Member Interview with Carl Geraghty

We are delighted to bring you a Member Interview with Carl Geraghty, Managing Partner, TAGR PTE LTD

What’s your golden rule?

Never assume. Making assumptions is an easy trap to fall into, and may even seem relatively harmless or even sensible [educated guess] in given circumstances. However, it is really confirmation bias spelt differently. We assume based on our values, and our preconceptions, which may be wrong. The second part of the golden rule is 'Just ask'. You can find out so many things when allowing people to answer in their own words, and it doesn't take too much time or energy. Making assumptions is the lazy way to make decisions, and the best marketing is never lazy.

Who has been your biggest influence?

Elena Ferrante. Marketing is all about storytelling, creating worlds vividly, reflecting experiences, and bringing people closer. I can't think of any living author who does this better than Elena Ferrante. Her world-building is simultaneously vast and intimate, and her precision with words would make the best copywriters green with envy. Her greatest influence on me is patience. She is a keen observer and must have spent hours just watching, listening, and curating - before sending it back out to the world as art. Marketing can be art.

What is your most hated business expression?

Let's not reinvent the wheel.

It is code for 'I can't be bothered' or 'I am lazy' but dressed as 'this is wasting time'. Of course, it isn't. The wheel gets reinvented all the time, whether actual wheels going from stone, through wood, to rubber; or grapes to wine, countless other iterations of familiar things. Reinventing the wheel is necessary, or at least not assuming that the wheel cannot be reinvented is lazy. We should be curious to see if it can do it! We have so many tools at our disposal to develop ideas, they should be used on a daily.

What’s the smartest business idea you’ve ever had?

Airbnb as a furniture showroom. Actually any hotel room. Instead of saying 'Don't steal this dressing gown' it should be 'These Egyptian cotton sheets are available at xyz.com'. Collaborations are great. Consumers love them. Nothing is better, for example, than your favourite actors and singers getting together, but it happens quite infrequently in marketing, even when the connections are obvious. A close second was when I lived in London and would think about my 'Mini-Cab/Kebab' idea - order the cab, they pick up the kebab on the way to pick you up from the 'late business meeting', and take you home.

 Of course, Uber and Grab sound so much better. 

Which leader do you admire most and why?

Michael Hobson. Relentlessly and unrepentantly customer-driven. Almost a quarter of a century at The Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group speaks for itself [more than 8 times the lifecycle of a typical CMO] and the last 5 years at Lanson Group. He is a juggernaut, quite simply, and inspires and demands higher standards, with the obvious benefits to his brands.

What keeps you up at night as a marketing leader?

The return of interstitials. Consumers hate them. They do nothing for your brand. Consumers hate them. Did I say that already? One of the greatest things about living the launch of the Internet was how we learned quickly from mistakes and developed heuristics that worked to everyone's benefit. But over the years, they have crept back in, and most website experiences these days are completely ruined by pop-ups and interstitials that invariably come at the exact wrong time. Pushing back is part of our job. Creating better alternatives goes hand in hand with that. 

Why is being part of The Marketing Society important for your career?

Probably the best peer network there is in marketing; continually attracts the best talent as speakers, and it is a very collegial environment. Also, we are standard bearers, in the truest sense of the word. Sometimes we are mentors, sometimes we are mentees. Sometimes we just need advice, and sometimes just meeting other people is the spark. Having 'the badge' means it is easier to be known before you are needed.

Why does marketing matter to you?

How else can we tell people what we are doing and how we are different? I can paraphrase Denise Yohn, as she says it so much better than I can. - Marketing is less about what happens after an innovation is ready to launch and more about getting it to be ready in the first place!

Tell us something that’s not on your CV

I make good music, but only for my own pleasure, although there is one or more tracks available on Spotify. I think it is important that people have enjoyable diversions that take them away from the 9-5. Music is creativity and discipline. It is like mental cross-training, and I like to believe that has informed some of my best work.

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Published on 10 September 2024