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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the uncensored cmo. Now if I were to ask you which company in the world is the best at building brands, I'm sure right at the top of that list would be none other than Unilever. Unilever have an incredible history of building powerful brands globally. And in this episode, I'm catching up with their cmo AC to find out how, how she approaches brand building in the organization, how they manage such a big portfolio and what you can learn about the brand building approach they take to all their brands. AC is amazing. She's got so much experience, she approaches it very strategically and she's got lots of wisdom about how they build brands. Here it is. I'm so excited to be talking to ac, who is the chief marketing and growth officer, I should add, of Unilever. Welcome to the show.
- [00:53]
B
Thank you. Pleasure being here with you.
- [00:55]
A
It's so lovely to have you. And I must say one of the things that stands out about your career to date is how you've worked for two of the best brand builders in the world, P and G and Unilever. I'd be fascinated to know like, well, introduce in terms of your career, how you got to where you are, but also what are the differences between their approaches because I think they're both lauded, aren't they, for their brand building prowess.
- [01:15]
B
Well, I consider myself an accidental marketer and executive. I started studying biomedical engineering. I thought I would be an MD, PhD, a scientist in engineering. And what I discovered, I love solving problems, but deeply curious about people. So in university, outside of engineering and the medical sciences, I liked anthropology and sociology. So I happened upon marketing because I saw that the curiosity about people and problem solving could actually have an impact on business. And so I've been doing it now for 35 years, some kind of marketing, general management. And I joined at P and G. P and G is very much a place you start is promote from within. And I discovered Unilever and I've been with Unilever for eight years and I absolutely enjoyed every minute of it. The companies are quite different. I didn't realize to the extent when I joined Unilever, culturally they're just very different. And I always say P and G is more of a me or an I company. What did you do? What's your individual impact? And Unilever is more of a we company sense of community. P and G is more of a functional company. A lot of the brands are built on function, solving a need, whereas Unilever is more of an emotion company. If you think about the beautiful brands we have, like Dove, even Dirt is good. The Purcell family taps into something deeper and really leans into that and has been market leading in that effect. At the core the business is the same, but the culture of the people and the character of the brands actually have a different feel.
- [02:57]
A
Now we'll come back to emotion and desire, of course, because it's a core part of your platform and so on. Something else that strikes me actually about your career is how you've spent quite a lot of time in general management and as CEO of the North American Business Unit, which I. That's a very Unilever thing to do as well, isn't it? I know I've got some friends in Unilever who kind of, you know, do small markets, big markets, you know, global brands that, you know, manage local P&LS. How important is it to get that breadth of experience and how does that make you a better marketer?
- [03:24]
B
Well, see, I think about myself as a human centric business leader and marketing from a brand management perspective, keep your customer or your consumer or people in the center and that training is, is how you grow business. You grow business sustainably and boldly when you have the consumer or the customer in the center. If you just come through general management, often more commercial and executional and operational. So blending those two together, never losing sight of what people need, I fundamentally believe marketing and business are about helping people in some way and that's how you create business. So those two work together. And as I mentioned, starting as an engineer, the problem solving rigor is fulfilled for me in general management. So the role I'm in now I've been in about two years. It's the first time I've had a functional marketing role. But I've always brought marketing into the business. So I see them as a continuum of one another and not a trade off.
- [04:30]
A
That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? I mean, one thing that I think a lot of people are envious when they look at Unilever is just the amount that you invest in marketing. And I think I'm right in saying the percentage has increased from 13 up to 15% in the last year.
- [04:41]
B
Exactly. You've done your homework.
- [04:43]
A
Thank you. Well, but partly out of like most of my career I've been working on 5 or 6%. So you know, to invest that much in marketing shows a business that's got confidence in the return that marketing delivers for it. What advice would you give other marketers listening in that Maybe are starting with 3 or 4% and need to make the case for marketing. What is it you know about marketing to be true?
