The one with Unilever Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, Esi Eggleston Bracey on what CEOs need to know about driving desirability at scale, the difference between marketing and sales, and how you win hearts, minds—and machines.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The CEO’s Guide to Marketing

Episode: Unilever Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, Esi Eggleston Bracey on What CEOs Need to Know About Driving Desirability at Scale, the Difference Between Marketing and Sales, and How You Win Hearts, Minds—and Machines.

Release Date: July 30, 2025
Host: Seth Matlins, Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network
Guest: Esi Eggleston Bracey, Chief Growth & Marketing Officer, Unilever

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1. Introduction and Background

The episode kicks off with host Seth Matlins introducing Esi Eggleston Bracey, highlighting her extensive experience as a general manager, president, and CEO before transitioning into her role as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Unilever. Seth references Warren Buffett’s insight on the symbiotic relationship between being a CEO and an investor, setting the stage for a deep dive into how Bracey's leadership roles have informed her marketing philosophy.

Notable Quote:

A: "...the legend that is Warren Buffett has said that being an investor has made him a better chief executive and being a CEO made him a better investor."
[00:00]

2. Marketing as Growth and Desirability

Bracey defines marketing fundamentally as a driver of growth. She emphasizes that marketing isn't isolated from general management; instead, it's intrinsically linked to creating value and differentiating the brand to foster growth.

Notable Quote:

B: "Marketing is about growth. So I actually don't see the distance between marketing and general management."
[00:53]

3. Desirability vs. Preference

A central theme of the discussion is the distinction between 'desirability' and 'preference.' Bracey explains that while preferences are more rational and tied to specific needs or wants, desirability taps into the unconscious, emotional urges that compel consumers to desire a brand intrinsically.

Notable Quote:

B: "Desire is that unconscious urge that makes you feel I just have to have that desire."
[04:06]

4. Measuring Desirability

Bracey addresses the challenge of measuring such an intangible concept as desirability. She advocates for assessing brand value through metrics like brand power and brand attractiveness. Additionally, she suggests evaluating how much investment is required to achieve engagement and conversion, indicating that a strong brand reduces the cost of conversion.

Notable Quote:

B: "The measure for desirability to me is brand value."
[12:13]

5. Brand vs. Content Impact

The conversation delves into differentiating the impact of brand strength from that of creative content, such as television commercials (TVCs). Bracey notes that in today's multifaceted media landscape, both brand power and creative effectiveness must be measured in tandem to understand their individual and combined impacts.

Notable Quote:

B: "You can measure your grand brand power and you can also measure creative effectiveness."
[14:37]

6. Fundamental Marketing Questions

Bracey shares the core questions she and her teams prioritize:

1. Reach: How many people are being reached with the marketing message?
2. Engagement: How effectively is the audience interacting with the brand?
3. Conversion: How successfully is engagement translating into sales?

She also emphasizes the importance of having a differentiated, desirable brand position as the foundation for these metrics.

Notable Quote:

B: "How much reach, engagement and conversion you get. That's fundamental for me."
[16:39]

7. Scaling in the Modern Media Landscape

Addressing the fragmentation of traditional media, Bracey discusses the shift from one-to-many broadcast models to a many-to-many model facilitated by digital platforms and social media. She underscores the necessity of adapting brand communication strategies to various channels while maintaining brand consistency.

Notable Quote:

B: "You no longer can reach the audience that you need because there's no captive linear broadcast model anymore."
[18:38]

8. Marketing vs. Selling

Bracey delineates marketing from selling by positioning marketing as the creation of demand and desire without direct selling, whereas selling involves converting that demand into actual purchases. She highlights the evolving nature of marketing as a tool that not only facilitates sales but also positions the brand effectively in the consumer's mind.

Notable Quote:

B: "Marketing is what creates the demand without actively selling, and then you convert it into the sell."
[25:35]

9. The Role of Creators and Social Platforms

The discussion shifts to the pivotal role of creators in modern marketing. Bracey explains how leveraging both mega and nano influencers allows Unilever to engage with diverse, localized communities at scale. This strategy mirrors the old word-of-mouth approach but amplified through digital platforms.

Notable Quote:

B: "Creators are all about this many to many model. They create content. You have hero mega influencers or creators and then you have nano influencers or creators that are sharing content with their tribe."
[40:38]

10. Building Brands Locally and Globally

Bracey challenges the traditional "think globally, act locally" model, proposing instead "act local, scale global." She illustrates this with examples from Tresemme, where local campaigns inspired by market-specific insights are scaled globally, ensuring cultural relevance while maintaining brand consistency.

Notable Quote:

B: "I think it is act local, scale global. Like it's local wins hearts, global wins business."
[32:51]

11. Marketing in the Age of AI and Machines

Addressing the future of marketing amidst advancements in AI and machine learning, Bracey introduces the concept of winning "machine audiences." She posits that brands must not only appeal to human emotions but also align with how algorithms interpret and propagate brand values. This dual focus ensures that brands remain visible and desirable both to consumers and the machines that influence their decisions.

