Michael Hill CMO Jo Feeney this year completed a major brand refresh. Now she’s embarking on a “performance review” of media to make sure every dollar is working hard and driving growth.  Plus, she wants to prove that marketing is “an investment centre and not a cost centre” while busting a few “myths”, misconceptions and “sweeping statements … like no-one watches TV anymore”.

Those basics duly nailed, Feeney then aims to quantify the value of the 2.5 million-strong loyalty program she’s grown more than 4x since joining the jeweller in 2021 versus its paid media spend.

She plans to underpin all of that work with market mix modelling – MMM – in near real-time via Mutinex’s GrowthOS platform. Michael Hill recently signed on as a customer and is now almost fully data onboarded. Which means the marketing team can start proving – or disproving – their strategies.

Faster food

Feeney had used MMM in her previous role as CMO of McDonald’s – but it was the more traditional approach, where data on where media spend had delivered growth risked being delivered past its use-by date.

“It was six months old,” she says, and by that point, “something has already changed.”

Which is why at Michael Hill, Feeney opted for a platform with more recency and agility.

“The key difference for me was the monthly availability of the data, the real-time use of that data, and how it can actually shape things more quickly, more readily,” she says.

“You want to make sure that every dollar you're spending is being spent in the right place – and it's actually paying back. So that's one of the opportunities that we see at Michael Hill … and we’re really excited about getting started.”

Brand vs. demand

After the initial media performance audit, Feeney plans to use GrowthOS’s “granularity” to help gauge creative effectiveness within channels – i.e. work out which ads are driving growth, and where, in P&L terms. But that’s a nuanced equation, given the role of brand building versus short-term retail offers, or ‘performance’ ads.

“I one hundred per cent want to understand that mix. It's one of the things I'm most excited about,” says Feeney. “To be able to genuinely prove [the role of brand building] back to the business is going to be super exciting.

“Often in retail businesses there is a view that promotions drive most things, and that brand is just ‘a nice thing to do’,” she adds. But in reality, investing in brand over time is “really powerful and impactful” in driving buyers to actually consider those retail offers, Feeney emphasises.

Loyalty ROI

Once the paid media ROI data feeds are in place, Feeney ultimately aims to gauge how Michael Hill’s owned channels are delivering returns and growth in dollar terms – and crucially, profitability.

“One of the things I talk to the business [executives] about is that the loyalty program is there to drive a more profitable customer,” says Feeney. “We’ve been doing some work to try and prove that out, some manual extraction of data – but it takes months.

“I would love to be able to understand through a model what’s the actual value of the loyalty program. What is the value of the work that we do below-the-line in our own channels with our existing customers versus an above-the-line campaign with an offer – and where do we actually see better value and better outcomes?”

The good news for Feeney – and other loyalty marketers – is that Mutinex is already tweaking its models to better gauge the returns and effectiveness of owned versus paid channels, per head of marketing science, Will Marks.

“We're already doing that in terms of understanding how your owned and earned media might be driving sales from existing customers,” says Marks.

“It's almost an inverse relationship: When you're looking at acquisition, you're looking at incremental sales being driven by media. When you're looking at retention, you're looking at how many churns or loss of sales are being saved by your customer-facing activity.

“So what we're focusing on next year as a priority is re-pointing these models – instead of looking at acquisitions, understanding the impact on retention and loyalty activity,” he adds. “Churn is firmly on our agenda for 2025.”

In the meantime, Jo Feeney is running a sharper rule over all aspects of the equation.

“The future of marketing isn’t just about adapting; it’s about innovating,” she says. “With tools like Mutinex, we’re well-equipped for both.”

Get a more detailed take from Jo Feeney and tap in to how Optus’ consumer marketing boss Cam Luby is using Mutinex’s Hendren AI co-pilot to make much faster marketing decisions via this Mi3 podcast.