Masters of Media: Peter Rowe, Head of Media at NatWest Group

New Digital Age

NDA’s podcast series, Masters of Media talks to heads of media at brands to understand how advertisers are able to keep pace with the frenetic speed of development of media and its fragmentation across channels. In this episode we meet Peter Rowe, Head of Media at NatWest Group.

On moving from procurement to marketing: In procurement, I looked at inputs, such as how many agencies you need, and at outputs but also outcomes And procurement teams have output targets where marketing has outcomes, so they're not always aligned. Outcomes are what got me excited, hence the move into media."

On media fragmentation. "You can’t do it on your own, you need brilliant people around you. Communication is critical here to mange the complexity You need to operate a very simple model in a complex situation.

Essentially you need to make sure we are backing the things we know work well, that we can measure it all and optimise it At that point was know we’re mature enough to add to that mix."

On telling a consistent brand story; "The thing that’s challenging about consistency is scale and pace. In media we need to make sure that when the customer sees something from us that it’s relevant to them on any channel."

Agency relationships: A one team culture if what work, when everyone’s working to the same outcomes. Relationships used to be transactional and binary but now we need a multiple of expertise from multiple sources. The relationship is now more flexible.

On search marketing: "Search is not a media channel but a behaviour and it tells you that the way people’s behaviour changes as they go from platform to platform."