Notable Quote:

B: "If marketing in the past was about capturing hearts and minds, I really believe marketing in the future is about capturing hearts and machines."
[45:40]

12. The Chief Marketing and Growth Officer Role

In concluding the discussion, Bracey elaborates on her dual-title role, emphasizing that growth is intrinsically linked to marketing. At Unilever, building and nurturing brands is viewed as the core strategy for growth, justifying the combined title of Chief Marketing and Growth Officer.

Notable Quote:

B: "Having growth in the marketing title goes back to reinforce that creating desire for our brands is at the core of the growth strategy."
[52:49]

13. Conclusion

Seth Matlins wraps up the conversation by affirming the depth and insight provided by Bracey, noting that their discussion could extend beyond the timeframe but appreciating the profound takeaways for listeners aiming to elevate their marketing strategies.

Notable Quote:

A: "This is an amazing conversation. It could have kept going, but we are at time and so too our listeners and our watch watchers."
[53:09]

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Key Takeaways:

• Desirability Over Preference: Emphasizing emotional connections over rational choices can elevate a brand's position and drive growth.

• Measurement of Intangibles: Brand power and attractiveness are crucial metrics for assessing desirability, alongside traditional engagement and conversion metrics.

• Adaptation to Digital Landscapes: Modern marketing requires a shift from broad, broadcast strategies to nuanced, platform-specific approaches leveraging creators and influencers.

• Local Execution, Global Scale: Building brand relevance through local insights and campaigns, then scaling these initiatives globally, ensures cultural resonance and widespread impact.

• Integration with AI: Future marketing strategies must account for both human emotions and machine algorithms to maintain and enhance brand desirability in an AI-driven marketplace.

• Unified Growth Strategy: Integrating growth objectives within the marketing framework ensures that brand building remains at the forefront of organizational expansion efforts.

This episode offers a masterclass in contemporary marketing strategies, blending emotional intelligence with technological prowess to equip CEOs and marketing leaders with the tools needed to thrive in an ever-evolving business landscape.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. I just want to get into it because it's too early o' clock here in Los Angeles for this recording. But first, thank you for being with me. So look, the legend that is Warren Buffett has said that being an investor has made him a better chief executive and being a CEO made him a better investor. And kind of thinking about that, keeping it in mind and noting that unlike a lot of chief marketing officers, you've been a general manager, a president and a CEO, in fact. And so I'm wondering with Buffett's quote in mind, how being a CEO and GM has shaped your perspective and your actions as a cmo, and maybe vice versa too.

[B]

Yeah, you know, for me, marketing is about growth. And you see it in the title of my name. You see it. Yeah, we're going to get into that in my title.

[A]

Hold that thought.

[B]

No, but really, marketing is about growth. So I actually don't see the distance between marketing and general management. What I've always set out to do in running a business is figure out how to create value and grow my brand in a differentiated way. And so what do you have to do to do that? You have to understand people. And then in doing that, you use those insights to create desirability for your brand. You're finding a way based on those insights to position your product or service in a way that is unique and compelling relative to the whole set. And then you do that, you create the desire for your brand and ultimately that creates growth and value for your business. So as a general manager, a brand manager, an executive, you know, I started out, I've been 35 years in this business and I've only been a year and a half as a chief marketing officer. Chief marketing officer. And I've always started with who is the consumer that I am selling to and what do I need to do to make sure my brand stands out so that I can sell and grow the brand and the business based on that. You know, the other thing I would say is I never set out to be a marketer. I was an engineer.

[A]

Is that right?

[B]

Yes, I started as an engineer. I went to Dartmouth College, studied engineering and pre med. And why I did that, I thought it was going to be an MD, PhD in biomedical engineering. But what I learned about myself is I'm a problem solver. I love people, I'm deeply curious about people and I love solving problems. The other thing about marketing or CPG journal management, it's about again, understanding people, solving people problems. So you can solve business problems which the business problem is always how do you grow?

[A]

So there's so much in that I want to unpack actually. But I'm going to start maybe with just a one off piece of what you said. Because you use the word desirability, which I love and of course that is the means to the end of growth. What I was struck by when you use the word, what I immediately went to was that's a word you often hear from luxury goods like Arnault talks about. Bernard Arnault talks about driving desirability across the maison of the LVM brands and the LVMH portfolio. So the dissonance, if you will, the tension between kind of using the same word for luxury goods and CPG really leapt out at me. And so we talk about the category a little bit and where you think desirability inside CPG comes from. And if it's different than luxury, maybe it's exactly the same rooted in exactly the same human characteristics.

