Naomi Walkland believes the best marketing doesn’t shout – it listens. The Motorway marketer explains how empathy, insight and a culture of curiosity drive her team’s success.
You’ve held senior roles across agencies, startups, and major brands – advising the likes of Spotify and leading marketing at Bumble. Now you’re CMO at Motorway. Can you walk us through your career journey?
I started my career in PR communications and worked for a number of different agencies. It was back when you would call journalists on the phone or go for a fun breakfast with them. I loved it. I worked on lots of different brands, and what I really enjoyed was the storytelling aspect of communications.
I remember we would have some really challenging clients, but I enjoyed finding angles that worked for each journalist. Part of that came from maintaining a great working relationship with them and also understanding what they need to achieve as part of their editorial calendar. I moved to an advertising agency, which broadened my understanding of the marketing mix and landscape. It was a time when influencers and digital marketing were new.
I went to one company and I thought: ‘I’ve made it. I’m going to stay here, become an MD, and I’ll grow in this company.’ But I hated it. I share this story because I think it’s really important to acknowledge when something doesn’t feel right and step away. I quit. At first it was really frightening, but my husband was very supportive and said: “Just go for it. You’ve got a network. We’ll see what happens.”
I started consulting, and during that time, I worked with a number of different brands looking to launch as well as a VC company who were looking to help brands launch in the UK. I started working with Bumble, and supported them in launching what was called Bumble Bizz, their business vertical. Again – I loved it.
Bumble asked me to join them. At the time the business was less than 100 people. My role was to lead international marketing communications. I stayed for six years, and launched Bumble in over 15 markets. I built the marketing team from the ground up, launching it across all of those regions.
I also led some impactful campaigns that I’m still really proud of today. One such campaign advocated diversity: “My Love Is Black Love.” We celebrated Black British Modern Love. I was part of a brand that was really trying to change society and fight societal expectations around traditional dating norms and women making the first move.
Next I moved to Motorway. Some people have suggested it is hugely different to Bumble, but in fact there’s a lot of similarities. When I spoke to the founders of Motorway, I felt the same way that I felt when I spoke to the founding team at Bumble: they were on the verge of transforming an industry.
I also love using technology to disrupt behaviours, and Motorway is taking something which is typically offline and radicalising it by moving it online. Both Motorway and Bumble are connectors. I’ve been at Motorway for the last six months and it has been a whirlwind. I have been building the marketing function, appointing new partners, and also planning some of our big swings for 2025. Alongside Motorway, I am an advisor for a number of businesses. I’m also on the board for the Marketing Society and a trustee for Mothers to Mothers.
Motorway have offices in London and Brighton
What is the offer at Motorway?
At Motorway we help people sell their cars. We do not own any stock. Sellers can sell their car via our online marketplace, where a verified network of dealers bid for and buy the cars. We have over 7,500 dealers on the platform, which is around two-thirds of the network in the UK. Over half a million people have sold their cars on Motorway. We’re expanding and growing. The pandemic was a real catalyst for the business – it was a time when people got more comfortable selling things online. But beyond Covid, the business has continued to accelerate growth.
At Motorway, your revenues increased 48% to £60.9m in 2023. What does 2025 mean for you and your team?
I’m calling 2025 our year of focus and transformation as we build our brand trust and preference. Ours is a low-frequency industry. It’s not something that people are thinking about all the time. When they want to sell their car, so many people go to ‘part exchange’ or go to their local dealership. It’s a default behavior episode. Our real challenge and opportunity is changing that behavior.
We also need to build our brand and make sure that we’re staying front of mind for our customers when they think about selling their car. There are different life stage moments when people think about selling their car: it could be a year in advance of selling – perhaps you have plans to expand your family and you may be thinking ‘in a year’s time, we will sell our car.’ Motorway needs to be the brand you think of when you are considering a car sale so in 2025 we’ll be pairing information we know around auto behaviours with life stage moments.
Motorway offers its customers the opportunity to sell cars to an approved network of used car dealers
How is your team structured?
When I joined, the team was centred around advertising and CRM. Over the last few months, I have built a future-proof and high-performing marketing team and engine. We’re a two-sided marketplace: we split the teams so that they are focused either on our car sellers or car dealers. We’ve got central functions, like PR and communications and growth marketing, which includes performance and digital, CRM, SEO and affiliate marketing.
I introduced some new functions: one of them being product marketing. We innovate so much at Motorway. There’s also a huge opportunity for us to communicate this more effectively. Product marketing is a key function for our business and something that I’m really passionate about.
