NZ marketers moving to Australia

Marketing executives say New Zealand is turning into a branch office as big corporates shift their top marketing decision makers to Australia.

Sales and marketing specialist for recruitment company Hudson, Sara Clarke, said New Zealand was often seen as ``a state of Australia'' by multi-national corporations.

Local heads of marketing for New Zealand were increasingly being replaced by Australasian marketing directors with ``some intermediate people on the ground here in New Zealand,'' she said.\

"The strategic side of the role is increasingly not sitting here.''

An executive at one of New Zealand's top 30 biggest advertisers, who asked not to be named, said her company had recently relocated its marketing decision-makers across the Ditch - and more corporates were doing the same.

"We have a group of New Zealand based brand managers who report through to marketing managers in Australia,'' she said.

"That's largely because the brands that we work with are consistent across Australia and New Zealand and the audience is very similar. Sometimes we cater our material to the New Zealand environment but a lot of the cost and the strategy is driven out of Australia.''

Down-sized New Zealand marketing teams could be a long term prospect, she said, as a stringent focus on the bottom line forced businesses to cut costs.

"It hasn't always been this way. We've changed it in the last 12 months, but it's always been mooted and a lot of FMCG [fast-moving consumer goods] businesses in particular are operating that way.''

Clarke said cost-savings and efficiency were factors in the change during a difficult two years across the globe for all business segments. 

"Obviously marketing is an expensive function within an organisation and if there is a way that they can structure themselves so that they are reducing their overheads but able to deliver to all their markets, then that's understandably something they will try and do.''

Several international companies contacted by BusinessDay said they maintain New Zealand marketing teams in some shape or form, but would not specify their organisational structures.

Others such as Heinz-Watties and Reckitt Benckiser affirmed their commitment to New Zealand-based marketing teams and local market intelligence and decision-making.

Association of New Zealand Advertisers spokesperson Lindsay Mouat says multi-national companies such as Unilever have run their marketing from Australia for years, and it's not just a South Pacific phenomenon.

"It's not so much just an Australasian harmonisation, it's part of regional integration all around the world ... it's just a consistent response by multi-nationals as to how they run their business.

"Just because you've moved people to Australia doesn't mean you have to lose focus on New Zealand, that's probably been a mistake in the past.''

Mouat says global companies need to see value from their various markets in order to prioritise their resources.

"For a multi-national in a market of four million people ... they're considering do we spend a dollar here or a dollar in a developing market in India or China? You have to be getting a result out of this market to warrant getting that incremental dollar.''

Clarke said companies have been known to reverse the regional structure when they realise "the audience they're communicating with here in New Zealand is quite different than that in Australia''.

The executive said she had also seen such restructuring "go full-circle'' but believed it was different this time.

"I have seen it happen before where out of such change the local recognition has been lost and it's had a [negative] impact on the bottom line.

"But I don't think that's going to happen here  the thinking is a lot more stringent and there's a lot more research gone into it, and I can see it working well.''

What will be affected is the job prospects of Kiwi marketers, said Clarke.

"It means a couple of things for marketing pros. If you're looking for a career within the multi-nationals then you probably need to think about moving off-shore once you get past an intermediate level.''

The top marketing roles that do remain in New Zealand are attractive and therefore very competitive, she says.

"People who are pure marketers probably need to consider broadening their skill-set and consider roles that are a combination of sales and marketing, which is anathema to a lot of marketing candidates.''

- © Fairfax NZ News