Customer experience in the energy age
On this episode of The CMO Show, host Mark Jones sits down with Ben Blackburn, Head of Product at SIXT Australia. The car rental company is working to electrify 50% of its entire fleet by 2027, and influence consumer attitudes and behaviours at the same time.
It’s a big job. Listen in to see how they’re going.
The green revolution is reshaping the marketing landscape.
Whether it’s committing to carbon neutrality, embracing eco-friendly practices or helping drive a circular economy — there’s some remarkable stories about brands not just chasing profits, but a greener, more sustainable future.
On this episode of The CMO Show, we chat to Ben Blackburn, Head of Product at SIXT Australia.
While a thousand strong fleet of motor vehicles might not sound like the most eco-friendly operation, SIXT is determined to be an exception to the rule.
"From an EV point of view, we’re working to remove barriers and make EV access as easy as possible,” Ben says.
“When it comes to electrification, one of our biggest priorities is how we can assist our members, and our customers, in this transition. We base a lot of our decisions on the changing attitudes and needs of our customers – they're the forefront at a lot of the work we do.”
Those changing attitudes don’t just apply to the types of vehicles we drive, but how we acquire them in the first place. While some in the industry might see competitors like Uber Carshare as a threat, Ben is excited by their growing popularity.
“We’re seeing not just in Australia, but globally, acceptance of the subscription model is growing. We’re entering an age where consumers are moving away from ownership and getting used to different modes of transport instead. We’ve got a great fleet, and we have the ability to really win in these places.”
Listen in to Mark and Ben as they chat through how to continue to strengthen the customer experience in the age of energy and electrification.
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Credits
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The CMO Show production team
Producers – Rian Newman & Pamela Obeid
Audio Engineers – Ed Cheng & Daniel Marr
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Transcript:
Mark Jones:
Hello, Mark Jones here and you’re listening to The CMO Show, a podcast made for and made by marketing professionals.
Today we’re exploring the green revolution that’s reshaping the marketing landscape.
Whether it’s committing to carbon neutrality, embracing eco-friendly practices or helping drive a circular economy — there’s some remarkable stories about brands that are not just chasing profits, but a greener, more sustainable future.
Let’s meet one of them.
Mark Jones:
Mark Jones here, you’re listening to The CMO Show – the first for 2024 - and my guest today is Ben Blackburn, Head of Product at SIXT Australia.
I’m sure you’ve seen SIXT all over the roads – it's hard to miss the cars splattered with bright orange and bold lettering.
Now I know what you’re thinking — a fleet of motor vehicles doesn’t sound like the most eco-friendly operation out there — but what you might not know about SIXT is they’re planning on electrifying 50% of its entire fleet by 2027.
I spoke to Ben about going on that journey and – most importantly – about how SIXT is bringing its customers along for the ride. It’s a great chat, so strap in and enjoy.
Mark Jones:
Thanks for joining us.
Ben Blackburn:
Thank you very much for having me.
Mark Jones:
Now there's a fun story here, at least from my perspective because a couple of years ago, SIXT suddenly just turned up out of nowhere. There was like vans everywhere. And as a bit of a brand guy marketing person, I love seeing the emergence of new brands in the local market, but it's not a new brand at all, is it?
Ben Blackburn:
No, not at all. So SIXT is a German brand, 120 years in Europe. They've been there. They are a youthful brand despite being an older brand and we brought them to Australia December, 2021. The alignment for us was we had 30 years or so of car rental experience as part of the NRMA and we took the opportunity to shift to that new brand to really unlock a fresh mobility brand that youth-focused, EV aligned, able to really talk to a different segment that we haven't been able to talk to before. So it was so exciting to go from boring blah trucks rolling around the place to having a flotilla of trucks driving around with bright orange and SIXT plastered all over the place.
Mark Jones:
And as I understand it was the Thrifty brand that was a previous, so it's a franchise model, right?
Ben Blackburn:
Yes, yes.
Mark Jones:
So out with the old, in with the new and then new products as well and new vehicles. So there's a big EV story, which is part of my interest in this.
Ben Blackburn:
Yeah, so Thrifty brand, we operated for about 30 or so years. The franchise arrangement went back to Hertz. So the master franchisor of SIXT in Australia. But with that, so it's not just a new colour going from the old colour to orange, it's going from new customer segmentation. Talking to new people, talking to younger people, introducing and leveraging this great tech that we got from Germany, this great spread of mobility products that we got from Germany.
