In FY24, ANZ marketers won brand investment back. In FY25, the team introduced a portfolio-wide, business-case-driven funding model, investing a double-digit percentage of the marketing budget into growth initiatives. By FY26, marketing will fully transition to zero-based budgeting. Reshaping marketing funding has become a defining step for ANZ GM of marketing, Sian Chadwick, in her first couple of years at the big four bank.

“It’s required marketing to align all internal stakeholders around common objectives,” she says.

No mean feat, but necessary if you’re going to rewrite the marketing playbook to ensure a commercially-driven and customer-focused marketing function. Such work requires Chadwick to put data and insight first, answering ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ in a way the rest of the business can comprehend.

“Marketing at ANZ had to move beyond rigid product-based structures and disaggregated reactive campaigns. Customers don’t wait, and neither could we. We needed a function as sharp as the data it used and as integrated as the whole-of-customer insights it generated,” she says.

At the core of this new playbook is what Chadwick calls ‘Strategy, Insights, and Growth’. “It’s not just another function, but a strategic hub designed to identify demand drivers, identify commercial value pools, and embed marketing into decision-making. We’re transforming, using democratised analytics and deep customer understanding to develop long-term differentiation strategies,” she explains.

Previously, budgets were distributed to product and customer experience teams with minimal ‘whole of customer’ oversight. Which is why the portfolio-wide business-case-driven funding model in this current financial year investing a double-digit percentage of the marketing budget into growth initiatives is such a significant change internally. Transition to zero-based budgeting will ensure every dollar invested drives measurable portfolio value, continues Chadwick.

“Given the scale of change, we’re bringing stakeholders on this journey, ensuring upfront alignment on a balanced set of principles that drive efficiency,” she says. “We’ve developed an overarching brand strategy for Australia, unifying our brand propositions and messaging in market across our business divisions and complex customer set. Moving forward, we will speak with one voice, owning our purpose and delivering growth.”

None of this works in isolation. “Marketing is becoming a connective tissue across ANZ, integrating with product, sales, and customer experience teams to create a unified, strategic growth function,” says Chadwick.

All this ensures ANZ marketing is no longer reactive but predictive, “not refining how we work, but redefining what marketing means within a large matrixed enterprise”.

Effective marketing strategy

A key change required was the recalibration back to brand. By May 2023, ANZ’s brand budget had been substantially reduced due to economic caution and budgetary pressures.

“While this addressed short-term cost concerns, I recognised the long-term risk of underinvesting in brand equity. Brand is not a discretionary expense, it is a business asset driving both immediate revenue and sustained growth,” comments Chadwick.

To build the case for investment, the marketing team leveraged Commercial Mix Modelling (CMM), built in partnership with Analytics Partners, alongside brand and reputation metrics, using data to demonstrate the direct impact of brand spend on business performance. For Chadwick, CMM is decision-making tool that is able to compare business growth levers, rather than just marketing. The numbers were run, the sceptics won over and brand investment not only improved in FY24, but increased further in FY25.

“This was no ordinary budget win. It was a renaissance,” says Chadwick. Off the back of the decision, ANZ reshaped its agency village, introducing Leo Burnett Australia and Untangld alongside PHD and Thrive PR for enhanced strategic and creative firepower.

Sharpening the customer-first brand vision, leveraging insights to unearth untapped opportunities and shaking up campaigns to encourage deeper and more meaningful connections gave ANZ a 1.6ppt year-on-year increase in brand reputation and 2ppt increase in brand consideration.

Operationally, it’s also extended media buying cycles from six to 12 weeks, which Chadwick believes allows for greater precision, smarter spend and stronger returns.

“We partner closely with finance and have ensured data-driven budget allocation and measurement. Integrating data teams within marketing further improved targeting and campaign effectiveness,” she says. “CMM became a core decision-making tool, allowing us to optimise business growth levers with precision. The impact: A 25 per cent improvement in marketing ROI year-over-year, delivering through media efficiency.”

But it wasn’t just about percentages for Chadwick. “By gaining brand investment, ANZ didn’t just reclaim its place at the table – it rebuilt the table entirely, rebuilding brand equity, enhancing customer engagement, and reinforcing marketing as a key driver of business success.”

Discerning decision making

Meanwhile, Chadwick’s decision to bring creative production in-house has been a power saving, rather than pure cost-saving move. “Outsourcing has become expensive, slow and creatively inconsistent. The answer? ANZ’s own creative production studio called Blue Sky,” she says.

The short-term gain was clear: A 50 per cent reduction in production costs, freeing up budget for strategic brand investment. But Chadwick also cites greater control, agility, and future-proofing ANZ’s creative capabilities as long-term wins.

To gain further productivity, ANZ is rolling out Adobe Workfront, streamlining workflows, automating processes, and improving workforce planning. The studio is becoming a testing ground for audiovisual production capabilities and AI-driven creative production too including building Brand assets (Adobe Express), Brand illustrations (Adobe Firefly) and production rollout (Adobe GenStudio).

“We are setting up and building out consistent asset libraries at pace, enabling iterations for AB testing and significantly speeding up the route to market for intricate, high-quality executions,” says Chadwick. “Looking ahead, this shift strengthens ANZ’s ability to compete in a digital-first world. The result? Faster, more cost-effective, and higher-quality creative output – a decision that has transformed not just production, but the entire way ANZ approaches marketing execution.”

