Jo Reilly is Head of Marketing and Customer at AustralianSuper. David and Jo talk about her role in evolving AustralianSuper’s communications and the integration of marketing and customer into both her role and internal teams, and the delicate balance of micro and macro challenges faced by consumers trying – or not trying – to save for their retirement, and how best to tread the line of best marketing communications in a category that is simultaneously low interest to many, but high importance to all.
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Ethics is a personal thing that you can then overlay. So, you have personal ethics, then you might have business ethics. And those things can change in nuance in time as well. So, something that might have been perceived to be absolutely ethical today, in two years’ time, you might be eating your words.
Transcription:
David Angell:
Welcome to Managing Marketing, a podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
My name’s David Angell. And today I’m joined by Jo Reilly, currently leading Member Growth & Marketing at Australian Super, I think it’s fair to say, Jo, it’s certainly one of the most, if not the most respected providers of superannuation in Australia. So, welcome to you. It’s great to be talking with you.
Jo Reilly:
Thanks, David. It’s great to be here.
David Angell:
That’s good to know. That’s good to know. I often do start this way, and it’s just the last few times, the people I’ve interviewed just so happened to have been recently elevated into new positions, so congratulations on that.
I wanted to talk a bit about your role. You’ve been at Australian Super for a number of years now, we’ve just been talking about that. And more recently you’ve taken member growth and I think some other things under your wing alongside brand and marketing and both of those things.
How has that transition been and what benefits do you think the organizational consolidation has brought to you and what you and your teams are doing?
Jo Reilly:
So, the transition, we’re still in the midst of that transition of change, but I’ve been here for over 11 years now. And on face value, I would think a marketer being in an organization for such an extended period of time could lead to stagnation and lack of innovation.
But if I look and reflect back when I started here, the marketing department consisted of all of seven people, and the program was fairly immature. And if I look now, across my entire department, there are about 140 people. Within the marketing and brand side of things, there are around 60 people. And the complexity and intricacy of our program is materially different from what it was 11 years ago.
The most recent change of all aspects of member growth being acquisition through all channels and retention of members coming together is something that on face value and in all reality makes so much sense.
So, historically in superannuation, members have joined via traditional channels of through their employer. And that was an area that a peer of mine ran and there were so many opportunities for synergy, but there were also so many opportunities to transform what that looked like.
The role that superannuation plays in a business, or a superannuation provider has become quite different, especially in the last few years with legislative change. Businesses are now looking for us to add greater value. And if all you are thinking about is traditionally how we’ve operated, you’re potentially going to miss a lot of those opportunities.
So, right now, we are in quite a material change and that looks at that function coming in, but also us consolidating all of the teams and focus around communicating with our members or prospective members.
And that goes without saying, it brings so much synergy, it improves what the customer experience is going to be. It gives us so much more opportunity to look for how we can leverage and pull things through the line.
So, it’s an incredibly exciting time. It’s also a time that I’m very conscious of is hard for some people in the team because change means different things to different people. And there might be roles that don’t suit people in the new team, but ultimately my primary focus is how do we look at future-proofing the growth of the fund?
Because with the growth and with the size of member base we have and being the largest brings material advantage to us. So, having the aspiration and then the vision for how we achieve that over the course of the next 10 and beyond years is something that I now have custody of and it’s incredibly exciting.
David Angell:
You read my mind a bit there actually, because what was going through my head as you were talking just then was that the intricacy of what you’re doing, of course it makes sense on the surface, but this is a huge organization and superannuation is a complicated sector.
So, from a marketing point of view, the intricacy of what you’re doing, the technology involved in that, the tech change involved in that, the way you work with your suppliers involved in that.
But also, and we come up against this a lot when we do projects of this nature is cultural change.
Jo Reilly:
Very much.
David Angell:
And you just referred to it as I was thinking, it’s sort of some people, this is really hard.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
What steps are you taking to try and to mitigate for that?
Jo Reilly:
Yeah, so in addition to that, we’ve bought the most traditional function in the business being distribution or growth through employers, which is where industry super was born with one of maybe or the most innovative function in the business being the whole marketing test and learn side of things together.
So, all of these changes and then you’ve got that in there as well. And a big part of that, vision obviously plays a really important part. And if I go back to the purpose of our organization is that people have the best possible financial outcome at retirement. And there are so many different ways that we can achieve that.
So, making sure the vision that we have and people understanding how they feed into that is really important.
