviously, there's still more work to do, but marketing played a significant role in that and it was actually a privilege to actually research that particular health program.
[STING]
Mark Jones
Michael, I want to talk more about the marketing component of that program in just a moment, but what really strikes me when I reflect on what you're both saying is there is a really big gulf of understanding between a First Nations perspective and the example you're talking about, which is healthcare. It strikes me that before we can get to the conversations about how do we tell the story and invite people on a process of change, so behaviour change and belief change, we first need to understand that there are two parallel intersecting and overlapping worldviews at play here.
Is that a fair statement? Because I think it's actually the story of Australia of course, but Alisha, when you think about your family experience and being on country and the stories that come with that, and I think what's important is just the shared knowledge and understanding of the best way things work in community. It must be quite jarring to have this other culture which says this is how it should be done. And there's an obvious tension there that you walk and I can't even pretend to know what that's like. So I guess please can you help me understand what that gulf of understanding feels like from a business perspective?
Alisha Geary
Yeah, I think what helped me growing up was I was a very curious person. I loved learning. I find that people when they come across something new, they can be scared and that's definitely, I think, the story of Australia. A lot of fear was around when these two cultures merge and on both sides, there was withholding of knowledge, there was an acceptance of values unwillingness to understand which is what has led us here. So growing up having that curiosity and a growth mindset I guess you'd call it in modern terms and a learning mindset is the thing that helped me as I intentionally began making friends that were non-indigenous and grew up in different backgrounds so I could understand why the things were the way they were, why my family were in this situation.
And why my friend's family were in a different situation. And to understand what that gap looked like, what was different in their household versus by household, what things were valued. And definitely, things like money, money is not really valued in indigenous cultures and it's not materialistic culture, but to succeed in a western world, which Australia is now, you kind of need to adopt western values or you are not even in the race. So that's what I had to do is evaluate a lot of my values that I grew up with and assess them against western values that I needed and for the sake of helping my family, almost not drop the values but combine the two together in a way that worked, like for example, in a lot of my marketing and building a brand, I do incorporate indigenous values of things like storytelling, sharing.
Similarly, there are some indigenous values that I neglect a little bit for the sake of achieving western prosperity, but to help my indigenous culture. So you almost have to approach in a very clinical way, which is not comfortable at times for sure.
Mark Jones
I'm actually really quite inspired by how you seem to be holding these two spheres of thinking and culture and worldview together at the same time, and finding common ground is quite an interesting thing. Michael, the word here that really stands out in your work is decolonizing. Now, that seems to lean far more towards the value of community and healthcare that comes from an on-country perspective. What's your take on that and can you help us understand what you mean by that term?
Michael Mehmet
I think at the very root of it, decolonizing is trying to pull apart the systems, the power practises, and really critique them and reflect on why they were set up. And often, they weren't set up for great reasons and kind of think of a way through that, to make it more aligned with the people that are impacted by those systems and power dynamics. And it was really clearly evident and it wasn't just in this case, so Reese who was the PhD student at the centre of this particular research project, it actually looked at multiple other health campaigns across the country over ... it's about five years actually.
And it was really interesting that out of all the really successful ones, out of the ones that did actually end up decolonizing, there was a very active intermediary in the middle, kind of decoding the system and then figuring out ways to navigate around it.
And I encourage anyone listening to this to track it down, it's absolutely phenomenal, about visualising exactly what a decolonized approach actually looks like. And it's not just people, like the land plays an active role, the plants play an active role, the community plays an active role, but it required ... and all the successful campaigns, all required an active intermediary that helped pull apart the power structure and pull apart power dynamics and handed that power over to whichever First Nations community or artists that it was. So when we think about decolonizing, it's really a completely different way of thinking, but the irony is that it's actually the older way of thinking.
It's actually the traditional way of thinking rather than the new way of thinking. And it works wonderfully well, and the reason it works well is because it's human centric. And the irony of all this is that if you look at ... regardless of the culture around the world, which campaigns work best, they're often human centric, community driven and push through storytelling. So I love how there's a universality towards decolonizing approaches and the birthing on country example, many other art and fashion examples all around the world that the community just wants to be heard. They already know what they need to do, they just need help doing it because the systems that are in place now are ridiculously complex.