- [05:04]
B
Really, marketing is about creating demand for your brand and then converting that demand into commerce. And at a higher level, it's about that demand really being desirable. You're asking how do you get to 15%? It's the proof point that it invests and drives the business. We've seen very consistently, particularly in the categories that we compete in home care products, beauty products, personal care products, food, that it really matters what we invest in our business so that people have the desirability of our brands. So my advice is prove the case. Prove the case and ensure your marketing is creating that demand. Now, there's a balance in that demand that you create. Sometimes when you talk about demand generation, people equate that with performance marketing. And that's not what I mean. You want sustained demand for your brand. So it's delivering in the short term, the midterm and the long term, you can prove the case. Particularly today, there's some amazing tools. You invest more, what's the return you get? And you can measure that return in the near term, in the long term. So my advice would be invest to create that demand, prove that demand and keep investing. Keep investing so that you can see the payout. So it's not I should have this money because my brand deserves it. It's I have this money to build and create value in my business.
- [06:36]
A
I love that. I mean, you're so right. Cause so many marketers will sit and go, well, we had 10% last year, we've got to have 10% this year. We're rather than thinking, what does the business need? Can I lock in my spend to what the business goals and can I prove that it's going to return? If you prove the return, why would the business not say the other thing?
- [06:53]
B
I think in this world we have to be impactful, but we also need to be productive. So sometimes thinking just percent of spend isn't the best way because often you can do more with less. In this world of earned media, your gift in doing that well is an incredible cpm, which means you can actually spend less. I like to think about it the other way is you hold your spending and you grow more. But if you're only measuring your percent of spend and not your share of voice or your share of impact, you can miss the plot because you could spend, spend a lot and not get the return. So we'd like to drive the performance impact of the investment not just look at how much of our budget we're spending in marketing.
- [07:46]
A
Now, I notice in your job title you include growth, don't you, in your job title? Is that a conscious decision to signal the role that you're playing in marketing?
- [07:54]
B
Absolutely. In fact, it's Chief Growth and Marketing Officer. And it is really recentering unilever around growth and marketing as a growth driver. So it's not just about building the image of our brands. It's about connecting our brands to people and earning that growth.
- [08:14]
A
I often wonder why there aren't more CMOs in the C suite on boards or CEOs. Because really, when you break it down, of all the functions, marketing should have the biggest impact on growth. You know, compared to supply chain that fulfills the demands and sales that converts. It is all about the future, isn't it? And all about how you create, as you say, create demand in the future. It's got a critical role to play.
- [08:35]
B
Completely agree.
- [08:37]
A
So you're, you know, you're a CMO overseeing an enormous portfolio. I think over 400 brands globally, 190 markets, a 60 billion euro turnover. That is an incredible amount, you know, to kind of oversee. What would people be most surprised to learn about what it's like to do the kind of role you do.
- [08:54]
B
You know what's interesting? The acronym of CMO as Chief Marketing Officer, I think is more Change Management Officer. And in the world that we're in now, business is so dynamic. Keeping focused on the changes the organization needs to make to be of service to the brand is probably the biggest surprise. And when I say change, it's in the marketing model, but it's also bringing the business together. In many companies, particularly CPG companies like Unilever, the brand is at the heart. But it's more than marketing that drives that brand. You're working with your AI partners in it, you're working with your R and D partners, you're working with your finance partners, you're working with your sales partners, and of course, you're working with fulfillment. So when you're creating demand and converting and fulfilling demand, that change needs to be embraced by the whole community. So the two things people are often surprised by is how much time you invest in bringing people together to drive change. Right. And I think for me, the best leaders drive inspiration. Create inspiration, I should say crystal clarity, and then help people do their jobs. That's mostly what I do in my job in driving the change inspiration. The why we do what we do, what exactly brands need to do, and then helping People with tools to make that happen. And we can talk more about examples of where that's important.
- [10:38]
A
What would you look for in the marketer today? So if you're hiring for your team, because obviously you talk about all the change, what are the skills that marketers need today to be successful in the content context for that?
- [10:48]
B
Yeah, I think about two areas. There's a human quotient and there's a technical quotient, and both are very important. I believe it's the human quotient that really characterizes us as marketers and leaders. But the technical quotient is kind of the foundation of how you do your job. That human quotient is imagination, curiosity, insightfulness, ability to work with people, inspire and bring people along. Of course, with an imagination is creativity. It's deeply human. Tapping into people's desires beyond their needs, listening to people, beyond what they're saying, observing people. Those are the skills I look for. Again, depending on the kind of role in marketing. But then there's the technical quotient, which is analysis, which is quite important in, I would say, AI competency. Being able to prompt maybe a bit on the human side is agility, ability to change. And then in the technical quotient, it's just technical mastery of understanding your discipline. I find if you have more of the human quotient, you can pick up the capacity for the technical quotient. So I lean in more to those human skills. Connecting dots, problem solving based on the other, you know, attributes I shared.
