The Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote
Welcome to The Promo Playbook, your backstage pass to the world of promotional marketing. Brought to you by Cubic Promote (https://www.cubicpromote.com.au/) Australia’s award-winning supplier of branded merchandise, this podcast is your go-to guide for making marketing and promo products work harder for your business. In each episode, we unpack real campaigns, talk to industry insiders, and share practical strategies to help you boost brand visibility, engage customers, and stand out. From trade shows to onboarding kits, we cover it all — with no fluff, just real insights that convert.
The Promo Playbook by Cubic Promote
Design, Dreams, and Digital Products: A Creative's Journey | Promo Playbook Podcast
Ever wondered how to launch a brand with zero budget? Or why your marketing efforts aren't yielding results as quickly as expected? Creative director and graphic design expert Jacqueline pulls back the curtain on these marketing mysteries and more.
Jacqueline's journey into the creative world began at age 14 with a passion for drawing that blossomed into a comprehensive education in communication design. Today, she leverages her expertise in photography, videography, graphic design, and color theory to help businesses create marketing that resonates. Her refreshing take on modern marketing challenges the "instant results" mindset plaguing many businesses—revealing that consistent effort over at least six months is the true path to marketing success.
White space creates power. Black conveys modernity. Every color directs to a specific topic. These subtle design principles significantly impact how audiences engage with your marketing, whether it's property signage or digital assets. But Jacqueline's most surprising insight? TikTok remains largely untapped by serious businesses despite its enormous potential for brand awareness and connecting with younger demographics.
The conversation takes a fascinating turn when exploring AI's role in design. While tools like Adobe Photoshop's AI features can expedite certain tasks, Jacqueline cautions against overreliance—AI-generated content often creates beautiful but generic images that fail to capture a company's specific voice and branding. As she aptly puts it, "There needs to be a person behind these tools knowing what they do."
Ready to transform your marketing approach with proven strategies from a design expert? Listen now and discover why sometimes the most powerful message is simply: "Just do it!"
Find out more and visit our website: https://www.cubicpromote.com.au/
Welcome to the Promo Playbook, the next episode of this podcast. And today I have a lovely guest, Jacqueline. Jacqueline, thank you. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me, and I'm excited.
Speaker 1:Me too. As a quick introduction, jacqueline is a graphic designer extraordinaire. She's also a creative director and as well as a very, very brilliant marketing consultant as well, and, as a side note, I've heard that she's an amazing dancer as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you, charles. Yeah, I love to dance and also I love design everything that's creative. Yeah, and feeling yourself. Basically it's yeah, one of my passions.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple of questions here for the podcast here. Before we dive into your field of expertise, which is marketing, I wanted to ask you what were you like as a kid? Were you already naturally creative and were you already naturally into ideas that sell products and service, or did you come to that later on in your life?
Speaker 2:Actually it came about like 14. With 14, I started drawing. So the creative side started on basically, and I was always being a bit of a dreamy kid, so I was a little bit more creative. So people in school were so much faster and like writing down things and I was like actually drawing everything. So actually I was more like a slower kid. But then it started to be amazing after we figured out, okay, my creative side is actually artistic and I want to do something with it. And then I studied communication design in Augsburg in Germany and I did my Bachelor of Arts there in communication design and it was amazing, like it was such a good study. I was doing photography, video drawing, painting we did all these kind of things and graphic design as well.
Speaker 1:So all the tools necessary to build an arsenal of marketing tools for today's marketing environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's important to have from everything something right? You need actually all this, even what I learned in my studies which colors fit together, which buttons work.
Speaker 1:so through experience you figure out what works for the people, what not so in your journey, was there, uh, any one memory that's on your life that shaped the way you think about marketing for today's businesses and organizations?
Speaker 2:yes, sure, I think it was three, four years ago. It was three, four years ago. It was really interesting to see how other businesses are doing their marketing and how to go in there as an external person and change their way of thinking completely. Sometimes it's important to think out of the box, to stand out to other companies and products.
