What you need to know:

• Claire Williams, a 14-year marketer at Lion, formerly at Diageo, has joined the Premium Content Alliance as its Head of Marketing.
• She led the media and partnerships at Lion but will have a focus on research at the PCA, which is the parent brand overseeing ThinkTV, ThinkNewsBrands and ThinkPremiumDigital.
• Marketers need to protect their research budgets, Williams says, especially if the economy goes downhill. Research budgets help marketers prove their case internally to keep their other budget – like media.
• “Hang on to it, because if you don't, you'll be screwed in a year's time,” Williams says.

Rock and hard place

Marketers must protect their research budgets with their lives during an economic slowdown or face prolonged pain – and deeper cuts to other areas like media – down the road, ex-Lion and Diageo marketer Claire Williams says.

Williams, who most recently spent 14 years at Lion and led its media and partnerships as Consumer Connections Director, has been appointed to the role of Head of Marketing for the Premium Content Alliance. She’ll be responsible for marketing strategy and output for PCA brands ThinkTV, ThinkNewsBrands and ThinkPremiumDigital. But research has been an area of passion through her career.

As interest rates rise and ad spend starts to plateau, with agency chiefs acknowledging the ‘stratospheric’ market rise has peaked, Williams reckons a lot of senior marketers are in a tough spot.

“Don't expect things to get better for marketers, particularly the CMOs,” Williams said.

“If you had riches over Covid – and there have been products that have done very well, then your shareholders or your owners or whoever it is that's reaping the wonderful benefits of that are saying, 'well, go again'. And you're never going to cycle those numbers. It's just so difficult… the board members, shareholders are always going to be looking at that. They never go, 'Oh, yeah, well, that was Covid. Wasn't that a great year? But we shouldn't expect that again’. They just never do. So you're kind of screwed on that basis.”

Which likely means cuts come circling the marketing budget. Research often makes up about 10 per cent of that budget, with media perhaps a third, depending on the industry and company, Williams says.

Internal messaging 

‘Research’ can take the form of continuous brand measurement, post-campaign analysis and sentiment tracking, as well as more high-level research that drives brand positioning. How is one brand doing compared to its rivals? How did a rival’s campaign benefit them? How did it impact us? It also demonstrates what works and what doesn’t, providing crucial feedback to the C-suite.

“Most brands would have something in market that’s a health check,” Williams said.

“A lot of it is around internal storytelling. How am I using information to enable me to secure more things for marketing to do?”

When cuts are made to the research budget, it usually flows through to the media and other budgets later on.

“Make sure you're continuing to understand your consumer and what's going on for them, because if your business is in a bit of trouble post-Covid, because things haven’t picked up as quick as you'd hoped, they’re going to take that away from you,” Williams said.

“Hang on to it, because if you don't, you'll be screwed in a year's time when you get the results and understanding and are able to put something in action.”

Understanding the Australian consumer is important, especially as they’ve rarely changed so much, so quickly. Take e-commerce, for example. The Australia Post Inside Australian Online Shopping report found 5.4 million households had shopped online in 2021, a staggering 39 per cent increase from 2019.

Likewise, a lot of people have continued to work remotely well after lockdowns eased, with an Australian government Productivity Commission report finding 40 per cent of people would look for another job if forced to go back to the office full-time.

“We're coming out of a period of unusual change in behaviour with Covid, and there's been a lot of articles about what's stuck with people's behaviour. What's changed? ‘I'm buying all my shopping online’ [or] ‘I'm now fully back to bricks and mortar’ - probably not. There are a few things that have stuck,” she said.

“The risk is you not anticipating – it's back to behaviour and expectations. Understand how people are behaving, because you can't base it on your group of mates and the place you live. On a sample of the people I hang out with, we haven't done any more online shopping. And all your board members. All the leadership team would be saying, ‘well that's not how I do it’. You have to be able to bring in third party evidence to make your case otherwise they just go off their gut feel and because they're more senior they get to have the final say.”

Williams started in the role a few weeks ago, replacing Rowena Newman, who left in May after five years there.

Kim Portrate, CEO of the Premium Content Alliance, said in a statement: “It’s rare to find a candidate with the perfect combination of skills but with her knowledge and experience across multiple categories and countries, Claire is the ideal person to help advertisers and agency partners harness the power of media to build their brands and grow their businesses.”

A key part of her role will be engaging with agencies and marketers about the power of premium content. Marketers often trust their agencies’ suggestions implicitly, so there’s a balancing act of educating and informing marketers – but also ensuring agencies understand the importance of the three pillars of premium content.

“It's not about [marketers] not listening [to agencies]. It's about diligence and good discipline and understanding the process and getting under the hood of what the agency are coming back with. Don't just take it at face value,” Williams said.

“Be informed. Because that's the opportunity for you as a marketer to be better, rather than be time precious today, reading the PowerPoint and going 'yes I approve'. That doesn't mean it's right.”