- [12:10]
A
You mentioned AI there, of course. And one of the things that I spotted as well, you talk about is what will change in marketing and what won't change in marketing. And you have a lovely framing around the machine and the human as well, which I thought was fascinating. Just unpack that a bit.
- [12:25]
B
There's a lot to say on that. I really believe everything and nothing is changing in marketing. The nothing are the fundamentals. As I mentioned, marketing is about understanding people and then helping them. That won't change the fundamentals of marketing and the idea of creating demand for your brand. But while it's about people, the everything is people are changing. Where we are, what we want, where we show up, what our attention span is. So in the modern marketing world, we can't lose sight of that nothing. Clarity around who you're serving, clarity around your brand, your choices, what you will do and what you won't do. But the everything that changes is we now have to create our brands to connect in culture. There's no attention span to push a 30 second ad about a product benefit. You have to speak into people's passions and where they are. Look at social media. We've got 2/3 of the world on social media and social platforms. It works on TikTok, doesn't work on X. You have a range of different tools on how to communicate and people want it now and in real time. Everything that's happening in AI and agentic commerce with the LLMs and search, everything is changing. That's why your earlier question around skills and being dynamic and curious are really important. You also asked about so there's everything and nothing that's changing. You also asked about AI. If marketing in the past was about winning hearts and minds, marketing today is about winning people and machines. And people and machines are really important because the machines now influence people. So at the end of the day, how are people getting the content that they're served? Algorithms. Algorithms are now responsible for 85% of the content people see. Algorithms are looking for content that drives attention and spend time on platforms. So we have to understand those algorithms because those algorithms may not choose content that drives our brand, may drive attention, but do they remember your brand in the end? So understanding winning the machines is what's key to winning the algorithm. So you can interject what drives your brand and what people want, but at the end of the day, so algorithms are one the other. Are the LLMs and the search engines winning those? How do you understand them? I talk about knowledge media and interest media and understanding LLMs and winning them. You have to feed them with substance. That's that factual information. You know, it's the Wikipedias of the world, it's those articles, it's the science. You know, I'll talk about our framework for building brands. Science is one of them. We've kind of lost our way and some of that fact, old principal work, but now we need those for the LLMs. So what I'm saying is winning machines includes winning algorithms. It includes winning LLMs. Knowledge Media is a part of that in winning the algorithm. It's interest media. And then we still have to build our brands with brand media. The thing though, as we think about people and machines, machines don't use body wash. They may buy body wash, but they don't use body wash. So we can never ever lose sight that who we're serving in the end, where we're trying to create desire is for people. And the machines are like an influential audience. In my business I'm not direct to consumer largely I go through a retailer. The machines are Almost like a retailer. They're an influencer, they're a conduit in some cases to reach the ultimate consumer and customer.
- [16:12]
A
I've never heard that framing actually of the machines being like a retailer. It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Because they're kind of managing their own assortment and what they recommend and how much space in the algorithms given to different brands. It's quite a good analogy that I hadn't thought about it. So you need to have a sales team really selling to the algorithms and making sure that your brand is the one they're promoting.
- [16:31]
B
Yeah, that's right. When you think about the retailer, they are the place people choose your brand. But it also impacts, if they will choose your brand, how many facings you have, how desirably you show up in the store itself. And if the retailers, if you have higher margins for the retailer, if they see you driving category growth, they will favor you. They can distribute you, but not favor you. So our job to be done with LLMs is to have us favor. Right. So there's more visibility and there's more recommendations that come from citations, if you will, that come from the LLMs. So if you think about that parallel, it's influencing the purchase and with agentic commerce, it can fulfill that purchase as well.
- [17:16]
A
Yeah. Now, interestingly, you mentioned hearts and machines, that juxtaposition between the two. What about the heart side? So how today, how do you win the hearts of the consumer over so.