Speaker 1:So yeah, Something a bit different. Yeah, definitely so. Jacqueline, a question here for you If you were to start a brand tomorrow, today's Monday, tomorrow's Tuesday, with no money, just your marketing skills, what would you do first to start that brand, to market it?
Speaker 2:Actually, I would go into the digital product side. I would actually create templates to sell them. That would be a great side hustle, but also you could do as a proper business to sell digital products. Basically, and I would definitely recommend everybody to do that, and especially with ai, it could be much easier to create digital products and yeah, what's an example of a digital product that you haven't learned?
Speaker 2:it could be wedding cards, like everybody's like a design of a wedding card and a pre-designed template, because not everyone wants to get a graphic designer and paying thousands of dollars for that invitation cards. And then they go on Canva and all the other platforms to get templates, basically, and they buy the template and, yeah, you can sell as much as you want.
Speaker 1:Basically I've seen things like that on platforms like etsy, yeah etsy as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, it's a canva etsy and all this printify as well. You could do actually templates and then also get your printify or other platforms. Yeah, and design prints basically printed can you share with the audience out there?
Speaker 1:what are some of the more memorable marketing campaigns that you worked on in the past and what made them so memorable for you?
Speaker 2:Mostly it's the people that are memorable that I worked with, but also the campaigns. Like I love to work for Harcourt International, for example, they had Harcourt Foundation and they had to do like the whole social media templates and all this stuff.
Speaker 1:There's a property company in Queensland, I believe.
Speaker 2:Oh no, they're international. They're all like the New Zealand company actually, but their main office is in Brisbane. So yeah, I worked for them quite a while and it was fun. It was a good. They always had interesting campaigns and events going on. But yeah, they have offices in Fiji and New Zealand and whole Australia actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what was some of the results of marketing that you did for them?
Speaker 2:Actually there are. There's signage everywhere for sold houses that are, actually, yeah, I did signage designs and they had a platform for this kind of templates and they, yeah, basically you can tell that every real estate agent is using these templates to sell their houses and rent them or lease them, so signage would be four bedrooms Exactly. But this design that's what I did. Basically, I designed it with a really, really small team and that was a great time With these designs.
Speaker 1:were there specific elements that needed focus? Perhaps the color, perhaps the placement that will make one design resonate more with another? Were there any tips and tricks that you needed to implement?
Speaker 2:Sure, it's always like the golden ratio, right? So if you have a little bit of knowledge in what looks good, sometimes white space is important, right. We cannot clash everything into that design. Less is more still, after all. So that would be one of my tips. Yeah, and more pictures. Everything that cut tension is more. Yeah. What people want to see yeah, more image driven, yeah, yeah, what people want to see Image-driven yeah, more image-driven?
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned white space, yes. What are your thoughts about having black space? Does it do the same job or does having a black space convey something totally different from a color marketing space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. Black is also modern. It's more a direction of tech, like every color has their own kind of direction from topic wise. It's like if you do a black signage, maybe it's like going under.
Speaker 1:I saw a black signage for house selling, yeah, but I think white space is still more powerful than black oh, it's white's more powerful with black, because myself being in the merchandising uniform space yeah, we constantly advise our customers either have black, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It depends if you go into more into video and motion and all this black is really seen much more right. But if you go on paypal, it's gonna be always white always like I think that's the best advice I can give. Yeah, yeah interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do people, what do companies tend to get wrong about marketing?
Speaker 2:I think the expectation of marketing is all the time like it needs to work, like right away. It's not. It's actually like you have to work at least six months on it to have actual output right. You cannot expect from over day, like you do marketing once a week, only that you're gonna go off. So I think I can recommend to keep working on it, be patient and then at some point you will see the results so the constant refinement over time yes, absolutely yes what's the most underrated marketing tactic, marketing channel that you commonly use or come across?
Speaker 1:What's the most underrated tool that you have in your arsenal?