[B]

So let's first start with what is desire? Desire is that unconscious urge that makes you feel I just have to have that desire. So is that a luxury concept? Only I say absolutely not. No. Luxury uses it because it's about an elevate elevated experience and almost creating scarcity. And as the means of desirability.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And cpg, it's desire at scale, which is the balance of this rational function form. Marketing is about the art and the science. The form, the foundation. And it's elevating it to desirability. But why am I using the word desirability? You know, the. The marketplace is changing like never before. The digital age, the social age, the AI age. It creates more competition. Anyone can have a business. You have to elevate your game. There's so much the consumer attention span. What? 1.3 seconds as it relates to content. You got a moment to make an impression. To make that impression, given all that we're doing. It's that unconscious feeling. Emotion is what's elevating the game. So you know, I've been very focused on changing the marketing model by elevating the brand. And elevating the brand because we're talking about what is marketing is in creating that non conscious desire for my product, which is relevant for fabric softener, body wash, beauty products, not just luxury handbags.

[A]

How would you. How would you differentiate between. Sorry. Between desire and preference, which is to say. Sorry, go ahead.

[B]

I think about needs, wants, desires. You asked about preferences. Preferences are more in the space of needs and wants. I need something. I prefer this other. It is More rational. Why do I like the performance of this laundry detergent versus the other? Or I like the taste? The desire, again, is not rational. It's. That's what I identify with. That's what I want to have. It can lead to when you have to rationalize it, a preference, but it's more emotive. Why does that matter? So in this bit, like to a CEO, why does that matter? When you create desirability, you earn a premium. When you earn a premium, you can deliver a richer product experience and you can create more value for your business. So, you know, I've been trying to move beyond the basics of marketing, which are critical. You know, I should say, always say I talk about everything and nothing changing in marketing. The nothing. It's the fundamentals of understanding what a consumer needs and then using the six Ps, pricing, positioning, packaging, product placement to meet that need with your brand. But that's the basics. That's kind of the entry point. The desire is the elevation. And in terms of desire, what are the tools that elevate? It's superior science. It's like in my business, it's incredible technology that's differentiating. It's not just the product function, it's aesthetics, it's sensorials, it's other people talking about your brand. It's capturing your heart. We say young at heart. We use this model called Sassy that encompasses all that. But the point is, there's this floor, needs, wants, preferences, and then there's this richer, elevated experience that makes me like, look at that painting. Like, ooh, do I prefer it to what's in my home? I desire it. Like, I like.

[A]

Well, you do have a strong wallpaper game happening, so I want to be clear about that.

[B]

Thank you. Thank you.

[A]

So it's really. I mean, I started my career in cpg, right? As. As the some in the audience know, I was the third person in the marketing department in the United States for avion, when nobody really understood why they needed to buy a bottle of water. Right. This is that long ago, right. Bottled water as a category was jugs. Right. Kind of office coolers. And so we were creating a category and we were doing it at a super premium price. And one of the things that I would do a lot when I was talking to retailers, in particular to external audiences, I called it the Naked bottle dance. Because about a year after we launched and we're having wild. We didn't launch launched in the US and we're having such wild success, there were a thousand competitors on the Shelves, literally a thousand, mostly regional brands, almost exclusively regional brands. We were one of the few national ones, but everybody in a pretty similar package. Right? Which is say the same bottle. And so what. What I would do to kind of make. I think the point you're making is I would put all those different packages up, but I would have taken the labels off, including on us. And then, you know, great reveal marketing. I'd hold up our label and explain that our job was to add enough value and desire to that mark, to that logo, to that label that when we wrapped it around this bottle and while the water was different, the bottle was the same product difference, packaging similarity, it commanded the premium. But I'll be honest, and I'm kind of challenging my own thinking, I don't think I've ever thought about desire as relates preference for sure. But desire and desirability as relates to fabric softener is one example. So where you have so much history and its extensions. It's really interesting and struck by the fact that it hasn't occurred to me before.

[B]

What's desirability? The brain, that unconscious urge. What makes you want to have something? I have to have that fabric softener. The sensorials, the smell, it reminds me of home. There's this belonging, this yearning. We've coded different areas. What does your brain want? Trust, belonging, pleasure. And that's fabric softener. It makes a difference.

[A]

So you're speaking to a theme that's cut across a lot of a lot of the show and I want you to kind of open the aperture on it. What you're talking about and have talked about since we started is kind of the reality that while decisions are rationalized at the end, they're almost always no matter what the decision is. Fabric softener, cloud computing, contract made for subconscious and emotional reasons and then rationalized. That is just the architecture of the human brain. Right. That is how we buy, but it isn't oftentimes what we're able to measure. So what would your counsel be to a CMO working in a category that perhaps is less historically marketing oriented than CPG about how they measure for explain to rationalize to their CEO, CFO and board why that desirability, which plays to again, things that are hard to measure, matter so much and how you can know if you're succeeding?

