“I love talking to people!” says Zania Guy with a laugh. And it’s soon clear that sparking conversations is a big part of what brings her joy, whether that’s on her popular podcast Marketing Masters, in-person or while managing social media communities. 
We sat down for a chat with Zania to learn more about what’s driving her, volunteering on the Marketing Association’s Digital Special Interest Group and giving back to the marketing community.

Zania personifies what marketing is all about. Passionately leaning into opportunities, getting involved, talking, listening and continuously learning.

A Love Affair with Marketing – Where It All Began

Zania Guy’s love affair with marketing and advertising started early. As a child, she wanted to star in ads while high school sparked her interest in the business side of the industry, and she went on to study an Advertising Diploma at AUT. She discovered a love for media planning and buying and got offered a job at DDB Needham working on McDonald’s and Sky.

Like so many young kiwis, Zania caught the travel bug and headed to the UK where she fell into the Art world and helped set up successful ecommerce businesses selling limited edition art. This led to what she regards as one of the best jobs of her life, running Phaidon Press Publishing’s online business for over 3 years.

Another highlight of her 10 years in London was working at the incredible Engine Group in London for their digital agency at the time Altogether Digital. I ran the performance department and helped to build the social media offering for the agency.

Learning from the Best: Vodafone, Les Mills and New World

Zania had a plan to work at and learn from the best brands in the world. So, hitting the ground running back in New Zealand, she moved client-side for Vodafone. Her experience there took her on to a role at the dynamic and incredible Les Mills International. Phillip Mills is one of NZ’s biggest success stories and Zania found the work dynamic, fast-paced and innovative.

After the birth of her second child, Zania got an incredible opportunity to go and run the Digital, Direct and Ecommerce team for New World. She thoroughly loved every minute of the four and a half years she spent there. A career highlight was helping grow New World’s social media channels from what she describes as a desolate boring place with just 400 conversations a month across all social channels to up to 40,000 conversations in their social communities a month. It wasn’t a key driver of sales to begin with and then became a key channel to help bring the brand to life. Setting herself a crazy objective to make New World the go-to recipe hub for NZ, Zania got her wish by beating Jamie Oliver to the number one rating for the highly competitive search term ‘recipes’!

Starting with a Strategy

Zania is a big advocate of starting with a strategy. As she points out, you need to know what your north star is, though in reality so much comes out of testing and learning and getting your hands dirty.

In 2023, Zania decided it was time to try something new. Armed with all the experience from her long career and an arsenal of proven strategies that worked, she went out on her own and set up ZaniaGuy.com. A self-described people person, she passionately wanted to help other businesses build their success in digital and social media marketing. One year on, she is busy working on social media strategies, building websites, social media retainers running social channels, campaign development, content creation, podcast recording, paid search, and paid media for social.

She loves getting under the hood and making sure that the companies she works with have all the processes and systems set up correctly so their marketing can fire and drive results.

Marketing Masters – a Passion Project

Zania continues to want to learn from the best in the business, and her popular podcast Marketing Masters allows her to do just that. She describes it as a passion project, and she loves the energy she gets from creating a connection with her guests.

Zania chooses her podcast guests based on how much they have honed their craft and how much of a master they are. As she puts it, to be a Marketing Master, you need to have put in the time, the hard work and got the results.

The podcast is part of what makes her tick. Creativity, ideas, and content that people want to engage with. Her litmus test is that if she doesn’t want to like, love, or share the content with her own friends or network, then it’s not good enough.

Being Part of Something Bigger

Zania joined the Marketing Association’s Digital Special Interest Group last year. She wanted to become part of something bigger and build connections with amazing people. And according to her, it has been life changing.

Zania describes the Digital SIG as all about creating learning and education and opportunities for the industry. She says that there is no pomp or snobbery, just amazing, lovely, kind people who want to help grow the industry and learnings. It is a wonderful place to spend time.

Saying Yes to Opportunities

It has also led to some new and unexpected opportunities for Zania. In July this year, she stepped on stage in front of 600 industry peers as the MC for Digital Day Out 2024. While nerve-wracking, she loved every second. Admitting to being ‘a marketing nerd and proud of it’, Zania describes DDO as her happy place as she got to meet others at the event who were just as engaging, excited and passionate about Marketing as she is.

Source: Zania Guy, 12 September 2024