What you need to know:

• Willem Paling has departed Cartology after a little over a year, taking a job at emerging travel platform Luxury Escapes. After a decade at big corporates, Paling said the offer came along and it was time for a change.
• Paling, a former IAG growth director, wanted to achieve a lot more at Woolworths but said this was too good an offer to turn down.
• He says privacy changes are going to have a massive impact on adland, and that consumers expect their first party data to be used for "first party problems". Anything outside that risks putting them offside. 
• Luxury Escapes will be competing with the big travel players - Expedia, Booking.com, Google - in the rush for billions of post-Covid travel dollars. 

Shop happens

He was tasked with building Woolworths’ off platform retailer media business, but the family made Willem Paling an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Not quite a horse's head in a bed, but the former Head of Segmentation, Measurement and Off Network at Cartology, previously Director of Customer Growth and Analytics at IAG, has joined the family at Luxury Escapes, a rapidly growing travel brand, to lead its Customer Experience and Personalisation strategy.

After a decade in big corporates, Paling said it was time for a change – moving from a company with 225,000 employees to one with 300.

“There was a lot I wanted to achieve [at Cartology]. We built an amazing team looking after off network and measurement,” Paling said.

“I would have loved to stay longer, but these opportunities don’t come up when you want them to.”

Checking out

Paling's not the only senior exec to leave Cartology recently. Mark Mansour, the Director of Client Partnerships and Sales, disclosed on Monday he would be taking up a role at WooliesX, leading its Everyday Market team. 

Paling said he was looking forward to bringing his data experience to a smaller, more nimble company, overhauling Luxury Escapes’ buying systems to drive a better overall brand experience. 

“It’s great to be back on the client side,” he said. “Back to asking the tough questions, demanding truth in measurement and generally being a pain in the arse.” He rates highly its founder and CEO Adam Schwab, its ex-Amazon head of product and tech Shay Hamama – and its engineering chief, Joss Paling, his brother.

The Melbourne-based company has offices in New York, London, Sydney and Bangalore, and just raised more than $70 million through a funding round in December. In October, it posted record sales results, according to funding documents from investor Auctus Investment Group, and was one of Australia’s best performing travel businesses after borders re-opened. Auctus' stake values the business at roughly $382m, generating revenues of around $350m in 2019.

Clearly the brothers Paling, partners and investors are banking on a travel boom.

Lessons on retailer media, privacy and data

Having worked across media, at Foxtel, in insurance, at IAG, and in a major supermarket, at Woolies, Paling has at least some credibility in reading the runes around data, advertising and privacy.

There are massive changes coming to digital advertising and data collection practices. Above all, the impending privacy laws Australia’s Attorney-General is discussing are going to have a major impact – and brands can start preparing.

“When people hand over their first party data, they expect it to be used for first party problems. There’s not the element of surprise that comes from data being used in a way that’s buried deep in the privacy policy,” he said.

“There are really three things coming together that have an impact on digital advertising. It’s tech changes from browsers and app ecosystems. It’s people getting sick of it. Turns out they’re not yearning for more relevant ads. And it’s regulatory change.

“When we get the new privacy law, at some point we’re going to see some test cases that start to establish the bounds of the law. The law is hardly clear, it won't be clear until we see some test cases. You don’t want to be flying too close to the sun. You don’t want to be the test case.”

This is a similar point to that made by Data Synergies Principal Peter Leonard, who warned Trivago and Google have faced hefty fines for falling afoul of existing laws. 

On the retailer media side, he expects supermarkets and retailers to follow the lead of the major US retailers, like Walmart, Target and Kroger.

"What you see in the States is retail media moving out of that core of working with their suppliers … into being able to work as part of the broader advertising industry and building products that make it easier for agencies to buy and easier to do brand media campaigns," he said. "I think that's the direction that they're all going overseas, and you can expect local players to follow."

Taking on Google with better CX

Luxury Escapes will be transforming what has historically been a company that does “flash deals” – limited offerings with deep discounts – to one with a very personalised experience of search, deals, booking and emails.

“Sometimes, brands work through directly driving a sale from an ad. But mostly it’s through a much slower brand mechanic – and that's really interesting,” Paling said.

“The brand is the smell and the taste and the mouth feel of a bag of chips. It's like unboxing a phone and the UI and the battery life and how it feels in your hand and how it looks. And if you're doing travel, it's booking the travel and going on holidays and the transit. That's the difference between coming home really having enjoyed yourself and coming home more stressed than you left.

“Compared to advertising, these are moments when the brand's got your full attention. You're consciously forming your point of view of whether you like it. And so that's a really important thing to be part of.”

Paling has gone from growing the dominant market leader to the underdog brand, taking on the likes of Expedia, Booking.com and Google in the travel sector.

“Over the last couple of years, Luxury Escapes has gone from being basically a highly curated offering of 40-odd really good deals, to featuring thousands of properties selling standalone flights, selling tours and cruises and add on experiences. And there's a whole lot more that's coming there,” Paling said.

The company doesn’t earn revenue from advertising – yet. But that is on the cards.