[B]

Yeah, the measure for desirability to me is brand value. So if I look at a company like even Apple, do I desire that? It comes from design that's not traditionally a marketing department. The value of the brand comes from these Desirable elements. So I measure that through brand power. It's brand attractiveness. When I think about the business, what I want to do. Marketing again is all about the desirability of your brand so that you create demand and then you grow your business and you create value from that business. And when your brand is desirable, it has increasing value. Yes. Then you invest behind that brand to drive reach, engagement and conversion. You measure through brand power, but you also measure through how much you have to invest to get that engagement and conversion. The strength of your brand or the product that you're offering, the actual less you have to invest to get that conversion. So the in process measures like brand power and then output metrics like conversion engagement that drive the sales. I also very much like to measure sales growth attributed to, you know, your media and content investment. Help you understand how much desirability you have of the brand and the content that you're using to communicate that brand.

[A]

How do you, how do you separate and kind of in that moment, let's just use content and content's role in driving that conversion. As you're looking at whether. Let's just make it about a TVC for the moment, right? Just, you know, a super tactical example and limited enough that we can talk about it. When you look at how that spot worked, what it converted, recognizing TVC may be upper funnel typically and less about conversion. But just play along with me if you will, how do you separate the efficacy of brand in that moment from whether the creative was good?

[B]

So I'm going to answer a question, kind of a different question because I think what's really important is thinking that the understanding that the model has changed. When you talk about a tvc, the old world that we all grew up with for me, 35 years ago was a broadcast model which was one message broadcasted to many people. It is now a many to many model. To get the reach, engagement and conversion you need, it's lots of other people communicating your brand to lots of other people. So the desirability and the engagement of the brand. When you say ask about the effectiveness of the TV ad is fundamental in that many to many to get people to talk about your brand, your brand itself needs to have the desirability and then the content that is communicating that brand, other people talking about your brand or if it's your own direct content. So when you asked about the TVC app, how do you know if it's the strength of the brand or the strength of the communication? You can measure your grand brand power and you can Also measure creative effectiveness. You can look at your brand across different creative types to see the relative impact. So you can see if it's, you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg. To have compelling content, you need a desirable brand. And effective, compelling, engaging content can help make your brand more desirable as well. So it's interesting question. You can parse it with certain measures, you can ask certain questions, the brand, the content, to figure out what's driving what. But you really do need to look at them in combination.

[A]

Are there one or two fundamental questions that you ask of everything that you and your teams do?

[B]

I like to think about how much reach, engagement and conversion you get. That's a fundamental for me in any many to many communication model. That's one, two, outside of the model, to have a desirable, to create desire, you need a desire proposition. So I like to ask what is your differentiated desirable brand position? Those things together, the desirable brand proposition plus your model for communication, as I mentioned, reach, engagement are the two fundamentals that I look for.

[A]

I want to say something just so I remember it later. So help me remember this because we're going to talk. You all have made a massive commitment to creators in the creator economy and using them to drive and I think I'm quoting you from something I saw on LinkedIn, desirability at scale. But I'm still struck by your use of the word reach in this moment and wondering if to your point about kind of, you know, the, the change from a. When you and I started our careers, mass market still existed, right? Scale was easy to get with a television commercial. Now it is not, with the exception of basically the Super Bowl. When you think about reach, do you have different quant benchmarks for what that means across different channels?

[B]

We need broad scale reach. So we measure reach the same.

[A]

And then just add it up. Right? Is it the whole is equal to the sum of its parts?

[B]

Yeah. It's how many people you reach with your message that doesn't change. How you reach is what changes. You no longer can reach the audience that you need because there's no captive linear broadcast model anymore. We've got ctv, we have all the social platforms. We have people that don't even engage in the social platforms that might be engaging in an LLM or a search tool. So the way we deliver reach has to change. And that's where that many to many model come in. But reach is not enough. You can reach people and not get attention because there's so much competition.

[A]

You can reach them, get attention and have it not convert because that's the mimetic economy. Right.

[B]

And it's not differentiated. And so that's the first thing. And making sure your brand is wired, designed for desire and execute for desire and, and design for desire. It starts fundamentally with what is your message that is relevant. It's true to where your brand has been. You can never. There's no substitute for consistency. And not a lot of people realize that. You know, you think in today's world, culture is moving so fast, I have to keep changing. That is true. But you change off of an area of consistency that drives engagement. I think about Dove. 20 years of the campaign for Real Beauty. Since we launched, the business has grown three times. Three times in terms of sales. And we take real beauty and we keep bringing it to life in different ways.

[A]

Different ways.

[B]

Yeah, in different ways. Which is, you know, where we ended up with such success at Cannes this year, which was, you know, great to see with a titanium for 20 years of a. So creating a self esteem movement. But consistency is another way that you can drive reach and more engagement if it's reimagined in a way that cuts through.

[A]

So with, with all of this, let me ask a hypothetical, right, which is I want to take Unilever for the moment. You now, you're now the chief marketing and growth officer at Acme Widget Company and Acme's, Acme's CEO. You're a Fortune 500 company or as we like to say here, a Forbes 2000 company plus 1500. And your CEO comes to you and says, I don't really understand marketing, but want to. What are the first things you're going to talk to them about? Like what? As you look at the world, and I know you do because of your curiosity and your intellect and you, you see so many CEOs around the world struggling to understand marketing. What do you think kind of the fundamentals that in this world of, of you know, where there's a balance between what's staying the same and what may be changing. You'd want them to know in that first conversation.

