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Thomas Bauer

PartnerMunich

Brings deep expertise in marketing-performance optimization to help leading brands across industries and geographies transform their brand management and marketing investment in an increasingly digitized marketing world

Thomas has led a broad range of marketing-performance projects across geographies, including Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the United States. He has developed marketing-performance levers—including brand management, marketing-budget sizing and allocation, channel mix, procurement, and marketing operating and agency model—at leading global brands in retail, consumer-goods, automotive, insurance, banking, telecommunications, aviation, and other consumer-facing industries.

Thomas’ recent projects include the following:

  • developing a global marketing-effectiveness program in consumer goods—including the build of advanced return-on-investment (ROI) analytics, tools, and capability building—resulting in over €50 million in identified savings
  • redesigning the marketing-operating model and organization of a leading European e-tailer to boost both brand consistency and marketing ROI, resulting in over €30 million in identified savings
  • repositioning a fashion brand in light of changes in competition and consumer expectations
  • designing the creative marketing-agency model for an automotive client, improving its creative edge and introducing a digital-first set-up
  • leading a digital transformation of an automotive company, including redefining customer journeys, direct and sales models, and retail network

Before joining McKinsey, Tom worked for Siemens for 2 years.

Published work

As the cookie crumbles, three strategies for advertisers to thrive,” McKinsey & Company, April 2022

Brand strength or margin? Both!,” McKinsey & Company, September 2021

Good to great: Boosting the efficiency of your TV spend,” McKinsey & Company, May 2021

Performance branding and how it is reinventing marketing ROI,” McKinsey & Company, June 2020

Want better marketing performance? Try better storytelling,” TargetMarketing, May 2018

How to get the most from your agency relationships in 2017,” McKinsey & Company, February 2017

The ten things marketers can do to become a profit center for the business,” McKinsey & Company, January 2017

Marketing Performance: How Marketers Drive Profitable Growth, Wiley, July 2016

The secret of great marketing analytics? Connecting with the decision makers,” Forbes, June 2016

Education

Witten/Herdecke University
PhD, strategic marketing

University of Miami
MBA