Lara Thom is a firm believer in the through line between marketing and revenue generation. As global CMO of Guzman y Gomez  (GYG), her marketing budget is the direct result of sales generated, meaning her team are incentivised to deliver growth and commercial gains.

“An attribute I expect modern marketers to have is the ability to connect all marketing projects or campaigns to both brand and revenue generation,” she says.

Since joining GYG nearly nine years ago, Thom has been in the privileged position of helping shape one of the most exciting growth stories in Australian retail and hospitality. With responsibility for all revenue functions and now spending 40 per cent of her time internationally, she’s led marketing, brand and commercial strategies through a period of extraordinary expansion, not just in Australia but globally. In FY2024, GYG’s total network sales reached AUD$960 million, marking an increase of over $200 million from the previous year.

“When I joined GYG, we were a challenger brand with a cult following. Today, we’re a global powerhouse and one of the fastest-growing quick-service restaurant brands in the world. In that time, we’ve opened over 190 new restaurants, pioneered category-defining campaigns like ‘Clean is the New Healthy’, and successfully expanded into new markets, including Singapore and the US,” Thom notes.  

“Marketing at GYG is not a support function, it’s the growth engine. It sits at the intersection of data, creativity, and commercial accountability. And as a leader, I’ve built a team and a system that moves fast, stays agile, and delivers results.”

Effective marketing strategy

‘Clean is the New Healthy’ has underpinned GYG’s global marketing re-invention of fast food. First launched in 2019 , it’s grounded in the philosophy of showcasing an uncompromising commitment to real, clean food. At the original time of its original launch, the menu took three years of product innovation to ensure there were no added preservatives, no artificial flavours, no added colours and no unacceptable additives in GYG’s products, Thom comments.

More recently, Thom has led the second iteration of the ‘Clean is the New Healthy’ platform and campaign. By this time, GyG had more than doubled its restaurant footprint and well over 50 per cent of guests loved the food – yet they weren’t aware of the health benefits GYG offered to allow guests to eat less, more often.

“We recognised the critical need to re-educate and re-inspire. Our objective was clear: Reignite awareness of GYG’s Clean food philosophy while deepening trust and connection with a growing customer base,” says Thom. “Our priority was to create a unique, distinctive brand platform that cut through cluttered food messaging and reaffirmed GYG’s leadership in ingredient transparency and quality. With customer insights guiding us, we developed a refreshed creative approach that spoke directly to our values, and our audience’s health-conscious mindset, while retaining the energy and authenticity that defines GYG.”

A high-impact, multi-million-dollar integrated campaign ensued across Australia, supported by digital, social, radio, OOH, BVOD, in-restaurant, PR and social activations. The campaign directly contributed to record sales during the IPO period and drove a significant uplift in brand affinity and repeat visitation.

“Recognising its power, we worked tirelessly with international suppliers to ensure Clean became a global platform for GYG. I led the global rollout of the campaign in Singapore and the US, adapting our messaging to resonate with local markets while staying true to the brand’s heart,” says Thom. “This global expansion reinforced our positioning and built a unified, purpose-led narrative across regions.

“This campaign represents the best of GYG’s brand strength and marketing, insight-driven, globally scalable, and anchored in values. It reflects the collaboration, creativity, and relentless drive of my team and reaffirms GYG’s mission to reinvent fast food for the better and earned my team the QSR Media Marketing Campaign of the Year award in 2024.”

Yet as work on the IPO progressed, it was also evident GYG faced a pivotal challenge. Its founder and co-CEO, Steven Marks, had long been the face and voice of the brand, but the increasing demands on his role made this unsustainable. Rather than look outward, Thom looked inward, leading to the debut of GYG TV: An in-house, on-the-ground content team equipped with roaming microphones, branded uniforms, cameras, and a clear mission, to tell the real, unscripted stories of GYG in a way that resonates with how audiences digest content today.

“Our goal wasn’t just to post, it was to connect by showcasing the everyday energy, people and purpose behind the brand,” says Thom. “This manifested in video content across multiple channels from our Exclusive Crew Incentives in the GYG Taylor Swift Era’s Tour and GYG Coldplay corporate box, to news style reporting on each new suburb we opened a GYG in. It was also key in our local and national sports sponsorships and in elevating our ‘Fast Food that Athletes Say Yes to’ platform as well as many GYG activations. Our roaming reporters and vloggers have captured every moment inside and outside of GYG’s restaurants.”

GYG TV’s content has driven record-breaking reach, engagement and revenue, with its TikTok presence placing the QSR as a finalist in the TikTok Advertiser of the Year awards. “Our approach has set a new benchmark in the industry, so much so that we’ve seen other fast-food brands begin to mimic the GYG TV style, from handheld storytelling to on-the-ground team profiles. But while they imitate, we innovate,” says Thom.

“GYG TV didn’t just change how we make content, it changed how we show up as a brand. And in doing so, it’s inspired an entire category to rethink what great fast-food storytelling looks like,” Thom adds.

Discerning decision making

Thom clearly knows how to turn constraints into catalysts. As she points out, she’s optimising a marketing budget that is a fraction of competitors’, often less than 10 per cent. “This necessitates daily strategic decisions to maximise brand awareness and drive revenue, all while upholding our unwavering commitment to quality in food, marketing, and people,” she continues.

Yet GYG’s biggest trade off turned into its biggest strength. One early decision, for example, was to not use advertising agencies and build an in-house agency. As an ex-agency leader, Thom knew where the gains could be made this way – and importantly, how to find agility.

