Member Spotlight with Simon Wickson, Head of Marketing Advisory, WooliesX

This month we meet one of the marketing aces in ADMA's Regulatory Working Group. WooliesX's Simon Wickson talks loyalty programs, the importance of great mentors and why embracing change is worthwhile for those in our industry. 

Hi Simon, to start off, can you tell us a little about your career course to date?
My career started off in the travel industry in the UK with Avis Rent a Car. I began as a graduate in the marketing team, before moving into product development and customer loyalty roles at Avis’s European HQ. And that was the first nine or 10 years of my career. At that point I took the plunge and moved to Australia with no job to go to, but a tourist visa up my sleeve. 
 
Happily, I landed a role with Howards Storage World, tasked with running its loyalty program, which I did for around three years. 
 
And in 2015 I moved over to Woolies, joining what was effectively the loyalty and data team. Then I moved into more of a marketing planning and operations role when we transitioned into WooliesX, and where I’ve been the Head of Marketing Advisory for the past year.

What have been a few of your professional highlights along the journey?
An early highlight was launching Avis’s pan-European loyalty program. Basically it was noted the business lacked such a program and a few of us felt we needed one. 
 
So we pitched it to the business’s leadership and gained the investment. It was a two year process to design and implement in pilot countries (UK, Germany and Switzerland), but it was highly rewarding. 
 
Then when I moved to Howards Storage World, I said to my boss: “We're going to win an award within two years.” And nearly two years later we managed to achieve just that, taking home the Australian Marketing Institute's Excellence Award for Loyalty. 
 
Most recently, I've been helping Woolworths navigate an enforceable undertaking process, which has been a three year body of work around the Spam Act to help meet our ambitions to build trusted relationships with our customers. And lastly, I’d say being invited to join ADMA’s working group is something I’m really proud of.

Can you tell us a bit about your work with ADMA’s Regulatory Working Group?
I'm a relative newcomer, but already I’m really enjoying being amongst some fantastic marketing leaders in the Working Group. I'm personally deriving a lot of value just observing and listening to the thoughts and ideas that are shared. 
 
It’s great to be able to discuss future reforms on the horizon, plus there's a few webinars coming up where myself and a few colleagues from Woolies can hopefully contribute. I’m looking forward to diving in and discussing AI and data ethics topics in particular. 

Why are organisations like ADMA so important for the wider media and marketing industry?
ADMA is terrific primarily as it provides businesses with a conduit to government bodies and regulators. And secondly, it's obviously a fantastic resource for the industry, providing marketing tools and assets to companies big and small.
 
Right now we’re exploring ADMA’s marketing skills assessment and capability framework. We've got something similar internally here, which we’ve been operationalising, but given ADMA does it so well, there’s plenty we can learn from them in this area.
 
 

What are some of the key regulatory developments that are in progress right now that you think will shape the future of data-driven marketing?
Future reforms around the Privacy Act and the online bill are very important. It’s hard to say currently, but I think largely it's going to be very dependent on what those outcomes are. Currently there's a huge debate around the treatment of personal information and even the definition of what direct marketing is. 
 
I think that there will be an overall greater emphasis on transparency for customers and how companies are using people’s data. Also of interest is how organisations deal with change and operationalise their policies. This will be a key driver of how digital marketing occurs in the medium term.

How do you think data-driven marketing will change over the next few years? What should we be preparing for now?
We need to really reconsider how we use our first, second and third party data, to target and personalise marketing, but in a balanced way that considers commercial, customer first and compliance (or data ethics) goals.  
 
Depending on the future reforms, the changes could potentially be monumental or more gradual, but there'll clearly be a new emphasis on transparency, and likely new approaches to the lifecycle of customer data. 
 
Another topic I’m quite keen on looking at is the use of AI and predictive modelling. That is already changing the landscape, but again, it leads to new questions. Currently, just because the law allows you to do something, or you can find loopholes, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do for customers. 
 
And there are obvious challenges with AI and algorithms around biases. Right now, it’s still a human who's coding the algorithms. So there’s obviously challenges with that. 
 
We need to look at what's fair and transparent, versus what an AI model is going to churn out. I think it's about what guardrails you can apply to those models at the present time.

What do you think are the biggest challenges confronting marketers today?
It’s not not a sexy topic, but I think one of the real challenges is the sheer volume of data. And how we manage that and who in an organisation is responsible. 
 
One of your core assets as a company is your CRM database. So how you maintain that database, particularly the accuracy and the quality, is essential. This trickles down to whether you're going to have optimal campaigns and stay compliant in many ways. 
 
I believe the modern marketer should be across some of these disciplines because the success of your direct marketing campaigns fundamentally is driven by the quality of customer data you have.

What’s the best piece of advice you would give to a university graduate starting their first role in marketing?
Expect change and embrace it. You just have to expect that there will be continued changes coming with new channels, new technology, new ways of analysing data and I think they're far more frequent than they were 15-20 years ago. Because if you can't ride with the wave, you're either going to fall behind or you're not going to enjoy your day job. 
 
In the same breath (and if I could talk to my younger self), I’d say that major changes or shifts often take a lot longer than you actually think. Some people have been saying the email channel has peaked, for example, but it’ll still be part of the marketing mix for a while yet. 
 
One other piece of advice I would definitely give younger people is to seek out a mentor. 

That’s a great bit of advice. Can you tell us about a great mentor you’ve had in your career? 
A few years ago I met Louise Cummings, who’s now the CMO of World Vision, Australia. And she’s become a valuable mentor for me. 
 
I found it was so rewarding to be able to speak to someone outside my organisation, in a different industry, who I really respected, who has a wealth of knowledge and a great career. 
 
For me, I was lucky she came along at a great time. I know it sounds pretty obvious, but it’s sometimes reassuring to hear that other people, particularly those in senior leadership roles, also have similar challenges at times. I'm very grateful for her guidance and I still see her roughly on a quarterly basis.

Last of all, what do you enjoy doing outside of work? 
I’ve always played and watched lots of sports - football, cricket and badminton chiefly. Although probably a bit less so in the last few years. I’m a father of two young ones who are four and one, so that puts a dent in any leisure time, but is really rewarding in lots of other ways.