Rob Thomas - Marketing Master and Global Head of Digital at Zuru

$10k a month, and every dollar had to 5x. Hnry's Head of Marketing on brand vs performance, and how the Grim Reaper ad won on data. Brandon Palmer joined Hnry in 2019 as the first marketing hire, in a business that hadn't yet decided marketing was a growth lever. Today he runs the same product across three markets at three stages of maturity: New Zealand (brand-led), Australia (a blend) and the UK (performance from day one). Six years ago he thought brand marketing was "a lot of voodoo and witch doctoring." This episode is how he changed his mind. In this episode: The simple dashboard that proved marketing's value inside the first few months Where your first $10k should go, and when to move to the next channel Why volume testing beats "taste making", and why agencies keep telling him to move on from the Grim Reaper The four-part customer story formula that keeps working for years What happened when Hnry turned performance spend off in New Zealand Holdout tests, and what a city split across two US states teaches you Why influencer reach is "worthless" to Hnry, and where the value sits instead How Hnry uses Claude and a documentation-first approach to AI AEO and GEO: why faking Reddit sentiment is a short game Plus why ad critics "have no idea really what they're talking about", and why the UK loves a Kiwi Grim Reaper. If you love marketing as much as I do, follow the show and share it with someone who does too. CHAPTERS 0:00 $10k a month that had to 5x 1:08 How the Grim Reaper became Hnry's spokesperson 4:22 Being the first marketing hire at a startup 7:45 The dashboard that proved marketing drives revenue 10:46 Google vs Meta: splitting a startup ad budget 13:19 When performance channels hit the wall 16:37 Creative testing: data vs taste 18:35 How to test lots of creative on Meta 19:54 The customer testimonial formula that works 21:06 Why Hnry keeps ads and creative in-house 22:47 Launching in Australia and the UK 27:33 Brand vs performance: measuring incrementality 29:40 Holdout tests explained 32:50 Why every new market needs its own testing 34:12 The UK Making Tax Digital opportunity 35:38 Taking a Kiwi Grim Reaper to the UK 36:18 Why agencies want the Grim Reaper gone 39:06 The brand and performance mix across three markets 40:22 How to measure brand marketing success 41:16 Organic social as a trust signal 42:47 Influencer marketing: usage rights vs reach 45:10 How Hnry uses AI and Claude in marketing 48:38 What a startup marketing dashboard should track 50:38 Documentation is what makes AI work 53:12 AEO, GEO and gaming AI search 56:34 Authentic content vs AI slop 57:47 Brandon's advice: pace and reporting #MarketingPodcast #BrandMarketing #PerformanceMarketing #Hnry

Ben Rose was employee number one. No team, no office, no product, just a brief to build Binance in New Zealand from nothing. He went to the regulators before he went to market and hired compliance before he hired marketing, and the team he built took it to 350,000 customers. Then Dubai rang and asked him to run Australia as well. He left just over two years later as CEO for both markets. There is a pattern here. At 18 he had one summer to become conversational in Portuguese or lose his place at Oxford, so he moved to Porto and took a job as a porter in a meat market where nobody spoke a word of English. Years later, as a head of brand who had only ever done marketing, he was asked to help turn around a 180 person operations division. His words: I didn't even know what an underwriter was. He is now Head of Financial Services at AA New Zealand, a 123 year old business where one in three New Zealanders is a member. He is board chair at Ronald McDonald House. And he is learning AI by building. Eleven web apps, evenings and weekends. He runs at the hard stuff, and then he is methodical about it. That is the whole episode. In this episode: The go to market plan that took Binance NZ from zero, and which channel actually drove conversion The three things every person, team and organisation needs: clarity, capability, motivation Why he thinks everyone in a company is really in marketing The advice from Jonathan Mildenhall, former CMO of Coca-Cola and Airbnb, that Ben has never forgotten The CEO conversation that made him see himself as a leader, not just a marketer Why KPIs drift apart between product, sales and marketing, and how well run businesses stop it What AI is doing to the graduate pipeline Why being based in New Zealand is not the barrier founders think it is His recommendation for anyone in marketing: swap Netflix for Claude Chapters 00:00 From a standing start to 350,000 customers 02:01 Six weeks in a Porto meat market to save an Oxford place 04:49 How to actually influence stakeholders 06:38 Learning to speak finance, product and compliance 08:31 Soho, TBWA and the tail end of the golden age 09:59 Following the money and regretting it in two weeks 12:59 Never pretend to be anything other than who you are 15:56 How to spot a values mismatch before it costs you 17:50 The CEO who said you are not a marketer, you are a leader 19:43 Turning around a 180 person operations division 22:43 Clarity, capability, motivation 24:52 What actually motivates people, one by one 30:56 Building Binance New Zealand from scratch 34:50 The plan: PR, events, grassroots, life cycle 38:36 Why everyone in the business is in marketing 39:56 What most leaders get wrong about their people 41:42 Why departmental KPIs diverge 43:51 AA New Zealand: 123 years old, and the plan to grow financial services 45:42 Momentum versus agility inside a legacy brand 48:29 AI, the single customer view, and the next hundred years 51:05 Why he thinks New Zealand businesses do not aim high enough 53:51 AI and the disappearing graduate job 56:34 Swapping Netflix for Claude, and 11 web apps later 1:03:18 Ronald McDonald House and why it matters 1:08:24 Gamify your career: Ben's final advice Marketing Masters is hosted by Zania Guy, digital marketing and social media consultant. New episode on the first Tuesday of every month. zaniaguy.com Ben's AI projects: roseventurelabs.com and archieflux.com