Mark Jones
Alisha, it sounds to some extent, like he was describing you in your intermediary role in a different parallel universe, right? Is that an interesting way of thinking about some of the way that you translate, interpret, reshape and possibly even, to the extent that you are going down that path as well, you're getting involved in that decolonizing ways of thinking about business?
Alisha Geary
Yeah, definitely. Because growing up at first and seeing the other world, and not just seeing it but making an effort to understand it, it's what I call making friends with indigenous people and getting involved in non-indigenous initiatives and actually, understanding it. At first, I felt dismay because I thought, "Oh my gosh, it's entirely opposite." Indigenous culture and western culture could not be more opposite. You're talking about collectivism versus individualism. And so I thought there's no way that I could succeed by keeping it an indigenous mindset. Actually, as you go through it, and Michael just pointed out a great example, a lot of the values of indigenous people, not just in Australia but globally are actually things that people are now trying to utilise and go back to.
Because they found, actually it does work, in terms of working as a community and making sure that people are heard, storytelling, all of that. Thinking more about the human rather than the monetary aspect. A lot of people want to work in a community now. And those values coming through is really awesome to see that people are realising the power of them.
Mark Jones
Surprise, it kind of works.
Alisha Geary
Yeah.
Mark Jones
And I think that is actually where I want to go with this conversation, is to build on that idea that we need to default from the western equals best justify an alternative, to understanding there are better ways that have been proven over much longer periods of time. You are doing work, business, life together in community and actually developing those relationships, which I think is what I heard there.
Alisha Geary
Yeah, developing relationships is really important.
Michael Mehmet
What I heard was no shortcuts.
Mark Jones
Right, yeah, which doesn't help along the western mindset of get it done at speed, right?
Alisha Geary
Yeah, exactly.
Michael Mehmet
Yeah.
Mark Jones
I must say one of the things that has given me a lot of pause for thought in Aboriginal culture is relationship first, business second. In the Western mindset, it's let's decide whether we have an opportunity to make some money together and then, I'll get to know you. And it's a different way of thinking about things and that can be quite a challenge for people. Michael, in the work and the studies that you've done, tell me about the results, because we started talking about some of these approaches, and maybe just segue a little bit into the marketing side of stuff as well. What are some of the benefits of decolonizing, deconstructing and rebuilding healthcare systems as an example, what have you seen?
Michael Mehmet
I've seen happier people. I've seen happier communities. I've seen communities that are better together. I've seen people who aren't lost. So one of the stories that really came across listening to one young gentleman, he was speaking about how he was born off-country and how that really impacted him, because he wasn't seen as part of the mob on his mother's country. So that sense of feeling connected to where you feel that you should be, I think a huge thing. And we see that in every aspect of society today where people don't like ... loneliness is one of our biggest killers at the moment, but we don't feel connected to anything around us.
And it impacts mental health, it impacts physical health. I did a lot of work back in 2017 and 2020 with an amazing, not-for-profit called Equally Well, whether we're looking at the physical impacts of mental health. it was astonishing how much that loneliness and disconnected feeling was having an impact on both physical and mental health. And I think when you create systems that are better poised, better balanced, power shared, people have some form of autonomy, they can do what they want, they have ownership over things, it gives them not only a sense of purpose, but it actually allows them to be themselves with their community.
And I do not think too many non-indigenous Australians actually understand what that actually is and what that actually looks like and what that actually means. And once you go see it and you experience it, and you see it in people's faces, it's something that you just don't forget. So that's probably the biggest message that I wanted to get across today was you don't realise how much people's lives change when you allow them to take some form of ownership over it. It's amazing,
Mark Jones
Alisha, I'd love to hear what you have to say to that.
Alisha Geary
Yeah, I read a lot of business books. I read a lot, because I got to have a learning mindset for this sort of thought. But one thing I resonate with when Michael talks about getting people have ownership, is it is a concept that has been talked about. For example, there's a really famous book called the OKRs and in that book that's what it talks about, is when you let people actually contribute to the goals of an organisation and have more ownership over it, they are going to work harder for it because they've helped design it. And that's this concept of co-design and collaborating, which is another value synonymous with indigenous culture.
