Episode 14
Yvette Costi on why most underperforming stores don’t need more ads, the diagnostic that has to come first, and why the fix is usually on the floor, not in the funnel.
Episode
Overview
Eight out of ten times a store underperforms and operations calls for more marketing, the problem is not footfall. It’s operational. Yvette Costi runs the diagnostic before she opens the budget.
As CMO of Bloom’s The Chemist, a network of 130 independent pharmacy stores across Australia, she runs one of the most complex marketing environments in retail. Not by spending first. By diagnosing first.
You can’t fix a rostering problem with ad spend. The diagnostic comes first, and the diagnostic is what tells you where the money should go.
In this episode, Yvette joins Aleisha McCall for a precise, commercially direct conversation about what marketing leadership actually takes inside a 130-store franchise network.
A full diagnostic that reads footfall, the P&L, labour returns, and conversion by shift, before a single dollar of media is approved.
From diagnosing store performance before the budget moves, to a B2B campaign that turned a 50-lead target into 180, to attribution that holds up in front of 150 franchise owners.
Once the diagnostic led, the team moved from 95% B2C to 80% B2B and the campaign beat its target by 260%. Same budget. A function the board reads as commercial.
This is the account of how she runs it, and what marketing becomes once it stops spending the business’s money and starts making it.
Listen & subscribe. Tune in on your favourite platform to listen or watch Episode 14 of The Black Box of Media Podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
listen & subscribe
Tune in on your favourite platform to listen or watch Episode 14 of The Black Box of Media Podcast.
Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Watch EPISODE 14
CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Unpacking the complexities of retail pharmacy marketing
03:46 – Balancing national brand messaging with local store needs
09:12 – Differentiation in a competitive market: purpose as the filter
12:56 – Navigating attribution in a bricks-and-mortar multi-site environment
18:19 – The signals a CMO actually relies on when conversion paths aren’t clear
27:55 – The impact of COVID-19 on marketing strategy and the QR code comeback
30:04 – The January Blues B2B campaign: 50-lead target, 180-lead result
32:52 – The pivot from 95% B2C to 80% B2B: the strategy and the decision behind it
37:28 – Change management: taking a B2C marketing team into B2B campaigns
42:59 – Commercial acumen, P&L literacy, and the CMO’s real role in the business
49:24 – What Yvette wishes she had known earlier in her career
Key
Takeaways
Diagnose Before You Spend
- Why eight out of ten underperforming stores turn out to have an operational problem, not a marketing one
- The diagnostic sequence Yvette runs before any budget decision, and what each layer of it tells her
- Why a rostering fix, not more ad spend, is so often the real answer to a store that isn’t converting
Marketing at Two Speeds
- How national brand strategy and hyper-local store campaigns run side by side without cannibalising each other
- Why purpose, not price, is the filter Bloom’s uses to differentiate in a crowded category
- How one budget gets allocated across 130 stores with very different needs
Attribution That Holds Up in the Room
- How de-identified dispensing data matched against census information reveals store-level gaps a dashboard misses
- The attribution approach that works in a bricks-and-mortar, multi-site environment where last-click means little
- How Yvette presents performance to a board and more than 150 franchise owners and keeps their trust
The Commercial Case for Marketing
- The January Blues B2B campaign that turned a 50-lead target into 180 by reading pharmacist psychology, not selling services
- Why P&L literacy is what earns a CMO a seat alongside the CFO and CEO
- What it takes to move a team from 95% B2C to 80% B2B, and manage that change without losing them
Guest Profile-
YVETTE COSTI
Yvette Costi is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bloom’s The Chemist, one of the few truly independent pharmacy networks in Australia, running across 130 franchised stores.
She works at the intersection of marketing, commercial strategy, and operations, approaching all three from a P&L seat rather than a campaign calendar.
Her remit spans a dual B2B and B2C mandate, a board and more than 150 franchise stakeholders, and one of the most regulated advertising environments in retail. She builds the commercial case for marketing in the language the boardroom actually uses: revenue, not activity.
Yvette is active on LinkedIn and open to conversation from anyone the episode raises questions for.
SHARPER THINKING. STRONGER MARKETING.
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