Break away from the pack and become

In 2024 I started Demarrage Digital with the aim to turn 10 years of experience at Greetz, Google & Philips into a freelance/interim offering and take on digital & marketing challenges such as..

Constantly balancing budgets, KPIs, channel-mix and audience targeting between creating awareness and increasing conversions. But what if you don’t have to choose?

In my experience, marketing is a constant effort to do 2 things right; create mental availability (be recognized, distinctive, preferred) and ensure physical availability (be there at the decision moments). 

If this sounds a bit too much like Les Binet, I can only plead guilty and acknowledge I’m a big fan. Spoiler, two other heroes of mine are Avinash Kaushik and Grace Kite!

What to rely decision making on? Those 13 PowerBI dashboards which never show the same numbers, GA360 telling Google media works best, the quarterly brand-tracker that is just a bit too generic for your needs or the expensive MMM-study that has now locked-in that consultancy firm?

Sorry, I don’t have the simple answer either. But since publishing my first attribution case-study a decade ago I’ve always and everywhere deep-dived on the true impact of marketing investment on business outcomes.

I like to combine empirical marketing studies (let’s trust what has been proven) with simple incrementality tests and assess whatever is in place already (MMM, brand trackers, attribution models, dashboards), to work towards DUMB goals; Doable, Understandable, Manageable, Beneficial.

From ideation to briefing and from media plan to go-live, managing a campaign from start to finish involves many deliverables, stakeholders, shifting timelines, channels, curve-balls, budget decisions and simply put blood, sweat and tears.

Luckily, I’ve managed my fair share and it’s one of the more operational elements to marketing I love most! Whether it’s a product launch, a rebrand, market expansion or seasonal ‘let’s just do what we did last year‘ campaign, I’m Prince2 certified and follow simple project management principles to ensure planning, budget and output stays on track.

There’s a tool, vendor and agency for everything, and then there’s a tool,vendor and agency to manage those tools, vendors and agencies… And since a couple of years, all of them are powered by AI and will solve your business challenge within days.

Reality is different. You have an existing mar-tech stack, you’re balancing what to do in-house and where to bring in agency expertise, and need to be able to scale up or down and stay flexible on costs.

I’ve done multi-market ad-tech roll-outs (wow 3 hyphenated words in a row), RFPs, switched operations from agency to in-house execution and worked on numerous vendor agreements and am happy to discover what works for you.

I’ve had the pleasure of building and leading two very different teams of digital marketers at Philips & Joolz and learned that:

  • Teams thrive and grow when they trust and feel trusted.
  • The real win, is building an environment that gives energy instead of taking it.
  • Structure + Scope + Strategy leaves headspace for creativity, ownership & output.

Building a digital team from scratch, professionalizing an existing one, or being the steady, experienced lead a team needs through a reorg or a rocky quarter, I combine clear structure with genuine trust and seek to bring that energy everyone recognizes when a team really just ‘works’.

80% time spent on the perfect playbook, 10% on presenting it to markets and 10% on checking if they execute?

I’ve rolled out marketing across as many markets as org charts, and the honest lesson is that alignment has less to do with the perfect governance model and more with giving people a genuine seat at the table early, and a clear reason to actually say yes.

It’s hard work, translating one global ambition into something every country and department can run with, achievable by being a good listener and respecting different viewpoints. Local execution is not ‘the last checkbox of the roll-out’, it is what makes a campaign brilliant or useless.

How I can help
Availability

de·mar·ra·ge /

sudden acceleration in pace to break away from the peleton and win the stage.

(Digital) Marketing Strategy
From strategy to execution and with a focus on combining deep digital expertise with proven marketing principles across digital and physical channels. From shoe-string-budget promotions to multi-million global brand activations, I’ve worked with a variety of agencies and led in-house teams to turn marketing ambitions into reality. With a variety of past held roles in digital, I'm happy to accelerate your marketing impact.
Challenge accepted?
Campaign Project Management
Start-to-finish campaign execution from ideation & agency briefs to timely go-lives and solid evaluations, with everything in between. I excel in creating clarity, simplicity and alignment on bringing exciting campaigns to live. Successful product launches, re-brands, market expansions and multi-channel. Let's discuss if your campaign needs match my skillset.
Campaign lift-off!
Interim Senior & Lead Roles
As a teamlead that values openness and trust, I focus on embedding ownership and accountability while creating the supportive environment to succeed. I ensure team, channel and project impact are maximized by clear linkage to business goals, while leaning on past experience and up-to-date knowledge to help your teammembers develop.
Have a role in mind?