Business influence

A persistently problematic area every banking marketer continues to juggle with is how to get the focus on people, not just products. As Chadwick knows all too well, traditional bank marketing often focuses on product features such as interest rates, the fees and fine print.

“But people don’t build their lives around banking products; they build their lives around their needs,” she comments.

Having secured that incremental brand investment, Chadwick led a shift from product-focused marketing to a customer-centric approach, prioritising underserved segments. To drive this change, ANZ is unifying Australia Commercial and Retail divisions under a single brand platform, aligning strengths and driving brand equity.

“This shift has ultimately resulted in the highest overall brand consideration for ANZ in three years, and a step change amongst non-customers where we’ve achieved #1 position against competitors nationally,” Chadwick says. “This approach is proving effective – incremental resources have been secured, proving marketing's strategic value. We are integrating insights into broader business decisions, and are expanding our attention across ANZ’s entire segment strategy in FY26, transforming how we serve customers at every level.”

Data-driven decision making

Insights are crucial in the decision-making process. In a volatile financial landscape, Chadwick knew security was becoming a growing differentiator in consumers’ minds.

“Three quarters of Australians are worried about scams and frauds, and believe banks can do more to educate them on safety. In fact, security has become a driver of consideration, with 57 per cent of Australians saying fraud influences how they choose a bank [Kantar],” she points out.

Partnering with TheLab, ANZ leveraged contemporary insights to “decode the psychology of consumer trust”. The insights were unambiguous: Fraud and scams had become a persistent concern, and customers linked ANZ’s original 2006 Falcon campaign with vigilance and strength.

“We took that insight and ran with it, relaunching The Falcon for a new era. This wasn’t nostalgia; it was strategic resurrection. Enter ‘Doppelfalcons’, a personalised security shield for every customer, reinforced with the tagline: Fraud Protection. Now it’s Personal,” explains Chadwick.

The campaign unfolded across broadcast, billboards, print, and PR, alongside AI-powered YouTube Director’s Mix, which leveraged data to create over 100 hyper-personalised video ads. Ooh!media launched Australia’s largest 3D Out-of-Home campaign, with over 2,100 screens showcasing The Falcon ‘watching’ passersby.

The work has helped brand consideration hit a two-year high, 6 per cent higher than target. Digital engagement surged 38 per cent, while YouTube ad completion rates exceeded industry benchmarks by 51 per cent. ROI also outperformed the benchmark. Notably, security messaging resonated strongest with 18-24-year-olds, driving a 50 per cent jump in noticeability in Q4.

“This campaign reframed ANZ as an institution that doesn’t just promise security but actively protects customers. This is the power of data-led, insight-driven marketing – not just reinforcing a brand, but making it indispensable in meeting consumer needs,” says Chadwick.

Commercial delivery

Another one of those insights powering Chadwick’s approach is that Australians know the value of a good deal, particularly given the challenges of our cost-of-living crisis. She notes 95 per cent are enrolled in at least one loyalty program, yet banks traditionally lagged behind when it comes to delivering meaningful rewards.

So Chadwick took on the task of launching a new program to enhance customer engagement whilst proving commercial results within four months to instill business confidence that customer engagement can be profitable.

ANZ Circle is a new loyalty program designed with data insights to target areas of attrition and address these customers’ needs for appreciation. The goal is to protect ANZ Main Financial Institution (MFI) market share. The program connects ANZ to its customers through their passion points of movies, music, sports, facilitated by multiple new partnerships.

“As a first for ANZ, this bold move translated into real-time commercial value and revenue within months of launch, gaining executive support and new belief that investing in exceptional customer engagement delivers commercial growth,” says Chadwick.

ANZ Circle commercial realisation is progressing to deliver 100 per cent ROI in-year. “It’s rare for a new program to both show in-year commercial value growth and ability to self-fund. There will be further commercial benefits as ANZ Circle matures and scales, however today we have demonstrated marketing’s innovative approach can be a key growth driver, and commercially sound investment to improve ANZ’s position as Main Bank for its customers and the market.”

People leadership

Chadwick sums up her people leadership style as one that fosters a culture of commerciality, innovation and continuous learning.

“A marketing function that doesn’t evolve is one that fades into irrelevance. I knew that to make ANZ’s shift to customer-centric marketing truly meaningful, we needed a culture that didn’t just embrace innovation and commerciality, it had to demand it,” she says.

“I developed a multi-year innovation plan, not through grand investments or sweeping tech overhauls, but through something more fundamental: curiosity and structured experimentation. We launched an eight-week human-centered design workshop process, where our marketers, stakeholders and Agency Village partners worked side by side, exploring value propositions through the lens of desirability, feasibility, and viability.”

In addition, ANZ’s long-running upskilling and reskilling program, Marketing Masters, introduced a Banking Simulation, where marketers ‘ran’ a bank for a day, honing commercial acumen and building fundamental knowledge of how a complex financial institution makes money. It was also a good way of teaching the team the language of finance and product business partners.

“Because great ideas need space to breathe, productivity training was introduced, ensuring teams could manage increasing demands without sacrificing creativity,” adds Chadwick.