From FMCG to Big Four: David Phillips on Modern Marketing Challenges

 In this edition of ADMA’s CMO Spotlight, David Phillips, Partner at Deloitte Digital, reflects on his career journey from FMCG to agency, and onto Big Four consulting, the enduring importance of marketing fundamentals and how CMOs must step up to own the top-line. 

To start off, can you tell us a little about your career to date?

I’ve had a career of two distinct halves. The first on the client-side, learning the ropes as a FMCG marketer. My very first job was with Cadbury Schweppes, where I had the unusual but memorable task of driving the Dr Pepper van around while juggling my lecture schedule.

I ended up spending several years in the beverage and confectionary sector, which helped me to build a foundation across strategy, innovation, brand and sales. A real highlight of this period was leading a key part of global innovation at Cadbury, which gave me exposure to international markets and the chance to work on some of the world’s most loved brands. Working on arguably Australia’s only luxury brand in Penfolds was an even more powerful experience that I’ll be forever grateful for

The second half of my career has been focused on advisory and consultancy. I took a short detour into research and psychometrics, setting up both a research facility and a psychometrics business, the latter of which is still running successfully today. I then moved into agency life, spending time at TBWA and McCann before transitioning to Deloitte nine years ago.

I currently lead our CMO Advisory and oversee one of our capabilities called marketing, data and technology. This role allows me to bring together both halves of my career to help clients solve their biggest growth challenges by stringing together consumer strategy, marketing capabilities, operations and technology.

What have been a few of your professional highlights along the journey?

I’ve been fortunate to have a number of incredible moments across my career. One that really stands out was my time working on Penfolds. We delivered some incredible brand activations that, in today’s environment, probably wouldn’t even be possible.

Another highlight was my stint at McCann where, as head of strategy and media, I had the privilege of working alongside two of the most talented advertisers in the country. Together, we were able to help transform the agency's reputation, taking it from a relatively small player to being recognised among the best globally.

I also loved working for Cadbury. As a young Australian marketer, getting exposure to factories, consumers and colleagues across some of the world’s leading markets and brands was both a learning curve and a privilege.

Looking back, I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had these opportunities.

How important is maintaining and growing your marketing skill set in today’s marketing environment? How do you approach this for you and your team?

It’s absolutely critical to keep building and refining your skills in today’s environment.

While marketing continues to evolve rapidly, I believe the fundamentals remain just as important as ever - understanding customer behaviour, shaping customer strategy and applying the core principles of marketing. Too often, I still see those foundations underdeveloped, even among new graduates, yet they’re what everything else is built upon.

At the same time, remaining contemporary means looking ahead. I’m fortunate to work in a business that’s squarely focused on helping CMOs and marketers prepare for the future. Much of our work explores how the role of marketing is changing, how digital will continue to evolve the function, and what capital investments will be required through which operating models to unlock new capabilities.

On a more personal level, I consider myself lucky to be surrounded by incredibly bright young minds who ensure my own knowledge stays fresh. The nature of my role also means I’m constantly working with clients to explore which version of the future is right for them. It’s an environment that makes continuous learning part of the job itself.

What is the one thing you wish you’d learned earlier in your career?

As a young brand manager, you sometimes feel the pressure to know everything, have all the answers, protect the brand from the business - and in doing so, you will often be at odds with the other forces around you.

Understanding that brand is everyone you work with, and you don’t have all the answers, would have been great to have known earlier on!

Also, be nice to your suppliers – you may be paying for them but the incremental effort and care you’ll get by being a good human makes a massive difference.

What is going to have the biggest impact on marketing over the next few years? How are you preparing for those changes?

We’re on the cusp of a renaissance of marketing in Australia. For the past decade, marketing has often been sidelined, seen as little more than a colouring-in-department or caught in the confusion between digital, product, sales and service.

But around the world, we’ve seen strong CMOs step back into the spotlight as a key driver of strategy and elevating marketing’s role in major consumer businesses. I believe that same renaissance is about to happen here.

