Sarah Scott, Global Director of Marketing at Oritain: “Audiences want insightful content, without it being so personal that it feels intrusive”

We love interviews that force you to stop and think, and that’s definitely true of this interview with Sarah Scott, Global Director of Marketing at Oritain. If you haven’t heard of Oritain before, its goal is to verify the origin of products to create trust – and trust is perhaps the biggest asset a brand has.

For example, says Sarah, consider the hyper-personalisation tools that can deliver tailored messages at precise times. “As marketers, it’s tempting to look at transactional data and search behaviour and serve up ads at 12.30pm which say, ‘Sarah are you hungry – feel like your usual sushi order?'” But isn’t that a bit, well, creepy? “We’ve got to strike the right balance so that engagement feels natural,” she argues.

We promise we haven’t been stalking you, Sarah, when we say we know what you’ve been up to these past 15 years. LinkedIn revealed that you were Global Director of Strategy, Apps & Services Communications at Xero before joining Oritain – and that you hold an Executive MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) at the University of New South Wales.

We also happen to know that Sarah is a regular judge at the Mumbrella Awards, is a strong supporter of pro-bono charity organisation Dress for Success Sydney and, in 2017, was recognised in the NSW Premier’s Volunteer Recognition Program.

Read on to discover how Sarah sees the influence of AI on marketing in 2024, the increasing challenges around privacy and security, and “one tool to rule them all” could transform the MarTech sector.

Why Dust or Magic? That stems from a quote by legendary American advertising creative director, William Bernbach: “An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.” (And if you’re wondering where you’ve heard the name, Bernbach was the inspiration behind Don Draper of Mad Men fame.)

What are your thoughts on the escalating integration of AI in digital marketing and its potential influence on the future of marketing, Martech and social media?

AI has the potential to have a profound impact on marketing. With AI, businesses can move faster, make better data-driven decisions, and automate those repetitive tasks which while important, are an enormous drain on time. Ultimately AI is an enabler to give marketers the time and headspace to build strategy and bring in more creativity.

For years we’ve talking about big data and sought to find marketers who have the skills to translate it into something meaningful. Now, we can use AI-powered algorithms to fill part of this gap – helping unpack trends, identify customer preferences, and capitalise on opportunities in real-time. 

Our ability to use AI to understand social media sentiment is also exciting. At Oritain, we’re in the business of trust and reputation, so understanding consumer perceptions and sentiments will only become more important for us and our partners.

Although AI isn’t new, as 2024 progresses, few areas of business will remain untouched by it. The time for leaders to define the potential of their organisation and incorporate it into their strategies is now.

How do you ready yourself for an AI-driven landscape as a marketing leader? What new skills do you need? 

The most essential skills people need for an AI-driven landscape are building a growth mindset, broadening your network and leading through collaboration. Without these skills as your foundation, you’ll struggle to embrace the power of AI.

In an AI future, marketers must be open to doing things differently. With the right mindset, you’ll naturally seek out the latest information on AI, be curious and comfortable using new tooling, and look for ways to enhance your data and analytical skills to ensure you can confidently interpret and translate data-driven insights.

But we’ll move faster as an industry if we share our learnings and collaborate with other like-minded marketers. I’m a big fan of learning from people doing great things in other industries, and there’s no substitute (yet) for regularly connecting with industry peers to share learnings and challenge our own thinking.

AI will become so pervasive that leaders and businesses who don’t adopt these critical mindset shifts will get left behind.

Related reading: How generative AI’s rise may impact your career

Looking ahead to 2024, what AdTech trends do you expect to dominate?

Data privacy will continue to be important in 2024. Privacy regulations are tightening, so it’s critical that platforms keep up and enable brands to remain compliant. With Oritain being a global business, we’re interested in platforms that understand and allow for privacy nuances in multiple markets.  

Measurement and analytics also won’t be going anywhere – and neither will the business’ scrutiny of marketing’s investment in advertising! In 2024, I expect we’ll see greater access to real-time insights, which will further enhance our ability to improve ad spend and demonstrate ROI back to the business – helping prove marketing’s direct contribution to the bottom line to achieve this, first-party measurement/data will continue to be a focus. Your Adtech will only be as successful as your data strategy.  

