Women In Marketing 2020 Edition ft. Jeannette Quashie from Pernod Ricard Ghana

Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organisation. Even the most inspiring words often are insufficient to create a desire for one’s product or service

Jeannette Quashie

For this segment of Women In Marketing, we had the opportunity to chat with Jeannette who is the Regional Digital Marketing Manager at Pernod Ricard Ghana. Although she initially wanted to pursue a career in aviation, we think she’s soaring in her role! Here’s our interview with Jeannette

LET’S GET PERSONAL

WHERE WERE YOU BORN? WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES?

I am Jeannette Settor Quashie, born in Accra, Ghana. Growing up in Accra, one of my fondest memories was singing in the choir at church. Choir rehearsals were a complete delight and I looked forward to those moments profusely.

SHOW OFF TO OUR READERS. ANY HIDDEN TALENTS YOU CAN SHARE WITH US? A CLARINET STAR IN THE MAKING PERHAPS? 

I consider myself to have special skills in the entertainment sector. I have a natural flair for singing and dancing and have a great passion for Salsa dancing.

WE WOULD ALL LOVE TO WIN THE LOTTERY RIGHT? IF YOU WON $10 MILLION TOMORROW, WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR FORTUNE? 

Set up my own business; perhaps in the fashion industry or event space rentals and booking.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE MEAL? THAT ONE MEAL YOU WOULDN’T SHARE WITH ANYONE!

A delicious French dish called Parmentier de Confit de Canard. I would need no intrusion when having this meal. LOL. 

WHAT MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH THE WORLD OF MARKETING? WHAT PARTICULAR MOMENT IN TIME PUSHED YOU TO PURSUE THIS CAREER? AFTER ALL, WE ALL WANTED TO BE DOCTORS GROWING UP, RIGHT?

I had always dreamt of working in the Aviation sector and tried my best to secure a job in that industry but to no avail. I happen to get a job as a Social Media Manager in  2015 and fell in love with Marketing as soon as I started work. I have not looked back after that.

IF YOU COULD BE ANY ANIMAL IN THE WORLD, WHAT ANIMAL WOULD YOU BE AND WHY?

I would be a dog. Just because they are loyal and loyalty is everything to me.

WHAT’S THE MOST INTERESTING THING ABOUT YOU THAT WE WOULDN’T LEARN FROM YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE ALONE?

I am an ardent reality tv fan.

ENTERING THE WORKPLACE

GIVE US A SNEAK PEEK OF HOW YOU TYPICALLY START YOUR DAY. ARE YOU #TEAMCOFFEE OR #TEAMTEA? OR BOTH? YOU BEAUTIFUL REBEL!

My day starts super early because my energy is at its best in the mornings. I get to work by 6:30 am and begin by catching up with the trending topics for the day. Since my work begins very early in the day, tea with almond milk is my preferred beverage to get me up and active. Work begins right after that by first checking and responding to my emails from the previous day.

HOW BEST DO YOU STRIKE A WORK-LIFE BALANCE?

As stated previously, I am the first to get to work and make it a point to be the first one to also leave work. Unless there is urgent work to attend to, I try to leave work by 4:30 pm to avoid the rush hour traffic, get home in time to relax and watch some tv or read a book before retiring to my bed by 9 pm.

YOU OBTAINED YOUR BACHELOR’S DEGREE IN FRENCH LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA (GIRL YOU FANCY!). ACCORDING TO GLASSDOOR, IT HAS BECOME SEEMINGLY EASIER TO APPLY TO WORK FOR COMPANIES LIKE GOOGLE, APPLE AND STARBUCKS AS THEY DO NOT REQUIRE APPLICANTS TO HAVE A DEGREE. HOW CAN YOUNG WOMEN UTILISE THE INTERNET TO UPSKILL THEMSELVES PARTICULARLY IF THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO OBTAIN A FORMAL EDUCATION?

Social Media has become a great platform for young women to showcase their talent and skills even with little education. Companies are now more than ever looking for personalities instead of qualifications.