- [17:26]
B
Today'S world, there's, I think, lagging trust. People are skeptical, skeptical of brands, skeptical of information. I also do believe there's an attention deficit because there's so much that are vying. And I say I believe it. There's lots of data that shows that. So the whole idea of building heart, connecting to heart, means you have to cut through and it's about building desire. At Unilever, we talk about building desire at scale. What we do with desire is move from I need that to I just have to have that. It's not functional, it's not conscious. It's that unconscious urge. Something you see, I just have to have that. That's winning hard. Creating desire, you're not thinking about how much it costs. You're moving to the feel. And by the way, most of our decisions that we make are driven by our feel. And then you go into autopilot. So capturing heart is about earning and creating desire. And then doing desire at scale is changing the idea that desire is limited to the select few. If you think about categories that you associate with desire today. You think about luxury, think about fashion, you think about exclusivity. But why does that have to be the case today? I'd say aspiration and desire is democratized in rural India because of social media. They see and have exposure to areas that may not have in the past been in their village. So there's this access to aspiration for your home, for your Persona and body. Our home care business, you know, our personal care business, our beauty business, food, many of us desire food things. So doing that at scale today can be done in a way that I don't think could be done previously. So that about capturing heart, that's about elevating the brands from function and earning that. I just have to have that. And there's a, we believe a way that you can think about earning that desire. And by the way, that desire for people is also about creating the desire for the machines. And we use a framework called Sassy Sassy brands. We want to build Sassy brands to create desire at scale. Sassy, while the name itself is cute, is actually an acronym. The S in Sassy stands for science. People want products that work. Science can be sexy. Really it's important across businesses and beauty products like Vaseline, Glutathione, you know, that make a difference. Our probiotic technology that we use in CIF Infinite Clean, it's the real science that works. It's the micro moisture technology we use in Dove that make a difference for your skin benefit. But it's using that science for competitive advantage and it's making that science sexy. A is for aesthetics and S is for sensorials. So it's not just the science, it's how it's all wrapped up. If you have the science but you're packaging your product, your textures are not desirable, that's around wrapping it into a wonderful sensational experience. Then the other S and Y have more to do with what I mentioned around trust, the S said by others, lack of trust. You want credible authorities that share the brand with you. Sometimes it's an influencer, a lot of times it's an influencer, it's kind of the person next door. But other times it can be a dermatologist, it can be a chef that speaks to again the knowledge media that are trusted, others that endorse or even share or speak to your brand. And then the why is young spirited. And that doesn't mean young people. That means just a modern point of view that keeps you relevant and social. So in short, creating desirability at scale with Brands that are sassy help us win people and win machines with the knowledge media, the interest media, and then, of course, our brand media.
- [21:47]
A
That's an amazing framework. I like that a lot. I think we often forget, don't we? Because in business, it can be so rational in terms of what we do, and we forget that actually the way the consumer makes decisions is a lot more emotional. And there's a lovely quote, actually, from the founder of System One, where I work, inspired by Daniel Kahneman's book where he says, we think less than we think. We think. The more we feel, the more likely we are to buy.
- [22:10]
B
I love that.
- [22:11]
A
Isn't it so true?
- [22:12]
B
Isn't it? And that's exactly. It's what you feel. But there's cognitive science to feeling. You can unpack that. Pleasure, sensorial safety, trust, comfort, think about, you know, you're baking from home. Make you all those things, make you feel something. The entertainment industry is really great at helping you feel something, but I think feeling is everything. Maya Angelou always says, I'll never remember. They'll never remember what you say, but they will remember the way you made them feel. So I think your point is right on. Desire is all about feeling something that drives you to just have to have that. And our brands at Unilever are in categories that people really care about. Think about your home and how you want your experience to be in your home if you're doing laundry or if you're cleaning or after that. And the same again with your person, your confidence, how you feel in your own skin and in your own body. And then food isn't just about what you eat. It's about the community that you share food with. So feeling, I think, deeply resonates.