Speaker 2:My most underrated tool would be like you speak of platforms, so what do you refer to on tools?
Speaker 1:Forms or tools. For example, I myself, I consider Reddit to be very underutilized. However, when you look at the metrics of Reddit, you'd be incredibly astounded. They have billions and millions of users, almost to the level of the main social media platforms, including your X, Facebook, your TikToks. Their usage and engagement rate is incredible. So to me, that's an underused, underrated platform. Yeah, yeah, and also to advertise. It's also very affordable as well. Yeah, absolutely. What are some of the platforms that you've come across that you feel not many people are on this platform? This is a clear and an easy opportunity.
Speaker 2:I think from a marketing perspective, not a lot of businesses are on TikTok. I mean, there are a lot of people on TikTok, it's a really popular platform but actually for businesses I don't think they do enough for TikTok because they can get viral. They can get more younger users as well to get awareness of the brands and brands in general.
Speaker 1:And why do you feel businesses underuse TikTok? Do you have any thoughts or theories as to why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might be like that. A lot of users are not the younger generation are like in these positions basically. So they're still on this Facebook platform age, let's say that way. So they're already hesitant with Instagram most of the time.
Speaker 1:So they're happy to give away Instagram, but they don't consider TikTok basically, admittedly, I don't have a TikTok account because I was listening to TikTok with skits and city dancing. Yeah, yeah, is that a bad preconception?
Speaker 2:No, it's not, because it is a lot of dancing on there. Perfect for your profile, yeah, I guess. So. No, I think it's also there is you can sell products over TikTok as well, and you can put advertising everywhere. Where advertising comes up, people get more awareness about the brand or some products or companies.
Speaker 1:If you had a serious product or a serious service, would that still be suitable for a platform like TikTok?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we could make it that way. I think Instagram is in this case a little bit. I think TikTok is more playful, most likely. But even in Instagram I saw like so many funny employers making funny videos with their staff. So people want to work in this company. It seems to be funny and they get more awareness and people. Yeah, that way they can buy or sell more products and yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, fantastic. If you weren't into marketing Jacqueline, what else do you think you'd be doing right now?
Speaker 2:I probably would be an artist painting. Yeah, I don't know. Actually, I always felt like this is my place to be. Yeah, creative side of things and marketing is so widely brought, like I can do everything. Basically, it's like this thing I need. Like I can do everything. Basically, it's like this thing I need. Like I could not do finance and numbers. I need to do everything. Creative, basically. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Yeah, what's been the hardest moment in your professional journey so far and how did you go through it? Good question.
Speaker 2:I don't even know. There are always hard moments. Basically, I think there's every time. There's a challenge and if you have to like get into uncomfortable moment, you pass them and you're more proud after that. You actually made it and yeah that's what I think.
Speaker 1:What's one marketing strategy that businesses think would work, but in reality it's a total failure. It never works.
Speaker 2:I think it doesn't work. I think Google AdWords sometimes is a way Google makes money if you don't know what you're doing. So people are like actually people or companies lose money, a lot of money, because they don't have the expertise to actually know how to get the right keywords or how to get Google ads going.
Speaker 1:I can resonate with that because in our business for a solid six months we had one setting turned on in Google. That setting was to allow our ad to be visible globally. We only service Australia and New Zealand and you can just imagine the amount of marketing leakage that went into advertising countries like Switzerland, new York, where people see our ads and clearly cannot purchase from us.
Speaker 2:Exactly that's when I say where money goes away. I would definitely more recommend to get someone to write SEO copy on your website. Make it more user-friendly user experience. So the user experience is going to be so much better. It needs to be visually and practically going hand in hand, basically, so that way you're gonna rank a little bit more up in google and yeah, that's what I think they should do.
