Lucy Hansard is a Marketer of the Future finalist in the YouTube NZ Marketing Awards 2025.
The winner will be announced on September 3.
Name: Lucy Hansard
Job title: Assistant Brand & Shopper Manager – RTD Portfolio (DB Breweries)
How it started
How did you find out you were nominated – what was the first thing you did?
I found out from my manager Billie Yelcich and the first thing I did – as I always do when there’s good (or not so good) news to share – was call my mum.
What sparked your interest in marketing?
I developed an interest in marketing early, watching my mum run her skincare business (Alix). She had a knack for building a loyal following not just through the quality of her products, but also the brand and marketing behind them. I saw firsthand how marketing can make or break a brand, which I found to be a stimulating challenge both creatively and commercially.
I started DJing at high school and what began as a hobby and a bit of a laugh quickly grew into a busy side hustle during my student years studying marketing and psychology in Dunedin. People were returning to my gigs because I gave them consistency in experience and music taste. Thanks to my marketing studies I recognised this as a form of brand loyalty, which has helped me connect the dots between culture, audience and brand-building.
In a couple of sentences, sum up your marketing career so far.
Before joining DB, most of my marketing experience came from helping with my mum’s skincare brand and promoting events. So, joining Heineken’s commerce team in January 2024 after a graduate assessment day and seeing how marketing operates on a larger scale is really exciting for me.
Since my start at DB, I’ve had the pleasure of working across a wide variety of brands, from global names like Tiger, to iconic Kiwi staples like Tui and newer, novel RTD brands like Odd Company.
Say hello to the other Marketer of the Future finalists 2025
Jess Bark
Josie Cook
Millie Astley
Simran Wadhawan
Thomas Siemsen
What do you like best?
What’s your favourite thing about marketing? Do you have a specialist area?
What I enjoy most about marketing is watching an idea grow into something real that people connect with. Being new to the industry, I was determined to soak up as much as I could from the people around me, and I love that no two projects are ever the same. I mainly specialise in brand marketing, so I get to be involved from the early thinking right through to launch. I am particularly passionate about product and content marketing that connects to the audience and NZ culture.
Tell us about a project you’re proud of
One of the projects I’m most proud of is the launch of Odd Company Soju & Soda – part of a broader rebrand and innovation reset for the Odd Company brand.
It’s not every day you get to launch a product that speaks directly to your own demographic – and in this case, I really leaned into that. Soju & Soda was born out of a limited edition seasonal innovation strategy to bring freshness back to Odd Company, and it ended up being a success:
The idea came from noticing real behaviours in my own social circles – friends drinking soju with soda at uni, and similar offerings popping up on menus at places like Acho’s where I DJ. There was this growing curiosity around Asian-inspired drinks, but not a lot of ready-to-drink options. That cultural observation was also backed up by research, with soju being the #1 selling spirit in the world.
From there, Soju & Soda was the perfect debut for Odd Company’s rebrand. I worked with Mike, from design agency Unified, to make the pack bold and flavour-forward, secured internal alignment to push it through as a short-run test and engaged supply chain and procurement early (including support from the Korean Embassy to navigate ingredient sourcing). For launch, our phenomenal agency partners Special PR and dentsu really helped take our product design above the line. From a product send-out that leveraged micro influencers and a media plan that was about as targeted as you can get, it was really a team sport to get to launch in just six months.
Soju & Soda was small product release, with a big ripple effect: customers loved the fresh angle and our limited edition product sold out early!
Hard stuff, good stuff
What’s one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a young marketer?
One of the biggest hurdles for me was moving from small business to big business thinking. With small brands, I was used to wearing multiple hats and juggling lots of responsibilities. In a bigger company, I quickly realised the importance of understanding the project team and stakeholder functions, and how to keep things moving quickly without losing the creative edge. It’s been a lesson for me in finding the sweet spot between structure and flexibility.
Any advice for other young marketers?
It is such a cliché but my key tip is to be a ‘yes’ person, both in formal and informal settings. I think success as a young marketer is dependent on your openness to learn and getting amongst things, while also being able to ask questions. Asking isn’t a bad thing, I would argue that it often shows your eagerness to grow, and chances are, people will want to help you get there.
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