Episode 281 / Liam Branaghan / Uber / Performance Marketing Strategy Lead (Delivery, EMEA)
Finding Purpose for Marketing in Any Organisation
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Liam Branaghan is the Performance Marketing Strategy Lead for Delivery across EMEA at Uber. He combines a strategic high-level view with individual goals and targets to let his shiny new object - purpose in marketing - guide his data driven marketing approach.
"Purpose in marketing is really about knowing what that job to be done is as a team, as a function," Liam explains. "And then using that as a north star or a guiding principle to inform everything we do in our day-to-day, and all of the decisions that we make in all of our planning exercises." It's a holistic approach that goes beyond simply hitting quarterly targets.
Liam believes that, by aligning the team's efforts with the company's broader vision, they can achieve far greater impact. "We have to look towards what is the overall company trying to achieve? And then that's where, you know, being part of Uber, you're bought into that idea of us collectively doing well. And in this marketing function, we have to then ask, 'What is our individual purpose as a function?'"
Importantly, purpose isn't something that can be dictated from the top down. It's a collaborative process that requires input from the entire team. "I don't think strong ideas are necessarily owned by certain individuals. I think anybody in the organisation can have views of value."
You also need to consistently re-evaluate goals and objectives, making course corrections as needed. Marketers should be careful not to become too blinkered in following a plan and have a KPI tunnel vision. For Liam, the key to keeping his team motivated and engaged is to ensure that their individual contributions are clearly tied to the broader organisational purpose. It's not enough to simply set lofty targets - he wants his team to understand how their day-to-day work is directly impacting the company's success.
Learn more about how Liam uses purpose in marketing at Uber and get his top book recommendations on the podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Liam Branaghan 0:00
You have to balance optimism with skepticism. I think in marketing, finding the balance and striking it at the right point, depending on the moment in your career or the project, I think that's a really healthy way of looking at things.
Speaker 0:17
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Tom Ollerton 0:44
Hello and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And this is a weekly podcast about the future of data driven marketing. Every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders, and it's very exciting this week, because I'm in Uber's office in Amsterdam, how fancy, and I'm here with Liam Branaghan, who is the performance marketing strategy, lead delivery EMEA at Uber. So Liam, thank you so much for having me. For anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, can you give us a bit of background?
Liam Branaghan 1:33
Sure, pleasure to be here. Tom, and thank you for having me so I lead planning strategy at Uber for delivery. I cover Europe, Middle East and Africa, and it's quite a it's quite a multi faceted role in a lot of ways. You know, we're asking ourselves a lot of the big questions at Uber, how do we navigate those opportunities and challenges down the road? And it's thinking about how we then sort of deploy our performance marketing channels and resources to get to the outcomes the company needs. I actually started my career out in web before I moved on into media buying, and that media buying background is really sort of where I, you know, cut my teeth in marketing. I was exposed to a lot of decisions on how we deploy resources, collaborating with different teams. It got me to where I am today at Uber.
Tom Ollerton 2:24
Fantastic. So you've worked at some some really interesting organizations, but there's two sorts of people in this industry. There's people who read books, and there's people who don't. Are you a marketing book reader? And if so, do you have a title that you can recommend?
Liam Branaghan 2:39
Yeah so I think this... a good way to preface my answer may be. So I think reading wide is incredibly important as a marketer. I think if we stick too close to that business bookshelf in the airport, I think we can become a little bit too narrow in our thinking. So I try and keep you know anything fiction, sort of wider press and things on news and economics, I think you have to, you know, take those ideas and synthesize them into something that means something to you. And yeah, the book that really, I think changed my thinking, and I would say the last sort of five or six years, was super forecasting by Philip e Tetlock and Dan Gardner and yeah, that book, I think, really sort of made me think about my mindset when I'm looking at data. And it gives, I think, a really an interesting window into how people that are effective at thinking about the future and ahead of the curve, how they break down problems.
Tom Ollerton 3:42
Where do I know Dan gardener from?
Liam Branaghan 3:45
So he wrote a book as well on where, basically project management for big projects as well.
Tom Ollerton 3:51
Definitely not that, not a massive project management character. Okay, so if someone's not a book reader, what are the what's the main few takeaways from that book? What do you what do you always remember?