It's when people feel like they have a voice and they have a particular role within the community, they're more willing to fulfil it rather than going from a top-down approach. And it's only the leaders that design particular goals or sort out the roles and you're just given something and this is what you do and this is what you're expected to do.
Michael Mehmet
It also leaves a legacy. And when you're talking about disenfranchised populations that are being decimated by colonisation, giving people an opportunity to have a legacy is not just hope for you today, but hope for a lot of people long time into the future. And again, I don't think people realise how important that is by having something to strive for and walk towards. And it's something that's really, I think, missing from a lot of people, not just one segment, and through our research, and it wasn't just the birthing, it was many examples.
It was getting people empowered to let go, because they think that they're right, control. This is how we're going to get through. We have a plan, we've developed a strategy, we put a task force together, this is how it's going to work, but just getting them to let go and once they do let go and the ones that have let go when you go talk to them again, it's amazing how they went. "Yeah, that was the best thing I've ever done was just let go, hand it over. It's okay, you don't lose both your wing," as Alisha said many times throughout today, it's real powerful. People have to learn to let go. You can't control everything and it's okay. You just have to let go.
Mark Jones
So letting go of control, letting go of your presuppositions, et cetera.
Michael Mehmet
Exactly, right.
Mark Jones
We'll take that as the challenging first piece of advice. Alisha, I'm wondering what other things you might have to say to the marketer and the comms professional who's listening. You mentioned OKRs. We've talked a lot about community and collaboration. What would be a couple of simple steps that you think people could take when it comes to deconstructing and reframing their marketing and storytelling through that community lens.
Alisha Geary
Is to find the heart and soul of something that's the most powerful marketing you can do. There's too many times you see people, they'll make an ad for something and no one really understands it. It's just really basic ad. It's not that powerful, but if you actually talk to whoever made the product and find out the human component of what they're doing or what service they're doing, find something interesting about them and actually spend that time to get to know them and understand them. That's what I think is lacking a lot of the times as well is people are in a rush, so they'll just rush through an interview or something like that.
And then, just splatter the first thing that they found. One little golden nugget on the page of something and miss something that was behind the scenes that was a lot more powerful. So I think just slowing down and having that mindset of curiosity and just like an eager child wanting to know the story of what their dad did that day, find the human part of something and talk about that. And if there is no human part of it, I think what consumers are tending towards, and you're seeing it now with the creator economy and influencers, is people don't just want pretty anymore or perfect. They actually want the human part of it.
And for businesses that they're just as money-making vehicles, there's nothing underneath it, there's no impact that they're going to make. I think people are actually tending towards supporting those types of organisations now. And you see this with corporations trying to have ESGs and focus on their environmental aspect. For marketers who can pick the types of businesses that they work for, I implore them to actually try and work with companies that have a soul, that have an impact, because that's actually going to make your job easier as a marketer as well, in terms of trying to work out what marketing messages will resonate with people is people want to invest and buy products from other people now.
Mark Jones
So just to understand if there's not a strong human soul story, then look at what's the impact that you can make and understand the community impact, if you like, or the impact you'd like to make on people. Is that the dynamic you're talking about?
Alisha Geary
Definitely, yeah. I think that those organisations should be supported and those organisations will actually be easier for you to market. Consumers, I think, are now developing that curiosity about the people that are running the companies, why they're doing it, and are attracted more to buying products and services from people that are helping people or have a good impact rather than just money-making vehicles.
Mark Jones
Michael, what are your thoughts on how marketers can learn from and adapt to use First Nations' principles?
Michael Mehmet
I like what Alisha said about halfway through this discussion about slowing down. I think businesses have really like KPIs for weekly ... they look at their Google Analytics and they want everything to be done straight away. I'll still harp back to holism and understanding the system rather than understanding a single component within that system and understanding the effects that you have both upstream and downstream from your actions and thinking about those. Because as Alisha said, you want to tell a story, you want to tell a human story with human stories and marketing, there's consequences and unintended consequences and unintended benefits.