We also have a marketing operations and strategy team which is the glue to all our functions and enables the marketing team to deliver excellent work. We’re supported by a number of different partners, including our B2B corporate agency Fight or Flight and our consumer PR agency The Romans. But we’ve also just recently appointed Uncommon as our new creative partner. They really matched our ambition during the pitch process. They will be bringing our brand new brand strategy and brand platform to life in Q1 2025. We also have long-standing partners such as MG who have been with us for many years. While we need some new agencies to support our plans, it’s been incredibly helpful having existing partners who know the business inside and out and who have been instrumental to our growth to date.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=v7h70LuFhY8%3Fenablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%3A
Motorway’s latest campaign, “It’s Not Magic. It’s Motorway” launched earlier this year.
Drawing on your leadership expertise, what has your career taught you that helps you make a great marketing team?
One of the things that I took from Bumble when we were in a stage of hyper-growth was the need to build for the future as it is so easy to only build the present. What I’ve done at Motorway is to build deep specialisms in each area of marketing and hiring the best for those roles. Beyond skills, I’ve been hiring people with curiosity, conviction and an ownership mindset.
Prioritizing the team and providing clarity allows teams to feel motivated and empowered. For me this all begins with a clear vision. Where do we want to go? This may be a year of transformation and focus, but my team need to really understand ‘the why.’ Why are we doing this?
The teams understand ‘the what’ and ‘the how,’ and within this framework I try to create a culture of trust and respect. Over the last six months, I’ve really delivered that with our team and the culture we have created at Motorway.
I’m also looking at the current business challenges: what do we need to solve, and how can we make sure that the team is structured in the right way? My team is a reflection of the business opportunity and challenges, too. The playbook that got Motorway to where the business is today is not the one that will lead us into the future. So we need to evolve and ensure our team and structure is reflective of this.
Naomi’s “My Love Is Black Love” campaign for Bumble gave over 30 black British voices the opportunity to share unscripted reflections on what love means to them.
What is your first memory of a marketing success that you were part of, where you felt this is the role for me?
As I mentioned, at Bumble, back in 2020, I ran a campaign called: ‘My Love Is Black Love.’ 2020 was such a tumultuous year – we had the Covid pandemic and we had the murder of George Floyd in the USA and the subsequent global civil unrest.
I wanted to ensure that our platform reflected society. We had some customer insight, but also I could see that there was an opportunity to do more to speak to the Black community. We realised that with only a few notable exceptions, ‘Black love’ had never been seen in mainstream spaces. People didn’t see it reflected on themselves: a celebration of Black love and Black happiness. So that informed the campaign.
We had different community members: celebrities, influencers, sports personalities each tell a story around Black love. The campaign was one of the most successful campaigns at Bumble until today. It was the first Black love global campaign. There have been many other brands that have reflected it since, or used it as a framework.
There are two reasons that I am proud of the campaign: firstly, we put storytelling at the center. We gave our customers a platform: tell your story. Secondly, this initiative drove commercial value for the business. The campaign increased brand awareness and that in turn drove commercial value. We connected customer insight with generating value for the business. The campaign reflected our customers’ behaviour.
From a personal perspective, I’m driven by social impact, and we were able to do that with marketing. I remember being so nervous on the day we launched, but the month that followed was one of pure positivity.
AI in marketing, what might be some pros and cons?
I’m a big believer in leveraging technology and us staying as up to date as possible. I don’t see AI as ‘an enemy.’ I see it as something that can really help allow us to become more effective and more efficient. It can also allow us to provide enhanced levels of personalisation with our customers.
I use AI every day and I encourage the team to use AI in ways that make us more efficient. In terms of challenges, often we view marketing through the lens of new tools, platforms and trends, but at the heart of great marketing is always knowing your customer and your business and commercial dynamics.
The key tenets of marketing can be really enhanced by AI. I actively learn from our partners, like Google and others, on what we can do to reach our customers in the most effective way. We are also exploring ways to improve our measurement capabilities to help illustrate business impact.
From a CRM perspective, we use Braze. They’re constantly looking at new ways to leverage AI and technology, and they’re helping us to achieve greater personalization. In summary: for me, AI is all about driving greater impact for our customers and the business.
A daily auction on Motorway allows Motorways network of approved dealers to buy cars from Motorway customers.
How do you connect emotionally with your customers at Motorway?
Spend time with your customers. Many of our call center teams are based in Brighton. We regularly have days where we do ‘call listening’: that means going down to join the Brighton team and listening to different calls. Sometimes this includes speaking to our B2C and our B2B customers. I had a conversation with one recently for an hour. And I do that regularly.
It is the best way to hear what your customers are feeling, wanting and knowing. And when I spoke to one of our dealer customers, they gave me some really good insights on our brand, our marketing, what they’re enjoying, what they’re not enjoying, and that then informs some of our strategy.