Liam Branaghan 4:04
Yeah, so to give a bit of a brief synopsis, so it follows a group of people in a group called the good judgment project. And these people are basically experts at forecasting, more so experts than people in the field themselves that they're making judgments on. And the book really goes deep into their mindsets. They're thinking about how they are able to, you know, predict whether it's the outcomes of elections or, you know, events and societal changes. And it really goes into how they look at all of the data and sources of information and then bring them together into a view and a super forecast. And as a marketer, I find, I mean, what was compelling to me is, you know, being in a data driven role we're always taking in different sources of information everywhere. To make snap judgments, and just taking that step back and looking at how people that are, you know, really top of their field that do this gave me a lot of thought and inspiration, and maybe a couple of examples. So one is the idea of course correcting and thinking about, you know, not everyone's judgment. You know, everyone's judgment won't be perfect 100% of the time, and especially as marketers, you know, we have some things that do better than others when it comes to campaigns, so being able to course correct from your errors and be able to use that as another data source and input really evolved my way of thinking about things and thinking, I guess, more probabilistic. You know, nothing is there very few things in the world that are binary, true false. There's often a degree of sort of how correct or how sort of off the scale you can be, and knowing that when it comes to making your decisions around numbers, I think it really sharpens, I think those skills and that toolbox that you have as a marketer.
Tom Ollerton 6:01
So what is a super forecast? I mean, it's a cool book title. It's going to leap off the shelf. So, well done marketing team. But what? What students forecast in the Super forecast?
Liam Branaghan 6:10
Yeah, so these super forecasters, so they they measured, uh, their sort of ability to out predict experts in their field. And these people are right far more than the average on these big questions. So I think what's a big question? Sorry, so they so they will pose them every I think it's every year there's a survey of all of these different events in the world, and they'll say, What do you think the outcome of the election in Ghana is going to be, for example? And then these people, whether or not they are connected to the politics in Ghana have to make a decision and say, This is what I think the outcome will be, and just their nature in this thinking process that I described enables them to make better decisions than far beyond the average across these broad range of topics.
Tom Ollerton 7:01
So moving on to advice. So other than reading super forecasting, what is your one silver bullet bit of advice that you give to data driven marketers on your team to be better at their job?
Liam Branaghan 7:15
Yes, good question. So I think there's no one size fits all piece of advice. But if there was to be one that covered the most, and it's balancing, you have to balance optimism with skepticism. I think in marketing, I think there's a, firstly, there's a big role for dreamers in the world. You know, these are the people that make the big leaps that get us into new territories and areas. And, you know, I think before the podcast, we're talking a bit about the iPhone, and to come up with that leap, you need some form of optimism or dream, I feel, but on the other hand, as well, we live in a reality and a working in a listed company as well, we have to think about profitability and the returns that our efforts bring. So that's where I think skepticism comes in play. So it's about really sort of those checks and balances, going back to sort of, you know, grounding those sort of visions in in the sort of day to day that we have to think about. But I do think that it is a balance, because if you go too far in the skeptic and it can think it can lead you into maybe a bit more of a conservative mindset when it comes to your work. And that means maybe you don't take on the big idea, maybe you just stick with what you know. And I think if you go too far in that end, I think it can sort of sometimes leave you in a bit of a rut. So I think finding the balance and striking it at the right point, depending on the moment in your career or the project. I think that's just a really healthy way of looking at things.
Tom Ollerton 8:46
So annoying question, how do you make sure that you've got that balance right? Yeah, do you, do you have, like, a check in with yourself every week? Or do you have a is there another person that observes that in you?
Liam Branaghan 9:00
Yeah, I think it does involve an element of being reflective, that's for sure. And I do think having the views of other people, you know, I think having a good team that is, I think, supportive and critical at the same time, that really helps. So, you know, maybe there is a good idea and there, and there are complications with it. That's sort of where being optimistic enough to go for it and but having that sort of, I guess, that devil on your shoulder, sort of saying, Oh no, maybe, maybe think about it this way, I think that having that sort of feedback loop around with the people you work can really help. But it's something that you, I think you just have to embrace and try and develop as a mindset, because you have to also enjoy, I think, trying new things and change. And, yeah, it's definitely an art, and it's something I'll probably be working on forever, I would imagine.
Tom Ollerton 10:01
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so we're now going to come onto your shiny new object which is purpose in marketing. So I think a lot of people listening this podcast will have an idea of what purpose in marketing is. But can I get a definition of what you mean by purpose in marketing first before we go into detail?
