The CMO Office Podcast

What if the most important job of a marketer wasn’t creating campaigns, but bringing the entire business together around the customer?In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast I speak with Dhiren Amin, Chief Customer Officer at Income Insurance, about why marketing needs to be much more than a communications function.With a career spanning Unilever, Kraft Heinz and Income Insurance, Dhiren has an unusually broad remit covering marketing, product development, customer experience, sustainability, data and analytics. But he believes the real role of marketing, regardless of organisational structure, is one of orchestration, connecting what customers want with what the business needs and what sales teams can deliver.It’s a perspective that resonates strongly with our work at Analytic Partners. Through Commercial Analytics, we help businesses understand how marketing interacts with pricing, product, distribution, customer experience and external factors to drive growth. The challenge isn’t simply proving marketing’s contribution, but using that understanding to make better commercial decisions.Dhiren also challenges the way marketers think about accountability and brand building. From measuring revenue and customer acquisition rather than clicks and impressions, to explaining why trust belongs to the entire organisation rather than the marketing department, he makes a compelling case for marketers to think and act like business leaders.And there are some wonderfully creative examples along the way, including a campaign involving the world’s spiciest noodles and an unlikely insurance product, plus how Income Insurance turned a powerful human insight into a meaningful critical illness proposition.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* Why marketing’s most important role is orchestrating customer needs, commercial objectives and sales activity.* How Dhiren’s unusually broad responsibilities at Income Insurance help connect product development, customer experience, marketing and analytics.* Why marketers should be accountable for revenue, customer acquisition and market share, rather than relying on clicks and impressions.* How to build marketing plans and budgets around long-term commercial objectives instead of isolated campaign ideas.* Why even the craziest creative ideas should have a clear commercial purpose, including the story behind the world’s spiciest noodles and ‘spice insurance’.* How brand equity influences customer decisions and why its effects cannot always be measured through individual campaigns.* Why trust is a commercial asset, particularly in insurance, and how Income Insurance measures and protects it.* Why marketing doesn’t own trust or customer experience, but has a vital role in helping the entire organisation deliver both.* How marketers can demonstrate their commercial contribution when the final sale happens offline, beyond the reach of conventional digital attribution.* How Income Insurance’s Project Child Secure connects a genuine customer need with product innovation, emotional creativity and commercial objectives.* Why effective marketing measurement needs to consider the wider business, not simply the performance of individual channels.* Dhiren’s advice to the next generation of marketing leaders: focus on making things of genuine value.What I particularly enjoyed about this conversation is Dhiren’s insistence that marketing’s influence comes not from claiming ownership of everything, but from making sure everything works together.For me, it’s a powerful reminder of why Commercial Analytics matters: marketing becomes more valuable when it can connect customer understanding to decisions across the business, rather than simply report on campaign performance.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Like this? Listen to more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

For years, e-commerce has been focused on stock, sales, pricing and promotions. But what happens when the channels responsible for selling products also become the places where consumers discover brands and develop relationships with them?In this special episode of Marketing Connected's podcast recorded live at Digital Marketing Asia 2026 in partnership Analytic Partners, I speak with Sonal Aggarwal, Head of eCommerce for Puma in Southeast Asia, about how social commerce is bringing brand marketing and e-commerce closer together.Sonal shares a fascinating example from Vietnam, where Puma’s Speedcat trainers were struggling to gain traction despite their success elsewhere. The solution was an unexpected collaboration between brand and e-commerce teams: an exclusive offline fashion event broadcast through TikTok, supported by live commerce. The results were revealing, with sales increasing not only online, but also in physical stores and wholesale channels.It’s a perfect illustration of something we see consistently in Analytic Partners’ ROI Genome research: marketing channels rarely work in isolation. Brand activity can improve the effectiveness of performance channels, while the impact of one investment can appear somewhere entirely different from where it was initially deployed. Understanding these connections is essential to measuring marketing’s true commercial value.Perhaps most interestingly, Sonal admits that she once considered marketing a little bit ‘in the air’. But seeing the commercial impact of creativity and brand building has changed her perspective. It’s a reminder that when marketers can demonstrate how their work contributes to revenue, profitability and growth, they gain credibility across the business, particularly with the CFO.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* How social commerce is transforming the relationship between brand marketing and e-commerce.* Why discovery-led platforms such as TikTok are forcing traditionally separate marketing teams to work together.