19. Why creative risk-taking is the best insurance policy with Brent Smart, CMO at IAG

CMO Leadership | How top Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) build high-performing marketing teams with Ty Hayes

In this episode, we are joined by Brent Smart, Chief Marketing Officer of IAG.

IAG is the Australian insurance giant with leading brands including NRMA and CGU. In four years, Brent has transformed the NRMA brand from the 36th strongest brand in Australia to become the third strongest brand in the country and the strongest insurance brand in the world! This brand strength has translated to commercial success - NRMA Insurance have won 3 coveted Gold Effies in the last 2 years.

Previously, Brent spent 20 years in the advertising business, rising to CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi New York and leading the New Zealand Agency of the Decade, Colenso BBDO.

In today’s episode, we cover:

• Brent’s fascinating career, unpacking what he learned from 20 years in advertising;
• Brent scrapping and recreating a $4M USD Superbowl ad three weeks out… with the client’s approval (find out what happens next!);
• Why Brent decided to swap the sneakers for a suit and move from agency CEO to CMO;
• How to foster a culture of creative risk-taking within your marketing team;
• How to get the best work from your agency partners by setting a high creative ambition and by “buying completely”;
• How to transform a team from a totally decentralised product-led marketing team into a centralised brand-led model; and
• Some of the interesting roles that Brent brought in house to strengthen the creative, strategic and marketing effectiveness firepower at his disposal.

If you have any interest in building an award-winning, risk-taking, brand-led marketing team that could totally transform your marketing approach- then this is the episode for you!

P.S. - If you’re from an agency, you might want to suggest that your clients listen to this episode!

Enjoy the show.

References

• Robert Iger - The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
• Sam Gawe - Nike: Better is Temporary.
• Scott Dadich - Abstract: The Art of Design (Season 1 - Tinker Hatfield: Footwear Design).

Contact Brent Smart

• Find Brent on LinkedIn and mention you heard him on the podcast. Find out more about IAG.

Contact Growth Generators

• Find out how Ty and Growth Generators can help you design and build a modern marketing team that drives growth using our 3-stage framework for marketing team transformation. Follow or connect with Ty on LinkedIn.

If you enjoy this episode please remember to subscribe so you get each new episode as it drops each week to get more tips and insights to build a high-performance marketing team, tell someone about the podcast who you think may benefit, or leave us a review!

This episode was hosted by Ty Hayes, produced by Dylan Todd and edited by Lewis Hallam.