Liam Branaghan 10:55
So I think in purpose in marketing, it's really, I mean, I come from a strategy and planning background. So to me, the idea of purpose is knowing what that job to be done is as a team in a function, knowing what the organization. So in my case, Uber looks for from me and performance marketing, and then really using that as a north star or a guiding principle to inform everything we do in our day to day, and all of the decisions that we make in all of our planning exercises. So that's sort of broadly how I define it.
Tom Ollerton 11:32
So, so having this North Star, having this guiding light that informs all of the decisions, how do you, how often do you do it, and how do you do it?
Liam Branaghan 11:44
So the ultimate goal comes from the company itself in the direction that we're going. So I think we have to, firstly, listen closely. So I work in a very collaborative role, where we, you know, we work closely with operational teams, finance teams, and they, you know, through their work and planning, show us the the company, direction and strategy, where we, I think, in planning and strategy and performance marketing, make our money and our add our value, is through interpreting that and then saying, Well, how does knowing all of the capabilities and functions we have in our in our team, with all of the disciplines, whether that CRM or paid, how then do we relate that back? And, you know, I think we have to set ourselves, sort of our own goals and objectives along the way as well that then, you know, are informed by that wider goal and ladder up. And, you know, I think keeping, keeping that balance, checking in regularly, I think having, I mean, we talk a bit about measurement and KPIs and things, those are, for me, the the yards that we use to judge whether our, you know, our purpose is, is correct, and laddering up to something beneficial to the organization as a whole.
Tom Ollerton 13:00
And how often do you do you do it? Is it like, do you tie that in with, like, the financial year? So you're like, right, start on the new find. Well, coming up towards the end of the financial year, going into the new one, you're like, right? The business says we're going to go over here, and as the performance team, we're going to do this, and then your own course correcting. Does that happen? Like, every quarter?
Liam Branaghan 13:20
Yeah. So, I mean, I think, well, planning is always a good moment to reflect on where you're heading. But, you know, we do also have a long term vision on where, you know, we intend to be as a company. So that annual planning cycle is our way of, sort of identifying the milestones that we need to be working towards on that yearly basis. But we know, you know, you know, 12 months is a long time in the world of marketing, everything can change in that period. So, you know, we have to also be nimble and adaptive along the way. So if we set ourselves specific target targets or objectives, you know, we have to be prepared to pivot and move depending on the environment. And I mean, there can be obstacles in the way, but there also can be, you know, new opportunities. So we don't want to maybe be too blinkered in following our plan and have that sort of KPI tunnel vision that I think a lot of marketers might have experienced. So being sort of, I guess, sort of that reflective nature of sort of thinking about that purpose. That's that's how we sort of check and keep that balance in in motion and continue to move forward.
Tom Ollerton 14:29
And how would you make that purpose motivating, right? So the business might go right, well, we want to double revenue by whatever. And we've got these new products, these new divisions, these acquisitions making this up, and then they go, right, okay, that's the mandate. And then you've got to come up with a purpose for your team and it and in my experience, it's quite easy to come up with a like a functional purpose. But that's not necessarily motivating to someone who's an absolutely knackered on a Friday night at five o'clock that you. And like needs to push through. So how would you make sure that that purpose is exciting and inspirational and rewarding to the team?
Liam Branaghan 15:10
Yeah, so, so I think the goals that we have have to be meaningful to people. That's that's one thing that is for certain. So, you know, having a just a broad, lofty objective that doesn't mean anything or is not relevant to people's day to days. That's that can be one way to create a bit of distance. So I think sort of having that check in and understanding, you know, what does each person play a role in to get to that end goal, having a clear idea of that, I feel is, you know, really extremely motivating for a lot of people in the performance marketing function. And, yeah, I mean, I think I would say, you know, we're very ambitious group at Uber like, I'd say that, you know, people that come in the door sort of know, I think it's sort of embedded in the culture a bit. People are, well, it says on the wall here, trips, trip obsessed. You know, I think that we have to be of a certain nature to want to achieve these things first. But I think those ways of tying everything back to that grander vision, and whether it, whether you're in a an extremely technical function within maybe CRM deployment, or whether you're working on buying media, you have to sort of know how your work ladders up to that goal and what you need to be doing to contribute basically.
Tom Ollerton 16:29
There's that funny story of the janitor in NASA. Have you heard that one?
Liam Branaghan 16:35
I haven't, no.
Tom Ollerton 16:35
So they're saying to the janitor. You know, what's your job? And he says, Oh, I'm putting a man on the moon, you know, because even his kind of functional tidying up of the bathroom, whatever would it was, in some way, in part, getting people to be on the moon.