But also, so is the storytelling of why it makes sense that someone focusing on traditional distribution models can get a whole lot of value out of engaging with someone from a communications perspective or from a technology perspective, makes a whole lot of sense.
So, we’ve had an example recently where we’ve started to see that businesses are reconsidering who their super fund is because their payroll provider isn’t offering what they want from a business perspective.
So, if we are not paying attention to that and we don’t have relationships with the right payroll providers and people who are focused on managing relationships with businesses aren’t thinking about any of that, we’re losing.
David Angell:
Yes.
Jo Reilly:
We’re losing market share in that space. And so, that’s where you find ways to couple innovative, different thinking, all of that incubator of ideas with the traditional so that people can see real examples of how it comes together. So, storytelling and that vision is critical in this.
David Angell:
Well, that talks to what I said before, which is the complexity of your sector.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
And I wanted to talk about that a bit more at a consumer level. You’ve just been talking a bit higher level there, but from a consumer point of view, the superannuation in context of the times we’re living, the macroeconomics and the effect it has on your business but also on your consumers.
And I think AustralianSuper really does — having worked with you in the past, there is a real element of care for your consumers.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
As much as there is for acquiring new consumers and working with businesses. We are living in challenging times. The current cost of living crisis, the rental crisis, property affordability challenges that sort of based on the headlines push the goal of home ownership further and further away from many and particularly young people.
That’s an interesting challenge in that home ownership, that issue makes retirement planning even more important.
Jo Reilly:
It does.
David Angell:
Because it’s been the mainstay of so many people, aside from superannuation, it’s been the mainstay.
And you need to correct me where I’m wrong here because this is my own sort of thinking, but things like making salary sacrifices or other voluntary contributions into a super fund become harder with challenging economics.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
And challenging times for people. And not to mention there have been initiatives like people taking money from Super to pay for property, which I’m sure must have been interesting for you.
What are you seeing and hearing from your member base and the broader industry? I mean, do these pressures … are they indicators in your business?
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
Do you see them and how do you deal with them from a marketing point of view?
Jo Reilly:
So, they’re well and truly real. Before I get into a little bit of that, I think where Australians are so advantaged by our superannuation system and the fact that it’s compulsory is human behaviour is that we don’t save for the future. So, discounted value, $50 today is worth a lot to me, as opposed to if I put that $50 away, it might be worth $5,000 by the time I retire. But I don’t see that value, that discounted value comes into play.
So, as soon as there’s a pinch, human behaviour is to keep what I have now or spend what I have now and make sure I’m okay right now and I’ll deal with the future when I need to deal with the future.
So, the fact that in Australia we have a compulsory system for people who have employers, and I make that reference because it’s not actually a system that’s universal for everyone.
David Angell:
Of course.
Jo Reilly:
If you’re self-employed, you don’t have that safety mechanism over you. And there are people that average life expectancy doesn’t even hit preservation age. So, I won’t go into that too much other than to say there are opportunities to improve the system for all.
But the beauty of this is that people are locked in to save for the future because it’s compulsory in nature. So yes, there will be people, and we are seeing it in our member base that voluntary contributions, whilst the levels are still within the realm of where we had forecast they would be, there’s a change in members who are doing voluntary contributions or they might be doing them, but at a lesser amount.
Consolidation looks a bit differently, but if you look at the early release scheme that happened during COVID, the number of people who withdrew money during that period of time and spent it on discretionary things as opposed to paying bills, paying for food, goes back to evidence that we don’t necessarily help ourselves. People who withdrew the $10,000 there effectively lost out on $80,000 by the time they retired, from doing nothing other than keeping that money in the system.
So, we are definitely seeing people’s behaviour change, but one of the really important things for us is making sure people understand how the system works, trying to get people to understand the benefit of compounding interest, the tax savings and benefit that comes from being within the super system versus not. And helping to ride through with them for whatever that journey looks like.
Because the reality is, right now, economic pressures, we’re seeing people delay retirement. And that’s across the board. We’re seeing less people, and this is verbatim from our accredited advisor network, but we’re seeing people unsure of what they want to do with their money. We’re seeing people who want to take money out and hold onto it.
Which again, comes with a whole lot of loss associated with it, but it’s just that immediate, if I have control and I have it myself, at least I have it, it mightn’t be as much as it could be, but I can have it now.
So, there’s so many things that are important to make sure when you’re communicating and engaging, you are not tone deaf. So, for example, we turned off a whole lot of member engagement programs that talked about particular actions you could take on your balance when there were the floods in Queensland and Northern New South Wales.