* How Puma turned around the performance of its Speedcat trainers in Vietnam through an innovative combination of offline events and live commerce.* Why the resulting sales growth across physical stores, wholesale and e-commerce demonstrates the importance of channel synergy.* How rising marketplace commissions are encouraging brands to invest more in their own direct-to-consumer platforms.* Why marketers need to understand e-commerce economics, product assortment and the commercial implications of different channels.* Why consumers don’t think in channels, even when businesses organise their teams, budgets and measurement around them.* How siloed measurement and last-click attribution can overlook the wider commercial impact of brand investment.* Why strong creative content is essential to turning social reach into meaningful commercial outcomes.* How historical data and experimentation can help marketers build stronger business cases for brand investment.* Why Commercial Analytics helps CMOs and CFOs speak the same language, connecting marketing investment to business performance.What I particularly enjoyed about this conversation is Sonal’s willingness to challenge her own assumptions about marketing. Her experience demonstrates that brand building and commercial performance are not competing priorities, but complementary drivers of growth.For me, it’s another powerful reminder that when we break down organisational silos and measure marketing holistically, we can uncover opportunities that individual channels and dashboards simply cannot reveal.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Like this? Listen to more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

After 16 years in Singapore, Uniqlo certainly doesn’t suffer from an awareness issue, but how does a trusted household brand keep attracting new generations of customers without losing the qualities that made it successful?In this special episode of Marketing Connected's podcast recorded live at Digital Marketing Asia 2026 in partnership Analytic Partners, I speak with Paulene Ong, Marketing Director at Uniqlo Singapore, about how the retailer balances consistency with constant change.From its LifeWear philosophy and collaborations with young creators to live commerce and cultural partnerships, Uniqlo demonstrates how long-term brand building and short-term commercial performance can reinforce one another. It’s a principle supported by our ROI Genome research, which shows that brands balancing brand and performance investment can achieve significantly stronger returns than those focused primarily on immediate conversions.I’m particularly interested in how Uniqlo uses real-time customer insights to make commercial decisions without losing sight of the bigger picture. As marketers, we have more data than ever, but the real opportunity lies in understanding how different activities work together to drive growth, rather than simply measuring the last click or sale.Perhaps most interestingly, Paulene explains why experimentation is fundamental to Uniqlo’s culture. It’s a philosophy I strongly believe in, particularly when informed by data and scenario planning that help businesses understand and manage risk. Failure is acceptable. Refusing to try something new is not.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* How a 16-year-old household brand stays fresh without abandoning what made it successful.* Why Uniqlo’s LifeWear philosophy provides the anchor for everything else it does.* How the brand is using young creators as collaborators and a source of product insight, rather than simply as influencers.* Why local culture and unexpected physical experiences can help established brands reach new audiences.* Why Uniqlo keeps e-commerce within its own ecosystem rather than relying on marketplaces.* How live commerce creates human connection, and why its commercial value extends beyond immediate sales.* Why Uniqlo uses its own shop-floor staff as live commerce hosts and brand ambassadors.* How first-party data, search behaviour and real-time sales signals help Uniqlo respond quickly to seasonal demand.* Why marketers need to measure the combined effects of brand and performance activity, rather than optimising channels in isolation.* How Uniqlo is building an arts platform in Singapore, including its collaboration with the Asian Civilisations Museum.* Why an innovation culture requires people to be given permission to fail.* How scenario planning and Commercial Analytics can help marketers balance experimentation with commercial accountability.What comes through is a business that understands the importance of both consistency and experimentation. For me, it’s a reminder that effective marketing is not about choosing between building a brand and delivering results today, but understanding how the two work together to create sustainable growth.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Like this? Listen to more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I speak with Jon Stona, Vice President, Global Marketing at Airwallex, about how the Melbourne-born fintech combines a strong global core with what he calls “healthy chaos” in local markets.We explore how Airwallex is building its brand for long-term growth and bringing brand, performance and product marketing together around one coherent customer experience.Sports sponsorship is an important part of that strategy. Through partnerships with Arsenal Football Club, McLaren Racing, the San Francisco Giants, the Blues and Essendon Football Club, Airwallex uses sport to build fame and trust while creating opportunities for product integration, content, hospitality and sales engagement.Jon also shares what he would do differently, why marketers must move from temporary campaigns towards systems that compound, and how Airwallex is bringing marketing, finance and data science together to develop more credible measures of payback.Finally, we discuss the role of AI in augmenting human judgement. As Jon explains, technology can extend a marketer’s reach, but taste and human connection remain essential to turning that reach into genuine engagement.