On the latest episode of Campaign Middle East’s On The Record podcast, Sevgi Gur, Chief Marketing Officer, Property Finder discusses the balance between long-term brand health and short-term sales; the growing role of AI-driven data analytics and insights on predictive marketing; as well as the ethical considerations around trust, transparency, privacy and personalisation that need to be prioritised within marketing strategies.
Beginning the conversation with the brand versus performance debate and the ideal framework to fuel both, Gur says, “When we begin the discussion on brand and performance, there’s this assumption that there’s no brand in performance. However, the conversation needs to start with the need for investment in brand and investment in performance – both of which are part of the holistic strategy.”
“Marketing is an investment into business growth. To ensure this, the starting point should be a clear understanding of the business strategy and the growth model of the company. Then, from there the ideal framework would be based around the brand development model. Depending on the maturity of the brand, marketers will have to decide whether they need to invest more into brand equity – for example, if the brand is new to the market or is entering a new region, it’s a no brainer that the business needs to invest in upper-funnel brand awareness, without which you cannot drive performance,” Gur added.
For a brand such as PropertyFinder, which has already reached 99 per cent brand awareness within the market by investing in brand, the strategy then shifts to maintaining that brand equity within the market, which in turn drives user acquisition and engagement.
Gur said, “We’re extremely clear about the role of each investment and the metrics that we can drive. Generally, with brand investment, you can expect more upper funnel metrics to move – sessions, downloads, direct traffic – but also, I’m a big fan of measuring the heart of the brand; so, we also measure brand health, consideration, loyalty and more.”
Through the conversation, Gur also delves into:
- used cases of artificial intelligence and large-language models within marketing;
- how to build trust within the brand and within the industry;
- strategies that CMOs can put into place to effectively align marketing initiatives with cross-functional business priorities, especially by breaking siloes and working better with their product, sales and finance teams.
For more insights from a very intriguing conversation, watch the full video above.
CREDITS:
Guest: Sevgi Gur, Chief Marketing Officer, Property Finder
Host: Anup Oommen, Editor, Campaign Middle East
Production: Surajit Dutta, Content Production Manager, Motivate Media Group
Videography: Mark Mathew, Creative Content Producer, Motivate Media Group
Studio: Ahmed Abdelwahab, Studio Manager, Motivate Media Group
Editing: John Melencion, Content Producer, Motivate Media Group
