Adrian Samuel
Marketing & Media Strategy · Brand · Engineering
Media strategist with 5+ years across every side of the table retail media sits between: FMCG supplier planning at EssenceMediacom (Mars Wrigley, $20M+), publisher-side commercial strategy at News Corp (~70% win rate on integrated responses), investment and trading at Initiative (Specsavers, $11.5M), and client-side measurement builds at Latitude. Turns customer, category and campaign insights into strategic recommendations that influence real investment decisions, and builds the dashboards that prove whether they worked.
Experience
Marketing Manager (Contract)Apr 2026 - Present
Latitude Financial Services · ASX-listed consumer finance
- Stood up a live acquisition dashboard consolidating Datorama, Power BI and planning workbooks across six products, with automated gap-diagnostics, pacing and trend tracking that replaced manual monthly reporting.
- Built internal marketing intelligence automations: competitive SERP tracking, a grounded AU-finance news brief, and meeting-to-action workflows feeding leadership briefings.
- Redesigned the Interest Free web journey, restructuring scattered pages into a clearer consideration path, and supported the media agency transition from Clemenger to Kaimera.
- Prepared monthly business reviews and acquisition performance inputs for marketing leadership.
Client Strategy Manager (Contract)Aug 2025 - Nov 2025
News Corp Australia · Publisher-side brand partnerships
- Built an automotive category go-to-market strategy designed to unlock over $500K in incremental Q2 revenue, aligning audience insights, category tensions and agency planning cycles.
- Developed agency-facing insight packs and education materials that unlocked ~$200K in incremental revenue beyond BAU activity.
- Supported 6+ integrated partnership responses worth over $1M total, coordinating product, insights and sales teams to a ~70% win rate.
- Acted as translator between agencies and internal teams, framing solutions to planner needs rather than inventory-first narratives.
Planning ManagerAug 2024 - Aug 2025
EssenceMediacom (WPP) · Global media agency, Strategy & Planning
- Devised and executed the integrated FY25 campaign strategy for the Mars Wrigley portfolio, planning $20M+ in investment to propel a 7.5% YoY net-sales-value uplift; also refined Mars Petcare plans worth $10M+.
- Built analytical dashboards tracking quarter-on-quarter performance and competitive spend and creative, used across Mars, Adidas, Deakin and Milwaukee to inform senior decisions.
- Agency-side lead on Whiskas Pocket Dial with Uber Ads, coordinating platform product teams and client stakeholders to deliver a breakthrough commerce-media activation.
- Led Milwaukee FY26 omnichannel planning (~$2M), enabling the brand's first-ever brand campaign through disciplined planning and channel coordination.
Chief Marketing OfficerNov 2024 - Present
inaam · Early-stage impact-investing fintech (concurrent, founder-led)
- Built the full marketing foundation from zero: segmentation, value proposition, brand platform, channel mix, CRM architecture and the measurement framework tying brand, content and event-to-product conversion together.
- Grew from a standing start to 500+ app downloads with no paid media, through a 100+ impact-partner pipeline, creator and ambassador programs, and university-club partnerships.
Senior Investment Executive (promoted from Executive, then Associate)Jul 2022 - Jul 2024
Initiative (IPG Mediabrands) · Investment, partnerships and operations
- Led trade responses for Specsavers, planning $11.5M in media and orchestrating the Black Friday 2023 campaign that delivered the highest-ever monthly revenue in company history.
- Designed Specsavers' largest annual out-of-home plan, unlocking bonus activity exceeding $1M, and lifted the client's agency-performance score (TRR) from 7 to 8.5 through structured stakeholder workshops.
- As Local Area Marketing lead, managed $1M+ annual spend across ~400 retail locations, planning store-level media against catchment and coverage needs.
Media Analyst (Part-time)Jul 2021 - Jul 2022
Spinach Advertising · Independent agency, digital performance
- A/B tested formats and copy for Black Swan Dips, driving a 19% CTR uplift and a 14% increase in in-store sales across national grocers over six weeks.
- Optimised paid search and social for Drummond Golf, delivering a 28% QoQ lift in ROAS via keyword targeting, audience segmentation and peak scheduling.
Marketing science & tools
Marketing Mix Modelling (Mutinex) incl. an MMM vs last-click attribution analysis piece · Salesforce Datorama · Power BI · Looker Studio · GA4 · Salesforce Marketing Cloud · Meta, Google, TikTok Ads · DV360 · AI-assisted planning and content workflows (Claude, Gemini) · Advanced Excel
Education & recognition
Master of Management, The University of Melbourne (2022) · WAM 80%
Bachelor of Business, PES University (2019) · CGPA 9.0
EssenceMediacom May Breakthrough Winner (2025)
Initiative Golden Elephant Winner (2023)