But similarly, on the car seller side, I was listening to one call recently. We have a bereavement service – one where we can help people sell a car at the time of someone passing. I heard first-hand how much that service really helped somebody at a really difficult time. I heard how our customer care service team really supported a customer through the process.
That was a source of inspiration: we need to do a lot more around sharing our offering and how we can drive value to our customers at good times, but also challenging times too. I encourage my teams to do call listening. I also encourage our teams to have their ear to the ground on current affairs. We’re still having a lot of economic challenges in the UK. Changes to the economy inform us as to why people are selling their cars. But if I had to choose between the two: you can never beat speaking directly to your customers.
Motorway’s network of car dealers hugely value the regular email updates they get from the car-selling platform.
Could you tell us about a customer research discovery you made that you found surprising?
I was talking about our marketing communications and upcoming activities with our B2B customers. In the conversation, I learned about how much our car dealer audience read and value our content marketing – the information about the industry that we share in our emails. Our content was helping them to choose their stock.
They wanted even more personalization and even more content. We often think: ‘How can we do less, but make it more impactful?’ But actually, this was a case of: ‘How can we do more and make it even more personalized?’ It was a real pivot for me. Our dealer network want to know what cars they can or should purchase, what cars hold their value, what cars are in our auction and so forth.
Could you tell us about a marketing mistake you have made and what you learned from it?
Yes, I’ve made many mistakes. There was one campaign I did with the team years ago, and it didn’t perform well. My gut feeling was that the work was ‘off’ but I couldn’t work out why. The reason it wasn’t a success was because we didn’t take customer insights into the heart of it. We thought we knew the customer, and thus we assumed the chosen route would work.
We focused too much on our business goals and we were trying to blend the work. We had a bit of customer insight, a bit of a direct response ad, and a bit of a brand campaign. As a result, it was a bit of everything. The result: it didn’t cut through. The work was a reflection of every stakeholder’s view.
Scene by scene you could see: ‘That’s the call to action that somebody insisted on. Oh, that’s the brand storytelling piece by this person looking into the camera. Oh, that’s a bit of customer insight. Oh, that’s our business challenge that we need to solve right now.’ It didn’t perform effectively.
My two takeaways were: trust your gut and always go back to the customer. When you are balancing business growth opportunities, big targets, budgets, productions, it is easy to lose sight of this. The key questions are always: what does our customer want? How can we drive value?
Marketing is the human connection between your brand and your business. I’ve always found that when the work is diverted from customer insights, problems and truths, the work will not be effective.
At Motorway we’ve also been working closely with the agency: 21st Century Brand on our new brand strategy. Our brand is our promise to our customers and also internally to our employees too. It is what we deliver. It is also our commitment.
What myth about marketing would you most like to bust?
So often people see marketing as just advertising, but as marketers we are partly to blame, because when marketers talk about their roles, they talk about advertising campaigns. But marketing is so much more than that. We are a value-driving function. We’re about creating demand, but we’re also about serving that demand. Marketing is the art and science of engaging audiences.
Marketing is so much more than advertising. Advertising is just one tool at the disposal of the marketer. The breadth and scope of marketing is rapidly evolving. It’s more than just brand. Some marketers are looking after revenue functions. Some are looking after product functions too. I think as marketers, we all need to pledge to talk less about advertising and more about everything that marketers provide the business on the day-to-day.
Naomi unpacks Motorway’s success in a fireside chat.
What advice would you give your younger self if you could go back in time?
Enjoy the journey. I am a very goal-oriented person and I found that I would achieve goals but not enjoy the journey that took me there. I made a conscious change a few years ago and now make sure that I hold myself accountable to enjoying the journey.
I’m really passionate about mentoring and I mentor a number of young women. In turn, I’ve also had a lot of great mentors who’ve really supported me. I always tell them: aim high and be unapologetic about it. But also build a network. A network of your peers is important, but get to know more senior people who have more experience and who you can learn from.
What question would you like me to ask the next senior marketer that I interview?
We often focus on marketing and a marketer’s relationship with the CFO. I would love to understand how your next interviewee has been able to build an effective relationship with the product development side of their organization as well. What advice would they have on building a cross-functional relationship between product and marketing?
Your question from another senior marketer is: what would you be doing if you weren’t in marketing?
If I wasn’t a marketer, I’d probably be doing something in development or policy. I’m really passionate around giving back. So that impact piece has always been important to me. If not, I’d most probably ended up being a consultant.
If there’s one thing you know about marketing, it is…?
Marketing is the human connection between your business and your customer, the art and science of engaging audiences.
You might die tomorrow so make it worth your while. Worth Your While is an independent creative agency helping brands do spectacular stuff people like to talk about. wyw.agency.
This interview has already appeared in The Drum. Discover the best campaigns, industry insights and interviews from world-leading marketers, creatives and more.
