| Winner | Sean Wiggans |
| Job title & company | General manager – marketing, Turners Auto Retail |
| Finalists | Anna Lawrence (Auckland Transport), Emily Findlay (Honeysticks), Nathalie Moolenschot (Animates), Shannon Watts (Samsung New Zealand) |
| Judges’ comments | “Sean makes marketing look easy. He has built a clear strategy that has transformed Turners from an auction house for car dealers, into NZ’s favourite place to buy and sell cars. He has created brand fame for Turners and delivered a holistic customer experience at every touchpoint. Applying marketing best practice, Sean has delivered exceptional business performance over the past decade. Through passion and rigour, he has helped the business understand the long-term benefits of creative commitment and future demand. “The judges loved his approach to leadership, and the culture he has fostered to create a truly high-performing marketing team, where everybody’s actions speak louder than their words.” |
This category is sponsored by oOh!media.
Beep! Beep! Sean drives results
Tina from Turners’ reputation precedes her. The same is true for GM Marketing Sean Wiggans.
Most marketers claim to be “commercial”, but few consistently prove it. Sean Wiggans is one who does.
As general manager of marketing at Turners, he has earned genuine influence by aligning marketing strategy with business objectives and delivering outstanding commercial results time and again.
With 25 years of marketing experience spanning multiple industries, Wiggans combines a deep understanding of customer experience with a sharp focus on driving business profitability.
In a previous role, Wiggans helped shift V Energy from static sales to double-digit growth via an award-winning communications platform and consistent innovation.
At Cerebos Gregg’s, he worked the same magic, delivering strong results. In 2014, his team delivered Cerebos Gregg’s first grocery market share growth since 2006.
At Turners, the ‘Tina from Turners’ campaign was the culmination of a five-year business and brand transformation that helped to double profit in just three years.
Built to last
Under his leadership, Turners has evolved from an auction house for car dealers into the country’s favourite place to buy and sell used cars. Marketing leads both brand building and customer experience improvements.
Wiggans and his team have built a modern marketing machine from the ground up. The ‘Tina from Turners’ campaign is backed by a martech stack that delivers more than 70,000 personalised emails each month across the customer journey. Coupled with ongoing UX and UI improvements, the platform has significantly lifted the Turners website’s performance.
“And yes, ‘Tina from Turners’ is held up as one of the most successful campaigns of the last five years – but the point isn’t fame,” says the Turners team.
“The point is that it worked, and kept working.”
Kiwis’ favourite
In 2022, the campaign was named Supreme Winner at the YouTube NZ Marketing Awards and has since joined TRA’s list of New Zealand’s most favourite ads. Two years later, after three years in market, ‘Tina from Turners’ was recognised again at the YouTube NZ Marketing Awards, winning the Excellence in Long-Term Marketing Strategy award in 2024.
Rather than resting on their laurels, Wiggans’ team raised the bar again with ‘Tina 2.0’ – a campaign that went on to surpass the original, becoming New Zealand’s favourite and earning the title of Kantar’s most impactful ad of 2025.
When tasked with taking effectiveness to the next level – the classic “second album syndrome” challenge – Turners’ response was discipline.
Wiggans and his team deepened customer understanding, maintained a clear focus on business objectives, evolved distinctive brand assets and enhanced the customer experience to drive conversion.
“Marketing objectives must deliver directly to business objectives,” say the team. At Turners, that discipline has enabled activation plans that work in synergy with other departments – not parallel play, but co-ordinated commercial execution.
The result was a 6% increase in profit in FY26.
With a consistent track record of commercial success, Wiggans has proved that the best marketing isn’t measured by popularity alone, but by its ability to translate strategy into business results.
This story comes from NZ Marketing magazine issue 88, Sept-Nov 2026. Why not subscribe? Get four issues a year for just $50 (including delivery) if you autorenew.
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