On the Record with... continues with Sarah Aird-Mash, a Fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Sarah shares her insights on privacy and data in marketing, advice for marketing graduates, and her perspective on the future of AI in the marketing industry.

What have been the biggest shifts or disruptions you've seen impacting the marketing industry over your career? 

Privacy. When I first started my career I attended so many webinars on how ‘data is the new gold’. Whilst it’s gold to marketers, it's sacred nuggets to individuals. This was exploited by the huge media conglomerates before everyone got savvy to it. The movement into owning (and being able to monetise) your own data has been long overdue and the enforced move into a ‘cookieless world’ can only make marketers and innovators smarter. It’s a seismic shift, but positive. 

What advice would you give a graduate starting out now in a career in marketing?

My advice to marketing graduates would be to focus on diversity of experience. Get as broad experience as possible through working in various sectors and roles to build a well-rounded skill set. Second, learn how to harness brand. Growth hacking is important but without brand recognition and loyalty success will be short lived. Finally, don't work for someone else for free. Ever. Your contributions are valuable from day one, and it’s important to establish that principle early in your career. 

Which current marketing leaders/innovators do you most admire and why? 

Amman Ahmed. Music for Pets is an audacious idea and his timing was perfect. With over 50m users and having sold to Create Music, Amman is now on a mission to smash startup myths like the importance of VC backing, so-called ‘over-night success’, humble bragging and the danger of getting caught in the trappings of believing your own press. At the end of the day, he’s been hugely successful, but it’s refreshing to see someone in that position make it their mission to show the reality behind the curtain. 

How do you stay current on new platforms, trends and best practices in the ever-changing world of marketing? 

Keeping abreast of marketing trends requires a proactive approach. Maintaining a strong network of industry contacts and attending events give you the opportunity to exchange ideas and insights. Additionally, I’ve made it an objective for myself and my team to be bold, test and learn, and embrace new technology. This hands-on experience with emerging tools and techniques is essential to stay current. 

Looking ahead 5-10 years, how do you think the marketing industry will change? 

AI is here and it’s here to stay. The most successful marketers will be the ones who understand how AI can be leveraged to help us do our jobs better – streamlining processes and giving us more visibility of performance in real-time. It will enable us to offer the business real metrics demonstrating how marketing delivers against real business outcomes. It’s a very exciting time right now. 

If you could improve one thing about the marketing industry, what would it be? 

Marketing still isn’t taken seriously as fundamental to business success. Whenever the economy is rocky the first thing businesses cut is marketing budgets. I think part of this is down to the fact we’ve relied too long, and reported on fluffy metrics that don’t reflect on business outcomes. As an industry we need to standardise reporting, set clear benchmarks on what good looks like and use data to demonstrate the value marketing delivers in tangible business terms. 

Looking back at your experience in adtech, what approaches have you found most successful for building credible industry positioning? 

Differentiation in the adtech sector has always been crucial. I've found maintaining a strong PR presence to actively manage industry positioning, investing in thought leadership initiatives and contributing to industry conversations and dialogues to showcase expertise has been key. I've also placed strong emphasis on case studies, using concrete examples to show and not tell what stands you apart. These strategies help any business create a distinct and credible voice in the marketplace. 

How can brands create more engaging and effective campaigns in today's digital landscape? 

By focusing on engagements it means that every penny of your budget is focused on customers who are choosing to interact with your ads. This means building brand experience and generating better quality leads.