Why your brand can't afford to be boring - Rebecca Darley, Vodafone Australia

**Jon Evans** (0:00)
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored CMO. Now, this week, we have got Vodafone and their CMO, Bec Darley, talking about how she is challenging the brand leader Telstra in the Australian market. This is an amazing conversation. There's so many lessons in here about how to be a big challenger and also how to lead as well. This is a great conversation. You'll enjoy this one.
Bec Darley, welcome to the show.

**Bec Darley** (1:10)
Hey, John. Thanks for having me.

**Jon Evans** (1:11)
Yeah. It's great to be here. And I love the fact you've turned up in brand colours as well. So anyone watching this will notice how on brand you are today.

**Bec Darley** (1:19)
Yes, I have. We talk about brand codes and brand cues. I am living it.

**Jon Evans** (1:23)
You absolutely are. Even down to the trainers now, because not even people on camera will be able to see the trainers. But you've gone all the way.

**Bec Darley** (1:29)
I won't put my feet up on the table, but yes, they are red too.

**Jon Evans** (1:32)
Exactly. It's good to see that commitment to the brands coming through.
Just to introduce yourself, you've worked in many different categories. You know, what brands have you worked on? And maybe tell us what have you learnt in experiencing so many different parts of the marketing world.

**Bec Darley** (1:47)
It's a really interesting place to start actually, because I've intentionally built a career across categories. And it's most simply because I love learning businesses. And coupled with that, marketing in my mind is a toolkit. And it's about knowing which levers in that toolkit to drive performance. And so that's the part that I've loved the most across the experience.
I started out through the ranks of brand and advertising actually. So the first 10 years of my career were in brand building, understanding brand positioning, customer insight, and also acquisition. And really understanding demand generation and building future demand. So that stood me in really good stead. And the storytelling that comes with that is so powerful.
I then spent the next 15 years of my career in really data, tech and digital.
And what that's really given me is that full marketing exposure, that tool kit. And so that has really allowed me to know which levers are going to drive performance and where. But what it's also given me, and it's what many marketers struggled with if I go back kind of early parts of my career, the understanding of performance and measurability.
One of the things that always frustrated me was we knew brand and acquisition was working, but how did we actually prove it? And I think the beauty of what we do is the art and science. And so some of those brands and categories that I've worked across, I spent some time at Vodafone 20 years ago. We'll come back and talk about that. I worked for Sony in Japan, IKEA. I spent a lot of time in Europe and in Sweden. I worked for BMW for a time. And I spent a large proportion of my career in banking here in Australia working for the number one and number two. CBA and Westpac. And so it's been a little bit of a homecoming coming back to TPG Telecom, a parent company, a portfolio of brands of which Vodafone is a part. And so I suppose what I've loved and learnt the most is what I've touched on, just that breadth and the ability to understand different businesses and really utilise those learnings to power and empower the business that I'm in.

**Jon Evans** (4:12)
Yeah. So I mean, we'll come on and talk about it. One thing I know is in my career, when you're working in the big companies, you tend to have quite a narrow role, don't you? You're in charge of comms or you're in charge of PR or you're in charge of products, something like this. I remember my learning massively accelerated when I left kind of the big corporate world, I went into a PE back business and suddenly I'm running everything down to like the staff uniforms and I was answering the Twitter handle, this kind of thing.