fmcg
Business strategy director
Essity
Essity’s leaders have hailed the company’s long-term investments in marketing, innovation and digitalisation as a contributing factor to its ability to weather the storm of inflation.
With business strategy director Nicola Coronado at the helm, the company, which owns brands like Tena, Bodyform and Cushelle, has not been afraid to be bold in its marketing. She has launched a series of thought-provoking campaigns for Bodyform that look to break taboos and reframe conversations around periods. Last year’s ‘Periodsomnia’ explored the impact periods have on people’s sleep to promote its new Goodnight sanitary towels.
Despite being the most complained about ad of 2022, with the Advertising Standards Authority revealing it received 798 complaints about it being “too graphic” and “unnecessary”, Coronado is rightfully undeterred in her mission and won’t shy away from stigmatised topics in its advertising.
On its most recent investor call, the company said it is targeting increasing margins; however, it stressed it would be tempered with a strong focus on brand, as it continues to invest in boundary-pushing campaigns.
Overall, the business is performing well, increasing profit by 139% in the first half of 2023 to SEK 5,254m (£389.17m).■
Nicola
Coronado
Chief marketing, digital and information officer
Bayer Consumer Health
The consumer healthcare industry isn’t renowned for its creativity, but it’s something which Bayer’s chief marketing, digital and information officer, Patricia Corsi, puts at the forefront of everything she does.
While healthcare marketing is thought of as one of the least creative sectors, it is a category which consumers have great need for and reliance upon, she told Marketing Week. Corsi has made it her mission to redress this “imbalance” and build better relationships with consumers.
The result has been work like ‘The Vagina Academy’ for intimate health brand Canesten, which sought to teach young women about vaginal health in fun and engaging ways online. Corsi commented that even the name Vagina Academy has a “stopping power”.
Through this and other work she is not afraid to push the boundaries. Led by Corsi, Bayer is forging the way for the industry to be more creative and build a better connection with consumers. This connection is seeing it through a tough economic environment, with sales in the first quarter of 2023 up 4%, despite volume declines.■
Patricia
Corsi
Chief marketing transformation officer
PZ Cussons
PZ Cussons is a company which has firmly re-established its commitment to brand-building, after CEO Jonathan Myers admitted that prior to the pandemic it had lost sight of its importance. Andrew Geoghegan was hired as chief marketing transformation officer to remedy this, and over the past two years has completely overhauled its strategy. PZ Cussons now calls itself a “brand building business” so everyone in the company understands the value of marketing.
He has set about overhauling key brands, such as Carex, making it more distinctive through packaging changes and a new platform. This resulted in Carex gaining 2.6 percentage points value in market share. It now has three times the value of its next biggest competitor.
An advocate for the power of marketing both inside and outside PZ Cussons, Geoghegan has been vocal about the industry’s problem with brand building more broadly, writing for Marketing Week about the “crisis” it is facing. He has urged marketers to ensure all functions, not just finance, “understand” the importance of marketing so they can “all pull together in service of a set of outcomes with long- and short-term measures”.■
Andrew
Geoghegan
Katharine
Newby Grant
Andrew
Rawle
Chris
Rodi
Tamara
Rogers
Nikki
Vadera
Marketing director Europe and Australasia
General Mills
An FMCG marketing veteran, Mark Brown took on his current role as marketing director for Europe and Australasia at General Mills at the end of 2021 after more than 10 years at the company.
Thanks in part to Brown’s efforts, General Mills has seen five consecutive years of growth, with the firm’s CEO crediting brand building and innovation for the positive streak, while committing to increase marketing investment going forward.
Innovation is high on the agenda for the company, which launched a new research and development centre for Häagen-Dazs earlier this year as it looks to accelerate the growth of the brand. The company also launched a campaign using real-time search data to create highly relevant content for its Old El Paso brand.
Overall, General Mills reported sales growth of 6% with net sales reaching $20.1bn (£15.8bn) in its latest financial year. Meanwhile, adjusted operating profit was up 8% to $3.46bn (£2.7bn).
Building a team that feels supported and engaged also led General Mills to be certified as a Great Place To Work with 95% of employees saying the company makes people feel welcome.■
Mark
Brown
Ian
McCarthy
new
Senior vice-president of marketing, UK & Ireland
Coty
Under Ian McCarthy’s leadership of marketing at beauty giant Coty, its key cosmetics brands have gone from strength to strength in the UK and Ireland.
Following a repositioning of Max Factor two years ago the brand gained market share in the UK for the first time in years. And it continues to be on an upward trajectory, with Coty’s results for its third quarter showing double-digit sales growth for the brand thanks to “increases in volume, impactful innovations and pricing execution”.
One of these innovations was the relaunch of Max Factor’s 2000 Calorie mascara. Following the introduction of new packaging and a marketing campaign, the revamped product is now the number two mascara in the UK.