- [23:29]
A
Now, talking about feeling, I must pay you a very big compliment for your latest work on Dove, which is extraordinary and I think perfectly illustrates a lot of these points. We changed the compliments. In fact, we tested it on the System One database. It scored the highest possible score. In fact, it was unanimous happiness. Everyone felt happy watching that. And what I thought was interesting about it, because you start with the. The narrative of beauty, that, you know, young girls always give them compliments on beauty. And then you, halfway through, of course, you then change that to change the compliments to be about strength, about being smart and all those things. The happiness goes up even more as people watch that, because you hit on such a fundamental human truth and you express it in a beautiful way. And it's very. I know somebody before about kind of left hemisphere and Right hemisphere. It's very right brained, isn't it? The way that you tell that story and engagement. But I'd love to know a bit more about that because I think, am I right in saying it's 20 years.
- [24:24]
B
Now, since more than 20 years to campaign for beauty, you asking that question. And I'll talk about Change the compliment. The Dove team is phenomenal and it's a great example of consistency and evolution. And for me, that is the magic of any brand. How you're consistently known for something but you're able to stay relevant. And brands I admire do that. And Dove has done that so well. I can remember the way we felt when we saw women in underwear for the first time more than 20 years ago. And today, how Dove taps into that feeling because the universal truth resonates. How Dove started the campaign for real beauty is less than 2% of women 20 years ago, when you asked do I feel beautiful, agree that they felt beautiful.
- [25:12]
A
That's incredible.
- [25:13]
B
Why would that be so? Change the compliments is an example of that. The fact that the age of three, already 60% of girls start associating more with their physical appearance relative to boys. It starts because we're groomed as girls early on to care about our appearance and we seek those compliments. So it's shifting that narrative to define compliments in what you do, not how you look, your values, who you are, your achievements. And in Change the compliments, Dove consistently pushes the boundaries, but around this insight of having beauty be a source of joy and not pain and evolving what beauty looks like, reimagining it and campaigning for real beauty. What's interesting about the campaign, when you talked about the emotive response, it actually is a place where the team used AI to really work to get reactions to a range of scenarios and iterating around those scenarios and bringing those scenarios into the content itself so that it tested there was optimal happiness, if you will. Makes sense. We're able to use intelligence, but the intelligence, the artificial intelligence AI did not create the idea, the storytelling, the insight, but helped optimize the execution. So I think it's also a brilliant example of bringing humanity and using the machine in the appropriate way to ensure you really resonate with people.
- [26:45]
A
What a beautiful example. I love that. Now a big thing you've done as well this year was your announcement that you're investing, am I right in saying half all your media is going to be on social now and a 20x increase in the amount you're spending on creators? So you're letting other people tell your story now, aren't you? So less about the. I think you describe it as one to the move from one to many to many to many. How is that going in terms of that transition to how you tell the story?
- [27:10]
B
Well, yeah, let me talk about that a bit. What is the model and what that's about? I say everything and nothing is changing. In marketing, something that has changed is the idea of broadcasting and pushing one message to many people doesn't work because you can't find a captive enough audience to take your message and reach people. You can't get the same level of reach with one message pushed out. You also can't get the same level of engagement because people are a demand. Speak to us and what we need and we're demand for a higher level of engagement. So we're moving from a one to many model that's traditional broadcast to a many to many model. What does many to many mean? That means you still have an idea for your brand, but you express that in many ways, still within your boundaries, but to speak to different audiences and then you have other people speak about your brand message in their authentic voice to many other people. The impact of that is you maximize reach and engagement and ultimately conversion. So the idea of moving from one to many to many to many isn't just, oh, it's a cute, fancy, modern thing to do, it's solving the business challenge, which is we can't get the reach and conversion we once did. So it's the new way to drive the reach, engagement and conversion. So that's first on the mini to many model. So as you can imagine, the role of influencers plays an important role. I mentioned in Sassy, the S of said by others addresses this erosion in trust. So you pick an influencer that shares the values of your brand, that their audience respects them for sharing the intel and insights about your brand so they can speak in their authentic voice credibly. And not all influencers are created equal. You know, there's an influencer pyramid, there's a mega influencer, all the way down to micro and nano influencers. And we're finding that activating those nano influencers add even more credibility to our message because they're within your cohort set and they're trusted, but they often work and share the content of mega influencers so you get resonance. A perfect example of that for me is the campaign I'm really proud of. Again, the Vaseline team is Vaseline Verified. Are you familiar with Vaseline Verified?
