When Channel sponsored the Marketing Excellence Award at the Property Council of Australia National Retirement Living Awards, we knew that Susan Duffy would be presenting to the industry’s best strategic thinkers.

RetireAustralia‘s “It’s Your Journey” campaign didn’t just win the award – it rewrote the playbook for what marketing excellence actually looks like.

23.3% lead uplift. 31% cost reduction. $1.385M invested. These numbers don’t happen by accident.

We sat down with Andrew Doak, RetireAustralia’s National Manager Marketing, to unpack the strategic decisions that most marketers would never dare make.  Snapshot from the Retire Australia’s “It’s your journey” campaign.

Rule #1 They Broke: “Talk About Your Product”

While every retirement community showcases amenities and facilities, RetireAustralia did something radical – they made the campaign about the customer’s emotional journey, not their destination.

“We gave ourselves creative licence to try something different, based on confidence from knowing our customer well,” Andrew explains. “It wasn’t revolutionary messaging, but it was about telling our truth in a way that was fun, memorable, and supported better recall.”

The Strategic Insight: When you truly understand your customer, you earn the right to take creative risks. Most brands skip the research and wonder why their “creative” campaigns fail.

Rule #2 They Broke: “Test Everything First”

A driving analogy for retirement living? Most marketing managers would demand extensive testing, committee approval, and multiple rounds of validation. RetireAustralia trusted their customer knowledge instead.

“There wasn’t specific research connecting the driving analogy with retirement villages,” Andrew admits. “But when you’ve done the research, know your product, know your customer, and work with good people, it takes quite a bit of risk out of the equation.”

Their ultimate test? “We make sure the work passes the ‘pub test’ by running it past our own parents. Cute little red MGs, cars as freedom and exploration – that’s baked into their DNA.”

The Strategic Insight: Over-validation kills breakthrough creative. Sometimes the best research is understanding your audience so deeply that you can predict their emotional response.

Rule #3 They Broke: “Creative Drives Results”

Here’s what most marketers get wrong: they think great creative alone drives performance. Andrew’s honest about what really happened.

“I’d love to say it was all down to the creative, but the reality is much more involved. The creative did heavy lifting, but you also need to execute media buying and digital strategy to land strong numbers. We’d just come out of a strong post-COVID run, so it was good timing to capitalise.”

The Strategic Insight: Award-winning results come from creative excellence + media execution + market timing. Most campaigns fail because they nail one element at the expense of the others

Rule #4 They Broke: “Have a Backup Plan”

With $1.385M invested, most companies would demand a Plan B. RetireAustralia took a different approach.

“In all but the very largest businesses, you don’t have resources for a Plan B. Good creative is expensive, and there are real consequences if you get it wrong. That’s why you don’t dive in uninformed, and you make sure you have a great agency. We’ve been with New Word Order for six years – that continuity counts for a lot.”

The Strategic Insight: The best backup plan is thorough preparation and strong partnerships. Half-hearted creative with a safety net often performs worse than bold creative with total commitment.

The Family Challenge No One Talks About

Retirement living has a unique challenge: adult children influence purchase decisions, but they’re not the buyers. How do you navigate this without alienating anyone?

Andrew’s approach is brutally pragmatic: “If you try to be all things to all people, you end up in a vanilla zone. While adult children play important support roles, they’re not the ultimate decision makers. If we talk ‘about’ our residents rather than ‘to’ them in advertising, we’ll struggle.”

The Strategic Insight: Clarity beats compromise. Better to strongly appeal to your primary audience than weakly appeal to everyone.

When Success Becomes the Problem

The 23% lead increase created its own challenges. “The first few months were huge – extremely busy contact centre, very happy sales consultants. But a great campaign goes nowhere without communications, sales, operations and care all buying into the same promise.”

Andrew’s insight reveals something most marketers miss; campaign success is only as good as your organisation’s ability to deliver on the promise.

What makes this award-winning work isn’t just the creative courage or the impressive results.

It’s the strategic thinking that said: “We know our customers well enough to take risks others won’t.”

That’s exactly the kind of marketing excellence Channel Group exists to recognise and champion – and that Channel is hard-wired to shout about.

(Interview conducted and article written by Tiffany Richardson)