Cam Luby believes marketers must thrive in ambiguity to be able to do their jobs well. “You must be able to navigate the grey zones,” the Optus head of consumer marketing argues.

That doesn’t mean you go into the fog without a torch, however. Guiding Luby through is a commitment to putting the customer first. “You need both data and creativity in equal measure to create a positive customer outcome,” he says.

Effective marketing strategy

Luby has needed these approaches to steer the Optus marketing team through what’s been a tumultuous few years at Australia’s number two telco. Following the cyberattack in September 2022 that saw the personal details of 9.8 million customers exposed publicly, then a 14-hour network outage in November 2023, brand value dropped sizably. Roy Morgan’s June 2024 quarterly brand trust report pegged Optus as the least trusted brand in Australia for the third consecutive quarter.

Optus’ marketing team took stock, then adopted the mantra: Down by the elevator, up by the stairs.

“We knew recovery would require deliberate, sustained action over time,” says Luby. “We re-evaluated customer choice drivers and uncovered a shift in how Australians think about telco… Our approach focuses on this segment with programs that demonstrate network reliability, protect data and affirm value.”

For example, Optus Network Pulse shows live tower performance in-app, while Call Stop highlights scam call and text blocking. Upgrade and Protect ensures devices and enables early upgrades. All of these are front and centre in marketing efforts to rebuild the Optus brand.

In complement, marketing re-evaluated where and how to invest with a focus on impact, not visibility. The first example from Luby is the move from dominant celebrity-led marketing to community-led engagement, stepping away from high-profile ambassadors as well as major sports sponsorships. Instead, he’s reinvested in over 60 local partnerships with grassroots sports clubs and associations, activated by retail store teams and designed to build real community trust and enable local narratives about network reliability and investment.

“Combined with a shift from celebrity to community storytelling, we are changing how people engage with Optus,” says Luby.

Several internal markers showing these rebuilding efforts are working, as well as broader market indicators demonstrating it’s a good time for Optus to be proactively demonstrating value in market. Fifteen months on from the outage, brand value among target segments has grown 27 per cent from its low to now within 5 per cent of pre-cyberattack levels.

Unifying the brand strategy, product roadmap and performance marketing has been critical here. Historically, brand and performance marketing swam in separate lanes at Optus.

“That distinction no longer served the way customers thought of the category or what it would take to rebuild brand and reputation for Optus,” comments Luby.

The flip is product marketing grounded in real experiences, carried consistently through the line. That’s also because the marketing chief believes there is no brand versus performance anymore: Every brand action should drive performance, and every performance move shapes the brand.

“Every aspect – from how products are built to how they’re brought to market – is tailored to customer expectations. It’s a move away from the traditional trade-off between brand and performance marketing, and toward a model where both reinforce each other through the line,” Luby says. “Marketing is allocated to where we have the greatest impact. These trade-offs require deep collaboration and understanding of marketing contribution across the business.”

To measure this shift, Optus brought in marketing mix modelling partner, Mutinex, to track ROI. The work has seen Optus improve total marketing ROI by 10 per cent, with the biggest gain coming from the improved performance of what was historically known as the brand spend.

“This shift has proven that integrating brand, product, and performance creates stronger outcomes – and a more connected customer experience,” adds Luby.

Business influence

A further example of marketing gaining business influence Luby points to is joint product and marketing work on propositions like Unlimited Data Weekends for Prepaid and Upgrade and Protect for Postpaid. Again, these were developed directly from insights ascertained through Optus’ customer segmentation model.

Luby highlights the following comment from Optus Vice-President of Mobile & Home, Renee Garner: “From our perspective, we should not be developing any propositions or any marketing that is not anchored in real customer insight and what is meaningful in our customers’ lives. What we’ve done is build three compelling propositions which are anchored in this insight around value and ease, and we’re liberating customers from the constraints holding them back. It’s kind of simple, but it’s really customer champion insight led, and if we do that well, we know we’re going to make an impact on customers.”

The numbers are there to back it up: This approach has contributed to a 27 per cent uplift in brand value among target segments.

Data-driven decision making

A further example customer-first thinking for Luby is how Optus has repositioned customer network marketing through personalised communications about how the network performs for each customer, culminating in the Network Year in Review. This uses customer data to deliver personalised summaries of network reliability for each recipient, highlighting network performance in their area, scam protection efforts in their area, which network towers they used most, and local network investment made by Optus.

“This is essentially Spotify Wrapped, but for Optus network reliability personalised to each customer,” comments Luby.

Mail open rates and scroll depth showed strong engagement, push notifications drove My Optus App engagement, and organic social content drove high video views and reach. Lifts in customer advocacy, loyalty and network perceptions sit at about +10 per cent across control and exposed groups.

“This program is an example of insight-driven, segment-aligned marketing, where customer expectations and customer data come together. It proved that network reliability, when communicated meaningfully and personally, can strengthen retention and advocacy – and without media spend,” says Luby.

Commercial delivery

For Luby, one of the most significant steps forward demonstrating how marketing drives commercial outcomes at Optus is implementation of the real-time MMM framework, delivered in partnership with Mutinex and UM.

As the foundation client for a first-of-its-kind data integration between UM’s media systems and Mutinex’s GrowthOS platform, Optus now benefits from an MMM model that refreshes with just a 10-week lag, dramatically improving decision-making speed and precision, according to Luby.

This automation has set a new benchmark in data accuracy, security, and efficiency across the industry. Per Mutinex CEO APAC, Mat Baxter: "UM and Optus deserve congratulations for pioneering the way media data is supplied for MMM. Let's be frank, the more fluid the data supply the more valuable the insight. It's as simple as that.”

“With these faster, more reliable insights, we've significantly reshaped our investment profile,” Luby says “These changes, along with optimising our media channel investments, have resulted in a 10 per cent year-over-year improvement in ROI at Optus, and a clear understanding of the relationship between what we traditionally call brand and performance marketing. This capability has positioned marketing as a growth engine – one that makes faster, sharper trade-offs and drives impact well beyond media metrics alone.”

People leadership

Rallying the team behind the clear mantra of ‘down by the elevator, up by the stairs’ has set expectations that brand trust won’t return overnight. Instead, it’s helping Luby encourage steady, deliberate effort to drive meaningful recovery.

“To foster resilience and focus, we reoriented the team around business outcomes, only tracking marketing metrics we could directly link to commercial performance,” explains Luby. “In a climate where Australian businesses are under pressure to protect profit, this discipline has reinforced the value of marketing within the organisation.”

Equally important has been building a sense of community and growth within the team. Optus has become an active member of the AANA and ADMA and sponsor of The Marketing Academy to give its team access to training, events and a broader industry network.