Brewing Success with Thinksmart Marketing: Balancing Global Consistency and Local Impact in B2B Marketing

How can you enable your marketing teams to do more with less while still maintaining brand relevancy and impact? In today’s episode of Pipeline Brew, Matt welcomes Janine Pares, Founder & CEO of Thinksmart Marketing to explore why strategy and brand positioning have become even more critical differentiators in today’s market.

Having founded Thinksmart in 2014, Janine’s agency specializes in strategy-led marketing across content, digital, brand and product to help global companies stand out while driving growth. Drawing from her experience across B2C and B2B, Janine shares insights on the challenges of balancing centralized global strategies with the unique demands of diverse regional markets like APAC.

Additionally, you’ll hear why strategy starts with what you choose not to do, how to get C‑suite buy‑in for brand investment, and why the best content often has a longer shelf life than marketers think. Janine also explains the role AI can play as an enabler, freeing up human creativity and critical thinking while keeping teams agile.

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Guest Bio

With 30 years experience, the first 17 years of Janine’s career was forged in corporate marketing for some of the world’s leading B2C & B2B brands across global, regional and national remits in Australia and abroad. With a commercial focus and strategic approach, Janine founded Thinksmart Marketing in 2014 and today leads the team to partner with enterprises and scale up B2B brands across APAC.

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Guest Quotes

"Strategy more often than not [is] about the things you choose not to do [rather] than the things you choose to do. And having a really focused vision on what success looks like, and then focusing the energy resourcing around those things, that makes a huge difference. And I think in the context of budget cuts and resource cuts and all the rest of it, we need to be very selective about what we actually do."

“What does your brand mean in the minds of your audience? How do people understand you and what you stand for, and what value you bring in comparison to others in often saturated marketplaces? When that is not clear, salespeople aren't able to articulate the value prop, and cross-sell doesn't happen as easily. [You] can't get as much traction with net new, [you’re] not progressing deals through the pipeline.”

“APAC is the most diverse region that exists when we think about everything from not just languages, but cultural differences. Market maturity is often very different. Value systems are very different. The way of doing business and selling is actually very different across a lot of these regions. And so the diversity that exists within APAC is huge."

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Time Stamps

00:00 Episode start

01:05 The power of sticky notes

03:00 Icebreaker

04:30 Janine’s career from corporate to agency

07:15 Doing more with less

11:25 AI as an enabler, not a replacement

16:20 Securing C-suite buy-in for brand

19:00 Regional nuance and complexity

24:00 Balancing centralization and localization

27:00 Quality over quantity in content strategy

31:10 What’s on Tap

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Links

• Connect with Janine Pares on LinkedIn
• Check out Thinksmart Marketing
• Connect with Matt Hummel on LinkedIn
• Check out Pipeline360