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/
Episode Transcript
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 (00:08):
Thank you so much for having me, and I'm excited.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Me too.
As a quick introduction,jacqueline is a graphic designer
extraordinaire.
She's also a creative directorand as well as a very, very
brilliant marketing consultantas well, and, as a side note,
I've heard that she's an amazingdancer as well.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, thank you, charles.
Yeah, I love to dance and alsoI love design everything that's
creative.
Yeah, and feeling yourself.
Basically it's yeah, one of mypassions.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I've got a couple of questions here for the podcast
here.
Before we dive into your fieldof expertise, which is marketing
, I wanted to ask you what wereyou like as a kid?
Were you already naturallycreative and were you already
naturally into ideas that sellproducts and service, or did you
come to that later on in yourlife?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Actually it came about like 14.
With 14, I started drawing.
So the creative side started onbasically, and I was always
being a bit of a dreamy kid, soI was a little bit more creative
.
So people in school were somuch faster and like writing
down things and I was likeactually drawing everything.
(01:17):
So actually I was more like aslower kid.
But then it started to beamazing after we figured out,
okay, my creative side isactually artistic and I want to
do something with it.
And then I studiedcommunication design in Augsburg
in Germany and I did myBachelor of Arts there in
communication design and it wasamazing, like it was such a good
(01:41):
study.
I was doing photography, videodrawing, painting we did all
these kind of things and graphicdesign as well.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
So all the tools necessary to build an arsenal of
marketing tools for today'smarketing environment.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
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 fittogether, which buttons work.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
so through experience you figure out what works for
the people, what not so in yourjourney, was there, uh, any one
memory that's on your life thatshaped the way you think about
marketing for today's businessesand organizations?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
yes, sure, I think it was three, four years ago.
It was three, four years ago.
It was really interesting tosee how other businesses are
doing their marketing and how togo in there as an external
person and change their way ofthinking completely.
Sometimes it's important tothink out of the box, to stand
out to other companies andproducts.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So yeah, Something a bit different.
Yeah, definitely so.
Jacqueline, a question here foryou If you were to start a
brand tomorrow, today's Monday,tomorrow's Tuesday, with no
money, just your marketingskills, what would you do first
to start that brand, to marketit?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Actually, I would go into the digital product side.
I would actually createtemplates to sell them.
That would be a great sidehustle, but also you could do as
a proper business to selldigital products.
Basically, and I woulddefinitely recommend everybody
to do that, and especially withai, it could be much easier to
create digital products and yeah, what's an example of a digital
(03:19):
product that you haven'tlearned?
it could be wedding cards, likeeverybody's like a design of a
wedding card and a pre-designedtemplate, because not everyone
wants to get a graphic designerand paying thousands of dollars
for that invitation cards.
And then they go on Canva andall the other platforms to get
templates, basically, and theybuy the template and, yeah, you
(03:41):
can sell as much as you want.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Basically I've seen things like that on platforms
like etsy, yeah etsy as well.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, yes, it's a canva etsy and all this printify
as well.
You could do actually templatesand then also get your printify
or other platforms.
Yeah, and design printsbasically printed can you share
with the audience out there?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
what are some of the more memorable marketing
campaigns that you worked on inthe past and what made them so
memorable for you?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Mostly it's the people that are memorable that I
worked with, but also thecampaigns.
Like I love to work forHarcourt International, for
example, they had HarcourtFoundation and they had to do
like the whole social mediatemplates and all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
There's a property company in Queensland, I believe
.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Oh no, they're international.
They're all like the NewZealand company actually, but
their main office is in Brisbane.
So yeah, I worked for themquite a while and it was fun.
It was a good.
They always had interestingcampaigns and events going on.
But yeah, they have offices inFiji and New Zealand and whole
(04:49):
Australia actually.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, and what was some of the results of marketing
that you did for them?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Actually there are.
There's signage everywhere forsold houses that are, actually,
yeah, I did signage designs andthey had a platform for this
kind of templates and they, yeah, basically you can tell that
every real estate agent is usingthese templates to sell their
houses and rent them or leasethem, so signage would be four
(05:14):
bedrooms Exactly.
But this design that's what Idid.
Basically, I designed it with areally, really small team and
that was a great time With thesedesigns.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
were there specific elements that needed focus?
Perhaps the color, perhaps theplacement that will make one
design resonate more withanother?
Were there any tips and tricksthat you needed to implement?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Sure, it's always like the golden ratio, right?
So if you have a little bit ofknowledge in what looks good,
sometimes white space isimportant, right.