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* How Airwallex balances global consistency with local authenticity.* Why headquarters should scale good ideas rather than assume it owns them.* How sports sponsorships can build fame, trust and commercial opportunity.* Why buying sponsorship rights without investing in activation is like buying a Ferrari and leaving it in the garage.* How Airwallex turns customers into advocates by placing them at the centre of its campaigns.* Why product marketing should form the core of an integrated marketing organisation.* What Jon wishes he had done differently while building Airwallex’s global marketing function.* Why marketers need to move from temporary campaigns towards systems that compound.* How marketing, finance and data science can work together to establish credible measures of payback.* Why boardroom conversations cannot be built around impressions and other marketing-only metrics.* How Airwallex is approaching the challenge of measuring brand, performance and channel synergies.* Where AI can improve marketing and where human judgement still matters.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Like this? Listen to more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I speak with Haymans Fung, Managing Director, Global Head of Wealth and Retail Bank Marketing at Standard Chartered, about how she approaches that challenge.Haymans begins with the business strategy. Rather than defending brand, engagement and acquisition activity as separate investments, she connects each part of the funnel to a clear commercial role. Global campaigns build awareness and future demand, while local teams run programmes designed to convert that demand when customers are ready.That same discipline shapes her approach to creativity. Bold ideas are easier to support when marketing has already earned credibility, understood the commercial priorities and agreed the intended outcomes. When an idea feels unfamiliar, Haymans may test it in one market before proposing a wider rollout.We also discuss how Standard Chartered measures experiences and sponsorships beyond surface-level metrics, why health and wellbeing have become relevant territories for wealth marketing, and how AI could help marketers measure more frequently and respond more quickly.Throughout the conversation, Haymans describes herself as a business leader whose speciality happens to be marketing. For marketers trying to balance brand and performance, secure support for ambitious ideas or build confidence with finance, this episode offers a highly practical perspective.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* How to connect full-funnel marketing activity to business strategy and commercial KPIs.* Why brand investment should be presented as part of an integrated growth plan.* How Standard Chartered measures the impact of client events beyond attendance figures.* Why marketers need business partners to help define KPIs and capture useful data.* How to establish the internal credibility required to sell bold creative ideas.* Why outside-in thinking, allies and small-scale tests can help de-risk innovation.* How long Haymans allows creative assets to run before considering replacement.* How Standard Chartered connects sports sponsorships to products and business outcomes.* Why health and wellbeing are becoming relevant territories for wealth marketing.* How data helps marketing teams challenge assumptions, change course and build trust.* Why curiosity about the wider business is an increasingly important leadership quality.* How AI could help marketers measure and respond at greater speed.Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Like this? Listen more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I sit down with Mark Khoo, Digital Activation Lead APAC at Versuni, the company behind Philips home appliances across Asia Pacific.Versuni may not be a household name, but the products certainly are. From air fryers and coffee machines to irons, steamers, fans and dehumidifiers, Philips appliances are part of many homes across the region. That gives Mark a fascinating marketing challenge: how do you take a 150-year-old legacy brand, famous for certain trusted products, and stretch it into newer categories where consumers may not yet make the connection?Listen to the full conversation here or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Highlights include:* Why Philips’ long-standing brand strength is both an advantage and a challenge when building newer categories across APAC.* How Versuni is using business data, media data, brand health data and market share data to build a more complete view of performance.* Why ROAS can look impressive while still failing to prove real business impact.* Why incrementality testing is critical for understanding whether marketing has genuinely changed the outcome.* How retail media platforms such as TikTok Shop and Shopee are moving beyond conversion into discovery and consideration.* Why marketers need to challenge data outputs when they do not make sense commercially.* How to explain last-click attribution to commercial leaders who may otherwise assume all budget should go into search.* Why market share is one of the most important signals to watch when platform metrics look strong.* How brand health measures such as consideration and preference can act as leading indicators of future market share.* Why offline retail still matters deeply in APAC, even as ecommerce continues to grow.* How AI and predictive modelling could help marketers bring fragmented data together, while still requiring human judgement.* Why marketers need to speak the language of top line, margin and market share if they want to earn credibility with leadership. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