Because if someone’s house has just gone under, they sure as hell don’t want to hear from their super fund about have you consolidated lately?
David Angell:
Yes.
Jo Reilly:
This would be about, there would be support messages coming out at that point in time. So, making sure that you are cognizant of and respectful of environmental impact, and financial impact is so important.
David Angell:
Yeah. What you’re talking about plays a huge amount to the human psyche, in just the fundamentals of human behavior.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
For what it’s worth, that government scheme to allow people to … I just, I fundamentally disagree with that. I thought that was irresponsible. As you say, 10,000 today is worth 80,000. You can’t expect everyone to grip that or to even care about it in the immediate term.
Jo Reilly:
Because it goes against the human psyche, that discounted value.
David Angell:
It goes against the human psyche. But the whole point of compulsory super is a protective net around that psyche, and they just removed that net and allow people …
Anyway, that’s it. We’re getting off-topic. But I hear you, in terms of the approach to marketing and comms, you have to be so — and the messaging that goes-
Jo Reilly:
Exactly.
David Angell:
To your member base, you have to be careful. You mentioned the C word there, COVID. I’m trying not to. It keeps on coming up. I now no longer have questions about COVID.
Jo Reilly:
Nor should you.
David Angell:
Nor should I. But I am interested, I mean, and I asked this of a number of … recently I spoke with Carolyn Bendall, CMO of Swinburne University, fascinating talk about how that sector had coped through COVID.
But from a contributions point of view, voluntary or otherwise, you sort of mentioned a bit there and in the context of the withdrawal scheme, but what else did you see during that time?
Jo Reilly:
So, we forecast a lot more impact than we thought there would’ve been. We thought unemployment would’ve been a whole lot higher. And that wasn’t us, that was collectively from a federal perspective that was forecasted to be much more dire than it was.
Right now, we are seeing a rebuild that’s happening in the hospitality and retail sector. So, we’re seeing a lot more members joining in that space.
But it was nowhere near as material as we thought it would be in terms of industries where there was a significant reduction. And whether that was in part because of the mechanisms that the government put in place for the schemes to make sure there was still money coming in for people.
But we actually had in 2021, and 2022, the largest number of members ever join our fund, which was certainly not what we expected to happen.
David Angell:
See, I was thinking of possibly more voluntary contributions given that people weren’t able to spend money, had a bit more. I mean, certain-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
Within certain groups of people, they would’ve had more money and potentially more discretionary income to pay in.
Jo Reilly:
So, we also had, in this period, the largest number of members join us directly. So, what that could also indicate is certainly if you were Victorian, definitely metropolitan based, but also there were certainly lockdowns and activity lessened across the country, but people had a lot more time at home.
So, you think about the home renovation boom that happened, you think about the life admin boom that happened because a lot of people had a lot of time that they needed to fill in. And so, was that a significant trigger? And people actually looking at their finances and getting themselves sorted more so record joins of people choosing to join directly.
It was very interesting from a media perspective though, of having to pivot that program. So, those types of things have been big for us out of home, TV. We’ve done a lot of advertising in elevators to try and get in front of white-collar workers, for example. You’ve got to pull all of that from your program.
David Angell:
Yeah, indeed. But I’d be fascinated to see where you got those new members from, because the other thing that plays in my mind there with that, I think that’s spot on about having just more time to think about something that is fundamentally important but is at the same time low interest because of the human behavior we’ve talked about.
But superannuation, the reputation of some of your competitors has taken a battery over the last three years for various reasons.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah. Well, even more than that. So, if you go back to the Royal Commission that was in 2018. So, you had the impact of that.
And then two years ago, or two and a half years ago now, the performance test was introduced. So, that looks at naming the funds that are underperforming over the last seven-year period. And first year of that we actually saw a sizable amount of market activity. We were beneficiaries of a number of individuals from those funds joining.
But interestingly all by, I think one of those funds that was named on that underperforming list have now either merged or are in merger processes with other funds. So, that’s actually a really good outcome that they are underperforming. People are stuck in these funds partly because of inertia. They may not even know that they’re in these funds despite the fact the fund would’ve had to have communicated with them. But that’s stimulating market consolidation, which is important.
David Angell:
Yes, indeed. Well, I think it’s really fascinating. The dynamics of it are really fascinating and I think everything we’ve discussed probably played a part in that sort of surprise result, that surprise kind of COVID bump where you expected exactly the opposite.
