If CMO Jonathan Kerr Started An Agency, He’d Package Up and Proactively Pitch His Services

​Jonathan Kerr is “surprised that the industry is not packaging itself up quicker” in response to mounting pressures facing chief marketing officers, including artificial intelligence, a cost of living crisis impacting consumer spending, and squeezed marketing budgets.

“If I decided I was going to set up JK agency, I would immediately be helping all of the CMOs understand how to disrupt yourself and how to completely change how you go to market, to outperform the market,” the chief growth officer at insurance business Auto & General -- parent company of Budget Direct and underwriter for the likes of Virgin Money, Coles, and Qantas’ insurance products -- told LBB in an interview at the brand’s Brisbane headquarters.

“I haven't seen anyone in Australia who's turned up with: this is the next solution, we have thought this through, we think this is the new, wrapped-up offering.

“I can't understand why people aren't going, 'Here is your one stop shop for this. Here's your one stop shop for that'. That amazes me. Now I'll probably say all of that, and then what will happen is I'll get 100 emails from all the people that are doing it. And so my response to that is, 'knock yourself out'. But at the same time, I would say, and to segue into Brisbane, there's some pretty big businesses up here that you've probably missed in your emails.”

Jonathan encouraged agencies and production companies alike to research a client, brand, and category and approach the marketer with a pitch they can’t refuse: “I reckon I know how to do that in half the time and for half the money,” accompanied by a case study.

“And I never, ever hear that. I kind of worry that the industry is not willing to disrupt itself enough to prevail in a really good way.”

He added, “to me, the weirdest thing about this world” is that brands’ work -- and often its effectiveness, or lack thereof -- is in the public domain, but agencies don’t use that information to their advantage.

“When I was doing very high-end software sales, I researched everything about the person making the decision, and everything I did was personalised to that person. I worked out all the problems they had. I worked out if I could solve them, and then I went to see them and told them, 'If I could do this, this, and this, for this, would you do it?' Well, they kind of had to do it.”

Australian independent agencies are experimenting with pricing and operational models, and late last year, Howatson+Company launched a sister agency: AI production company Plus Also. CEO Chris Howatson told LBB he created it -- and called it a “unicorn … good, fast, and cheap” -- because he knew just how severely AI could disrupt his business. Yet most agencies and production companies are not in the habit of proactively pitching solutions, instead caught in the churn of the formalised pitch cycle.

Like Chris, Jonathan also refuses to wait to be disrupted. Budget Direct has served more than 3 million customers since 2000, and its ‘Insurance Solved’ brand platform won Gold in the Long Term Effects and Brand Value categories at last year’s Effies, resulting in a record number of wins for long-term agency partner 303 MullenLowe.

But the brand’s growth function -- known as growth operations -- is driven by an in-house team that constitutes one of the largest agencies in Brisbane and includes data, digital, and media capabilities. "We run all of our own media. We buy all of it, negotiate it all direct."

A chunk of the in-house unit has been with the business for upwards of a decade -- this year is Jonathan's 20th at the brand -- which means "there's incredible knowledge within this team about how to deliver something quite exceptional. I always think [of] that expression, 'the hard second album'. Knocking out seven albums, that's hard.

"It's a formidable machine, and I was just lucky enough to be allowed to build it."

Budget Direct has had a 10 year relationship with 303 MullenLowe, he said, because the agency works well with both the in-house team and the tenured CMO.

"The secret to 303 is a couple of things. They're great people, and they also put up with me. They put up with this hybrid model incredibly well, and they are so sympathetic to our nuances. And they believe in the fact that we have the capacity to dream big, and most great agencies are looking for an opportunity to stretch their legs. We challenge each other really well. But the main secret is they just put up with me, and I'm very grateful, because I'm quite involved."

Extending his argument that the best external partners help CMOs disrupt their brands and categories, he added, “The cool thing about us is I've already got 80 people [in-house] working on it, because I wasn't going to wait to be asked.

“What is the desire in the leadership to actually disrupt itself, but do that in a way where you actually package it up as a solution? Let me put it this way. I'm 54 in a few weeks time, and I've taught myself everything I possibly can about how to build agents and how to interrogate many different models, how I could use them, how I can get it to code for me, when, historically, I didn't know how to do a line of code. I'm acting like it's 1999 again."

In addition to his role as chief growth officer, Jonathan also serves as a director on Auto & General’s board, which intensifies a marketer’s accountability. When a “wave of change” like AI rolls over a business, “it's very common for fellow directors to turn to the growth machine and say, 'What are you doing about it?'”

“Most CMOs will probably experience the double-edged sword of being celebrated when your stuff works and there's growth, and then asked to discuss and explain when there isn't.”

Despite the pace and scale of change, Jonathan is optimistic. Agencies and production companies that help marketers stay ahead of their categories and competitors will continue to be invaluable partners.

“This is not a scary time. This is 1999 again. Go hard, and you will do great. And that's how we think about what we're doing [at Auto & General]. We're going to disrupt ourselves, reinvent ourselves, and we're going to come out and best navigate our winds. We're going to sail through this. But at ... the core of it, our product is awesome, and we'll just tell the story better.”