- [29:28]
A
Yeah.
- [29:29]
B
What's beautiful about that is the brand has always been used in many ways. You go online, you see all the hacks and stories. My mother used Vaseline as her primary skin care product. She'd use it on my elbows and arms. But also we use Vaseline for other things that you wouldn't expect, like taking a picture on a camera to make it really interesting and illustrative. But everyone has their hack, so we took that insight and then connect it with influencers who were sharing their story of their hacks and the brand came in and verified them. So one of my favorite hacks is a young woman that would make sure her daughter, when she's removing plasters, that they didn't get stuck, so she would use the Vaseline to remove that. So, in terms of influencers, we were able to scale them by having other people's messages about Vaseline, bringing in the branded message by verifying Vaseline, and the results were through the roof. Over 63 billion impressions generated. 63 million impressions generated. Not billion. I wish. 63 million impressions generated from that. And the conversion was nearly 50%. 43% to be exact.
- [30:41]
A
And it really does turn the model on its head, doesn't it? I mean, we had Gary Vee on the podcast very recently and he was talking about the fact that in the social media age, you see what works first and then you invest behind it. You give permission to creators and then you double down on the things that work, rather than centrally going, I'm going to come up with this one idea and force it onto you. You let the community invent and then you amplify what they're doing. Which sounds very similar to that Vaseline example.
- [31:06]
B
Yeah. When I think about social first, I have this thing called Six for success and one of them is design your brand for social power, you have to design your brand first. The second area is content is king and the third is content plus media is King Kong. The fourth is always optimize, always convert, and then the fifth is win the machines. And then the sixth is unlock the power of a social first team. Why did I share that within that Always optimize and always convert? It is changing the way we think about campaigning. You start with an influencer message, you start with a piece of content, you might start with 15 pieces and you only invest behind what's working. So we have a tool at Unilever called Rapid ROI that I'm also quite proud of because it integrates a range of data and it's like a real time. Mmm. So we can get the response in terms of consumer engagement behind content, but we also get the business response and we're only investing or maximizing our investment behind what's working. So back to your point on Gary Vee. It's not like the old days. You set a campaign and you go forward. You invest in a piece of content, choose which piece takes off. In the Vaseline verified case, we had so many hacks that take off, but we invested behind the ones that got the most traction.
- [32:30]
A
That makes loads and loads of sense. I like that a lot. One thing I was going to ask you about as well, thinking a bit about innovation. We talked a lot about communication. But how does the Sase model help you think about innovation and what you do next on the brand?
- [32:42]
B
Yeah. So Sase you can break out into two parts. There's the SaaS and there's the C. And the SaaS is the part that's about building the brand and is about the innovation. It's you innovate behind, of course, your brand area and a really untapped idea and then you develop science, aesthetics and sensorials to bring that idea to life. The C is how you communicate that innovation. Who you use recommendations and references by others and then again doing that in a youthful tone of voice and spirit. That's not the only framework for innovation, but there are must do's to make sure innovations land. What's interesting today is we understand where innovation opportunities are based on what communities say. You don't have to do research in the same way people tell you what they want. And some of our best ideas come from research. So if I think about Vaseline that we talked about the stick, have you seen the Vaseline stick That came from the community saying I want a more controlled way to use my Vaseline. And there are other products that are similar. Another back to Vaseline. I'm talking about Vaseline a lot. I've noticed that similar, similar to that. That is the almost the red tinted Vaseline lip that also came from the community saying I want a red lip but I want it with subtlety and why can't my Vaseline. I'm actually using Vaseline in that way now. I put on a lipstick, I swipe it off and then I put Vaseline on top. Can I have a hint of red in my Vaseline? We also have loads of Dove examples. We are doing an intimate care product on Dove now with Amazon that came from the community saying I would love my Dove and intimate hygiene and that's seeding and doing quite well in Amazon. So a few things in innovation you asked how does SASE help innovation helps create the innovation so it can be desirable but also innovation. The C part is leaning into the community the said by others to get insights to where to innovate for maximum impact.
- [34:57]
A
The innovation you've done recently, that made me smile. Talking about community, my younger daughter is a Crumble Cookie fan.