Mark Jones:
So it's interesting with the brand story seems to be what I'm picking up here, like a fresh story, a different take. Is there something else? I always think about the, it's the three things we keep coming back to. You can be fast, cheap and good. Pick two.
Ben Blackburn:
Well, we picked good and hopefully we picked cheap from an EV point of view. And it's not about necessarily being an economic, but it's about making sure that we are able to articulate to a customer and have the story to tell them that actually we'll get rid of all these barriers in your way around an EV. When you first launched, it was around range and range isn't an issue anymore. Now it's charging and we can get rid of those barriers for you guys as well.
But when you come down to it, you've got a really good economic story to be able to tell to say from a total cost of having that vehicle, you don't have to fuel up, you don't have to waste time at a petrol station when you drop it back anymore. The way that we're able to articulate that story, but also the brand itself is fun, it's young, it's youthful. In Germany, they're really cheeky. Their focus is they skew premium but also skew younger.
Mark Jones:
So what does it take to launch a product like this in the marketplace? What was your role?
Ben Blackburn:
My role actually when we did the brand changeover, I was the PM looking after the brand change of it.
Mark Jones:
Product manager.
Ben Blackburn:
Project manager at the time.
Mark Jones:
Project manager, okay.
Ben Blackburn:
And then took over the head of product for whole and became responsible for a holistic go-to market around EV. So there's probably two sides to it. There's the infrastructure, the vehicle, the us side, we've got to get that in and that's hygiene from a consumer perspective that we get that right. But there's also the customer side and that's what I think is most exciting now about my role is around how do we go to say two years ago when we launched with 70 odd vehicles, some MGs, some Teslas, they were what we could get our hands on at the time. There's a big vehicle supply shortage. How do we go and say our proposition then, which was very much let's hope we can turn them around, because we can plug them into the walls at our branches to be able to articulate now to say actually we've learned from our customers, we've listened to our customers, they've told us that actually the biggest issue that we had was I didn't know how to use it.
Mark Jones:
So presumably these are first time EV users?
Ben Blackburn:
To start with a lot. So the EV curious, so there's sort of a few segments or customer types that we see. So there's the, I'm a corporate and I only need to drive around for two days. Perfect. You don't need to charge, drop it back, whatever. There's the EV curious who are the people who are like, I don't know whether I'm ready to make the switch yet or I'll give it a go. And we can help them with that in terms of making it easier for them, making sure that they understand how to do everything. And then we've got people who book it because it's one of the cheapest cars that we've got on the website and they think great.
Mark Jones:
It'll do.
Ben Blackburn:
It'll do. There's a lot of trial and error and there's a lot of trial and error for those customers. But what we see in both feedback and our renter behaviour is that we've coined once you go BAT, you never go back. So once you get in an EV, you're not going to go back to an ICE vehicle unless you have to.
Mark Jones:
Internal combustion engine for those playing at home.
Ben Blackburn:
Sorry. Yes.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, yeah, that's totally fine. That's fascinating. And the joy of, in my view, cars and trucks is that the segmentation can be pretty simple in other B2B segments. It can be quite nuanced and complicated and difficult to understand your customers. So I'm appreciating that aspect. Having said that, you've also got this truck business and I quite enjoyed the campaign you had a little while ago, what was it called? Telling landlords the truck off.
Ben Blackburn:
Rental relief. Yes.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, rental relief.
Mark Jones:
So Ben, just briefly, what was the truck off campaign?
Ben Blackburn:
The truck off campaign was where we were being told by our customers, by our NRMA members that their biggest concern at the moment is cost of living. And the biggest impact to cost of living for them was around their rental increases. So it was very public at the time a few months ago now, very heavily in the news cycle. People were having rental increases of 30, 40, 50. We had people over 100% speak to us. But what it was about was saying that we tell your landlord to truck off in a very cheeky, lighthearted way, and we would match their rental increase with a discount of either a moving van or a moving truck to give them the liberty to be able to move on.
Ben Blackburn:
And so how do we align for both to advocate for the member base, but to actually pull something together that's a really the cheeky but effective story to talk to the market.
Mark Jones:
So what's been the impact of all that? Two years on, you've had the campaigns, you've had this infrastructure side learning from the customers, where are you at now? Because actually it's by my account two years in.
Ben Blackburn:
Yes. We have our annual first birthday get together to celebrate that. But where we are now is that we've got some really, from an electrification perspective and the electrification of our fleet, that's a key strategy into 2027 to get 50% of our fleet there. But we're at 10% of our fleet now.