Liam Branaghan 16:48
You know, I completely believe in that. And you know, we're a team. You know, there's no, you know, you... to have a strong team, every link has to be part of the bigger structure. And, you know, nobody is sort of redundant in the work they do. They should be adding value towards the the wider operation. It's just some of us have more specific tasks than others, you know. And you know, in strategy and planning, a lot of it is, you know, listening to those, what are those big questions, and then finding ways to sort of identify that that purpose for maybe more niche areas, and set those specific goals.
Tom Ollerton 17:25
And how do you know when you've got your purpose wrong? What are the red flags where you're like, oh, no, we got that wrong. We need to change.
Liam Branaghan 17:33
Yeah, that's it. That's a harder question. I mean, I think you need to ask the question to yourself regularly to try and avoid that situation. You know, there are numerous case studies of where companies have maybe been focusing on the wrong thing, but that's where as well, I think having the right culture in your company can help because, you know, I don't think strong ideas are necessarily owned by certain individuals. I think anybody in the organization can have views of value, so keeping everybody in check. And, you know, we have a, we have a weekly all hands where it's open floor questions from anybody. And it's that type of culture where I think we, you know, we always push ourselves and question ourselves on on, are we doing the right thing. And, yeah, I think that's that's sort of how we've managed to try and try and make sure that our compass is heading forwards at all moments.
Tom Ollerton 18:34
So what would your advice be to someone who's not created a purpose? There will be people out there who are like, right? Well, I've got my I've got my target. I know what my Christmas bonus is based on. I know where, like, my next job is coming from, and I'm just gonna do the thing that's right for me. But what you're talking about here is like a holistic, warm hug across the business that everyone gets on the on the same... was it ride obsessed, journey obsessed? Thank you... mindset. So, so someone's like, right? I'm going to think about a purpose for the broader team, but I've never done it before. What are the, what are the kind of key things that you have to go through?
Liam Branaghan 19:11
Speaking it maybe is as part of a brand with it, you know, I think maybe different where, you know, if you're in an agency or in, you know, running your own sort of setup, that can be a different question. But within, like an in house marketing function, you know, we have to look towards what is, what is the overall company trying to achieve? And then that's where sort of, you know, being in, being being part of Uber you're bought into that idea of us collectively doing well. And, you know, in this marketing function, we have to, then, you know, ask that question of, of, yeah, I guess sort of, what is our individual purpose as a function? And, you know, and I think it's, is something that evolves, and the answer that question isn't the same over time. So, you know, we're going. Through, like we talked about, planning a little bit. We're going through that process of thinking right now about, you know, next year, how does, how does that evolve? What, what are the tweaks we need to make towards those goals? And you know that that does touch the individual that you described, where, you know, thinking of their Christmas bonus, or whatever, you know, the those decisions around that organization purpose, and then down to the sort of team that's how we sort of start to shape that. But it's, it's really a bit of a listening, and I think it involves a lot of contemplation as well, I would say.
Tom Ollerton 19:11
So you talked about the book super forecasting at the start. So that is the practice of looking at lots of different data sets to predict an outcome more accurately than than others. So how does that work into coming up with a purpose for your team? Do you have to super forecast like crazy, or are they not related those two skills?
Liam Branaghan 20:54
So I say there's a connection. So when we think about those specific goals and targets that we're setting within individual functions and areas that same thought process that comes from the ideas that that book raises. You know, it's a little bit adapted to maybe what we need to do at Uber but thinking in that open minded way, taking in ideas, synthesizing them into something more meaningful for our function, that that really is sort of the Spirit embodied in that sort of planning and purpose mindset. So, so I do think that the two are linked. Yeah, it's but it's definitely, you know, it's combining that art and science at the same time as well.
Tom Ollerton 21:41
So unfortunately, we're at the end of the podcast now. Time has flown by. If someone wants to get in touch with you to talk about any of the stuff we've covered today, where's the best place to do it and what makes a message that you'll actually bother to reply to.
Liam Branaghan 21:53
So I, I'm unfortunately, one of these chronically online people. So you can find me anywhere, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, my name is pretty easy to find. And in terms of messaging, I think sometimes don't go too hard on the sale. I think that's always my message. I think my spam filters often get remove a lot of those. I think just open up a genuine conversation. And I think we're always open to new ideas, and if you share something interesting that will always pique my interest.
Tom Ollerton 22:26
Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time.
Liam Branaghan 22:29
Thank you.
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