How does a Singapore-born consumer electronics challenger grow profitably in one of the most competitive categories around? In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I sit down with Frank Ng, VP Commercial at PRISM+, to find out.PRISM+ has built its growth on a deceptively simple idea: bring better value to customers by cutting out the middlemen, then keep listening closely enough to spot the gaps bigger brands miss. What started as a direct-to-consumer model has evolved into a more complex commercial engine spanning online, marketplaces, retail stores, live commerce, content, customer experience and supply chain decisions.For marketers, this conversation is a brilliant reminder that growth rarely comes from one magic channel. It comes from curiosity, commercial discipline and a willingness to ask better questions.In this episode, Frank and I explore:* How PRISM+ thinks about DTC, retail and marketplace growth in a category where customers still want to see, touch and compare before they buy.* Why measurement should guide decisions, not simply justify budgets, and how PRISM+ uses MMM, platform tests and customer insight directionally rather than blindly.* The hidden power of channel synergy, including why physical stores can help online sales rather than cannibalise them.* What live commerce really contributes, and why platforms like TikTok and Shopee are becoming more than just conversion channels.* How qualitative customer insight can unlock performance, including Frank’s story of a brand campaign that helped reduce CPA by 50%.* Why marketers need to think more like general managers, factoring in supply chain, demand planning, stock availability, weather, housing cycles and profitability.* The $1,000 versus $1 million marketing question, and why both scrappy lead generation and brand legitimacy have their place.* Why the next generation of marketers will need stronger commercial muscle, moving from revenue-at-all-costs thinking to profit, margin and portfolio decision-making.If you’re a marketer trying to connect brand, performance, retail, customer experience and commercial analytics in the real world, this one is well worth your time.Watch or listen in all your favourite places, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Listen to more: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

In this episode of The CMO Office Podcast, I sit down with Jason Huan, Chief Marketing Officer at Endowus, to explore what it really takes to build trust, drive growth, and prove impact in financial services.This is a category where the stakes are high. Decisions carry real financial consequences, and trust is everything. That makes marketing both more powerful and more accountable.Jason brings a thoughtful, commercially grounded perspective. We talk about why traditional measurement approaches often fall short, and how marketers need to take a broader view of performance because too many organisations still rely on fragmented metrics that miss the full picture of how marketing drives growth .A big theme in our conversation is the role of brand. In financial services, brand is not a distant, long-term play - it directly shapes short-term outcomes, from conversion to retention. Jason reveals how stronger brand equity makes every other marketing investment work harder, amplifying performance rather than competing with it .We also discuss what this means in practice at Endowus. How do you balance brand and performance? How do you ensure your marketing builds credibility, not just attention? And how do you demonstrate value to a leadership team that is rightly focused on results?What I found most compelling about Jason’s perspective is its relevance beyond fintech. The pressures he describes, from rising scrutiny on budgets to the need for clearer accountability, are familiar to every CMO.In this episode, we cover:* How to rethink measurement to reflect real commercial impact* Why brand and performance are strongest when planned together* How to build credibility with finance and the wider businessIf you are looking to sharpen how you measure and communicate marketing’s value, this is well worth a listen.Listen now now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it.Listen more… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

Marketing Mix Modelling is entering a new phase.Built on decades of evidence and rigour, it is now evolving to meet the demands of a more volatile, fast-moving environment. As expectations shift from explanation to action, MMM is becoming a more active part of how organisations plan, adapt and grow.In this episode, Paul Sinkinson, Managing Director Asia & Australia at Analytic Partners, returns to The CMO Office Podcast to explore what has changed over the past year, and why it matters now more than ever.The conversation reflects a broader shift in how leading organisations are approaching measurement, moving beyond static views of performance towards something more continuous, commercial and decision-focused.🎧Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube🎧 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com

Welcome to the first award winning edition of The CMO Office! Last night we were proud to take home Silver for Best B2B Content Marketing Strategy for ‘The CMO Office’ at Marketing Interactive’s Content 360 Awards, in no small part thanks to your support so thank you and please keep on subscribing, reading and sharing, Nx🙏Now, where was I? Oh yes, when I spoke at the Digital Marketing Summit in Seoul recently, I wanted to focus on a gap that most marketers recognise but rarely address directly; the world moves quickly but our plans do not…Many organisations are still working to annual plans set months ago, sometimes close to a year in advance. Those plans were built on a set of assumptions about demand, pricing, supply, competition and consumer behaviour that may no longer hold true.At the same time, the dashboards used to track performance tend to capture only part of the picture. Campaign metrics update