We've been lucky that over the last two years really the thing that's hampered our growth has really been supply in infrastructure to be able to get those power upgrades done, to be able to get the sites ready to be able to support and turn around the vehicles. We've got that now. And so the scaling much more becomes a how do we continue to take customers on that journey? How does our CVP evolve? How do our experiences evolve and how do our products evolve to say that the use cases that we have now in terms of an adopter curve of we're at the customers who are curious, we've got those and we've started speaking to them, how do we then get the bulk of the people who haven't even considered yet?
Mark Jones:
Okay, there is, speaking of headways, interesting in the Uber space, Uber Carshare and that's becoming more and more of a thing. Is that a competitor you are worried about?
Ben Blackburn:
I think it's a competitor we're excited by.
Mark Jones:
Really? In what way?
Ben Blackburn:
Absolutely. we have a great big fleet and that can be used for customer use cases for a couple of hours. So a Carshare use case that can be used for an ownership proposition or a lease or something like that where people are committing for more than two years. What we're seeing globally and in Australia that we've got a split and a change driven by an acceptance of subscription as a concept. And moving away from ownership, starting with digital assets, but moving more into actual physical assets and the car is the second most expensive thing you'll ever acquire.
And so we see it as a great opportunity to go, okay, these are not at scale yet. There's an opportunity for us to play here as well. We've got a great fleet. At the end of the day, the people with the biggest fleets or the access to the biggest fleets will have the ability to win in those places.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, good. Well, it speaks to the idea that consumers are changing. They're getting used to these different modes. I was going to say modes of transport, really? Accidental pun, but yeah, behaviour and thinking about business models. So yeah, that's quite interesting. Now the environmental side I think is pretty well understood in terms of moving to EV, I don't know about trucks though, is that a thing as well?
Ben Blackburn:
Where we would fit better is around the more casual, or not necessarily someone of a Woolies size, but an SME and how do we support them when they're charging infrastructure and the ability for them to actually use that and have a great experience is there. Certainly something we're road mapping and looking at.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, I was going to say that's on the horizon, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes. There is another big reason for talking to you is understanding consumer behaviour in the sustainability and social impact space. It's not something until recently I started to think much about likely because of what you are doing and the stories that we started to hear. So how are you thinking about sustainable behaviours? What role do you think you guys are actually playing in changing the way that people think and behave?
Ben Blackburn:
We exist as part of the NRMA group. So the purpose for the NRMA is to go further together and how do we mobilise that 2.9 million members for good? And certainly for us it's very much around electrification. It's very much around how do we assist our members and more broadly our customers in the transition.
So I was talking about before, how do we provide try before you buy experiences to them? How do we advocate for things like fuel efficiency standards to improve supply and ultimately bring prices down? How do we turnover our fleet more quickly so that we get a secondhand market that's more affordable for people to actually access?
Mark Jones:
So yeah, that's a bit of a long tail effect of having all these fleets out there when you're churning cars over and all that sort of stuff. And have you done any studies on the consumers, the customers over time, how their preferences have changed or what are you learning about any sort of long tail effects?
Ben Blackburn:
Yeah, so absolutely we're in a constant cycle of quell that we run with our EV renter base and our NRMA member base to understand the changing attitudes and the changing needs of those customers over time. We see that attitudes towards that are improving in a way to make the EV transition, much easier for people.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, that's good. Now tell me about the reconciliation action plan. So from an internal company perspective, you're also looking at what you can do with First Nations communities, and I think there has been quite a bit of talk in the last couple of years about this where you hear companies working on these programs, but it's all about the follow through in my view.
Ben Blackburn:
Absolutely. And I think we do this because we need a social licence to occupy and do business on Country all across the nation. It's not just our branch footprint, it's not just about our corporate offices. It's about where people in our vehicles are travelling, what experiences they're having. Are we opening up indigenous First Nations led tourism opportunities as well, and how do we build use cases across a car rental company like us who enable the journey, but what's the destination? So cultural competency and the ability for people to meet and know First Nations people.
Mark Jones:
So it sounds like the team at SIXT saw this as a structural change that you can make to the way that you run. So to create those spontaneous moments through being an employee, et cetera. So that's really good. To what degree is that important from a social licence to operate perspective? Are you finding customers are looking at those sort of creds in greater detail?
