How I Got Here: Puma’s Head of Brand Marketing on creating meaningful customer connections

“It really does take cross-functional collaboration, teamwork and alignment to make the magic happen.”

Have you ever stalked someone on LinkedIn and wondered how on earth they managed to land that wildly impressive job? While the internet and social media might have us believe that our ideal job is a mere pipe dream, the individuals who have these jobs were, believe it or not, in the same position once, fantasising over someone else’s seemingly unattainable job.

But behind the awe-inspiring titles and the fancy work events lies a heck of a lot of hard work. So what lessons have been learnt and what skills have proved invaluable in getting them from daydreaming about success to actually being at the top of their industry?

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Welcome to How I Got Here, where we talk to women who are killing it in their respective fields about how they landed their awe-inspiring jobs, exploring the peaks and pits, the failures and the wins, and most importantly the knowledge, advice and practical tips they’ve gleaned along the way.

This week we speak to Alicia Tan, the Team Head of Brand Marketing at Puma Oceania. After years spent in the publishing industry, Alicia utilised her communications degree to work in strategy, eventually landing a role as a Marketing Manager at Puma. It was here she discovered her love for driving meaningful brand conversations, helping create connections between product and consumer. Since starting at Puma, Alicia says there “really has been no turning back since for me”.

It was Alicia’s resilience, focus and analytical mind that lead her to the role of overseeing Puma’s brand strategy and multiple key categories. Despite it not always being glamorous, Alicia says working with high-performing individuals “really makes you want to always bring your best self to work and commit to the cause”. Here’s what she’s learnt along the way.

What do you do and what’s your official job title?

I work in marketing, and I’m the Team Head of Brand Marketing at Puma Oceania, overseeing overall brand strategy as well as key categories: team sport, run/train, Sportstyle and women’s.

Take us back to when you were first starting out. Did you study to get into your chosen field, or did you start out with an internship/entry-level role and climb the ladder? Tell us the story.

 

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A post shared by Alicia T. (@xphyxiate)

I started at Puma almost three and a half years ago as the Marketing Manager for Sportstyle as a maternity leave cover. About one and a half years into the gig, the opportunity arose to be the brand marketing lead across, and the rest is history.

I do have a master’s degree in communications and have had stints working in agencies, but my background is actually as a journalist… I spent [time] working in publishing across several international publications. When I started progressing in my publishing career, I had the opportunity to lead renowned women’s titles such as Cleo… which really helped me grasp hold of the importance of driving brands through a consumer lens. I’m also a bit of a data geek and love research, so I rely on a lot of my analytical skills to inform the decisions I’ve made.

After publishing, I moved into strategy and loved developing and implementing strategies for some big brands, which was kind of how I ended up at Puma. It’s already a recognised sports brand but it stays focused on brand elevation and connecting with consumers in a meaningful manner – there really has been no turning back since for me.

What challenges/hurdles have you faced getting to where you are now? Can you tell us about one in particular?

I think with my experience it can be a bit of a double-edged sword, in the way that people often pigeonhole me as just a fashion brand marketer. I don’t really see that as a hurdle, but an opportunity to showcase my agility and ability to succeed across different categories and prove others wrong! It is also a very good self-awareness exercise and serves as a reminder that you can’t let other people’s opinions determine your self-worth.

What do you want people to know about your industry/your role?

Oftentimes, as marketers, we front-facing for campaigns – but it really does take cross-functional collaboration, teamwork and alignment to make the magic happen. To put it simply, there really is no ‘I’ in team.

What’s the best part about your role?

I love many aspects of my role – but I really do love the people that I work with and meet. When you get to know others on a deeper level (like what drives them), it really makes you want to always bring your best self to work and commit to the cause. I work with high-performing individuals who bring different areas of expertise to the game, you learn something new every day – and I thrive through learning.

What would surprise people about your role?

It’s not as glamorous as people think it can be [laughs]. I think when it comes to marketing, people just see the final product and think ‘how cool’, but a lot of time and effort goes into developing strategies, planning three seasons in advance, aligning internally and externally and rolling out campaigns.

What skills have served you well in your industry?

Resilience, especially throughout the COVID pandemic. There was a lot of uncertainty that faced businesses, but being able to soldier through the good and bad really helped.

 

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A post shared by Alicia T. (@xphyxiate)

[Being] results-oriented – I love frameworks, processes, testing and learning. I think it’s very important to always refer back to the results of previous campaigns when developing new strategies. It also helps me set realistic goals/objectives for us to track success.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a role like yours one day?

Live and breathe the brand that you work for. The brand’s values need to resonate with your own personal values. I think the most important advice is that you need empathy and be inquisitive about consumers to give them what they want – otherwise, it’s all noise to them. So stay relevant, stay focused, keep listening and have conversations to shape your approach to the type of marketer you want to be.

Be brave and allow yourself to take risks. Great marketing happens for brands that dare. Don’t back yourself into a corner thinking your career after school is for life, allow yourself to explore where your passions lie, get to know yourself and what drives you and allow yourself to experiment!

[And] have fun – sometimes work can seem like a chore, but it’s about flipping your mindset, celebrating small wins [and] tackling tasks with a sense of humour.

What about a practical tip?

Always take really good care of yourself. Listen to your body and don’t feed into negativity or feelings of imposter syndrome – they happen to the best of us! I find it super helpful to practice mindfulness, to not be so hard on myself and to look after my mental health first.

Read the rest of the How I Got Here series here.

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