Jo Reilly:
For a product that feels like a grudge purchase. I’ve sat in focus groups where people say it’s just like a tax. So, it’s a grudge purchase and yet it will be your biggest or your second biggest asset when you retire.
David Angell:
Astonishing. Well, biggest asset more and more because of-
Jo Reilly:
The homeownership, yeah.
David Angell:
That’s … property. Okay. Well, look, we went pretty broad there. I want to bring it back to the topic of this podcast, which is marketing. I mean, my new C word, my new C word is AI, which doesn’t even have a C, but it doesn’t matter. I mean, everyone’s talking about AI and it’s almost an obligatory question now for all interviewees given the current height.
But talk to me about your thoughts on AI and marketing. Are you testing or using ChatGPT or similar? If not, do you plan to? I mean, I think you run a lot of acquisition activity requiring high multiple executions.
But I also think you are very heavily regulated.
Jo Reilly:
We are.
David Angell:
There are legal challenges around that. You need to be very careful what you say. So, how does that work with AI? Or does it work even with AI?
Jo Reilly:
So, from a service perspective, AI in a chatbot is really important. So, we have a chatbot that has, I think it’s about 30 odd thousand questions that have been put into that chatbot.
David Angell:
I do want to note that, yeah. I mean, I went too narrow there. I was thinking Avatar. You’re right. Of course, you’ve got an — channel there.
Jo Reilly:
So, I raised this because it’s got relevance to what my response, from a marketing perspective, will be. So, we feed those responses in. So, it’s not machine learning from what individuals are putting into it. We control what goes into it. So, it learns from that aspect.
And we’ve got over 3 million members. The ability to be able to service and engage those members is really important because ultimately, it’s their money that we are custodians of. So, we must ensure we are there whenever they need to be there.
The idea of AI in that aspect is for those transactional type of engagements, how do I reset my password? Where do I find this form on the website? If you can use AI to help respond to those types of things, it means you’re freeing up your contact center agents to be able to have those meaningful, deeper conversations that people need to be able to have. So, that’s a really important part to our service strategy.
But if I think about it from a marketing perspective, going back to your comment about it’s highly regulated, the difference of one word can be material in terms of how something is phased. And if you think about the likes of ChatGPT or depending on how the machine learning works, it can only learn from what it can scrape, what things have already been created.
And I listened to this really interesting podcast the other week where Bronte Campbell was being interviewed and they as an experiment, normally their producer does a bio to introduce the speaker or the guest I should say. And they also got ChatGPT to do it.
So, they read out the ChatGPT one to her, it got the number of medals she’d won wrong, it got her retired status because she wasn’t retired wrong, it got her world record status wrong. These are pretty material parts about what’s relevant or the information. And it’s because for whatever source it went and scraped to get that information from happened to be a wrong source.
So, that’s a real challenge that ChatGPT or any form of AI presents where just a nuance of a word, one word first versus second or an and, or an if, or a but, or a could, or a would can all mean there’s material difference in terms of intent. Means at this point in time, other than using it to potentially create a copy deck that would then go through all of the same processes, it’s not something that I see has relevance to be integrated into what we do because of that nuance.
David Angell:
Yeah. Self-Defeating, isn’t it? If you’ve got to do all the same-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
But what your agencies think or your ad agency, have you had any conversations about it?
Jo Reilly:
We’ve more so had conversation, not so much with the ad agencies, but looking at how can it play in terms of goals based? How can it be used to help people from a scalable advice perspective. That’s where I see it having bigger impact.
Not how can we create the 150 different ways that we want to position our fee message in market, for example.
David Angell:
Yes, yeah. I mean, from an advertising and an agency point of view, that’s where it becomes easy … ads and all that kind of stuff.
But I think that example you just gave me, I’m seeing others crop up now where the gloss is coming off a bit because the people are realizing the limitations of it. You can only go on what it-
Jo Reilly:
What it’s consumed.
David Angell:
Sees. And then what-
Jo Reilly:
And you can also gain that.
David Angell:
Yes, of course.
Jo Reilly:
So, you could have a way to put a whole lot of information out where it’s going and scraping from that’s not right.
David Angell:
Yes. So, of course. Subject to fraudulent activity.
Jo Reilly:
Exactly.
David Angell:
It’s massive fraudulent activity.
Jo Reilly:
Correct.
David Angell:
Oh God, we’re going off topic again.
Jo Reilly:
Guerrilla marketing 2.0.
