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.”
