Unilever Chief Growth & Marketing Officer On Winning Hearts, Minds—And Machines

Forbes

In this conversation with Esi, we covered a lot of ground but kept coming back to some fundamental truths about desire, reach, engagement, and conversion. Esi’s been a CEO, GM and President and she brings all that and more to our conversation and everything she does as a marketing and growth leader.   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  0:00 - Introduction: Why Marketing & General Management Are the Same 2:48 - Desirability: From Luxury Goods to Fabric Softener 5:04 - The Difference Between Desire and Preference 8:26 - The 'Naked Bottle Dance': Adding Value to a Commodity 11:30 - How to Measure Desirability & Brand Value 14:04 - The Old Marketing Funnel is Dead: Welcome to the 'Many-to-Many' Model 17:09 - The Two Fundamental Questions for Every Marketer 18:24 - The Power of Consistency: Lessons from Dove's 20-Year Campaign 20:49 - How to Explain Marketing to Your CEO 24:02 - Marketing vs. Selling: What's the Difference Today? 28:50 - How to Build Brands at Scale in a Social Media World 32:53 - Why We're Betting Big on the Creator Economy 36:31 - Marketing in the Age of AI: Capturing Hearts & Machines 40:20 - Why 'Growth' Belongs in the CMO Title  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00All right, so AC, I just want to get into it because it's too early o'clock here in Los Angeles

00:12for this recording. But first, thank you for being with me. So look, the legend that is Warren

00:20Buffett has said that being an investor has made him a better chief executive and being a CEO made

00:27him a better investor and kind of thinking about that, keeping it in mind and noting that unlike a

00:34lot of chief marketing officers, you've been a general manager, a president and a CEO, in fact.

00:40And so I'm wondering with Buffett's quote in mind, how being a CEO and GM has shaped your perspective

00:47and your actions as a CMO and maybe vice versa, too. Yeah, you know, for me, marketing is about

00:55growth. And you see it in the title of my name. Yeah, we're going to get into that. Hold that

01:00thought. No, but really, marketing is about growth. So I actually don't see the distance between

01:06marketing and general management. What I've always set out to do in running a business is figure out

01:11how to create value and grow my brand in a differentiated way. And so what do you have

01:16to do to do that? You have to understand people. And then in doing that, you use those insights to

01:23create desirability for your brand. You're finding a way based on those insights to position your

01:31product or service in a way that is unique and compelling relative to the whole set.

01:36And then you do that, you create the desire for your brand. And ultimately, that creates growth

01:42and value for your business. So as a general manager, a brand manager, an executive, you know,

01:49I started out, I've been 35 years in this business. And I've only been a year and a half as a chief

01:55marketing officer, chief marketing officer. And I've always started with who is the consumer

02:03that I am selling to? And what do I need to do to make sure my brand stands out so that I can sell and

02:14grow the brand and the business based on that? You know, the other thing I would say is I never

02:19set out to be a marketer. I was an engineer. Is that right? Yes, I started as an engineer. I went to

02:25Dartmouth College, studied engineering and pre-med. And why I did that, you know, I thought I was going

02:33to be an MD, PhD in biomedical engineering. But what I learned about myself is I'm a problem solver.

02:38I love people. I'm deeply curious about people. And I love solving problems. And so the other thing

02:45about marketing or CPG, general management, it's about, again, understanding people, solving people

02:52problems. So you can solve business problems, which the business problem is always how do you grow?

02:59So there's so much in that I want to, I want to unpack actually. And but I'm going to start maybe

03:05with just a one off piece of what you said, because you use the word desirability, which

03:10I love. And of course, that is the means to the end of growth. What I was struck by when you use the

03:18word, what I immediately went to was, that's a word you often hear from luxury goods. Like

03:25Arnaud talks about, Bernard Arnaud talks about driving desirability across the maison of the

03:32LVM and brands and the LVMH portfolio. So the dissonance, if you will, the tension between kind

03:40of using the same word for luxury goods and CPG really leapt out at me. And so we talk about

03:49the category a little bit and where you think desirability inside CPG comes from. And if it's

03:57different than luxury, maybe it's exactly the same, you know, rooted in exactly the same

04:01human characteristics.

