Christine Yoon
At Marketing Trends, we are discovering what drives Australia’s top marketers. In this episode, Christine Yoon discusses her role as Head of Marketing at Mosh, an online men's health platform, the global boom of telehealth and the importance of data hygiene.
Read it here ↓
Career & professional background
How did your career in marketing start?
Back when I graduated from University pre-GFC, investment banking was a fanciful dream job for a lot of ambitious overachievers and that’s exactly how I started working on Wall Street in New York. But it didn’t take long to realise that my heart wasn’t in finance - so I joined a digital marketing agency thinking it would be a great way to satisfy my need for both analytics and creativity. I had studied Economics so I had no idea what Marketing was all about. The experience with the agency was great because it gave me access to many different brands’ marketing teams, what they do and how they work. I had a small taste and I was in! I decided to go back to school for a proper education on Marketing so I got an MBA from Columbia Business School, studying Marketing and Strategy. From there on, I have worked across brands both big and small and also had the opportunity to move to Australia.
If you hadn’t pursued a career in marketing, in which other industry do you think you might be?
If I didn’t have the courage to pursue a career switch, I would have stuck to finance. But now… if not in marketing, I think I could be in some kind of event planning or a social* role (*not a social media role). I’m usually the one planning all things social for different groups of networks. It ranges widely from international travels, boat parties, speaker series, dinners, extreme outdoor activities to whatever is entertaining and meaningful. Ultimately, I love being around good people so I love helping to build unique memories with the ones I love.
Could you tell us about your role as Head of Marketing at Mosh?
First of all, Mosh is men’s health made easy. We created a safe and convenient way for guys to access treatments for a range of health issues, including hair loss, erectile issues, skincare and mental health, all online.
My role at Mosh is to build and lead a high performing marketing team. I was employee #6 when I joined and now we’ve scaled significantly to have successfully closed a series B funding round. I’m always looking for the right resources - new hires to the team, agency partners, technology - and focused on implementing appropriate processes to enable the team to do their best and foster collaboration.
Outside of the team, my biggest focus these days is to build a distinctive brand that people notice and want to engage with. Mosh aims to remove the stigma around men’s health issues and I want Mosh to become the brand that fuels conversations and education on men’s health.
Marketing & Industry Trends
What type of impact has COVID- 19 had on your industry?
Research shows that digital adoption has taken a quantum leap at both the organizational and industry levels due to COVID. At Mosh, customer demand exceeded expectations with telehealth becoming mainstream. And I’m also proud of our mental health offering which launched as a response to COVID, helping thousands of Australians in need.
What is the most exciting trend or innovation happening in your field in terms of growth?
This is an easy one for me! The explosion of telehealth adoption fueled by COVID-19. At Mosh previous to COVID, we came across questions around the credibility of the model - whether you can actually see real doctors online, whether they are Australians doctors and whether the medications delivered are genuine. With COVID, everyone would have seen a doctor online at least once so it’s accelerated the categorical education. We’re seeing increased consumer willingness to use telehealth and regulatory changes favourable to telehealth have also been made to enable greater access. Many researchers predict the global telehealth market to grow at almost a 40% CAGR in the next 3 years.
What’s also interesting is the high uptake in telehealth for mental health services. Many say the last couple years were also a pandemic of mental health as people experienced extended lockdowns, deaths and illness of loved ones and financial stress from COVID. This exposed the serious need for the world to focus on mental wellness - both to start breaking down the stigma around mental health issues and also to start finding solutions for more affordable and accessible mental health services.
Mosh is really at the forefront of this disruption in the telehealth space and I’m really proud to be part of the movement.
As a marketer, what do you believe is the biggest challenge facing your industry in the future?
Data has enabled marketing to be a lot smarter and it will continue to be a critical asset in all our decision making, across every industry. However, data also comes with a lot of challenges at every level. Some of the challenges I’ve faced so far across different companies include the following:
- Data hygiene - it’s garbage in, garbage out. If the data we’re working with is not accurate, complete or consistent, nor will the learnings be.
- Over reliance on data or trying to find the perfect data before making any decision - this is in slight contradiction to my point above. However, I think while we should strive for data hygiene, we should still be able to take directional guidance and educated risks.
- Data interpretation - same data can result in multitude of conclusions depending on who’s doing the reading. Hopefully if it’s within the same organisation everyone is working towards a single North Star but I always question whether the analysis has been commissioned to drive a different agenda. And there’s also just lack of understanding of how to read and use marketing data to bring more growth for a business.
- Integrating data from various sources - the number of platforms we use are increasing exponentially and we need to understand how to bring them all into a single view . It’s like Marvel. All the cool characters have their own adventures but ultimately they have to come together in a single storyline to make sense of it all and save the world.
Tools, recommendations & sources of inspiration
What does a typical day look like for you? How do you structure your week?
How I start and finish my day during the week are on a routine. I usually get up around 6am for 2 hours of exercise - whether it’s surfing, doing pilates or going for a run listening to my audiobook followed by a quick dip in the ocean. At night after work, I always try to cook something new. I find it meditative and fun to be using my hands to create something different. It also helps me to delineate work from home which I find is especially important when I am working from home due to COVID.
When it comes to work, I’d say it’s a lot more dynamic! No single day is the same and rarely does it go as planned (the joy of being at a startup) but I can still try to give you an example.
At Mosh, we kick off our week with a Monday stand-up where every business unit shares its priorities for the week and cross-functional support areas needed. It’s a great opportunity for the entire business to align. Then the Marketing team breaks off for a more detailed weekly sprint planning by different work streams whether it’s Creative, Social, Digital, etc. We review insights from previous activities so we can plan and prioritize appropriately for the week. We use Jira to assign owners to different tasks and due dates so everything is transparent. From there on, it’s pretty straightforward because everyone has a clear understanding of what needs to be accomplished that week. On Fridays, the whole business comes together again for a fun check-out.
What brands do you take inspiration from?
Depends on what you’re looking to get inspiration on - brilliant creative, smart media buy, winning brand collaboration, great leadership, inclusivity, etc. Some that I have recently followed include KFC, Sports Bet, Manscaped, Modibodi, Airbnb.
I think there is a lot to learn from many different brands and marketers alike. So if anyone is reading this and would like to have a chat, pick each other’s brain, give me a shout!
Software and tools recommendations: what is the one software you can’t work without and why?
Whoa we use so many different tools. But the one we can’t work without would be Slack - great communication, collaboration enabler. It was especially important for us throughout COVID.
What are three resources you would recommend for anyone working in your field?
- Network - Reach out for 1:1s, go to events, talk to people! And if you receive help, pay it forward
- Books - Ask your network for a book recommendation. My favourite recommendations so far have been ‘Extreme Ownership’, ‘ Building a StoryBrand’ and ‘Eating the Big Fish’
- Blogs/online publications - Keep up to date! For instance, I like ‘The Hustle’ to stay on top of startup/tech news, ‘Hubspot’ for marketing fundamentals, ‘CMO’ for marketing trends and I follow ‘AdNews’ to see what’s happening in the world of media. And shout out to ‘Marketing Trends’ as well, after I was invited for an interview I went through a few posts and found it a great place to learn about what other marketers are thinking and who I want to connect with.
