What you need to know:

• Catch CMO Ryan Gracie is swapping one e-commerce player for another, joining newly ASX listed online pureplay MyDeal.
• After five years with the Wesfarmers-owned business, Gracie said he's ready to get back to what he enjoys most – helping to scale online brands.
• He's now looking for smart marketing people for in-house teams, as well as agency partners that can build brand while keeping the sales rolling in.

On a drive down the coast along a Victorian freeway, long-serving Catch CMO Ryan Gracie spotted a billboard for his brand he hadn't seen before. He'd had no approval or involvement in creative or strategy. It was around that time he decided to call it a day.

Gracie, who has been one of the more outspoken CMOs in recent years, joined the Catch business in its infancy, helped drive its early success and would continue to lead the marketing function following its $230 million acquisition by retail giant Wesfarmers.

Speaking to Mi3, Gracie said it was time to get back to "the things he enjoyed".

"When I joined the Catch team five years ago, the brand wasn't well known, it was dealing with all the marketing issues of an company in its early stages and helping drive its presence was something I've always enjoyed," Gracie said.

"It's now a business with three million customers and has moved beyond the [challenger] stage, so I feel like I've achieved a lot of what I set out to do and now it's time to get back to my roots in a sense."

In the last 12-months, Gracie made headlines for driving Catch's first major brand campaign, openly discussing the process of hiring an agency during Covid and how the brand's first TV campaign delivered 9.5x return on the dollar.

Now the CMO aims to get back into the trenches by spearheading the marketing function for fellow online pureplay and freshly ASX-listed, MyDeal.

The business, led by founder Sean Senvirtne, houses an executive team with experience across brands such as Nissan, Kogan and PwC, while also being chaired by the founder of the National Online Retailers Association, Paul Greenberg.

Gracie said the business is in a similar position to where Catch was three years ago, "it needs to do a lot of brand building".

"However, much like Catch, MyDeal is also addicted to the performance marketing drug, something that I will aim to shake up but also milk, because it still holds a lot of value for a brand like MyDeal at this stage."

Questioned on whether he will look to push for further above the line investment, Gracie was blunt. "Absolutely. They ran their first brand campaign last year and I can see where there's work to be done."

Luckily, Gracie has a "playbook", which includes not just the successes of Catch but also the pitfalls to avoid. 

"Unprompted brand awareness would be very low, if not zero – obviously I've done a lot of test and learn work around brand over performance, something e-commerce hasn't always been known for, so there is a lot of opportunity to continue that work," Gracie said.

"There's also a need to figure out the brand proposition. This is a company turning over an impressive amount of revenue for the message they have in market, so improving the proposition is going to have immediate effects."

This will involve a slight revamp of its desktop and mobile CX, according to Gracie. However, he said the business is already making good inroads with its recently launched app.

The CMO believes these changes will be a big help in the ongoing first-party data race.

However, in the short-term, personnel tops Gracie's to do list. He aims to build out the marketing team, without becoming bloated.

"By the time I left Catch I was up to over 70 people in the team, which is a lot and probably could have run a bit leaner, that's something I will bring to the new role," Gracie said.

Then he's set to appoint agency partners.

"MyDeal currently does all of its work in-house, something that its size allows for but as we ramp up our presence in market, I'll be looking for smart agencies that can really help drive the business alongside the internal team," Gracie said.

"I've also been tasked with finding the right internal people to bolster the in-house capabilities we will likely continue to run ourselves. What those will be, I'm still a little unsure. But there will be a clear cost and efficiency benefit involved."

With no break between roles, Gracie is must now hit the ground running. But you wouldn't bet against him.