We cannot clash everything intothat design.
Less is more still, after all.
So that would be one of my tips.
Yeah, and more pictures.
Everything that cut tension ismore.
(05:57):
Yeah.
What people want to see yeah,more image driven, yeah, yeah,
what people want to seeImage-driven yeah, more
image-driven?
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, definitely.
So you mentioned white space,yes.
What are your thoughts abouthaving black space?
Does it do the same job or doeshaving a black space convey
something totally different froma color marketing space?
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Yeah, it does.
Black is also modern.
It's more a direction of tech,like every color has their own
kind of direction from topicwise.
It's like if you do a blacksignage, maybe it's like going
under.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I saw a black signage for house selling, yeah, but I
think white space is still morepowerful 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 (06:45):
It depends if you go into more into video and motion
and all this black is reallyseen much more right.
But if you go on paypal, it'sgonna be always white always
like I think that's the bestadvice I can give.
Yeah, yeah interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, what do people, what do companies tend to get
wrong about marketing?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
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 towork 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 gooff.
So I think I can recommend tokeep working on it, be patient
(07:29):
and then at some point you willsee 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 (07:44):
What's the most underrated tool that you have in
your arsenal?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
My most underrated tool would be like you speak of
platforms, so what do you referto on tools?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Forms or tools.
For example, I myself, Iconsider Reddit to be very
underutilized.
However, when you look at themetrics of Reddit, you'd be
incredibly astounded.
They have billions and millionsof users, almost to the level
of the main social mediaplatforms, including your X,
Facebook, your TikToks.
Their usage and engagement rateis incredible.
(08:16):
So to me, that's an underused,underrated platform.
Yeah, yeah, and also toadvertise.
It's also very affordable aswell.
Yeah, absolutely.
What are some of the platformsthat you've come across that you
feel not many people are onthis platform?
This is a clear and an easyopportunity.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I think from a marketing perspective, not a lot
of businesses are on TikTok.
I mean, there are a lot ofpeople on TikTok, it's a really
popular platform but actuallyfor businesses I don't think
they do enough for TikTokbecause they can get viral.
They can get more younger usersas well to get awareness of the
brands and brands in general.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And why do you feel businesses underuse TikTok?
Do you have any thoughts ortheories as to why?
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, it might be like that.
A lot of users are not theyounger generation are like in
these positions basically.
So they're still on thisFacebook platform age, let's say
that way.
So they're already hesitantwith Instagram most of the time.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
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 waslistening to TikTok with skits
and city dancing.
Yeah, yeah, is that a badpreconception?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
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 isyou can sell products over
TikTok as well, and you can putadvertising everywhere.
Where advertising comes up,people get more awareness about
the brand or some products orcompanies.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
If you had a serious product or a serious service,
would that still be suitable fora platform like TikTok?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, I mean we could make it that way.
I think Instagram is in thiscase a little bit.
I think TikTok is more playful,most likely.
But even in Instagram I sawlike so many funny employers
making funny videos with theirstaff.
So people want to work in thiscompany.
It seems to be funny and theyget more awareness and people.
Yeah, that way they can buy orsell more products and yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Okay, fantastic.
If you weren't into marketingJacqueline, what else do you
think you'd be doing right now?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
I probably would be an artist painting.
Yeah, I don't know.
Actually, I always felt likethis is my place to be.
Yeah, creative side of thingsand marketing is so widely
brought, like I can doeverything.
Basically, it's like this thingI need.
Like I can do everything.
Basically, it's like this thingI need.
Like I could not do finance andnumbers.
I need to do everything.
Creative, basically.
(10:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
Fantastic.
Yeah, what's been the hardestmoment in your professional
journey so far and how did yougo through it?
Good question.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I don't even know.
There are always hard moments.
Basically, I think there'severy time.
There's a challenge and if youhave to like get into
uncomfortable moment, you passthem and you're more proud after
that.
You actually made it and yeahthat's what I think.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
What's one marketing strategy that businesses think
would work, but in reality it'sa total failure.
It never works.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
I think it doesn't work.
I think Google AdWordssometimes is a way Google makes
money if you don't know whatyou're doing.
So people are like actuallypeople or companies lose money,
a lot of money, because theydon't have the expertise to
actually know how to get theright keywords or how to get
Google ads going.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
I can resonate with that because in our business for
a solid six months we had onesetting turned on in Google.
That setting was to allow ourad to be visible globally.