[B]

The first conversation is marketing is about creating demand for your brand. I keep saying it's desire for your brand, the different language that you can use. It's fundamentally about creating demand for your brand. We all understand what sales is. It's selling the brand. This is creating your customers desire for your brand. That is fundamental and that's why we invest in marketing now to do that. How do you create demand for the brand? It's Drucker's comment on the purpose of a business is to create a customer. You have to understand who that customer is that the brand matters to. And then in that you come up with a way that your brand, with clarity, stands out. And then you invest in different ways, earned or paid, to make sure that audience is aware of your brand. That's the piece that has changed. Where people are and what tools you use to make people aware and interested in your brand have just exploded between social platforms through AI, to get the insights from people, to help create content, to find the right creators that best bring your brand to life. So very fundamentally, CEOs like, why do I need marketing? It's because you have something to sell. You wouldn't be in business if you didn't have anything to sell. And it's the fundamental way that you create demand for that thing you're selling relative to the other options.

[A]

You know, it's your, your point, your reference to, you know, the CEO or the CFO who might say, why do I need marketing? Makes me think of, of a data point. I quote a lot and it's, it's like five years old at this point, but. And I think it is actually relevant specifically to the category in which you play, but that 84% of searches on Amazon are by product category, not by brand. And I don't know how that's gone up, down in the last period of time since I first sourced it. I probably should look into that. I will. I've long thought of that as a reflection on brand, right? Which is, right, the brands don't have enough desirability. Speaking broadly, painting with a broad brush because the work is commoditized and boring and the world is difficult, blah, blah, blah. It was actually only this morning when I was doing some quick prep for our, for our conversation, that I'm like, that's as much oftentimes a reflection on product, which is to say that the product isn't differentiated enough. Speaking broadly, not about your portfolio, of course, that the product isn't differentiated enough, that it actually matters. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering with all of that said, right, because when the products are good enough, right, product or service for that matter, brand matters more than ever, right? Because that becomes the differentiator, right? And it's not whether, you know, I prefer the smell of lemon to the smell of roses, right? But all things being equal efficacy, equal brand matters. And so with that said, and you talked about, you talked about marketing and selling, what do you think the difference is? Because I think While there's some functional differences within a global enterprise like yours, marketing's job is to sell. Right. The demand that you're talking about, the desire you've talked about, that's just to sell more product. So when you differentiate between marketing and selling, where do you see the difference in distinction?

[B]

I see marketing as a sales tool, but it's also a positioning tool. You know, selling. I often think it's a salesforce selling a product into a retailer, or it's a sales force persuading someone more functionally to buy them.

[A]

You get it off the shelf. Right.

[B]

That's a way to look at it. Marketing is what creates the demand without actively selling, and then you convert it into the sell. So it is a sales tool where you create, draw. And the other thing, I would say the data you shared on Amazon, and I've seen some data about that shifting, and it's the impact of social media. When there's something you see on TikTok, that TikTok makes you buy it. You don't search the product category, you search that thing. That thing is usually that brand, that product. That's the ultimate in desirability. What is changing in the world that we grew up in is the greater emphasis on earn than paid.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And when we have to raise the bar on what our brands do and the power of marketing, which, by the way, for a CEO, also drives efficiency, it drives growth. And efficiency is how do you earn it? And that's not just selling, it's earning it because there's something. And I. I almost want to apologize, I keep using the word desirability. You're attracted to it, you desire it, you want to have it. And that comes from something that is just irresistible and esthetic. You see, you talked about product performance, something that's really differentiated. You think about in beauty. There's a technology that you know will make a difference even on cleaning surfaces, a probiotic clean, that's safer for you. You're vested in that thing. There's an addictive sensorial experience. Experience your friend, they're all your friends are talking about it. Not just your friends, but the people that you admire. That's what marketing does that sales doesn't do, especially today, is earn. It's. It's earn that desire. You earn the impression, which means you can actually invest less in pay because other people are advocates, or selling your brand for you, which creates more views for content. The machine can work on our behalf. So marketing is much more sophisticated. And I would say distance from just selling that's the output, it's creating the demand, then it's converting that demand into the sell and the purchase.