David Angell:
Guerilla marketing, of course. I mean, that could be a thing. Let’s see what happens. But I mean, if you look at trends that have involved this kind of technology in the past, personalization of digital advertising, you’ve seen that go off into huge issues around fraud.
And so, I mean, we’re laughing about it, but there’s no reason why that shouldn’t or couldn’t happen.
Jo Reilly:
Yep.
David Angell:
Okay. Well, I think it’s a thumbs-down for AI, at least regarding advertising.
Jo Reilly:
Correct. And I mean, we’ve got regulations around misleading and deceptive. So, as soon as you have the likes of misleading, you need to be really clear about the way that you are phrasing things. Yeah.
David Angell:
Yeah, one word-
Jo Reilly:
Correct.
David Angell:
Out and completely different construction on the whole thing. Okay. Alright, well I’ll take my AI sales hat off the table. You’ve not bought that at all.
We touched on this just a couple of minutes ago in a broader conversation there, but an ethical investment. I think you mentioned the Royal Commission, you mentioned a couple of other things where some players really have come under pressure, either because of underperforming or because of “unethical” or less ethical investment strategies.
I would expect you guys to rank fairly highly in terms of ethical sentiment with consumers. But I’m interested from a marketing perspective, again, what are the do’s and don’ts? How do you tread that line in terms of communicating that you’re an ethical player without, I don’t know what the term would be, ethics washing?
Jo Reilly:
Yes, yeah. Well, there’s a whole thing around greenwashing, which comes back to-
David Angell:
Greenwashing, of course, yeah.
Jo Reilly:
Ethics at the moment. And it’s interesting, ethics is a personal thing that you can then overlay. So, you have personal ethics, then you might have business ethics. And those things can change in nuance, in time as well.
And I think that’s an interesting and dangerous territory in itself. So, something that might have been perceived to be absolutely ethical today, in two years’ time you might be eating your words as a result of it or falling on your sword.
But the whole idea around ethical behavior, ethical investing, again, there’s part of it for me that I think goes back to that human psyche side of things is it’s really important and it motivates people, but it may not necessarily motivate people to act.
And I say that in that we’ve got a socially aware investment option and we have about $280 billion in member assets that we manage. And about $2 billion of those sit in that socially aware option. So, market research tells us that it’s very important that we have options that are around that, that we’ve got the right ESG frameworks that sit around how we manage investment, but it doesn’t necessarily resonate.
And then I think if you start unpacking what is ESG? What is the ethical side of this? What role should an investor play in any of this?
And again, 280 billion worth of member assets means a lot of work is done around how to be an ethical and an active investor. And I had this, I think it’s a really interesting story relayed to me the other day around, we have an investment in Peel Ports, which is a collective group of ports in Europe.
And when we were originally tendering to buy into that, we withdrew from the process because the safety record was terrible. And of course, what that means from an investor perspective, it’s not a good safe workplace, there are all of these reputational challenges that come with it.
And anyway, so we withdrew on that basis and in the end, the owners came to us and said, “We’ve declined everyone else’s offer. We actually want to talk to you. Is this a game you’re playing to try and screw us down a price? Or are you serious about this?”
And we said, “We’re serious. This is an investment option, could be fantastic. But we are active investors. We believe in needing to have sustainable, ethical practice in terms of how our investments operate and your safety record doesn’t stack up for any of that.”
So, we then went through a process where we committed to, we would pay X now and they would get the remainder once it improved their safety rating. They’ve now got the number one safety rating of ports in Europe, so-
David Angell:
That’s amazing.
Jo Reilly:
But do people understand that’s any part of an ESG framework? Some will, I think the majority won’t though.
David Angell:
And yeah, exactly. It’s not something you would communicate.
Jo Reilly:
No. So, I think it goes back to this value proposition again. So, you need to, as part of your value proposition, be ethical in how you make decisions, be ethical in where you play or where you don’t play.
But if you start scraping the surface, that can also look really different for organizations. So, I for one, I’m incredibly proud that I work for an organization that both on face value makes ethical decisions, behaves in an ethical way. But then once you start digging down, the proof’s in the pudding.
David Angell:
Yeah. So, what you’re saying is that whilst you do have your ethical option and it’s a very small proportion of your overall fund, which that in itself is interesting. But you’ve basically said, look, it’s, even though we have that, the framework extends way beyond that.
Jo Reilly:
Correct.
David Angell:
Way beyond that.
Jo Reilly:
Exactly.