This growth is partly a result of continued investment in marketing despite the challenging economic environment, with the business asserting that consumers will continue to buy beauty products as for many they are “non-negotiable”. In the third quarter, marketing investment represented around 27% of sales for the business as a whole, with Coty focusing on return on investment “more than ever”. EMEA sales increased by 7% in the period, while like-for-like sales were up 18%, driven by double-digit growth across most markets.■
Vice-president of beauty care and brand organisation
Procter & Gamble
Since taking the lead on marketing for P&G’s beauty care business in Northern Europe three years ago, Katharine Newby Grant has doubled net sales for the hair, skin and personal care portfolio, taking it from a “declining division to a growth accelerator”.
She has done this through a focus on premium innovation, as well as work to attract new customers. This has led to the development of new campaigns for six of its core brands, including Pantene, Aussie and Herbal Essences.
In addition to transforming its brands, Newby Grant has also been central to efforts to modernise the business and its culture. She has overhauled brand recruitment, training and career planning at the company, as well as leading on its ‘Dare to Lead the Change’ initiative, which encourages marketers to have a growth mindset, based on the core areas of business leadership, brand building and entrepreneurial spirit. According to its internal monitoring, these efforts have led to a 10% rise in engagement, an 18% rise in pride to work at P&G and an 8% increase in growth and development.
Newby Grant is also an ISBA Council Member and leading advocate for safety online.■
Northern Europe marketing director – Nivea
Beiersdorf
Andrew Rawle is a big believer in consistency. Rather than changing approach when the next shiny thing comes along, he says: “When something works so well, the best thing to do is to keep doing it.” He was referring to Nivea launching its eighth ‘Dear Liverpool’ campaign in collaboration with Liverpool Football Club, which focuses on the local community and tallies with Beiersdorf’s efforts to create an inclusive society.
Partnerships of this kind have been key for the brand as it looks to showcase its products and widen appeal. Rawle was behind Nivea’s sponsorship of ITV talent show Starstruck, which sees people impersonate music legends. Its idents focused on the idea of ‘reverse transformation’ to demonstrate its cleansing range. And again showing the power of longevity, Nivea Sun celebrated 10 years of its partnership with Cancer Research UK last year, with Rawle saying the best partnerships are the ones that need “no explanation”.
Rawle is no stranger to consistency in his career too having spent nearly 17 years at Beiersdorf over two stints. He returned from Australia in May last year to take on his current role as Northern Europe marketing director.■
Global brand vice-president for Whiskas
Mars Petcare
An advocate for investing in innovation, even when times are tough, Chris Rodi has been central to developing Mars Petcare’s innovation strategy. Key to this has been shifting its approach to focus on broad trends rather than just thinking about innovation on an individual project level for one brand.
One of the core questions he asks is, “Can I increase the scale of this innovation and make it financially more attractive to drive top line growth?”. This, along with showing how important innovation is to the category, is how he successfully makes the case for investment to the C-suite.
Indeed, driving marketing’s influence within the business is a key ambition for Rodi. From making the case for advertising as revenue driver not cost, to leading beyond content, he has been vocal in the need for marketers to “widen their sphere of influence” and act with a “total enterprise mindset”.
It is thinking like this that led to Rodi being promoted to global brand vice-president for Whiskas in August. Rodi also earned a place on the Marketing Academy's Fellowship.■
CMO
Haleon
It has been a busy 18 months for Tamara Rogers, who heads up marketing at consumer healthcare business Haleon. She was central to the development of the company’s new corporate identity as it rebranded from GSK Consumer Healthcare following the demerger from GlaxoSmithKline in July last year. She told Marketing Week it was a “massive responsibility” but also the “best job ever” to lead on the transformation.
Following the split from GSK – a business reportedly driven by cost efficiency, particularly in marketing and media – Rogers made the call to start reinvesting in brand building as the company looks to drive growth. She has been vocal on the need for marketing to be viewed as a “growth function” within Haleon, with a goal to increase market share “ahead of the competition” now it is listed as its own FTSE 100 company. “I will be judged on our market share. It’s a really clear signal of performance,” she told Marketing Week at the time.
Two-thirds of Haleon’s business, which includes brands such as Panadol and Sensodyne, gained or maintained market share last year. The company also reported a 9.5% rise in adjusted operating profit to £691m for the first quarter of its 2023 financial year.■
Marketing & Digital Director UKI
Henkel
Nikki Vadera’s mission is to build a “global powerhouse” of consumer brands at Henkel. At the end of last year, the FMCG company merged its laundry and home care unit, which is home to brands including Colour Catcher and Bloo, with its beauty care division, which includes Schwarzkopf and Live. Now, in addition to heading up marketing for its laundry and home care brands in the UK, Vadera’s role has expanded to take on responsibility for digital across the merged portfolio. She has said she will act as a “digital bridge” between the two departments.
As well as growing synergies between the teams, Henkel hopes to increase scale and boost recognition of the business among retailers, agencies and the wider industry, she told Marketing Week last year, adding that “greater scale leads to greater investment”.
A thoughtful leader, Vadera has offered as much clarity as possible to her teams during the merger, particularly as the wider macroeconomic environment has created further uncertainty. She has said it’s important to always be mindful of teams’ personal circumstances, so places huge emphasis on skills like “compassion, empathy and awareness”.■
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