constantly, but they rarely reflect the broader forces shaping results. For instance, a campaign may underperform not because the media plan is wrong, but because distribution has shifted. Or results may appear strong when demand has been artificially inflated by external factors.The consequence is a growing disconnect between what marketers see and what is actually happening in our complex world. So, what can we do?1. Don’t blindly believe your dashboardModern marketing dashboards are powerful. They provide real-time visibility into campaign performance across channels but they are not designed to capture everything that drives results. They are only the tip of the iceberg.Most dashboards focus on media metrics: impressions, clicks, conversions, ROI. These are important, but they sit within a much wider system. Marketing outcomes are shaped by a combination of factors such as pricing decisions, distribution availability, competitive activity, macroeconomic conditions and consumer sentiment, which all play a role.Our proprietary ROI Genome analysis shows that marketing contributes between 10 percent and 50 percent of business performance, with the majority influenced by factors beyond marketing itself. When these elements are not included in measurement, performance can be misinterpreted. A campaign may appear underwhelming when the real issue is product availability. Strong results may be attributed to media when they are driven by external demand shifts.Without a broader view, decisions are made on incomplete - even misleading - information.2. Widen your field of visionSpeaking of taking a broader view, one of the key points I shared in Seoul is that marketers need to widen their field of vision.Understanding performance requires looking beyond individual channels and beyond marketing itself. It requires a view of the full commercial system. This includes how channels interact with each other. It includes how brand and performance activity work together. It includes how external factors influence demand.Integrated strategies consistently outperform siloed approaches. Combining online and offline channels delivers significantly stronger results, with up to 50 percent greater efficiency compared to single-channel strategies .These effects are not visible when channels are measured in isolation. They only emerge when the full system is considered.3. You can’t predict the future. But you can prepare for it.Now you can see more of the picture, the question becomes: what do you do with it?Most organisations are still set up to look backwards. Campaigns are analysed after they finish. Insights arrive once the moment to act has passed. In a stable environment, that delay is manageable. In a volatile one, it becomes a risk.Because the reality is, you cannot forecast the future with certainty. But you can prepare for it. Reporting tells you what happened and simulation tells you what could happen.That means building scenarios in advance. Understanding how your business responds to different conditions. Knowing which levers to pull, what to pull back on, how to adjust pricing, and how to rebalance your mix across brand and performance when conditions change.Because when those moments come, and they will, the organisations that win are not the ones scrambling for answers. They are the ones who have already pressure-tested the decisions. This is where marketing moves from reporting the past to shaping what happens next.4. Use Marketing Mix ModellingAnd this is precisely the context in which marketing mix modelling becomes most valuable.At its core, marketing mix modelling provides a structured way to understand how different factors contribute to performance. At Analytic Partners, we extend this into Commercial Mix Modelling, which goes beyond marketing to include pricing, distribution, operational factors and macroeconomic conditions. It connects marketing activity with broader business drivers and external conditions, which makes it uniquely suited to today’s environment.Rather than relying on partial metrics, Commercial Mix Modelling provides a holistic view of performance, enables forward-looking scenario planning and supports continuous recalibration.It is no longer just a retrospective tool used to validate past decisions. It is becoming a system for ongoing decision-making, not by measuring in real time, but by pre-planning scenarios so teams know how to respond when conditions change.Companies that adopt this kind of approach move faster and make more confident decisions. Organisations that embed data-driven decisioning into their operating model have been shown to achieve significantly stronger growth outcomes, including up to five times the growth of those that do not.5. Move from plans to possibilitiesThe implications for marketers are clear:* Annual plans still have a role, but they cannot remain static. They need to evolve as conditions change.* Measurement needs to extend beyond campaign metrics to include the full set of factors influencing performance.* Decision-making needs to shift from retrospective reporting to continuous, real-time optimisation.* Most importantly, marketers need to recognise that the environment they operate in is not fixed. It is dynamic, interconnected and often unpredictable.The path forwardThe gap between the pace of the market and the pace of marketing decision-making is becoming more visible. Closing that gap requires more than better dashboards. It requires a different approach to measurement. One that captures the full system. One that looks forward as well as back. One that enables faster, more informed decisions because in a world that does not stand still, marketing cannot afford to either.Thanks for reading The CMO Office! This post is public so feel free to share it.If you would like to hear the full keynote, you can listen to my session from the Digital Marketing Summit on The CMO Office Podcast, available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.the-cmo-office.com