[A]

Yeah, I think when I was beginning my career, my father, who was also a marketer, said to me, marketing is what facilitates the sale. It's what facilitates and drives the transaction. And, and so kind of I've always, you know, collapsed the two. You know, what you bring up kind of, you know, in terms of, of using TikTok as, as a reference, you know, speaks to the collapse of the funnel. Absolutely. The traditional quote, unquote, consumer journey from not knowing who the fuck you are to loving you forever. But it also goes back, I think, to a lot of what you were talking about up front, which is why we buy and the nature of why we buy. Well, fundamentally is the same in a world where there's less trust of traditional institutions. And I'll put companies in there and while they have probably higher trust, they do have higher trust than government, for example. There's less trust in them than there used to be. That peer to peer social proof that I believe, Sally, more than I believe Acme only becomes more important. But then it raises the question of how in that world do we build brands with scale? Right. Would you say it's.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think that's the point. To build brands at scale. You said a few things, one, about the collapse of the funnel. So let me comment on that. And I really do believe the funnel is dead or has been collapsed because in today's environment, every moment is a chance to build a brand and every moment is a chance to earn a conversion every single, every half a second. You know, brands are created every day because of, you know, what they're able to do with content and social today. So every moment. So we can't say, well, there's upper funnel, we're building great awareness and brand equity and then we go down to the funnel. People are in the moment of convenience and wanting to buy now and the tools allow us to do that. So I think we have to raise what we expect from our content and communication that even in what was considered lower funnel content, that you can build the brand in that and have loads of examples of where we are building the brand with retail media content, we're building the brand and in what you might think is more traditional content that it is converting. So, so that's one thing. The second thing you talked about was at scale. I think that's a new way. We have to think these social platforms are scale today. So that's how we Build the brand at scale. We have, we build the brand with bespoke audiences. We identify the pieces that are consistent across the brand, that are non negotiable and then we want to call them, adapt them, personalize them for the audience and the platform. These platforms drive scale. 65% of people today are on social media and that's growing. In the past six months there were 200. There were, what was it, 200,000 added? Actually, no, I think my stats are off.200 million added since the beginning of the year in social media. So it's continuing to grow. That 65% is going to be 85%, it's going to be 90%. The only way we can build our brand ed scale is to use the diversity of the platforms. But the thing that's different, when we say scale, what it does not mean is one size fits all. You still need the integrity, the consistency of the brand. What DOVE stands for, what does it look like, what does ACT stand for, what are the cues? It's black, it has an irreverent personality. We have cues, but we adapt it for those different audiences and the different platforms. It's relevant for the communities.

[A]

Kind of a channel specific take on the old axiom, think globally, act locally. And, and yet I wonder which.

[B]

I don't buy that anymore. That's the old local. Think global, act local. I think it's changed.

[A]

Yeah. What do you think? What's it change to?

[B]

I think it is act local, scale global. Like it's local wins hearts, global wins business. It's local, local, local.

[A]

Today, are we talking metaphorically or literally geographically? Because I'll have a follow up question depending upon it.

[B]

I say both.

[A]

I mean, by the way, it's not that I disagree with you, because I don't, but my question is, if you're not thinking metaphorically, if you're not thinking globally, which is to say what that brand means around the world, what that product, what problems that product or service solves for people around the world and then adapting it to geographic, cultural, individual nuance and desires. Right. Or the things that might drive desire. Where are you starting from? Right. How do you find the consistency you've talked so much about if you are starting with the micro rather than the macro?

[B]

I don't. So maybe it's a bit on language. You have a brand proposition that is consistent globally. It has to be expressed in a way that's local. Why I talk about, I don't buy global anymore is that forces us to think about how we deploy a brand in the market instead of the other way around, which is what does the local market need? And then how do we build that brand locally based on its overall value proposition? Maybe that is semantic. What we see, what we used to think is how do I take this? And this is a debatable point, My brand means X. Let me give you an example. On Tresemme, I'm going to give you. We launched an anti frizz product with an influencer called Betanya. This is very, very local. The local team came up with Batania. She has a big expressive full hair that you might call frizzy. She says, there's no way I'm using this product.

[A]

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little envious, but go on.

[B]

She says there's no way. Great product, but not for me. I'm not using this product because she has this iconic. I almost want to call it an afro, but it's not quite an afro. She engages with another Tresemme influencer has straight, perfect, precise hair and they go viral, millions and millions based on this local conversation. This wasn't a global idea that was driven in the market. The framework of the brand, anti frizz, the cues of the brand that was there, that's the big overarching brand promise. But the execution, the campaign itself, the story was born from the market, but in that there are examples across the world that are. Britannia might be from Brazil but this dialogue that can happen between someone that says I refuse to use that product because I like my big hair and someone that has straight hair that's relevant across multiple markets. So what you want to do is act local and then scale global. But what you are asking is do you build your brand and itself local? That I would say it depends. In the US brands travel. So you build the brand in the US and you often get desire for that brand in other places. So if you start with how do I build a global brand? You have trade offs. So it depends on the scale of the market. Can you build a brand just for one market? So I think we're probably saying the same thing. I'm just emphasizing the importance of local insight today and the ability to create local scale. Because of the new ecosystem of technology and social, you're able to connect in a way that, and engage in a way that wasn't possible in the past.