David Angell:
In terms of the decisions, you’re making behind the scenes.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
But I think, I mean, again, God, the human psyche has come up in this so much in human behaviour, but that sort of 2 billion of 280 number, I mean, is fascinating, isn’t it? Is that to do with people’s-
Jo Reilly:
With like post-purchase rationalization, why did you buy this? Because it was a good price. Well, what were the other prices? Oh, I don’t know. I know I should have said price though.
David Angell:
Yes.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
But also, I mean, people talk about ethics and diversity as individuals, and I mean the common term is virtue signaling, right?
Jo Reilly:
Yes.
David Angell:
They’re virtue signaling, but are they actually doing anything about it under the skin or surface? That number would suggest maybe not as many as-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah. It’s an important decision-maker regarding whether I choose to join that organization or put my money with that fund, but I may not choose to invest in that particular option.
David Angell:
Interesting.
Jo Reilly:
It’s interesting.
David Angell:
Okay. We’re getting all the secrets today. This is great.
Let’s take a sidestep then and again, sort of wind this back into marketing and advertising, but from an ethics perspective in marketing privacy is another really challenging topic. And for the whole industry right now, agencies, advertisers, all categories, the government plans that are in train to limit segmentation and targeting of advertising agencies for privacy reasons via this updated Privacy Act.
I mean, there’s a lot of argument at the moment between industry bodies, between consumer rights alliances, between the government. And I’m thinking purely about how you can currently target your advertising. How big do you think that fallout could be for an AustralianSuper?
Jo Reilly:
Yeah. So, I think we have a benefit in that we are industry agnostic. So, if I wanted to target people who specifically only worked in an industry, I think it creates a whole other level of complication.
But to be honest, targeting is challenging for us to begin with. So, of our 3 million members, there’s about 50% of those who have joined via their employer and been what’s called deemed into us, which means we’ll have their name and that might be the only bit of personal information that we have about them.
So, we may not know age, we’ll know the fact that they’ve got an accumulation product, so they’re still working, and we’ll know where their employer is based. We may not have their address. So, we’ve got an idea of what their state would be, unless it’s a national payroll system paying for an individual who may not even then know the state that they reside in.
So, the challenge with this is it kind of flies in the face of what consumers are starting to expect from organizations that I want you to only speak to me about what’s relevant to me. But the ability to do that might then be cut off, which is going to create quite a dissatisfying experience for a consumer because that’s what they have more and more so been starting to experience.
So, I think it’s a real challenge. And I think that the whole adage around right place, right time, right message is so important. And even more so, in an industry where there is a lot of inertia where people don’t necessarily understand the value that comes with superannuation and if you can’t show up in a way that’s relevant to them, it’s falling on deaf ears.
David Angell:
It is challenging. I’ve got mixed opinions about this issue. I do think that the advertising industry and the digital advertising industry in particular does have a lot to answer for in some regards. The technology that’s been used to pursue people everywhere around they go-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
Whether it’s cookies or whether it’s any other form can be incredibly intrusive. But having said that, advertising is what pays for the internet. Advertising is what pays for Facebook. Advertising is what pays for all these things that consumers get for free.
And as you’ve just said, yes, of course people want the right message and they’re going to be more receptive to the right message. So, it’s almost like a have your cake and eat it, so-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah. You think about the experience of you’re on a website and you’ve looked at something and you want to scroll down, and you want it to tell you, these are the other things you might be interested in. I get so frustrated when they’re entirely irrelevant to what I’ve just been looking at or not complimentary.
David Angell:
Yes.
Jo Reilly:
Because I’m expecting now, because there are sites that do it exceptionally well and I’m expecting, you know that, so do that.
David Angell:
But at the same time though, so the dark side of that is where-
Jo Reilly:
Well, you go back to that story of Target in the U.S. with the young teenage girl who was pregnant, and the parents got served up-
David Angell:
Oh yes.
Jo Reilly:
The you might want to buy these on your next deal because someone’s pregnant.
David Angell:
Yeah. So, I was about to … a much more benign example, but I mentioned to my wife a couple of times that I was coming in to interview you and doing a podcast and that you worked in AustralianSuper. I’ve been served AustralianSuper ads across the last week out of nowhere. I’ve not been looking for superannuation options.
Jo Reilly:
But your phone has heard you.
David Angell:
My phone’s been listening. Right?
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
So, where’d you draw the line?
Jo Reilly:
Yes.
David Angell:
Is a really interesting one. I know that this is more of a-
Jo Reilly:
Well, I hope you liked those ads.