Young women can showcase their skills on Social Media platforms such as YouTube, Blogs, Instagram and more. For these companies to be aware of their skills, they must sell themselves on LinkedIn. They can put the links to their videos or blogs on LinkedIn for the companies to check them out. Trust me, they will watch or read the video/blog and that young woman may be on her way to the next job!

JOB HOPPING IS A COMMON PHENOMENA ESPECIALLY IN THE DYNAMIC WORLD OF ADVERTISING AND MARKETING. WHAT’S YOUR OPINION ON JOB HOPPING? DOES IT HURT OR AID ONE’S CAREER? 

In my opinion, job-hopping hurts one’s career.

It takes a lot of training and studying to understand a company’s ways of working and acquire the necessary skills to augment one’s career. So I will assume that when a person hops from one job to the other, he/she may not necessarily gain the requisite skills from that job he is leaving and may miss out one gaining further skills for his next job.

FOR OUR INTERVIEW WITH YAEL TAMAR FROM SOLIDBLOCK, SHE REMARKED THAT WOMEN ARE MOST LIKELY TO OCCUPY THE CMO ROLE AS COMPARED TO THEIR MALE COUNTERPARTS. WITH WOMEN CONTROLLING OVER $20 TRILLION IN GLOBAL SPENDING, WHY HAS IT BECOME INCREASINGLY IMPORTANT TO HAVE FEMALE CMOS IN YOUR OPINION? 

A home that has the woman running and managing affairs is more likely to function smoothly than the reverse because women have natural managerial skills and pay extreme attention to detail. In my opinion, the shift in having women as CMO in businesses has already begun and will grow over the coming years. This is because more and more companies are beginning to recognise the excellent organizational and in-depth analytical skills that women bring to the business.

SYSTEMS AROUND REMOTE WORK AND VIDEO CONFERENCING ARE INCREASINGLY BECOMING STAPLE IN MOST ORGANISATIONS. ACCORDING TO VISUAL CAPITALIST, ZOOM IS NOW WORTH MORE THAN THE 7 BIGGEST AIRLINES IN THE WORLD AT A WHOPPING MARKET CAPITALIZATION OF JUST OVER $40BN. SUFFICE TO SAY, REMOTE WORKING IS AN ASPECT OF MODERN-DAY WORK THAT HAS BEEN LONG OVERDUE. IN YOUR OPINION, WHY HAVE MOST ORGANISATIONS STRUGGLED TO CONVERT TO THIS WAY OF WORK? 

In my opinion, most companies are nervous about changing their ways of work to remote working because they believe they will lose some level of control over their employees. Micro-management has become a thing in various institutions and many bosses want to have control of their employees even to the nitty-gritty of their daily work activities. With remote working, they are unable to exert such control. This for me is the capitalist reason for most organisations’ struggle to convert to this way of work.

REMOTE WORK HAS COME WITH ITS OWN SET OF CHALLENGES, PARAMOUNT TO THIS IS THE FACT THAT EMPLOYEES ARE NOW ‘ALWAYS ON’ WITH WORK CARRYING OVER EVEN BEYOND WORKING HOURS. IN YOUR OPINION, HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS MANAGE THIS BETTER TO PROTECT THE WELLBEING OF THEIR EMPLOYEES?

If I had MD/CEO authority, I would employ the Human Resource department to create an App or platform that ensures employees check-in when they begin work and out after working hours.

It is no news that some employees take advantage when they are working remotely and are often destructed with personal activities during working hours. In the same way, others may become so engrossed with work that they spend their entire day including the night working due to little to no destruction at home.

With this app, I believe there would be some sort of control with employees who are at the extreme.

MARKETING OBJECTIVES WILL MOST LIKELY CHANGE DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. HOW HAS YOUR ORGANISATION PIVOTED WHERE MARKETING IS CONCERNED, AND HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO HAVE A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY AMID THE PANDEMIC?

COVID-19 presented the world with uncertainties and even the most powerful of nations cracked under the sick conditions the world was plunged into. Businesses had the most negative impact and many had to fold up under the spell of the virus.

