How do you persuade a performance-led business to invest millions in brand? On a crisp autumn day in Edinburgh, I attended a Marketing Society Future Leaders event at Skyscanner to hear their answer.
We received a warm welcome from our event MC, Frankie Coia - tobefrank and chair of The Marketing Society’s Future Leaders Action Group (FLAG), The Marketing Society’s Director for Scotland, Alison Campbell extended that welcome and made a compelling case for us all to keep demonstrating and celebrating the value of our industry. Happily, The Marketing Society is well placed to support us doing just that.
On to the main presentation by Victoria Best, Principal Global Brand Marketing Manager at Skyscanner. Four years ago, Victoria left agency life setting off on a new adventure in-house. She was on a mission to supercharge international growth for a business previously reliant on performance marketing and SEO.
Armed with only a small budget initially, Victoria collaborated with the data team to identify growth opportunities. She picked a test market: Canada because it is smaller and a good proxy for the US, and set up a series of lift studies that always started with a clear hypothesis. After delivering proof of concept in digital media she scaled up to out of home. Investing in robust tracking was a consistent key theme.
By demonstrating brand marketing's impact, Victoria built board confidence and secured expanded budgets—an inspiring example of marketing rigour.
Another key ingredient is Skyscanner’s brand personality, which shines through. We were treated to a couple of examples: firstly, a tear-jerker: Skyscanner surprising Scotland rugby player, Sione Tuipulotu by flying his ‘Greenock Grannie’ to Scotland from Australia to watch him play live. It was because his grannie was born in Greenock that Sione could play for Scotland. No surprises, this generated widespread media coverage. Then we saw a humorous ad created for the India market that leaned into a local insight: ‘I know a guy, who knows a guy…’. The ads brought to life how Skyscanner makes travel dreams come true without having to go through a chain of guys.
Unsurprisingly Victoria’s presentation set up the panel discussion nicely where we heard from Meg Elzea - Senior Industry Manager, Global Travel at Google who gave us our vendor view, Amy Gunn - Director of Marketing & Fundraising at Worldwide Cancer Research who has facilitated a similar embrace of brand marketing to great effect, and Katie Boswell - Acquisition & Brand Lead at Postcode Lottery UK who has harnessed customer insights timing her activity and selecting best-fit celebrity partners.
Finally, small group surgeries allowed attendees to reflect and share experiences. It was an energising session, and I look forward to the next Marketing Society Future Leaders event!