This shift will demand more from marketers. They’ll need to step up and own the revenue line, becoming accountable for growth rather than solely communication. To do that, they must connect the dots across business, from finance and supply chains to sales and product. The marketers who do this well will be the ones who can translate customer needs into action.

At the same time, we’re seeing the convergence of marketing, sales and service, driven largely by technology and data. The leaders who can navigate that landscape and orchestrate seamless experiences across every customer touchpoint will be the ones who thrive.

And finally, technology - including but not limited to Gen AI - is reaching a point where it can help us deliver better experiences with fewer resources (i.e. we can do more for less now). The most forward-thinking leaders will embrace experimentation and automation to strike the balance between efficiency and quality.

What do you think are the biggest challenges confronting marketers today?

It’s an obvious thing to say but the landscape is more complicated than ever and it’s not going to get any easier. The marketer needs to be experts in P&L, product, the regulatory environment, consumer behaviour, technology, measurement and analytics, while also being amazing leaders, catalysts for innovation, change and storytelling.

That means making tough choices about how to invest in new capabilities, who to partner with, the crucial decision between when to automate or rely on human expertise, and when to push the magical multiplier of marketing (creativity) which attracted so many of us to the industry.

All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the ‘age of the unprecedented consumer’.

Demographics and how we attach meaning and value from our lives are changing rapidly, pulling from the centre. As a result, the efficiencies of scale we gain from the hegemonic consumer and compounded by population growth no longer underpin successful businesses in Australia. We all are challenged now to move from mass to micro in traditional models not designed for this transition.

The best marketers will be the ones who keep an eye on future capabilities while never losing sight of these shifts in consumers, because that’s ultimately where the greatest challenges and opportunities lie.

What’s the best piece of advice you would give to a university graduate starting their first role in marketing?

For graduates starting out in marketing, my biggest piece of advice is to focus on building a strong, blended skill set. Marketing today isn’t divided into ‘traditional’ and ‘digital’ - the two are inseparable.  

To succeed, you need a grounding in the fundamentals of psychology and economics, paired with an understanding of how technology will shift customer behaviour and experience. Even a basic grasp of computer science or data-driven thinking with a healthy understanding of behavioural economics will put you ahead.

It’s also important to recognise that the nature of entry-level roles is changing. Many of the tasks that graduates once cut their teeth on can now be done with AI. That means your value will come not from doing routine work, but from how you think, your ability to connect ideas, apply judgement and bring creativity and customer insight to the table. I’ve always had a huge bias for the super smart humanities graduates who have a gift for working things out quickly.

So my advice is this: invest in the foundations, stay curious about technology and look for ways to apply both together. If you can do that you’ll be well placed to carve out a meaningful career in a marketing landscape that is evolving faster than ever.

Why are organisations like ADMA so important for the wider media and marketing industry?

Organisations like ADMA play a critical role because today’s marketers simply don’t have the time or bandwidth to stay across everything their role now demands. Senior marketers are juggling so much now that you just can’t be an expert in everything you need to be.

That’s where ADMA provides real value. It distills these complicated topics into something practical and relevant, helping leaders get up to speed on what they need to know. It also provides an outside-in perspective, showing not just where our function stands today, but where it’s heading. For marketers who may have been in the same organisation for a long time, that perspective is invaluable.

ADMA helps break the bubble of day-to-day operations and challenges marketers to think differently. In that sense, ADMA isn’t just an industry body – it enables marketers to quickly stay on top of the regulatory environment and be connected to what’s happening outside their organisation within the function.

If utilised properly, ADMA enables marketers to quickly get up to speed on the things they need to know, so they can spend their time on the things that matter for their businesses. In other words - ADMA helps us navigate complexity so we can focus on being the growth catalysts.

Last of all, what do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I’m truly blessed with 11 year old twins who make me laugh, and with the help of my amazing wife, check myself most days to make sure I’m being as good a dad as I can be!

Water is the only passion – I try to row or spend time in the water at our local (albeit Melbourne) beach most days to get some balance for the head.