Marketing has lost its seat at the table, and Michael Durie says it's our own fault. After over four decades in marketing, he unpacks what founders, CMOs and small businesses keep getting wrong about brand, budgets and AI. Some call Michael the godfather of marketing in the South Island. We get into why social media is killing cut-through, why direct mail is making a comeback in 2026, how much a small business should actually spend on marketing, the leaky bucket of customer attrition, and the campaign that took Mazda from 3% to 5% market share. Full of things you can act on by Monday morning. Follow Marketing Masters so you never miss an episode. Chapters 00:00 Direct marketing's comeback, Jaguar, and the top table 01:24 Meet Michael Durie, the godfather of marketing 03:56 The biggest misconception founders have about marketing 07:42 "Build it and they'll come" and the fail-fast trap 10:16 NZ success stories: Halter, Seequent, Hamilton Jet 13:20 Unpopular opinion: the marketing plan vs marketing planning 15:06 When to ignore your customers (the Steve Jobs rule) 18:02 The Jaguar rebrand: brave or brand suicide? 20:42 Why piling into social media kills your cut-through 24:03 The channel mix: out-of-home, print, radio and podcasts 27:12 Why direct mail and guerrilla marketing are back 30:28 Three questions to ask when a product won't sell 33:08 The leaky bucket: customer attrition explained 37:46 Why a phone call beats an NPS survey 41:46 The campaign that took Mazda from 3% to 5% market share 46:27 How much should a small business spend on marketing? 52:21 Breaking into marketing in the age of AI 57:36 How a David Ogilvy book changed his career 1:00:48 Is marketing treated as the "colouring-in department"? 1:03:50 Stop chasing vanity metrics, obsess over the bottom line 1:06:58 Five decades in, why curiosity still wins 1:09:09 The "secret sauce": Stickman, Specsavers, Whittaker's 1:13:30 Big ideas on small budgets (Australia Post x Sydney Swans) 1:16:22 The one thing to do on Monday morning

$3.5 million in her first 12 months of business at 21. Multiple brands built and sold across shapewear, supplements, haircare, gifting, fashion and now FMCG. Three seasons of Boss Babes. Four thousand founders coached through Make It Happen. Iyia Liu has done it. And she's still building. Her newest brand, Brewe Iced Coffee and Matcha, is rolling into Woolworths supermarkets in June, five months after launch. Buyers told her that doesn't happen. It's happening. What makes this conversation different is the timing. Iyia is launching a brand right now, in 2026, with every lesson from a decade of brand-building plus a stack of tools that didn't exist when she launched her first business. Claude in the workflow. Meta's new algorithm rewriting paid social. The mass micro-influencer affiliate model. FMCG as a whole new game. And it's working. So we asked her to walk through the entire playbook. Not the highlight reel. The actual mechanics. What you'll hear in this episode: The principle behind every brand she's built ("people will literally just buy what other people buy") Why she'd run zero paid ads on day one of a new business in 2026 How she's using Claude to set up Meta ad campaigns end to end without touching a button The six-angle creative framework she uses to generate 85 ads for one campaign The mass micro-influencer affiliate model behind one Shopify brand doing $500 million in three years The outreach volume game most founders are losing (message 100, not 5) Why $1 on email returns $36, and the founders still ignoring it How community got Brewe into Woolworths five months after launch The exact pricing formula she uses across every brand Why this is the slowest business she's ever grown, and what she's learning from it If you're building a brand, scaling a brand, or thinking about starting one, this is the most practical hour of marketing you'll listen to this year. 🎧 Chapters 00:00 The one principle behind every brand Iyia has built03:30 Why she'd run zero paid ads on day one of a new brand05:00 Mass micro-influencers and why founders are messaging too few people07:00 Macros, micros, nanos: when each one actually earns its fee08:30 Using Claude to build a full Meta ad campaign without touching a button10:00 Meta's algorithm change and what it means for creative11:00 The 50 to 100 creatives rule (Iyia is running 85)12:00 The six-angle framework with the playground client example14:30 The tools and tabs Iyia opens every morning17:00 How she decides what to test and what to bin18:00 The Comfrt case study: $500M in three years on mass micro-affiliates20:00 Two posts a day, every day, and who actually runs it21:00 How community got Brewe into Woolworths in five months23:00 Why FMCG broke every e-commerce assumption Iyia had28:00 The collab strategy: influencer marketing without the influencers30:00 The DM outreach volume game (message 50 to 100, not 5)32:00 The highest-paid influencer she's ever worked with33:00 Affiliate marketing in New Zealand and what to call it instead35:00 Sampling, manufacturing and vetting suppliers36:30 The retention mistake Iyia made across multiple brands37:30 Why $1 on email returns $3639:00 The three-channel mix Iyia gives every client in 202641:00 Pricing: buy at $20, mark up to $80, bundle the rest44:00 The why: from a dingy flat to a green oasis and two kids46:00 The juggle, hiring family, and what comes next Hosted by Zania Guy Marketing Masters is the podcast about the marketers building the brands we actually buy from. zaniaguy.com

What does it take to push a 65-year-old brand in a bold new direction and actually get it over the line?