How To Make It In Marketing #7: Gymbox / Rory McEntee / Brand & Marketing Director
How To Make It In Marketing #7: Gymbox / Rory McEntee / Brand & Marketing Director
Having worked for some fantastic challenger brands, Rory McEntee has honed his disruptive marketing skills creating unique and daring content that turns heads and might even raise some questions. From his days at Paddy Power through to his current role at Gymbox, Rory’s “pirate” mentality has helped him stay ahead of the competition.
Thinking about how to make it in marketing, Rory was never a fan of the red tape and pre-set rules. This is why he’s advising young marketers to be bold, think outside the box, and maybe get in trouble a little bit – within reason.
What is your advice about how to make it in marketing?
Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
How have you put this tip to good use?
I started working with this motto from the early days at Paddy Power, just going for it with creative content and not thinking about getting multiple sign-offs, going through approval channels, and so on. I think, on a macro level, what this advice means is to keep going in through the back door, don’t ask anybody and see what happens. Of course, it’s got to be good content and it’s got to help your brand. But I’m not a fan of red tape and rules, and lots of great content would never come out if we followed those rules.
For example, the latest campaign we’ve done at Gymbox features Joe Wicks: we’re saying, “Thank you for your help in lockdown, we’ve got it from here.” We just went for it, never asked his permission. And it turns out he loved it, too, which worked well.
At a micro level, I’d also say not to involve too many people in decision-making, and don’t procrastinate over an idea. You’ll miss out on a quick turnaround and on good marketing.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
I think the next big thing will be visual searching and the ability to weave it into e-commerce. People are visual before anything else – we’re wired for images over text. So, imagine if you’re out with friends and someone has on a shirt you like. You take a photo, upload it to your search engine, and it finds it online for you to buy. It’s so much quicker and more engaging than typing in a search. And, a while back, we couldn’t imagine using voice search, and now that’s ubiquitous. So, it’s only a matter of time before visual search becomes a great engine for brands.
At Gymbox, we’re thinking about ways we can use this already. For example, customers might be in the gym and work out on a bike they like. They could take a photo of it and have the option of buying it online, from our own website. That’s the vision.
Listen to more marketing advice from Rory, hear about his favourite marketing books and his views on the future of marketing, on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/63pGW6E4M6CunNwiEYNRKC
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