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&some Rookie Marketer of the Year: Max Woodhead

Photo by Paul Statham

AUT became a university just ten years ago and while its compelling consumer-facing brand was doing the business, its 14 Research Institutes had grown organically until 2009 and had no overall marketing, brand or strategic direction—even though research success plays a big role in establishing a good reputation. Enter 30-year-old Max Woodhead, who worked in marketing for sport and recreation and applied sciences and whose job it was to help build a research brand from scratch, unify the view of these disparate research strands, get the notoriously headstrong academics and institute directors to believe in the project and eventually build AUT’s overall brand, attract better post graduate academics, foster better research outputs and bring in more funding.

It was a huge task. And the two-year project required someone with leadership and people skills, an eye for design, strategic knowledge, plenty of digital nous and the ability to get things done on the smell of an oily rag. Not only that, he had just two days a week to achieve it.

As well as establishing himself as a top-class marketer, he also managed to find the time to complete the New Zealand Ironman in 2010 and 2011. Now that’s just showing off.

  • Full case studies of all the winners are available in the latest edition of NZ Marketing and the first 20 humans from within NZ to subscribe here will receive a copy of James Hurman’s new book The Case For Creativityvalued at $40.

FINALISTS: 

Brooke Anderson AJ Park

Simon Dixon George Western Foods Limited NZ Baking Division

Justin Fraser DNA Design

Chris Hooper TVNZ

Sam Grimwood Christchurch International Airport

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