Businesses that understood the impact of digital on a business welcomed this change and only had to adapt their services to suit the current ways of living. In my organisation, for instance, Digital marketing has always been a big aspect of the business but the entire organisation had to reform its processes to digital solutions. The commercial, HR, logistics and even finance recognised the impact of digital on business and did a complete 360-degree turn to digitize their processes within the business. 

COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS

BCG PUBLISHED ITS INNOVATION REPORT FOR 2020 AND AT THE CORE OF ITS SELECTION CRITERIA ARE COMPANIES THAT HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MARRIED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES. ACCORDING TO YOU, WHAT MAKES SOMETHING INNOVATIVE? HOW DO YOU DEFINE INNOVATION AT Pernod Ricard Ghana?

Innovation to me is using whatever resources available to create a value-added novelty. Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organisation. Even the most inspiring words often are insufficient to create a desire for one’s product or service. It helps to combine high-level aspirations with estimates of value that innovation should generate to meet financial growth objectives.

AT THE TIME OF PUBLISHING, THE DIGITAL MARKETING INSTITUTE ESTIMATED THAT THE INFLUENCER MARKETING INDUSTRY WILL HIT THE $10BN MARK BY 2020. WHETHER B2B OR B2C, IT’S EVIDENT THAT BRANDS AND ORGANISATIONS HAVE HAD THEIR SUCCESS WITH THIS MODEL OF MARKETING. HOW WILL THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECT THIS INDUSTRY GOING FORWARD AND DO YOU BELIEVE THERE IS STILL A PLACE FOR INFLUENCER MARKETING?

The pandemic has most definitely disrupted the Influencer Marketing Industry. However, rather than completely throwing away the rulebook, there has been a transformative shift in the markets when it comes to Influencer Marketing.

Influencer Marketing is now being used mostly for brand awareness than sales. Cooped at home, consumers spend the majority of their time on Social Media, thus, influencers can provide brands with quick and easy-to-produce creatives that can be used to create awareness about the brand seamlessly and organically.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MARKETING AND SALES ALIGNMENT? HOW DO YOU ALIGN YOUR MARKETING AND SALES TEAM AT Pernod Ricard Ghana?

Sales and Marketing misalignment is extremely common in most companies and companies with a divided sales and marketing team is a disadvantage to the business. Both sales and marketing have the same goal of driving sales and revenue so it is important to keep them in sync. At Pernod Ricard, both Sales and Marketing have a single revenue cycle and this has a direct impact on the investment (ROI), Sales productivity and most importantly, top-line growth.

2020 AND BEYOND

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?

Currently reading ‘The Way of Perfection’  by Teresa of Avila.

WHAT IS ON YOUR NETFLIX WATCHLIST?

Mostly Korean series. I binge on them. LOL

AS WE LEARN TO LIVE WITH COVID19 IF YOU COULD REPLACE THE HANDSHAKE AS A FORM OF GREETING, WHAT INTERESTING NEW GREETING WOULD YOU INTRODUCE?

A quick salute would be a nice replacement.

WHO HAVEN’T YOU SEEN OR TALKED TO IN A LONG TIME AND HOPE THEY ARE DOING OKAY?

My friend who is based in the States. We kind of lost contact after our study at the University of Legon in Ghana.

A UNIQUE MESSAGE FOR ALL YOUNG PROFESSIONALS IN THE MARKETING INDUSTRY

The role that marketing plays has evolved. It is now turning into a hybrid of creative, technical and analytical functions focused on bottom-line growth. Those with aspirations of pursuing a career in marketing must be made aware of this evolution and equip themselves with an updated set of skills.

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU TELL YOUR YOUNGER SELF?

I would say ‘ Do not limit yourself. You are capable of much more than you give yourself credit for.’

WHAT CHALLENGE IS ON YOUR PLATE? WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PAIN POINTS YOU ARE TRYING TO OVERCOME IN YOUR LIFE WHETHER PROFESSIONALLY, PERSONALLY OR BOTH?

The fear of not getting to the next level of my journey in life. Both professionally and personally.

ANY BUCKET LIST ITEMS?

Starting my own business.

WHO ARE SOME OF YOUR FEMALE HEROES?

My sister Jeanne. I admire her resilience and her ability to try it all.