“Rather than adhering to rigid annual marketing plans, we maintain the flexibility to reallocate funds across campaigns, delivery channels, and digital platforms in real-time, responding swiftly to market dynamics and consumer behaviours,” she explains. “In 2024, recognising the meteoric rise of TikTok and evolving content consumption patterns, we made a deliberate shift in our investment strategy. Instead of producing a handful of high-cost, large-scale campaigns, we redirected resources towards generating a multitude of micro-stories, hundreds of pieces of content designed to engage consumers daily with fresh, relevant narratives.”

This approach was exemplified in GYG’s ‘60 Stories in 60 Days’ campaign, which blended national advertisements with suburb-level local creative, resulting in 600 unique content variants and spurring record sales.

“This strategic pivot not only amplified our reach and engagement but also reinforced GYG’s position as an industry leader in content innovation,” says Thom. “By embracing agility and continuously adapting our marketing investments to align with current trends and consumer preferences, we ensure that every dollar spent contributes effectively to our brand’s growth and resonance in the market.”

Business influence

Arguably, however, the biggest thing to ever happen in the group’s history is its $3bn IPO on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2024. Leading up to the public listing, Thom worked closely with the executive team to develop a compelling narrative that showcased GYG’s growth trajectory and market potential.

“In collaboration with our finance and legal teams, I ensured our brand positioning was consistently and effectively communicated across all investor materials and presentations. This cohesive messaging strategy was crucial in building investor confidence and differentiating GYG in a competitive market,” she says. “Additionally, I spearheaded media engagements, participating in interviews and press conferences to articulate GYG’s value proposition and future plans. These efforts amplified our visibility and reinforced our brand’s strength in the lead-up to the IPO.”

These strategic initiatives culminated in Australia’s most successful IPO in 2024, with overwhelming demand leading to an increase in the offer size to $335.1 million. Upon listing, GYG’s shares surged by 36 per cent, elevating its market capitalisation to approximately $3 billion and marking the largest ASX debut since 2021.

“This success underscores the power of integrated cross-functional collaboration and strategic brand stewardship in achieving outstanding business outcomes,” says Thom.

Data-driven decision making

Data is embedded into the core of the marketing engine. “I operate with full revenue accountability, so every decision I make must have a quantifiable business outcome. That’s only possible because GYG is built to be agile, data-first and performance-driven,” Thom continues.

Dashboards are used to access real-time visibility on sales by product, daypart, store, and channel, and marketing also tap into its owned data ecosystem to test creative, inform product development, and personalise offers. These first-party insights, combined with channel-specific performance data, shape every brief, budget and campaign structure executed.

One of the most effective uses of data in the last year was in the ‘60 Stories in 60 Days’ campaign. “We modelled suburb level demand data to inform hyper-local messaging and creative,” says Thom.

“At GYG, marketing is the intersection of data science and brand instinct. The art only works when the science is sharp. That’s how we move faster, smarter, and more effectively.”

Commercial delivery

Another facet of Thom’s role is to translate the vision and mission set by Marks into record-breaking commercial performances. She does this by leveraging all Ps of marketing.

“Driving these outcomes, I ensured marketing was a true growth engine for GYG. I have championed brand-building initiatives that also drove sales, notably relaunching the ‘Clean is the New Healthy’ campaign to underscore GYG’s fresh, authentic food philosophy, a move that underpinned improved sales momentum,” she comments.

“Our marketing team’s creative campaigns around new menu items [such as crispy chicken tenders] and value offers [such as the $12 mini meal] converted customer excitement into measurable revenue lifts. At the same time, I have worked with my team to optimise every channel: Under my guidance, GYG’s digital platforms thrived, delivery volumes surged, and drive-thru outlets achieved outstanding throughput.

“Through confident, data-driven leadership, I have aligned marketing strategy with operations and finance, ensuring each campaign and customer touchpoint delivered ROI and sustainable growth. I believe my commercial insight and decisive direction not only contributed to an unprecedented year of sales, expansion, and transaction growth in 2024, but also solidified the brand’s market leadership in Australia. It’s a testament to marketing-led strategy translating into tangible business success.”

People leadership

Moving fast and working across six different time zones means Thom and her team never stop. “I lead a marketing team that’s built for speed, built for change, and built for impact,” she agrees.

As a result, it’s critical GYG fosters a culture where learning is constant, feedback is fuel, and calculated risk is part of the job description.

“We don’t just ‘test and learn’, we test and apply. Whether it’s jumping early onto TikTok, refining performance in real time, or shutting down what’s not working, we move with data, gut and guts,” says Thom. Such a shift isn’t surprising really, given Thom is a big believer in trying new channels. But she also knows when to stop investing in them. Take the bold call she once made as a CMO to turn everything off, except social media. “It worked,” she remarks.  

“We’ve built the capability to monitor and pivot at speed, fuelled by real-time insights. It’s why GYG doesn’t just exist on emerging platforms, we lead them,” she bullishly states, noting the huge importance she places on understanding these platforms herself, not just delegating.

“In a world of short attention spans, you need to know exactly how the first 3 seconds of an ad feels. And when it’s off, we’re brave enough to turn it off,” she says. “Most importantly, we’ve built a culture that values experimentation, curiosity and being ‘glass half full’. Our people feel safe to try, to fail, to adapt – and that’s where the magic happens.

“The result? A bold, responsive team that knows how to deliver results in a constantly changing world. We don’t just keep up, we set the pace. And we have a whole lot of fun doing it.”