And you need to take into consideration both of those when you engage. And if you're not doing it for the right reason, you're not doing it authentically, just stop, reflect and think about why you're not doing it for the right reasons. The big one for me is trust. And Alisha spoke about this very eloquently today, and I think people need to ... and particularly, I'm not going to say all marketers are bad. I'm not in that school of things, although I think there's a lot of great marketers out there who do a lot of great work, but the trust building is really important. And if you try and rush that or you try and do that in a manner that's not part of your core values, you can get yourself into trouble.
I also want to call out and really encourage larger organisations like the Googles and the Metas of the world. They have done in the past, actually work with a lot of First Nations businesses to both upskill and promote and make it more visible. It'd be really good if that happened across the board as well, because sometimes I think we can get into a mindset where they’re a set of others, but I think there's a great opportunity to really take a strength-based approach when it comes to marketing campaigns, and particularly for First Nations brands, they really take a strength-based approach. So really highlight what you're really good at and stick to that and keep it to your core values. I'm a huge values person.
Mark Jones
It stands out in both of you. Kind of a closing comment that I got from one of your papers, Michael and Alisha, I've heard it in your comments, is that marketing really needs to be considered as an agent of positive social change and positive social good. and I'm speaking more broadly here in terms of some of my conversations with marketers and CMOs. We don't really have this holistic, positive social lens to most of our work in marketing. We actually quite limit our view on the positive change.
Michael, in your example with the healthcare system, it's actually the great enabler of change, once you've decided how to, in-community, make the change, you need to bring people on the journey. And Alisha your story is about working with influencers, understanding the heartbeat of organisations and working with people in relationship, speak to marketing in a far bigger, more holistic perspective. Would just love some of your thoughts on that as we wrap up. Alisha.
Alisha Geary
Yes, marketing is so powerful and the reach you can ... on any Google Analytics page and the numbers that you can get to in terms of reach is astounding and is so powerful. And that's why I wanted to do the Activewear brand when I first got into startups was to help people ... Well, get them excited about the products, people like buying things, but then also have them stay and have them keep buying because of the story piece of the First Nations artists that had their artworks, on the leggings, who actually paint our culture and pass knowledge that way. So marketing can be crazy powerful. And I think a lot of people need to realise it's, with power comes, like Spider-Man quote, great responsibility is hopefully the messages that you're putting out.
Yeah, I can't help putting out a Spider-Man message. Hopefully, the messaging you're putting out is responsible and authentic and see it as an opportunity to create social change. And it can be hard because there's so many problems in the world. It can be hard to think, okay, but what problem do I focus on? I think that's what a lot of people need to do is when they clarify their values and intentionally look at how they're living their lives and how they think, is maybe pick something that does resonate with you and in everything that you do, all bits of work that you do, try and relate it somehow to that, to your centre, and living in a purpose centric way.
If you read Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you know where I'm coming from, but I think, yeah, marketing can be such a powerful vehicle to help you with your purpose and to see it that way.
Mark Jones
That's amazing. Michael?
Michael Mehmet
I don't need to add anything else. That was wonderful.
Mark Jones
Well, can I thank you both for your time? this has been a properly mind-expanding exercise. I too am a learner and a growth mindset oriented person, and I think I just feel like we've really been able to unlock a few really big ideas for people today. So thank you both for being so generous with your time and your insights and cheering you both on as you use marketing for social impact. Thank you.
Alisha Geary
Thank you Mark, and thanks Michael.
Michael Mehmet
No, thank you. You're amazing.
Mark Jones
That was Michael Mehmet, Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Wollongong, and Alisha Geary, Indigenous entrepreneur and co-founder of skincare brand ThirstyTurtl.
I especially enjoyed hearing Michael’s perspective on using marketing to deconstruct and rebuild healthcare systems.
I loved learning about his research, mainly how it shows that this leads to a real, collective sense of purpose across First Nations communities.
Alisha sees this embedding of First Nations culture into Western society with storytelling increasingly being used as a vehicle for change.
It speaks to how audiences today are craving more of the real and less of the polished, and that’s a lesson I think we can all take away.
A huge thank you to both Michael and Alisha for joining me today, and to you for taking the time to listen.
I’m Mark Jones, and you’ve been listening to The CMO Show, brought to you by ImpactInstitute in partnership with Adobe. We’ll see you next time!