David Angell:
Well, they were wonderful, wonderful banner ads. I must go and-
Jo Reilly:
Great, good.
David Angell:
Thank Steve and the Royals guys for doing wonderful, wonderful work there. And I will be putting all my money into AustralianSuper, but it’s-
Jo Reilly:
I agree.
David Angell:
Well, where’s the line?
Jo Reilly:
Where’s the line?
David Angell:
And where’s the opt-in? And of course, that’s what this is all about is opt-in and — they’re trying to take lessons from the GDPR in Europe. But yeah, I think it’s going to be challenging. I really do.
Jo Reilly:
So, do I.
David Angell:
Even though targeting is hard for you, as you say, I still think it’s going to be really hard, but and we’re going to have to see how that-
Jo Reilly:
And then that’s where — so yes, it might be hard. So, then the opportunity comes to how do you contextually find the right place to place yourself? So, I guess there’s an element of laziness from a strategic thinking perspective of we’ve got someone’s cookies, so we can literally chase them around. Versus where do the right partnerships, where is the right content that contextually you make a whole lot of sense.
So, if you think about what’s successful from a marketing perspective if you can get a genuinely complimentary integrated proposition in something like — you think of organizations that have done it incredibly well in programming, for example, those who have not integrated well stands out like a sore thumb.
But there’s a real art to that and they’re incredibly impactful because there’s a story around it. It’s bringing purpose and value and meaning to life in the one instance where someone can actually see the value. You’re not trying to communicate value in a 15 or a 32nd TVC or radio commercial.
So, if it happens, it will create a challenge and create a real opportunity for people who can think about how they better integrate and partner.
David Angell:
You sound dangerously like you’re suggesting moving away from technology and towards the basics of how to do good marketing. That’s just-
Jo Reilly:
Showing my age.
David Angell:
Yeah. But look, I hadn’t thought about it like that, that is actually a really interesting thought that it could actually prompt more rigor, I guess. I mean, you mentioned laziness. I mean it prompts you to think harder about things if you don’t have this sort of crutches. The cookie crutch to lean on.
Jo Reilly:
Yeah.
David Angell:
Interesting. Okay, alright. Oh wow. We’re nearly 40 minutes, which is good going I think, Jo, good going. We talk quickly about next big plays. You’re not allowed to say AI for this because we’ve already talked to her about AI and you’ve given a thumbs down.
But thinking about the short and medium-term future of marketing, what do you see out there or coming down the pipe that excites you or maybe scares you?
Jo Reilly:
I feel like I do need to reference the AI side of things in it.
David Angell:
And possibly privacy as well. It’s my bad sequence of questions. Go on. You can reference whatever you like.
Jo Reilly:
So, I think there’s something that I think is interesting and scary at the same time because of the fact that it could be absolutely fraught with danger with people. And this is something that I’ve had them on my radar for a couple of good years now.
But with the rise of AI, with the rise of Siri and Alexia?
David Angell:
Alexa.
Jo Reilly:
Alexa, where and when humans and that type of knowledge are disintermediated from people. So, you could pick your phone up and say, “Which super fund should I join Siri?” And are you going to get the right answer or not?
What you might have is a perception that this is completely unbiased; this is factual information that’s going to get me in the right space.
So, as we continue as a society to be more and more time-poor, do we start furthering farming out our administration tasks of ourselves or managing our finances to technology because we think technology has a vested interest for us.
And if you then start unpacking how technology has been used to manipulate human beings, I find that really alarming. If it’s used for good, great, but it may not be. So, that’s certainly something that I think is important.
And the other part, I think going back to that ethics side of things, I found this a really interesting construct from my personal ethics perspective of seeing how technology has been used around elections and managing information that has or hasn’t been shared over the last few years. I’m a big utilizer of that in my professional life. Do I think it’s always serving good? I’m farming it with a lot of money so it can continue doing what it’s doing.
But is it always for the good of people? So, I feel a bit of an ethical friction point with that.
But to the other part of where do I think that there’s exciting things? So, I still think there’s so much and I’ll talk about this from a superannuation perspective. This is a category that people’s behavior is changing in. So, there’s been this adage of young people are completely disengaged. They’re not, if you are still walking around with that attitude, you’re incredibly arrogant and out of touch with what the market looks like.
People are becoming more and more savvy. Their expectations are becoming greater. And as an industry it’s becoming more competitive. Because of the consolidation that’s going on, it means there are fewer players, there are big players like Vanguard who have entered the market.
