ADMA picks provocateur Goodwin to shake up advisory committee

ADMA has enlisted futurist and global marketing provocateur Tom Goodwin to shake up its advisory committee as the organisation steps up its importance and relevance in the market.

Tom Goodwin has been appointed to advisory committee for ADMA.

Futurist and global marketing provocateur Tom Goodwin has been appointed to the Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) as the body’s first internationally based member of its advisory committee (AAC).

ADMA said the move aimed to “broaden the perspectives and specialisms” with the AAC to help its members with “future-focused capability building, progressive regulatory reform and leadership that actively shapes the future of marketing”.

His appointment will also bring international insights and perspective, in a move that reflects the ­increasingly global nature of the marketing ecosystem.

However, the move also signals an appetite for change for the ­organisation, which has struggled in recent years to capture the relevancy of other industry bodies.

Mr Goodwin’s appointment to the advisory committee follows the appointment of marketing veteran David Morgan as the chair of the AAC in April. Mr Morgan, whose career includes senior marketing roles with Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Citibank, Nestle and Standard Chartered, is the first new chair in a decade for ADMA and a sign that the organisation is looking for a shake-up. Mr Goodwin’s appointment is further confirmation that ADMA is evolving.

Mr Goodwin has built a strong international reputation for disruptive opinions and practical viewpoints. He told The Australian that he aimed to help “lost” marketers navigate an industry in the throes of immense change and ­upheaval.

“I do think that marketers around the world are a little bit lost,” Mr Goodwin said. “I think they’re sold a narrative that everything they’ve done before is wrong and AI is going to take their job and that everything is different now. They’re told that the skills they have are no longer relevant and I think that the role that ADMA has in providing leadership and stewardship is important.”

“The magical thing about marketing is we’re actually really important. It’s quite an odd thing to say, but we forget that we’re helpful to people. We forget that we give people confidence in the decisions they make. We make people feel better and more confident in the holiday that they choose to go on, or the baked beans they buy.

“The reality is that the majority of what we do hasn’t changed that much. And I think [marketers] are terrified by the fact that it doesn’t need to be as hard as we think it has to be and that common sense and empathy will get us quite far.”

With the immense focus on the impact of AI dominating all conversations, Mr Goodwin said marketers should remember that it was not their job to be a tech expert and they should focus on ensuring that they understood enough.

“It’s all of our jobs to know quite a lot about AI, to experiment with AI and be thoughtful and curious, but it’s not our job to the expert,” he said. “[Marketers] don’t need to know whether Google vo3 is better than Mid journey’s latest update. It’s our job to have the right altitude and then to pull in expertise and know when to say no, when things aren’t ready yet, when we should learn more, and ultimately, when to take a step back and ask, is this good?”

Mr Goodwin is a proponent on the value of stepping back to gain perspective and view the full picture. It’s a view being embraced by ADMA as the marketing organisation prepares to double-down on marketing’s importance in driving strategic business growth.