In Conversation: Are we forgetting what makes marketing work?

After a career spanning agencies, tech platforms, and global brands, Lex Bradshaw-Zanger has seen marketing from nearly every angle.

From his early days at WPP and Leo Burnett, to stints at Facebook and McDonald's, and now as chief marketing and digital officer for SAPMENA at L'Oréal Groupe, he sits down with Marketing Connected's "In Conversation" to discuss his journey.

Now based in Singapore, Bradshaw-Zanger oversees the vast South Asia Pacific, Middle East, and North Africa region spanning 13 time zones. It is also, in his view, where “the future is happening”, particularly across content, commerce and media.

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Yet despite the rapid pace of change, he is clear on one thing: the distinction between digital and traditional marketing no longer holds. “When you say digital, it implies that there’s a non-digital as well, which there isn’t anymore," he said. 

Catch the full interview here on YouTube:

Instead, digital should be seen as the infrastructure, not a discipline. It is “an ecosystem, a set of tools, and a way of thinking about platforms, data and technology that empowers marketing,” he added.

Bradshaw-Zanger believes the fundamentals of marketing remain unchanged. “Marketing hasn’t changed, but marketers must,” he said, adding that while tools and platforms have evolved, human behaviour has not.

We’re still emotional, irrational people. We buy brands sometimes for reasons that we don’t understand.

This, he argues, makes foundational principles, such as brand building, consumer insight, and reach and frequency, more important than ever.

For a company such as L’Oréal, operating across dozens of markets, this plays out in the balance between global consistency and local nuance.

Bradshaw-Zanger emphasised the importance of defining what remains fixed within a brand, regardless of geography. “I need to understand what is fixed. What is my brand about— that, is not movable," he said.

There are things about brands that have to be fixed, and then there are elements that make them locally relevant.

At the same time, local teams are empowered to adapt how those brand codes come to life. In an era where consumers are increasingly globalised, the challenge is no longer top-down execution, but collaboration across markets.

Also tune in to the full conversation on Spotify:

Tune into the rest of this conversation on your favourite podcast platforms, by searching up Marketing Connected. For all the visual people out there, we’ve got your back as well, with our vodcasts on YouTube.

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