So, it means there is a massive challenge to do things a lot differently and better. And it’s an industry that is pretty traditional in the way that it’s engaged; primarily, member engagement or retention is done by pushing out communications, that’s so one-dimensional.
So, there’s so much opportunity in what role does gamification play? I feel like, again, showing my age talking about gamification, but I still think it’s completely true because it engages people. And can break down complex structures for people.
But what role does that play? What role do applications play? What happens when people start walking around with everything to do with their finances all combined on their phone and their whole life is lived out of their phones.
So, I think that’s going to continue to challenge what we are doing and the behavior change that then creates of short form, bite-sized everything. Especially when for me, we are trying to communicate something that’s complex and potentially long form is the right way to go about doing it. If everything’s on your phone, how do you overcome that?
David Angell:
I think you make an interesting point about the attitude towards young people. I mean clearly, they’re much more sophisticated than they were because of the power that’s at their fingertips.
But I also think the superannuation, and I’ve worked with a few superannuation providers and the classic is, well yes, I mean we know they’re there but they’re lower value and therefore-
Jo Reilly:
We’ll focus on them later on.
David Angell:
Of course, we want them to join, but let’s really focus on them when they’re earning 150 k plus. That seems quite myopic to me. That’s always seemed a bit myopic to me, given the amount of choice and power that they have. They can change superannuation at the touch of a button.
Jo Reilly:
Yep.
David Angell:
And that coupled with, and you mentioned Vanguard, there’s Australian Retirement Trust.
Jo Reilly:
Yes.
David Angell:
There are funds like UniSuper that are now able to-
Jo Reilly:
Correct, the public offer fund. Yep. Aware Super.
David Angell:
Which its regulation has changed.
David Angell:
Aware Super, all of those. Suddenly there’s an explosion of competitiveness.
Jo Reilly:
Correct.
David Angell:
So, I think the smart ones will drive the kind of change you’re talking about. And that mix with all the macroeconomic stuff that we’ve been talking about will be fascinating in this sector, I think, as we advance. So yeah. Look, some scary plays but some big plays as well. You’ll be-
Jo Reilly:
I’ll be well and truly busy.
David Angell:
Let’s make that the final question. You will be well and truly busy. You probably do have the best superannuation fund in the world given where you work. How many years till you retire? That’s my final question.
Jo Reilly:
Oh-
David Angell:
I’m going to hold you to it.
Jo Reilly:
I don’t have a plan. Well no, I shouldn’t say that. That sounds horrendous. I don’t have a timeframe. I certainly have what my retirement income would look like and how that will be funded, but I don’t know if I’ll ever not work in some guise.
And I think that’s the other thing of retirement now doesn’t look like retirement looked when our parents retired. It’s not a, I get to 65 or maybe 60 and I’m out and I’m done, and I go around in a caravan and play with the grandchildren or go and do lawn bowls and-
David Angell:
Sit with the blanket over your leg-
Jo Reilly:
Yeah. Do some crosswords. Retirement looks so different. So, what we are seeing more and more so is people are reducing the hours they work, they might go and do something different. But it’s not that hard and fast, I’m out.
And of course, the longer we live, and I listen to this fascinating lecture at a conference I was at a few weeks ago from a person based in the UK, I can’t remember any more detail than that, which isn’t helpful. But he talked about the change that’s happening in average life expectancy is meaning X number of additional hours that effectively you have in your lifetime to fill.
David Angell:
Yes.
Jo Reilly:
And this is becoming material as the age goes from many years ago, it was in your 60s. And now it’s in the 80s for example, that’s a lot of hours actually to fill in your time with. So, what are you going to do that’s purposeful and meaningful? Because if you’re not finding things that are purposeful and meaningful, typically your health starts to deteriorate, et cetera.
So, I don’t know what it will look like, but I’ll always be doing something.
David Angell:
Well, it was a joke question, but you’ve gave a very serious answer. I mean for all you kids out there, you know, Jo knows exactly what her retirement income is going to be. You should too, quite frankly.
Jo Reilly:
Yes, categorically. Well, I’m also building a house and the land costs more and the house costs more, so that might have a bit to do with it. And of course, interest rates keep on going up, so-
David Angell:
Well, good luck with all that.
Jo Reilly:
Thank you.
David Angell:
Hey, it has been lovely talking to you as always. Thanks so much. I got a lot out of that conversation and I’m sure everyone else will too.
Jo Reilly:
My pleasure, David. Thanks for the opportunity.
David Angell:
Thanks.