We only service Australia andNew Zealand and you can just
imagine the amount of marketingleakage that went into
advertising countries likeSwitzerland, new York, where
(11:59):
people see our ads and clearlycannot purchase from us.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Exactly that's when I say where money goes away.
I would definitely morerecommend to get someone to
write SEO copy on your website.
Make it more user-friendly userexperience.
So the user experience is goingto be so much better.
It needs to be visually andpractically going hand in hand,
basically, so that way you'regonna rank a little bit more up
(12:23):
in google and yeah, that's whatI think they should do.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Cannot agree more so in the marketing space, is there
currently something that you'requite obsessive about that you
feel it's going to take off?
Perhaps this is ai, perhapsthis is a new ai tool, you know,
is this a particular piece,particular software, where you
think, oh, I really need tofocus more attention because I
think in the coming five yearsit'll be more and more relevant
(12:49):
actually it's photoshop, becausein photoshop, yeah, you can use
ai and in photoshop, it made itso much easier to retouch
photoshop.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
adobe photoshop yes, you can use AI.
In Photoshop, it made it somuch easier to retouch.
Adobe Photoshop yes, you canactually generate pictures, a
part of the picture you can edit.
You can retouch photos orcampaigns and stuff.
It's amazing.
So you can actually build a lotwith Photoshop now so much
quicker.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Interesting.
You should say Photoshop,because what I've read, a lot of
users are certainly opting outof photoshop because of just the
way they've conducted theirsoftware in the past five to ten
years.
The monthly installments, thecopyrights yeah and the
ownership of the assets havebeen brought into question and
it's made software like canva alot more appealing to users.
So it's interesting that youshould say Photoshop, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
The thing is, photoshop has endless options.
Canva does not.
They're going to always keepyou on the platform.
Basically, if you want to getthe elements, you cannot
download them somehow.
They're all in this templateand then that way, a lot of
times you have to use Canva allthe time to do your assets, but
Photoshop does not.
(13:56):
You can actually Photoshopeverything you want and, yeah, I
think you have to obviously payAdobe a monthly fee for all the
programs and they have a lot ofAI tools too, for example,
firefly.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
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 Imade it easier to design I've
used a lot of different ai toolsover the past six months and
the ai tools I've been usingtext to photographs, yeah, and
all the software, all thepopular ones and gpt's, as well
(14:31):
as mid journeys and all theothers.
I've given them a go and Ifound that there's a high degree
of randomness which becomesvery time consuming for myself.
Yes, this is amazing.
Images and very they're notquite to specifications and I
find it still very frustrating.
Yeah, what has your experiencebeen using ai tools to create
graphical images?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
that's the same, like I feel also frustrated if they
don't get into the details thatI want to.
So I just use it as a tool toadditional 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.
(15:12):
I would not recommend it thatway.
The personal design is alsogone if you just generate all
the time.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
In our business, we would have generated hundreds of
images, all of which areuseless.
They look beautiful, but theydon't fit the criteria that we
need to use them for, and so, inmy mind, if I'm starting a
business from scratch where Ihad no collage, no material,
then, yes, we would be able touse those materials, but because
we have a brand voice, a brandimage, brand colors, specific
(15:42):
products, specific messages,quotes and captions that we have
, ai struggles a lot when itcomes to capturing an existing
brand.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's why I don't feel endangered as a
designer yet, because peoplesay, well, who knows how good AI
is going to be, but at the endthere needs to be a person
behind these tools knowing whatthey do.
I'm going to be more, yes, so Ithink.
Still, I don't feel like I'musing the tools to help myself
(16:12):
sometimes to get faster, andyeah, that's it.
Actually, I wouldn't say ai isdangerous to marketing.
It's more a good tool to useand then also be careful of not
being too general, right?
You want to still do your ownbrand and and be special from
everybody else, right?
Speaker 1 (16:30):
love that reply.
Final question if you could puta message on a billboard, a
very big billboard, in themiddle city or in the middle of
melbourne, what would you wantit to say?
What image would you want it toshow?
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Oh, I mean, I always think of Nike.
I think they have greatbranding and it's always the
message just do it.
And I think that's one of my Idon'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 morethings that we are uncomfortable
with.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And then we'll have a great output and we never know
what to expect.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
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 (17:09):
Actually, if you're listening to this, you should
hit up.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Jacqueline, yes, definitely.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for having me and,yeah, hopefully be back.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
To those listening.
Thank you so much for listeningto the promo playbook by Cubic
Promote.
Please stay tuned for futureepisodes.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Bye.
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