- [35:02]
B
Oh yes.
- [35:03]
A
And you would not believe the lengths I have to go to whenever I fly to America. I have to bring her back. Whatever Crumble Cookie have launched that week because they rotate the range every single week and there's like five or six different things. So I have to carry through security this long pink box. It always gets loads of comments actually from the airline staff and the security staff. But you did this collaboration, didn't you with Crumbl, Cookie and Dove, which I still love.
- [35:25]
B
Thank you for bringing that up. So first on Crumbl, I overstan I have a 19 year old daughter and when she was at home and not away at university, obsessed with the drops. But that Crumble community is such an active community in anticipation of what I'd say, these desserts, I even hate to call them cookies. And in that the Dove brand saw there was this community there and this trend in dessert beauty that Dove could tap into and this whole idea of sensorials that are in the dessert that makes sense for the aesthetics of the products. Again, back to sensorials and aesthetics. So Dove collaborated with Crumbl and it's looky looky Dove and Crumble Cookie using the Crumbl twins. Have you seen the Crumble twins actually.
- [36:12]
A
Sing this at home? I know you wouldn't believe it, but this is looky looky, looky. Here's Crumble Cookie. It's said quite a few times in the past.
- [36:20]
B
Yes. And so this Dove and Crumble Cookie and Dove is iconically white. We really leaned into the community and collaboration and went with a pink package for Dove to bring that sensorial proposition to life. And then partnered at retail. A big part of desire at scale is converting that desire. So bringing in Walmart as the exclusive partner created so much demand that it sold out. But everything we did came from the community. And we actually, in addition to the community did some other innovative things. We launched it first in Netflix's first NFL opportunity for content and that just created such demand for the brand. But yes, it's a perfect example of tapping into culture and reimagining what's possible for the brand. I think collaborations aren't borrowed interest. It's a one plus one equal three. Crumble is able to bring their experience to life in a new way. And they did that credibly with Dove new way in terms of body sensorials. But Dove was able to extend and elevate its sensorials to be desirable, almost addictive through that addiction that is in crumbl Cookie and so Dove and Crumble Cookie and stay tuned because there's more to come with Dove and its collaborations that create the 1 +1 =3.
- [37:42]
A
I will wait for anticipation. That sounds very, very exciting. Just going back to our friend AI. How does AI enable kind of the innovation process? Whether it's kind of understanding insight from the community or rapid development of concepts, Are you using it in that part of the process as well?
- [37:56]
B
Absolutely. AI in my opinion, with evidence, creates a better, cheaper, faster. We're using AI really to understand insights in real time so we understand what people want. We're using AI for rapid prototyping, what could take you six months to do. Stability now you can do in minutes. We're using AI to create probably seeing Digital Twins, which is a pixel perfect image of our product. I believe it makes our products even more desirable and than they are when you do desktop shoots because of the dimension and the quality and the specifications that you can get from AI. And all of that is related to the innovation. So we're using it in all areas of the innovation process to help us understand what people want and then to create and deliver what they want at speed. We've seen even in the Digital Twins alone that we're getting content and film for our packages that are twice as fast, 50% cheaper and with 100% consistency. So I'm really excited about how the AI unlock innovation and everything in our marketing mix.
- [39:03]
A
That's amazing. At System One, we got this product called Test yout Innovation where we ask a question of the audience, which is a little bit different. So back to the. It's how you feel, predicts how you behave. You think less than we think we think. John, who founded the company, came up with this idea of asking people to invest in an idea rather than so you know, usually in a survey go how likely you are to buy. He asked a different question. He went to the audience, said here, here are some concepts I'd now like you to put your own money into investing behind one of the concepts and then you have to trade with the other people in the survey because where you'd invest your money says a lot more about your behavior than what you say you might, whether or not you might Buy it because it kind of. It hits on a sort of more of an emotional motivation. With that thought in mind, I thought I'd ask you rather tough question. But if you could buy a Unilever brand yourself and put your own money in one of your brands, or maybe I'll give you two or three, what would be the brands you would personally invest in?
