Hall gets some perspective at RAC

Carolyn Hall says she landed one of possibly only two jobs in Perth that suited her skills set and personal goals when she arrived home after two decades overseas.

Ms Hall developed a 20-year career in marketing in London and New York, but chose to return to Perth in late 2005, and has since taken the marketing reins at the RAC, spearheading the group’s new campaign.

In addition to her advertising and marketing experience, Ms Hall also has a significant background in financial services. In the RAC, she said, she found an organisation that had just decided to renew its brand and was looking for an expert to drive it.

The RAC also had a community feel that fitted her desire to shrug off the overtly corporate focus of New York, having most recently worked on big accounts for advertising giant McCann Erickson.

It also provided an opportunity to return to her roots.

“I got to 40 and thought, ‘what am I doing? I can’t do this for the rest of my life’,” Ms Hall told WA Business News. “I think you forget where your life is when you’re away for as long as I was.”

Like many successful individuals who choose to come back to WA despite the limited career options, Ms Hall said a number of social and lifestyle factors inspired her decision – including a desire to be closer to family and friends.

She also recalls a sense of over-stimulation in New York, and a slight feeling of alienation, which failed to ease during nine years as an expatriate living in the commercial heart of the US.

“I always felt like a stranger in New York and in London, which was my home for a while,” she said.

In her working life, Ms Hall has had to adjust to a markedly different pace on her return to Perth.

She said it could be more difficult to get things moving, compared with New York, and that procedures were slower, in part because there was also a more conscientious approach to rules and regulations in Perth.

While it may be tempting to adopt the more laid-back approach of her local peers, Ms Hall acknowledges that this is not necessarily desirable.

 “You don’t want to slow down too much, because that speed is what makes you successful,” she said.

And, not surprisingly, she says Perth has a different working culture to New York, and that sacrifices in salary and profile are inevitable – not to mention the difficulty in finding a restaurant willing to serve dinner after 9pm.

“You can’t move back and expect your career to be the same. It’s a lifestyle change,” she said.

But there were also many positives. Among these, she said, companies in Australia valued their staff more than their American counterparts did, and there was better protection for workers generally.

Ms Hall is the first to acknowledge the fortunate timing of her return to Australia and the opportunity at the RAC.

Although not intending to work straight away, by April she was committed to a new campaign, prominent on television, billboards and buses telling consumers that RAC members are happier; all of which has helped to ease the process of settling in.

“The timing was perfect…I was lucky I had something to get working on,” she said.

Growing up in Morley, Ms Hall studied graphic design at Curtin University before travelling to London and enrolling in a masters degree at the Royal College of Art.

After meeting a Citibank employee one night in the pub where she worked, Ms Hall found a job with the company and spent two years in the marketing department and working on the trading floor.

After eight years in banking, Ms Hall saw an advertisement for McCann Erickson in the Financial Times, and became account planner for brand consultancy. 

She spent nine years in New York with the agency.

Ms Hall joined the RAC as communications manager in April this year and helped launch the new advertising campaign on August 20.

The campaign was developed to celebrate 100 years of the RAC.

“We had to look at what was next – was the brand relevant? How do we grow it and what are the challenges going forward,’ she said.

Historically, RAC advertising had been compartmentalised, with different approaches for the respective arms of the business.

The new campaign aimed to change this, with an umbrella approach to create a unified, dynamic brand.

Following some internal brand work, RAC approached branding and design consultancy Landor, headquartered in San Francisco and with offices around the world (including Sydney), to advise on brand development.

Based on that work, RAC incumbent The Brand Agency devised three selling strategies, from which the not-for-profit organisation eventually chose ‘RAC members are happier’ and refined the concept.

It was the first attempt by the company to create a clear, concise and unified advertising message.

Ms Hall said the campaign aimed to deepen relationships with the group’s customer base of 480,000 rather than expanding its membership. She said RAC wanted to reinforce the community aspect of the brand, while communicating the range of services provided by the company.

Ms Hall said early feedback had been positive, with people responding to the yellow theme – a colour associated strongly with the group through its roadside assistance vans.

While television and radio carry the new advertisements, ambient and outdoor advertising are integral to the campaign.

Ms Hall believes television is becoming less effective as an advertising medium as people spend less time in front of the box, an approach reflected by the RAC campaign, which has a budget in line with past spending on similar projects.