What exactly is the job of... Team Marketing: between memes and methods

Marketing: for some, it’s a non-word. For others – well, it’s one of those things that is hard to define. If you have to explain to your parents what you do as a ‘marketing person’, the answers are quite different, depending on the person concerned. At advanced store, we can put it more or less like this: everything that goes out, whether it is text or images, goes through the marketing team. Why? Quite simply, so that there is a common theme that threads through everything. This makes it easier both for the customer and for colleagues and employees. ‘Corporate identity’ and ‘corporate design’ are related buzzwords. But back to the team: after all, today we want to bring you closer to the creative minds personally.

Who’s in Team Marketing and what do they do?

Team Marketing at advanced store is Tommy, Lisa and Elisabeth, who have been working mainly from home – and not just since Corona broke out. The team is split between Berlin and the surrounding area, and further south in Bavaria. Sitting down with the three of them, we started off with the most important question of all:

Why are you the best team in the world?

Elisabeth: (laughing)

Lisa: That’s us? Thanks for the title! I think we are a very colourful mishmash of people united by creativity and (mostly) by humour. Still, we don’t lose ourselves in the world of ideas, but also get a grip on things and put them into practice.

Tommy: Everyone in the team can rely on each other. Everyone is an absolute expert in his or her subject area and thus a direct contact person. Distributing the tasks is something that happens almost intuitively, which makes it easy.

"Almost intuitively..." – that sounds promising. What exactly are your topics, in detail?

Elisabeth: To sum it up: texts of all kinds. Other than that I make sure that we make a good impression on our social media platforms.

Lisa: Girl-Friday or ‘set runner’ captures it nicely. Mostly, I’m involved in external communication – i.e. sales papers, one-pagers or handouts; just for marketing material. But the conceptual work also crosses my desk. What’s the target group, is it all easy to grasp, are the customer's most important questions answered, and does the content conform to our corporate identity? I also call our website my ‘baby’, as it just popped out.

Tommy: Everything that has anything to do with graphics ends up on my plate. That starts with business cards, takes in the usual production of advertising material, and also covers trade fair materials such as handouts, merchandise or ballpoint pens and stickers. I try to optimise and brighten up client presentations as much as possible, because graphics and text work hand in hand.

It sounds like you have a lot of contact with other colleagues. Which teams do you work closely with, and do you also have direct contact with the customers?

Tommy: We’re in touch with all the teams. Anyone who wants something spruced up comes knocking.

Elisabeth: Yes, that’s right. There are always issues that need to be discussed internally. Ultimately, we support marketing activities for advanced store. And there is not just one project there, but plenty. For example, I’m also heavily involved with ‘mycashbacks’, which is our cashback portal.

Lisa: Marketing is always standing at the end of a long chain of stakeholders, product development departments, sales teams, and so on. That’s why we work together with all the teams. But we work most closely with Sales & Key Accounts, as they have the most direct contact with our customers and partners, who I’m in contact with only now and then. For example, when it comes to our ‘compare ad’ comparison calculator tool, which I manage.

The personalities behind the team

We understand now what it is that you do. Now let’s move on to you as people – after all, your personalities play a key role in the job. Let’s start with broad brushstrokes...

What’s your big passion?

Lisa: Hmm, that’s a crucial question. For me, it's all the fine arts. Right up front: Music! Anyone else need a live band? Then I can recommend this one: spurwechsel. What can I say: once marketing, always marketing.

Tommy: Design in general, whether it is on the computer or on paper. I’ve actually turned my hobby into my profession. I think that’s beautiful.

Elisabeth: That’s it, yes! 

Who or what can you not live without?

Elisabeth: Not without my husband and my children, that’s for sure! That's why I left Berlin a few years ago and moved fully into a home office.

Tommy: I guess I couldn't live without my wife and our two children. But I have a few colleagues I would never want to part with.

Lisa: Chocolate. FULL STOP.

Keyword: home office and chocolate (yes, we work quite collaboratively here): What is the worst thing you have eaten in the home office so far?

Lisa: With more time to cook, it got better rather than worse. At least I don't hear any complaints.

Tommy: For me it was homemade moussaka. It was a nice idea, and the recipe sounded fantastic – but that’s as far as it went.

So where are you going now, and how do you get there?

Team Marketing, at advanced store, is a colourful mix of text and image lovers who want to keep an eye on the big picture and have fully embraced the digital age. After the relaunch of advanced-store.com, and apart from the jokingly suggested “World domination" and a “Social media revolution", there is still no major new project that lies ahead of us. But it won't be long in coming, and in the end the team of three have a finger in almost every pie. 

Now to sum up: Tommy, what makes you particularly proud of your team, and why?

Tommy: Even though the three of us live and work far apart, you never notice this enormous distance. We responded extremely quickly to the lockdown and adapted to working remotely from day one. The fact that we also managed to relaunch the website in this way makes me even prouder.