[A]

It's a perfect segue to a more tactical question, but one with I think massive strategic implications. So you know, Gary Vee is amongst others, you know who says, and I think he's absolutely right. Social media is really by and large not so social anymore. Right? It's all algorithmic. It's less a friend graph than, and even maybe sometimes situationally depending upon your utilization of it, even an interest graph than it is just like what's capturing my attention in the moment. And then the algorithm just keeps feeding the echo chamber. I want to put a pin in that. Refer back to the need and to scale globally, act local and scale global is the perfect segue here. Back to what I referenced before, which is Unilever's massive commitment to creators. I think your investment in creators has grown and is intended to grow exponentially year over year. And so I'm wondering a few things. Why what the why says about how you all are looking at the nature of marketing today, how brands are built, desire created, products and services sold, and importantly tomorrow. And then I'll ask some questions along the way.

[B]

I know, yeah, the creator choice starts back from how the world is changing and what we need to do. Unilever has 400 brands, we're at 190 markets. We identify 30 of those as power brands. You know, we're a 60 billion euro revenue company. So we have big scale brands. So scale is important to us and building our brands are important. The creator model is all about shifting. What I spoke about before to a new way of driving reach engagement and conversion and the old way where we had paid media and we broadcast it to lots of people who aren't delivering, no longer working and delivering reach, engagement and conversion because now everyone has a phone. Everyone from Indonesia to India to the US have aspirations of what the world looks like and they see others and engage with others. What you started with, what Gary Vee is true, is in the early days of social it was around connecting with our friends. Now it's around engaging in content. That and the creators have their communities who are sharing content. So creators are all about this many to many model. They create content. You have hero mega influencers or creators and then you have nano influencers or creators that are sharing content with their tribe. That's the idea of a creator and influencer in every zip code. You have big cut through creativity that people are engaging with on social and then you've got local, relevant community leaders. It's like the old word of mouth, if you will, that are making that content relevant for the customized communities and audiences.

[A]

You know, I referred earlier to, and I can't remember if we were talking specifically about a linear and broadcast model, but I referred earlier to the Challenge of, you know, there really is no scale anywhere except the super bowl, regardless of the context in which we were talking about it half an hour ago. Today, creators, some of them anyway, are really what broadcast media used to be, which is say across channels, within channels, they can have fan bases, communities of 100 million, 500 million.

[B]

Look at Mr. Beast.

[A]

Look at, look at Mr. Beast. I mean, it's, it's, it's just. But Mr. Beast is one of many, not perhaps so many. And they really are the new mass media. And I keep coming back in my head throughout our conversation to something Phil Knight said back when there was mass media. Phil Knight, of course, the founder of Nike, and I think he's chair of the board now. And he was talking about, I think somebody questioned him on why, why they spent so much money to put Michael Jordan in commercials when they were Nike. Excuse me. And he's like, 30 seconds isn't much time to tell a story. But when you have Michael Jordan, you don't need much time. Right? Which is the quick metaphor, the quick cue, the quick vehicle to capture attention. And creators seem different channels, different times, different, different, different world. To be a reflection of that today. Would you, would you agree with it.

[B]

Largely?

[A]

Yeah, go ahead, tell me, tell me where you don't agree.

[B]

I think connectivity and relevance is really important. You have creators that have big audiences. I think them alone are insufficient. The power come from a big creator connected to someone that you really trust. It's the new virality. I'll give you Super Bowl Kendrick, let's call him a creator. He's a massive, incredible creator. Everyone's engaged in that content. So that's the. Yes, I largely agree. What makes that content continue to go viral and is still super bowl was what, in February and it's August and is still relevant is because a local YouTuber is commenting on something that's happening in culture now that is connected to something Kendrick did. And then my son is following that local YouTuber. So I really agree with what you said in terms of the creator is like the new celebrity. And I think our model is such that you can't just stop with that push content. It's connecting it to your local passion point through your view. So that content on Kendrick isn't just about the music. It's about some other cultural element that someone might connect to. You could even connect that content to cooking, something that's inspired. And you've seen creators do that. So I agree with what you're saying. I would just add that proximity point. You should talk about Unilever. Getting that proximity is what gets us the scale, gets us the engagement, and then also gets us the conversion because we connect in with the retailer based on a lot of times that local perspective.

[A]

So I want to ask one big question that may be too big for the time we have left, but I'm going to try it anyway and then, then ask you a couple of, you know, quick answer questions, the big question. And I've been thinking about this non stop and all I do is think about it. I don't have a point of view on it yet. If we, if we imagine. Right. Still to be borne out. But if we imagine a moment when bots, you know, are buying from bots, right, the agentic era, right? If, if we think that that is coming and it will come differently in different categories, if brands have built, have been built to create an emotional connection, engagement, reaction and then a tangible behavioral action, right. If emotion has, has been kind of at the heart of that desire and of course it is in a, in an agentic era. How do you, how do you, are you thinking about how you translate the things that, the emotional things that make up desire to a functionally driven world where the bot may not certainly today be able to kind of parse emotional differentiation?