Do you anticipate any significant disruptions in Marketing and Sales Technology for 2024? If so, what?

One disruption will be the convergence of technology platforms, particularly within the sales and marketing landscape. 

We’re constantly looking at what tooling can help us scale, move faster, and get greater visibility and alignment across our entire customer lifecycle.

There are a lot of new shiny players popping up, but those that can offer ‘one tool to rule them all’ (or at least those that get close) will be those that ultimately win, as marketers look to build efficiencies into their tech stacks and streamline their operations. Those with high-quality integrations will also win, as businesses assess whether to build, buy or partner.   

With finite resources, a strong player who does a few things well is likely to be more enticing than multiple market leaders. For us it comes back to efficiency, moving fast, and greater visibility of how marketing efforts drive revenue. 

Related reading: Navigating the virtual shift

How do you think AI might evolve B2B marketing and/or ABM strategies in 2024?

This is such an exciting space, and there are incredible tools tapping into AI to help B2B brands take marketing to the next level. 

AI will only help us get better at hyper-personalisation, really quickly. With robust data, we can start to see trends and gather real-time insights right across a complex customer journey. And greater insights lead to more relevant, engaging content, served up in more contextual environments. However, more questions will arise around copyright Infringements, with potential precedents emerging from legal cases across the globe.

One of the careful balancing acts is being highly relevant without being ‘creepy’ or overbearing. Audiences want insightful content, without it being so personal that it feels intrusive. As marketers, it’s tempting to look at transactional data and search behaviour and serve up ads at 12.30pm which say, “Sarah are you hungry – feel like your usual sushi order?” (and the technology is there). But we’ve got to strike the right balance so that engagement feels natural.

We’ve also seen the impact of chatbots and virtual assistance across lots of industries, to the point it’s almost an expectation. As consumers, we’re impatient – we want real-time support and 24/7 access to information, and we want to multitask while doing it. Not surprisingly we’ll start to see this expectation bleed more into the B2B landscape. 

B2B decision-makers are consumers too; there’s often just a wider pool of stakeholders to engage and influence. Fortunately for marketers, tools like 6Sense, Influ2 and ZoomInfo can help us engage that ecosystem too. 

Could you share some of your most noteworthy accomplishments that you take particular pride in?

A career highlight was working with an exceptional team at Xero, to launch the Xero App Store. Enabled by a set of open APIs, the Xero App Store has created a flywheel of innovation. It’s a place where small businesses can easily find, and try and buy over 1,000 apps, and the place where developers can grow their business. There’s nothing more rewarding than being part of something new – and experiencing firsthand the impact an open platform can have on innovation.

However, the best is yet to come. Oritain is perfectly poised to achieve great things as we build a world-class business and create tangible, positive change in the world – watch this space! 

Recommended reading: The transformative power of leadership

What core values have played a pivotal role in shaping your approach to marketing and communication?

One of my favourite sayings is “A rising tide lifts all boats” – John F Kennedy.

I’m a big fan of collaboration and celebrating shared success. No-one succeeds alone – so if you can build, motivate and inspire a team then the sky is the limit. You can have all the tools or budget in the world, but the secret sauce is the people who make the magic happen.  

What piece of advice would you offer to fellow marketing leaders that has been particularly beneficial to you personally?

Regularly seek feedback – but make it easy to give. About seven years ago I changed the way I sought feedback and started asking people for “one thing I could do differently”. I’d ask this in the moment, either straight after presentation, or an important meeting, so it was timely and didn’t require much effort. Over time, I started to gather lots of small but valuable insights, which have enabled me to continually grow and develop over my professional career. 

Understand, invest in, and harness your own personal strengths. Building a strong sense of self-awareness is a really powerful way to focus and build a diverse high-performing team. One way to uncover these is through The Clifton Strengths Assessment, which helps you discover the unique strengths that have enabled your success, and those of your team.

Are there any startups in the Martech industry that have piqued your interest lately?

We’re early in our Martech journey, which means we’ve had the luxury of diving deep into a range of solutions – and wow it’s impressive. 

One which has recently piqued my interest is influ2, which enables businesses to show specific ads to key decision-makers. It’s just a really smart platform, which will not only help brands get better alignment with Sales but ensure they’re relevant, contextual and more efficient with ad spend.