Regulatory Spotlight: Simon Wickson on consent, compliance and consumer trust

In this edition of ADMA’s Regulatory Spotlight, Simon Wickson, former Head of Strategy and Data at Woolworths Group, shares lessons from navigating regulatory scrutiny, the looming impact of Privacy Act reforms and why marketers must rethink how they use customer data.

To start, could you share a little about your career to date?

My career started by spending about a decade in the travel industry. I worked for Avis back in the UK, where I held entry level marketing and product development roles, finishing with project managing the design and implementation of a pan-European loyalty program. That's really where my passion for loyalty, CRM and digital marketing stemmed from.  

I moved to Australia in 2012 and took a CRM role at Howards Storage World. I spent about three and a half years there, managing a small team with a focus on maturing and elevating customer and commercial metrics for their loyalty program. A personal highlight was helping the company win an award for marketing excellence in loyalty programs.

I then joined Woolworths, where I worked for 10 years. I had the pleasure of holding a few different jobs, initially on board to lead their campaign delivery function. When Woolworths launched WooliesX, which was essentially their centre of excellence for digital marketing, loyalty, tech, data and ecommerce, I established a marketing operations team to plan/forecast activity and develop campaign best practices.  

As WooliesX went through an Agile transformation, I was asked to set up a Marketing Advisory CoE function for marketing compliance and campaign excellence, uplifting our training and best practices across the digital marketing and associated teams. There were a few restructures which meant our team became part of the Group Privacy and Customer Trust team. My last role was as Head of Strategy and Data, where I was able to still lead marketing advisory work but with a larger remit and working more on privacy/data/risk compliance.

What have been some of the professional highlights along the journey so far?

Winning the award when I was at Howards Storage World was a real highlight, as it recognised all our hard work to elevate their CRM function in the loyalty program.  

Another highlight was more recently at Woolworths. There was unfortunately a situation where we got in trouble with one of the regulators regarding the Spam Act. There was a significant fine and a three-year legally enforced process to review and uplift our digital marketing activities to make sure we were compliant.  

I was responsible for helping navigate this situation and spearheaded what was initially a project team that, over the course of the three years, became part of the marketing advisory remit. We ultimately ended up supporting lots of different business units in the company.

While it was a negative scenario to start with, from a professional perspective, it was a valuable learning experience and made for some really interesting years.
 

The regulatory landscape is rapidly evolving. What do you think are the most significant regulatory changes that are coming and how do you see them impacting the industry?

I've picked two. The first one is regarding Privacy Act reforms and where Marketers need to be aware of what's coming, particularly around consumer rights and targeted advertising opt outs.  

The second change is currently happening. If you look at the press, you can see there is more aggressive enforcement coming from ACMA and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).  

From ACMA, marketers should really be aware of enforcement around the Spam Act, which primarily affects email and SMS.  

With the OAIC, there's a new guard and they have been vocal about their new powers. That’s definitely a watch out for businesses.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for marketers navigating today’s regulatory and consumer trust environment?

As a marketer, just navigating the different compliance obligations can be tricky. When you combine that with all the future unknowns, particularly around tranche two reforms of the Privacy Act, it becomes very challenging, very fast.

It can be incredibly difficult for businesses to navigate the different obligations and the areas where different laws overlap.

Then there is the balancing of personalisation with privacy. On one side we have marketers striving to create hyper-targeted, relevant experiences but on the other side are privacy regulations and tighter controls. It’s a delicate balancing act.

What is one thing you wish marketers understood better about privacy regulation?

Data minimalisation. This has been discussed as an approach for some time but we’re approaching the stage where it needs to become the default. As a marketer, you can't collect consumer data “just in case”. You have to be able to justify it.  

From a marketer’s point of view, I would encourage more thought around when you set up any new customer program that’s going to collect data - just consider what you actually need, how it’s being captured and what its purpose is.

What advice would you give to marketers looking to build their understanding in regulatory matters?

I have to shout out ADMA here! Industry bodies like ADMA and their educational courses are great starting points.  

You also have to really be curious. Seek out real use cases that may be aligned to your business or industry - you can easily go to ACMA or the OAIC for that. There is page after page of companies that have been fined or have been caught doing the wrong thing - you can pretty much read between the lines and see what they’ve done.

What do you think will have the biggest impact on data-driven marketing over the next five years?

It’s very much the buzzword but I have to say AI.

Particularly with AI-driven personalisation, there has to be guardrails. Machine learning is obviously supercharging everything that’s great to improve customer and commercial outcomes, but there has to be parameters.  

The regulators are going to want more transparency around automated decision making. How that is actually defined is something to be clarified but it’s certainly something for businesses to think about - particularly those in industries like finance or health.

Why do you think organisations like ADMA are so crucial for the marketing and advertising industry?

For all the reasons we're discussing now, ADMA is a trusted source of knowledge and education. In these complex areas, that’s where I see real value.

ADMA also helps you feel like you're not alone in what can be a very challenging field. If you’re worrying about if what you’re doing is wrong or not, I can almost guarantee that your peers in other companies are probably doing the same.

I think ADMA is a really good place to guide and help come up with solutions.

Lastly, what do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I've got three young daughters, so that takes up a lot of my leisure time. Recently made redundant and deciding my next career move, I’ve enjoyed all the quality time I’ve been able to spend with them over the last couple of months.  

I’ve also taken up golf. I’m very much an amateur but I’m looking forward to developing those skills!