Ben Blackburn:
I think very openly from a B2B perspective, it is almost a, to get in the door, you need to be demonstrating real investment and real change in a lot of dealings with that B2B corporate base. Where it's not necessarily as obvious is with our B2C customer base, but we know that we skew younger, there's a real values alignment for that Gen Z, Gen Y segment. We're really proud that people love to rent some of the vehicles that we've got our indigenous wrap artwork on. We love that. Now we're not going to force people to do it, but people ask and absolutely we'd love you to drive that around. So I think that there's certainly an implied and an expectation for some key segments that want to do business with us, that we share the same values and we do the right thing.
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Mark Jones:
Another part of this story just to now think about the brand itself, one of the things that I've noticed about this brand is that it's very bold, big, clear, easily understood. You mentioned the artwork on the trucks. When we think about the trucks themselves, they're essentially, people are paying you to drive around billboards.
Ben Blackburn:
Giant billboard.
Mark Jones:
Right?
Ben Blackburn:
Fantastic.
Mark Jones:
Right?
Ben Blackburn:
Absolutely. I love seeing the driver around.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, I mean it's an obvious question, but how's that working out? And by the way, how can other people do that? So I guess this is, what are the lessons here? What have you learned? Because I guess quite obviously they're very bold and clean. To what degree has this been an intentional thing or have you just imported an idea from Germany and carry on?
Ben Blackburn:
They are very cheeky. They are very fun. They thrive more so though in airport installations and things like that. Where we launched a brand, part of it was tactical. How do we get our brand out there really quickly without having to spend heaps and heaps of money, slam it on the side of our trucks? And there's a period there where, sure, we couldn't charge a premium, we couldn't charge what our competitors could charge because we were an infant brand, but we got the brand awareness from having those trucks out there.
Mark Jones:
And kind of fun, presumably. So yeah, I like that. So what are the lessons you've learned through this whole period? If you were to sit down and say, well actually here are the strengths of our approach, maybe there's a couple of gaps, things still to be done in a two-year journey of bringing a new brand to market, thinking through the environmental and the social aspects, the growth opportunities. Can you summarise that journey for us in 50 seconds or less? Just kidding.
Ben Blackburn:
Yeah, I think the learning is don't assume that you are at the same point of the change curve that your customers are. And don't underestimate the investment that you need to make in your customers to take them on that journey and to make sure that what is hygiene for you because you live and breathe it is not hygiene for them. In fact, that could be really scary.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. So does that mean it takes longer, requires more people, more effort? What are the gaps in terms of-
Ben Blackburn:
Of course, of course.
Mark Jones:
Right. You always need more of these things.
Ben Blackburn:
Exactly. I think it's don't assume and really understand the customer by listening to the customer. Now does that mean that you need to go and do 20 things when you can do two things really well? You could probably do the two things really well and that delivers the best outcome and the best experience for the customer. So be focused and prioritise effort to make sure that you're delivering great experiences.
Mark Jones:
Now, you mentioned the experiences, the subscription idea, the idea that you want to keep building this brand. Are you going to see some sort of streaming TV style subscription? What are the future business plans? How do you see this space evolving?
Ben Blackburn:
So we're very keen and very much looking and very openly looking at subscription at the moment as an alternate vehicle access proposition. There's some really intereit interplays for EV here really around reducing upfront costs around. The hardest thing to do is to actually get the capital to get an EV. This is a great democratizer, but also interplays where with FBT rules and how does that make pricing products really attractive?
Mark Jones:
That's interesting.
Ben Blackburn:
But absolutely watch this space in terms of something more broad for our B2C and B2B customers.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, nice. We heard it here first. That's an interesting, if you like, way of thinking about product and brand and marketing coming together with innovation on the company side. So to reflect that back to you, is that a team-wide conversation that you're having? It sounds like it from a leadership point of view. Where do we take this from and can you give us a bit of an insight into the way that the leadership team functions and thinks? How do you process the ways forward in spaces like Uber Rentals?
Ben Blackburn:
This is an organisation-wide go-to-market team. And when I mean, I don't mean your sales and marketing go to market, it's the how do we take a vehicle sitting there and make sure that we have both an effective operation, an efficient operation. We have customers actually being able to book, coming and wanting to book. They're being communicated to at the right time. We're talking to the right people, we know who we're talking to. We're rewarding loyalty. It's an organisation-wide strategy, and it's certainly something that is managed at an organisational level.
Mark Jones:
That's interesting. It's really interesting because it's a manifestation of a trend in the last couple of years, which is the breaking down of silos or thinking beyond your department functions and how do I promote greater collaboration in the organisation. So yeah, it's really interesting.