[B]

I think it's such an important question. So much so my talk at Cannes centered on this. If marketing in the past was about capturing hearts and minds, I really believe marketing in the future is about capturing hearts and machines. I think about the machine as an audience. We think about the human audiences and their machine audiences. And they're different drivers of those machine audiences based on the algorithms. Each LLM has a different driver. It's called Share of Model. The Gemini is fed by YouTube, Rufus is fed by Amazon. There are different characteristics that come through. To win in the future, we've got to win the machine audience. You're asking what does it take to win the machine audience? There's data and insights that help us understand where we need to show up, what we do with our websites, what platforms we invest in, like Reddit, with their partnership with OpenAI, what other platforms of publications, of authority. All of that is understandable, hackable. The same way we think about a human or an audience or community, we understand what they need, what drives. So we have to think about the machine as an audience. I think it's really, really important. Your second part of the question was about emotion and how do we think about that? I think if your brand doesn't matter to people, hasn't had that emotional resonance. It's getting relegated to a machine. It's getting relegated. The more you can you resonate emotionally, the more you can bypass the machine and ultimately feed the machine. Because the machines are smart. They know what people want. So in the space of desirability, I do think desire is the antidote to help win hearts and machines. But there's also some science in ensuring that we win those machines too.

[A]

I really, I mean, you've. In a second. Excuse me, Given. Given my thinking clarity, I want to go. So thank you for that and I'd love to see your canned speech. Send it to me if you would. I want to go back though to kind of the tools of translating for hacking machines. Right? And of course, you know, there's how you codify X and how you rank within Y. How do you differentiate then in the mind of the machine? Like are there. Are there because you'll. Or is that hacking the machine? How you differentiate would you say if your brand is differentiated, if your product is differentiated, as you know in. In the physical world, right. And in the mind of the human, the codification of. And the hacking of the machine just continues that different. I don't know that my question is making sense because it's not well formed in my brain. Okay.

[B]

I think it is. It's. It's a very astute point because there's a consumer we have, as business owners or marketers, we have a view of what our brand stands for. When you talk to a human, they might have a different view of what your brand stands for. When you talk to a machine, they have a range of views of what your brand stands for based on where they're feeding from to understand your brand. So you have to build your brand with those machines in the same way you do with people, by understanding where they're feeding from what you're saying in articles, because some of those articles are earned. So there's as much effort, if not more to set up how to feed those machines. Now where do you start versus just listening? You get insights and use tools to see what they're playing back today. And those machines are continually changing. So it's a work in progress for us all. As the LLMs develop in their sophistication, more searches are done. But the way I like to think about it is the new search the same way we hack search and we want to be ranked in the 1, 2, 3 position. So same thing that's going to happen for LLM and we'll keep learning how we have the brand positioning that we want through those LLMs and what resonates and the same way we do with humans. I find it fascinating. It's what keeps you sharp on your toes as marketers. But you know, we just can't forget fundamentally why do we care about any of this stuff? We don't get caught up in these tools. What we're trying to do is create demand for our brands through people and understand where people are and how to reach them, how to engage with them and how to ultimately convert that engagement into a sell. And now it's more complex and we have more tools to master to sort out how to do that and make sure our brands are positioned in a compelling, differentiated and a desirable way.

[A]

So you and I are going to talk more about this. I've just decided, I hope you're with me on stage at the Forbes Europe CMO Summit in London in November, because it's a conversation that deserves more time than we have. Contrary to what I said about asking you a couple of quick questions, I'm going to ask you one last question that brings us back to almost the first thing you said. Your title is Chief Marketing and Growth Officer. Given everything you've said about the role of marketing. Right. Which is to drive growth, why the bifurcation of the title? Why have we gotten to a place where growth at a macro level, where growth isn't implicit in the CMO's title, do you think?

[B]

I think it deserves the double click to from a Unilever perspective, we are resetting that brands are going to be at the core of our growth strategy, not even strategy at the core of our growth. Because what we do is we sell brands and because of that, marketing will be at the source. There's so many other elements you could choose that would not be the right choice to grow. You could say the frontline sales machine organization. You could say optimizing our product mix to create more efficiency is going to be the source of our value creation. So having growth in our in the marketing title goes back to reinforce the creating desire for our brands is at the core of the growth strategy. So an important redundancy.

[A]

I really love that. And it sounds, if I interpret it right, that it's as much a signal to the organization or pat more of a signal to the organization and your ecosystem than it is a reflection of anything more broadly. And it's, you know, I've kind of, yeah, I'm going to end there and that's it.

[B]

And the expectation that we have of marketing is growth. We can get obsessed with, you know, metrics that I even talked about, engagement, etc they're all working towards, well have.

[A]

A consequence or they don't and the consequences either growth or it's not. Thank you so much for being with me. This is an amazing conversation. It could have kept going, but we are at time and so too our listeners and our watch watchers. Thank you for listening and watching. Always in the show the same way. Smash that subscribe button, give it five stars if you thought it deserved it. And please leave a review because that's how others like you, who might be interested in learning from the wit and wisdom of our guests like ac, will find the show. Thanks so much for being with us. Bye everyone.

[B]

Thank you for having me.

[A]

Thanks.