Marketingmag.com.au had a chat with Owen Davies, general manager of marketing and communications at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank. If
you would
like to see a certain
marketer profiled, please email your suggestion to Sean Greaney on [email protected].

What do you do?

Pretend to be a marketer. Seriously, I am a journalist by trade, so perhaps better described as an accidental marketer.



What was your first job?



Delivering telegrams – which immediately ages me; when was the last time you heard of a telegram? I guess this was a nice entrée to delivering the news as a journo. First proper job was as a reporter on the now-defunct Melbourne Herald.



What did you study?



Social science – which was also a nice entrée to journalism and marketing… plenty of social, not much science.



Describe a typical day?

• 
Beat the alarm, set for 6am. I am the world’s worst sleeper-inner. It comes from six years on an afternoon newspaper.
• Run or cycle – not only for the exercise but for an hour’s listening time on the iPod.
• 
Breakfast. Eight-minute drive to work allows for two more songs, at volume, in my ute. Eight minutes to work is the beauty of our Bendigo HQ.
• 
Work, usually until around 6.30. I am a lucky man; I have a fabulous team of young people who take seriously my philosophy – your job is to make me look good.

• Drive home; more songs.
• Drink beer (it counteracts the morning exercise) usually while watering our large garden in warm weather. In winter, just drink beer anyway.
• 
Revise the day/life with my wife; news; Skype the kids (both of whom fled to far corners of the globe to escape us); DVDs/news.
• 
iPod until I drift off and get up and do it again… same shit, different day, as David Brent said.


What is on the agenda for the next year?



Son Rhys’ wedding. He’ll be 25, one year older than me when I married, yet he seems so young!


Workwise: rebranding several of our businesses post the Bendigo/Adelaide merger, and revisit Bendigo Bank’s brand creative… always exciting.

What brand do you love the most? Dislike the most? Why?



I recently bought the most fantastic iPod sounddock-cum-CD player made by Swiss company Geneva, so that’s certainly my brand-of-the-moment. I have run in Nike shoes for 21 years without injury, so Nike has to be up there. And rounding out a top three would probably be Little Creatures pale ale.



Dislikes are tougher. By my age you have put those bad brand experiences so far behind you that it’s hard to remember them. I am a typical Aussie; if I have a bad experience, I just don’t go back. One that does stick in my mind is another sound system with a great reputation – Luxman. Five failed goes at fixing a CD player under warranty was enough to turn me off forever.

What do you believe has been the most significant moment in the history of marketing?



Henry Ford: “They can have any colour as long as it’s black.” LOL. How many do you reckon Henry would have sold today?

Where can people find you?



Harley Street, Bendigo, 3550. I am campaigning on behalf of Australia Post. My brother is a postmaster and needs his job!