At the 59th International Festival of
Creativity, Keith Weed, chief marketing and communication officer, Unilever and
Marc Mathieu, senior vice-president, marketing, Unilever spoke on the topics,
'Crafting brands for life: How Unilever is reinventing marketing'. Together,
they discussed the key factors of marketing and what companies should do for
not only richer dividends but for better future.
Usually products are created for sale, but now companies are creating
products to be loved and cherished for life. In this process, some products are
disliked, therefore FMCG companies are looking for products and solutions that
will allow sustainable growth. At the 59th International Festival of
Creativity, Keith Weed, chief marketing and communication officer, Unilever and
Marc Mathieu, senior vice-president, marketing, Unilever spoke on the topics,
'Crafting brands for life: How Unilever is reinventing marketing'.
Together, they discussed the key factors of marketing that Unilever
follows and what should companies do for not only richer dividends but for
better future.
Weed said, "As marketers, people should have long-term vision. They
should be able to understand in which direction the world is moving and hence
work towards achieving sustainable growth. They should understand that
demand-led growth is no longer enough as now everyone is looking for social and
environment-led growth as well. The job of the marketers is to walk ahead of
the consumers and identify what they need."
He next gave the example of William Lever, one of the founders of
Unilever, and how he fought the issue of hygiene through the launch of
detergent Sunlight during the time of the industrial revolution in England. The
company since then has become the largest producer of soaps and detergents and
continues its battle with hygiene.
"Developing and emerging markets are growing at a fast pace. While
at present half of the middle class consumers belong to Asia, by 2030, the
number will increase to 42 per cent and by 2050, is touted to go to 54 per
cent. By 2050, it is estimated that the world population will grow to 9.5
billion people from the present 7.2 billion people. While people are now
driving the business, companies should now look at reducing the environment
load and increasing the social impact."
According to him, companies should now invest in building brands that
are loved as consumers are no longer just buyers, they are real people with
real lives. Companies should focus on establishing empathy.
Taking forward the concept of 'Love brands', Mathieu shared certain
points that can be adopted by marketers of other brands. "At Unilever, our
brands bring together a superior product to buy into. Also, we engage our
brands' users to build brands. Then companies should nurture brands' DNA for
generations to come," he added.
Furthermore, he emphasised that companies should focus on building brands
that people can't live without. "Marketers should concentrate on making
the brand an integral part of the consumer's life, so much so that they can't
live without your brand. They should unlock the magic of the brand and this can
be achieved through communication. The communication designed for the brand
should be able to gain the trust of the consumer, it should be able to create
an emotional connect. Overall, one integrated brand experience should be
created," added Mathieu.
According to Mathieu, marketing is a craft experience, and those who are
involved in the process should be confident of moving fast and should be ready
to experience new things and further spread it across the world.
At the end, Weed talked about a new initiative called 'Water Worker',
which the company has begun in collaboration with PSI and Facebook, wherein
once a user of the social network site clicks on the brand's page, she gets an
option to participate by donating any amount of money. With the donation, poor
people are given the water purifier from Unilever. "The idea here is to
provide clean drinking water to everybody. The global foundation will work to
create a better world," remarked Weed.