Ben Blackburn:
And for us it was one where previously to the transition to SIXT, we were a car rental that did white Corollas and white Camrys and had done that for 30 years and that was great, awesome. But the strategic change from a brand, but overall organisational perspective means that we needed to work differently together. What we've been doing for 30 years, you couldn't assume that could happen from December 1st, 2021. And so there's a real organisational shift that underpinned our ability to be really bold in setting a really aggressive target that we're super committed to.
Mark Jones:
What's the scale potential? You've mentioned 2.9 million members a number of times, which means that you've got an addressable existing member base, which you're obviously going after. It's interesting to me, this is sort of where my world's collide. I was in an Uber the other day and the Uber driver was telling me about his side hustle, which was buying old Camrys and renting them out to Uber drivers. That's a whole side hustle on Facebook, Facebook Marketplace.
Ben Blackburn:
Good on them.
Mark Jones:
Renting out these old hybrid Camrys boring white things that just run forever. So there's an interesting little social economy emerging there. You're coming at that same space, but from the coordinated corporate perspective, yeah?
Ben Blackburn:
Yeah. And I think, so when I say the 2.9, the 2.9, that's yes, the NRMA member base who we exist for. the 2.9 million members that we have don't order with SIXT. Now, they should. They should. And we have a whole bunch of customers that aren't members. And then why isn't that? And so we've got the opportunity to also broaden that addressable market from more of a retail perspective of the NRMA member base, we're talking to people that aren't necessarily listening to the NRMA talking about roadside. They're not necessarily listening to the NRMA talking about other certain things. And so we've got a really great opportunity to help in that youth mobility segment that the old brand didn't necessarily have the legs to do.
Mark Jones:
What are your biggest problems right now?
Ben Blackburn:
The biggest problems that we have right now and I said problems, they're more so challenges that we have and headwinds that we're facing is obviously we're in an economic environment. That means that there are fewer people with more disposable income to spend. And I think when you think about the people who are actually most affected by interest rates, the younger people who are on earlier parts of their mortgages, who are essentially our key customer segment with that 40% under 40. And so being able to make sure that they've got affordable access to transport to make sure that they can still have that holiday.
The other thing that is challenging, and I think you'll have seen or some of your listeners might've seen around internationally, there's challenges around the residual values for EVs, so we need to be more focused on making sure that we have a really efficient operation to make sure that we can be really efficient in the value that we provide.
The last one as well is it's a headwind that we've got, we've had for the last couple of years, but around making sure that we can have the infrastructure that we need. So the great thing about transitioning to electric is everyone's or a lot of people are transitioning to electric, industry is transitioning to electric. Big bus companies, transport logistic companies are all transitioning to electric and they need a lot of power.
And the ability for our grids to be able to upgrade themselves without support necessarily, or very targeted support from some kind of government intervention to underwrite that is really challenging. We're in a queue with everyone else. And so we're looking at really innovative ways that are not necessarily relying on upgrading our sites, but working with partners, looking at how we can work with other people within our industry, looking at people not necessarily in our industry, but have greater power capacity to be able to make sure that we can continue our electrification journey.
Mark Jones:
As it turns out, Australia's a big place.
Ben Blackburn:
Huge.
Mark Jones:
So I can understand that. And the need to stay focused on your overall scale. So that's great. Well, look, we need to wrap it up now, and I've been fascinated to learn about this brand. I feel like I know you guys a bit better. I'm really fascinated to see how this is going to evolve in the next year or so. So again, thank you so much for being my guest today. I have just been so encouraged to hear there's smart, clever ideas in development that will take us forward on a more sustainable future. So Ben Blackburn, head of product at SIXT Australia, thanks for being my guest.
Ben Blackburn:
Thank you very much. Pleasure.
Mark Jones:
That was Ben Blackburn, Head of Product at SIXT Australia.
I really like his point about talking with your audience instead of talking at them. Of course, you can only do that if you take the time to listen to your customers and really hear what they're looking for in an eco-friendly brand.
It’s great to hear that they’re edging toward prioritising EV vehicles in their fleet and making them available to customers. I don’t think there’ll be any complaints. Like Ben said: once you get in an EV, you’re not going back to an ICE vehicle unless you absolutely have to.
It’s a great story behind a great brand so a huge thank you to Ben for joining us on The CMO Show – we'll catch you on the next one.