The Warehouse CMO’s pause on ad spend isn’t reckless, it’s marketing leadership

In the fast-moving retail category, eight weeks is an eternity. Especially if the CMO of a retail brand pauses all search, social and TV spending to see and learn from what happens.

A few days into the job, the new marketing officer of New Zealand’s The Warehouse, Frankie Coulter, shocked many by announcing an eight-week pause on all external advertising.

Only internal in-store media and promotions will continue. This isn’t budget trimming. It’s a deliberate, large-scale A/B test to measure the real effect of external advertising on the business — and to determine the most effective media mix.

The move is risky. Retail is unforgiving. Margins are thin. Performance is judged weekly. Agencies, platforms (and less marketing-savvy executives) are holding their breath. What if the result shows the business can spend less? At the same time, some applauded the move. Finally, someone prepared to challenge media orthodoxy rather than optimise within it was the sentiment from the cheerleaders.

The Warehouse is New Zealand’s largest retailer — the local equivalent of Tesco or Walmart. It employs more than 10,000 staff and has outlets in every corner of the country — and New Zealand has many corners. It commands a significant chunk of national advertising spend.

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But the company is under pressure. Significant losses have led to restructuring with 270 roles recently cut. It’s a case of a brand in need of a turnaround.

A predominantly bricks-and-mortar business, with just 7% of its sales coming online. Yet, the firm has been throwing millions at search, social and other digital media—largely because everyone else does. After all, no marketer ever got fired for doing the same as the competition. But it has neglected its most powerful channels: retail media and local store activity.

We all know what easy marketing money creates. The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has repeatedly warned that a significant share of digital media investment fails to reach intended audiences. Companies like Procter & Gamble and Unilever have publicly laid out initiatives to tighten the effectiveness of their mix, much of which is digital, after scrutinising effectiveness. Yet digital expenditure continues to rise.

Coulter wasn’t hired to preserve the status quo. It was clear something had to change. This isn’t an anti-digital crusade. It’s not a rejection of Google or Facebook. The objective is balance—learn what works, so the company can spend where it genuinely moves the needle.

In his own words: ‘I don’t like spending money unless I understand the value I’m getting for that money.’

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Before anyone dismisses this as bravado, Frankie Coulter knows what he’s doing. His 25+ years’ experience spans senior roles at Kraft Heinz, Kellogg’s, Dr Scholl’s and Boots. He has been repeatedly recognised among the country’s best marketers. He’s a Fellow of The Marketing Academy. Coulter understands brands. He understands business. And he understands risk. Most importantly, what Coulter understands is measurement reality.

Marketing returns are far harder to figure out than most people claim. Even for AI, there are just too many variables: message, audience, creative execution, budget, medium, time of day, time of year, distribution, competitive pressure. I’ve built and interrogated many models myself at McKinsey and with CMOs. Trust me, if you talk “full market mix”, even the best rarely explain half of performance; 70% would be extraordinary.

Serious marketers rely on something fundamental: A/B tests. Marketing isn’t a belief system.

Which is why serious marketers rely on something more fundamental: A/B tests. Marketing isn’t a belief system. People learn through controlled experiments. Adjust price. Change creative. Shift channel mix. Observe. Learn. Repeat.

Procter & Gamble and Unilever built marketing powerhouses on exactly this testing discipline. Back in 2017, P&G cut more than $200m in digital spend to test its impact and saw little effect on sales. Adidas leaned heavily into digital before rebalancing when growth faltered. These were not ideological shifts. They were A/B tests. Pausing spend to measure impact is not careless. It is rigorous.

Coulter’s test won’t resolve every question, particularly long-term brand impact. Eight weeks is too short for that. But in short-cycle retail, it will provide a clear read on footfall  and revenue. By reintroducing channels one by one, the team can observe incremental impact directly rather than infer it from imperfect attribution models.

At conferences, marketers talk endlessly about bold moves. But at home, few challenge how budgets are allocated. Fewer still are willing to risk testing which part of their spend may be unnecessary. But everyone will and should watch this A/B test closely.

We need more marketers who dare to question their marketing effectiveness, including pausing spend. That’s not recklessness. That’s marketing leadership.