Speaker 1:Cannot agree more so in the marketing space, is there currently something that you're quite obsessive about that you feel it's going to take off? Perhaps this is ai, perhaps this is a new ai tool, you know, is this a particular piece, particular software, where you think, oh, I really need to focus more attention because I think in the coming five years it'll be more and more relevant actually it's photoshop, because in photoshop, yeah, you can use ai and in photoshop, it made it so much easier to retouch photoshop.
Speaker 2:adobe photoshop yes, you can use AI. In Photoshop, it made it so much easier to retouch. Adobe Photoshop yes, you can actually generate pictures, a part of the picture you can edit. You can retouch photos or campaigns and stuff. It's amazing. So you can actually build a lot with Photoshop now so much quicker.
Speaker 1:Interesting. You should say Photoshop, because what I've read, a lot of users are certainly opting out of photoshop because of just the way they've conducted their software in the past five to ten years. The monthly installments, the copyrights yeah and the ownership of the assets have been brought into question and it's made software like canva a lot more appealing to users. So it's interesting that you should say Photoshop, yeah.
Speaker 2:The thing is, photoshop has endless options. Canva does not. They're going to always keep you on the platform. Basically, if you want to get the elements, you cannot download them somehow. They're all in this template and then that way, a lot of times you have to use Canva all the time to do your assets, but Photoshop does not. You can actually Photoshop everything you want and, yeah, I think you have to obviously pay Adobe a monthly fee for all the programs and they have a lot of AI tools too, for example, firefly.
Speaker 1:That's also a great tool where you can create from text to from copy to pictures, and, yeah, you can generate a lot of things actually, and I made it easier to design I've used a lot of different ai tools over the past six months and the ai tools I've been using text to photographs, yeah, and all the software, all the popular ones and gpt's, as well as mid journeys and all the others. I've given them a go and I found that there's a high degree of randomness which becomes very time consuming for myself. Yes, this is amazing. Images and very they're not quite to specifications and I find it still very frustrating. Yeah, what has your experience been using ai tools to create graphical images?
Speaker 2:that's the same, like I feel also frustrated if they don't get into the details that I want to. So I just use it as a tool to additional to tool to my designs. I still do my designs myself, right, so that way it's going to be work like work hand in hand, basically not and not rely completely on AI. I would not recommend it that way. The personal design is also gone if you just generate all the time.
Speaker 1:In our business, we would have generated hundreds of images, all of which are useless. They look beautiful, but they don't fit the criteria that we need to use them for, and so, in my mind, if I'm starting a business from scratch where I had no collage, no material, then, yes, we would be able to use those materials, but because we have a brand voice, a brand image, brand colors, specific products, specific messages, quotes and captions that we have, ai struggles a lot when it comes to capturing an existing brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's why I don't feel endangered as a designer yet, because people say, well, who knows how good AI is going to be, but at the end there needs to be a person behind these tools knowing what they do. I'm going to be more, yes, so I think. Still, I don't feel like I'm using the tools to help myself sometimes to get faster, and yeah, that's it. Actually, I wouldn't say ai is dangerous to marketing. It's more a good tool to use and then also be careful of not being too general, right? You want to still do your own brand and and be special from everybody else, right?
Speaker 1:love that reply. Final question if you could put a message on a billboard, a very big billboard, in the middle city or in the middle of melbourne, what would you want it to say? What image would you want it to show?
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, I always think of Nike. I think they have great branding and it's always the message just do it. And I think that's one of my I don't know one of the sentences that always sticks to my head, because sometimes we are hesitant to do things. We yeah, we should do more things that we are uncomfortable with.
Speaker 1:And then we'll have a great output and we never know what to expect.
Speaker 2:So that one big morning in the middle of Sydney, we've simply said just do it, let's do it, just do it.
Speaker 1:Actually, if you're listening to this, you should hit up.
Speaker 2:Jacqueline, yes, definitely. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me and, yeah, hopefully be back.
Speaker 1:To those listening. Thank you so much for listening to the promo playbook by Cubic Promote. Please stay tuned for future episodes.
Speaker 2:Bye.
