Xero marketer on creative point of difference in competitive sector

Three years into the gig and top marketer Vladka Kazda said she’s never had more fun with a brand; despite admitting she had concerns about getting excited about the category.

Marketing director Australia at Xero Vladka Kazda. Photo by Eamon Gallagher

When Carsales marketer Vladka Kazda swapped her 15-year tenure for a director spot at cloud-based accounting software Xero, she admits having concerns about getting excited about the category.

Now, three years into the gig and Ms Kazda said she’s never had more fun with a brand; attributing this to its creative outlook and licence, and management that believes strongly in marketing and the power of brand.

Marketing director Ms Kazda, who is responsible for business-to-business and business-to-consumer brand and marketing for the ASX-listed global business’s largest region, Australia, said it was vital the brand did not take itself too seriously and that it continued to build deeper connections beyond product, in an intensifying competitive market.

Last month Xero was named as a FIFA Women’s Football Partner.

“Competition is heating up and it’s not just in our direct space with accounting software players, but it‘s heating up in particular around small business software overall,” she said.

“Covid has really accelerated that rate of digitisation among small businesses, with many trying to build their tech stack, so everybody is chasing that.”

In its monitoring of ad spend in not just the accounting software space but also the small business software space, Ms Kazda said she had seen an increase tenfold in terms of advertising investment. This has the brand competing with the likes of graphic design platform Canva and timekeeping software Thrive.

“There are a lot more businesses vying for small businesses’ attention, so brand, cut through, differentiation – and probably the biggest focus for us – is just to continue to stand out,” she said.

In the past year the brand has launched its “Business, but Better”, brand platform and ad campaign; created with its in-house creative agency, has rolled out its “Emotional Tax return” campaign and competition, inked a sponsorship deal with renovation show The Block, created a humorous Valentine’s Day ad campaign and just last month was named as a FIFA Women’s Football Partner.

The integration with The Block, which has the show’s resident bookkeeper Jo using Xero to invoice, manage receipts/expenses and stay on-top of the numbers, was a first for the brand and was made possible in partnership with its media agency Noisy Beast.

A brand impact study showed that as a result of the partnership, Xero had an average increase in awareness of 20 per cent for viewers vs. non-viewers and an average increase in consideration of 46 per cent for viewers vs. non-viewers.

“It gave us not only great reach, but great contextual relevance and engagement that spots and dots can’t buy,” Ms Kazda said.

In its quest to build out its community the brand’s annual conference, Xerocon, described online as an “unmissable” event with an “electric atmosphere” for cloud accounting leaders from across APAC, is fast becoming the “Coachella for accountants”, Ms Kazda said, and is another example of the brand working to build out its community.

“When I came to Xero and into accounting software off the back of automotive I thought, ‘oh my god, how am I going to get excited about account software? How am I going to light this one up?’ And the truth is I‘ve actually never had more fun in my career with a brand than I have had with, Xero,” she explained.

“There‘s a permission to do serious work, but not take ourselves too seriously, and that definitely comes across in what we do and we’re always coming up with abstract ways of doing things.”

In a bid to win far more than paying subscribers, by focusing on “hearts and minds”, during Covid, while its rivals pulled back on ad spend Xero doubled down on marketing exploits, leaning into the fields of love and emotion.

Its multichannel Valentine’s Day loved-up campaign this year had the brand share its appreciation for accounting and bookkeeping partners via sweet messages over the airwaves (think love song dedication-style), public declarations of love in the streets, on its community pages and social, including some special influencer love, proved a big hit.

With ad copy such as “Roses are red, violets are blue, balanced ledgers have me thinking of you”, Ms Kazda said the campaign had lead indicators and page views to its adviser directory increase by 80 per cent.

Xero’s loved-up campaign around Valentine's Day

End of financial year (EOFY) is a “huge” peak selling season for the business, with Ms Kazda likening it to “Christmas for retail”.

The brand’s move to launch its “Emotional Tax Return” campaign contributed to one of Xero’s biggest EOFY periods to date, resulting in the largest peaks in unaided brand awareness and equity, with QoQ increases of 7 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

Ms Kazda explained how brand equity, made up of both awareness, differentiation and many sub factors, was the “holy grail” due to the close correlation between brand equity and market share.

“That‘s always been the case in marketing theory, but when I got to Xero, did the calculations and looked closer, I was like, ‘wow’, there really is a beautiful correlation between the way the two grow together,” she said.

The Melbourne-based marketing director added that having buy-in from the wider business around the value of and importance of brand and the role of creativity is a game changer.

“Creativity is the same thing as innovation,” she said. “It‘s the same thing as problem solving. It’s just abstract thinking, but I would say that we’re fortunate that both my current managing director and prior to him were very much about leaning into the brand and using our personality as a point of difference in our category.”

Marketing director Australia at Xero Vladka Kazda

In addition to focusing on love and emotion to win over the small business community, there’s also a “sexiness” to Xero’s creative outlook and strategy.

Describing the role of creativity being twofold, Ms Kazda said firstly it was creative with its media buy and the way it uses its data to be more effective and targeted.

“That’s actually nothing sexier than that,” she said.

“In addition, the other side is the creative and leaning into our brand personality and dialling that up.”

Ms Kazda said being a disrupter and having gained advocacy in the community meant “it‘s ours to lose” so there was no respite in taking its foot off the break as it had to keep winning customers each and every month.

“That keeps you very much on your game and everybody realises that,” she said.