- [40:02]
B
There are a few that come to mind. You know, one I talked about a lot, interestingly, is Vaseline. But I think the question is, what are the characteristics of a brand that I would invest in? And it's both emotional for me and it's rational. Would invest in a brand that has strong foundation, but also that has enormous Runway and growth potential because you want your investment to grow. And when I think of that, that's Vaseline. I mean, it's on its way to a billion euros. And the brand started 55 years ago. Again, my mother. I remember my memory. This is the feel. Remember my mother putting petroleum jelly on my elbows, on my face, to protect me in Chicago when I would walk from home to school in the winter winds, you know, the Windy City. And so I have fond memories of it. There's enormous growth potential. The other, I would say, which is the obvious one, which is Dove, Same criteria. The legacy of 50 years, the legacy of the campaign for real beauty for 20 years and the amazing role it plays in people's lives today. There's no other brand that resonates at the way Dove does for real beauty. And there's no other brand that has the breadth of amazing products, and there's no other brand that has that Runway. I mean, Dove is bigger than many companies that we compete with. It is the biggest personal care brand in the world, and it just keeps getting better. So if I could afford it, I would invest in Dove. So those are amazing.
- [41:37]
A
I love that. It's interesting, actually, both those stories, how you reference the past and the, you know, the feeling and the history and the storytelling. It comes through, doesn't it? A lot in terms of that, but also the consistency. You mentioned this earlier, didn't you? Which I think is a key. A key part of how both those brands of. Although they innovate a lot, they're very consistent in how they do. How they do things.
- [42:00]
B
Yeah, I think that is the challenge. It's imaginative consistency that evolves with culture and people. And many brands get stuck and aren't able to do that. They either create a too narrow view of their business so they stay consistent but constrained, or they jump the shark and don't stay true to who they are and their reason for being. I always say the fruit is in the roots but need to be reimagined. So many of the brands, you know, even externally that I admire have done that. You know, they start with an insight and they expand to make it mean more. So, yes, I think that imaginative consistency is critical for creating brand value.
- [42:46]
A
Well, maybe one. One question to round off on, then maybe another challenging question is you have a big portfolio. You've got 400 brands. How do you nurture the next Dove or Vaseline? How do. How do you. What's the approach to an emerging future star in your portfolio?
- [43:04]
B
Yeah, I think tapping into people and really what we desire is at the core of that. That's, again, what the Campaign for Real Beauty does. That's what Vaseline Verified is able to do. And looking at that in a foresight way, what people desire today and then mapping that out to what they'll desire in the future, the brand that I think about, and you asked, how do you start a brand? A lot of what we do is grow our brands to make markets is Liquid iv. That's in our wellness business. And Liquid IV started with this idea. People want to be well. And in fact, in this case, actually, people party too hard. You know, they have hangovers. They would want a literal liquid IV. When we bought the business, it was about 150 million in sales. But today it's about a billion in sales. And why? It's because people increasingly wanted this healthy lifestyle and wanted the hydration. So it's finding that area or opportunity that you can tap into now that is relevant to the future. If I think about our Dirt is good franchise, 20 years ago, we changed this idea of Dirt's not bad, Dirt is good. But it was right on time with the technological revolution. People were starting to use mobile phones and iPads and being obsessed but knowing that they wanted to be outdoors. So that's only grown, and that business has grown the same with the Campaign for Real Beauty. This idea of we want to feel beautiful, regardless of how the world might view our beauty today, we want to feel beautiful and that's only grown. So you find that insight that's meaningful today, but is growing based on where the trend is. And you nurture that and you focus on that. And then second, think about your unique way of addressing that need that no one else can really match. That's where the magic is. You can build a category around that or you can create a category around that. Our strategy is to do more building of categories. Can we call that market making? And that is a bit of the. That I would say is the foundation.
- [45:13]
A
Yeah. And you can of course bring your Unilever scale, you can bring your SASE model, you can bring all your experience van to do that, can't you? To all those brands. AC, it's been amazing. Thank you. I so, so appreciate you sharing all your wisdom and experience and very, very grateful to have the conversation with you.
- [45:29]
B
My pleasure. It's been lovely talking to you.
- [45:31]
A
Can't wait to see what happens next and I'll be eagerly anticipating the next dove innovation.
- [45:35]
B
Thank you. Cheers.
- [45:36]
A
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on x uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.