04:06So let's first start with what is desire. Desire is that unconscious urge that makes you feel

04:15I just have to have that. Desire. So is that a luxury concept only? I say absolutely not.

04:26You know, luxury uses it because it's about an elevate, elevated experience and almost creating

04:35scarcity as the means of desirability. Yeah. And CPG, it's desire at scale, which is the balance

04:44of this rational function form. Marketing is about the art and the science, the form, the

04:51foundation, and it's elevating it to desirability. But why am I using the word desirability?

04:56You know, the marketplace is changing like never before. The digital age, the social age,

05:05the AI age, it creates more competition. Anyone can have a business. You have to elevate your

05:11game. There's so much. The consumer attention span, what, 1.3 seconds? It relates to content.

05:17So you've got a moment to make an impression. To make that impression, given all that we're

05:23doing, it's that unconscious feeling, emotion is what's elevating the game. So, you know, I've been

05:32very focused on changing the marketing model by elevating the brand. And elevating the brand,

05:42because we're talking about what is marketing, is in creating that non-conscious desire for my product,

05:50which is relevant for fabric softener, body wash, beauty products, not just luxury handbags.

05:58How would you differentiate between desire and preference?

06:09We just said, sorry, go ahead.

06:11I think about needs, wants, desires. You asked about preferences. Preferences are more in the space

06:22of needs and wants. I need something, I prefer this other. It is more rational.

06:30Yeah. Why do I like the performance of this laundry detergent versus the other? Or I like the taste.

06:38The desire, again, is not rational. It's, that's what I identify with. That's what I want to have.

06:46It can lead to, when you have to rationalize it, a preference, but it's more emotive.

06:53Why does that matter? So, in this field, like to a CEO, why does that matter? When you create

06:58desirability, you earn a premium. When you earn a premium, you can deliver a richer product experience

07:04and you can create more value for your business. So, you know, I've been trying to move beyond the

07:10basics of marketing, which are critical. You know, I should say, always say, I talk about everything

07:17and nothing changing in marketing. The nothing, it's the fundamentals of understanding what a consumer

07:24needs and then using the six Ps, pricing, positioning, packaging, product, placement, to meet that need

07:32with your brand. But that's the basics. That's kind of the entry point. The desire is the elevation.

07:39And in terms of desire, what are the tools that elevate? It's superior science. It's like, in my business,

07:45it's incredible technology that's differentiating. It's not just the product function. It's aesthetics.

07:51It's sensorials. It's other people talking about your brand. It's capturing your heart. We say young

07:57at heart. We use this model called Sassy that encompasses all that. But the point is there's this

08:05floor, needs, wants, preferences. And then there's this richer, elevated experience that makes me, like,

08:13look at that painting, like, ooh, do I prefer it to what's in my home? I desire it. Like, I like more.

08:19Well, you do have a strong wallpaper game happening. So I want to be clear about that.

08:24Thank you. Thank you.

08:26So it's really, I mean, I started my career in CPG, right? As some in the audience know, I was the third

08:36person in the marketing department in the United States for Avion when nobody really understood

08:42why they needed to buy a bottle of water, right? This is that long ago, right? Bottled water as a

08:48category was jugs, right? Kind of office coolers. And so we were creating a category and we were doing

08:56it at a super premium price. And one of the things that I would do a lot when I was talking

09:01to retailers in particular, to external audiences, I called it the naked bottle dance because about

09:07a year after we launched and we're having wild, we didn't launch, launch in the US, and we're having

09:12such wild success, there were a thousand competitors on the shelves, literally a thousand, mostly

09:18regional brands, almost exclusively regional brands. We were one of the few national ones, but

09:23everybody in a pretty similar package, right? Which is say the same bottle. And so what I would do to

09:30kind of make, I think the point you're making is I would put all those different packages up, but I

09:37would have taken the labels off, including on us and then, you know, great reveal marketing theater. I'd hold

09:43up our label and explain that our job was to add enough value and desire to that mark, to that logo, to that

09:51label, that when we wrapped it around this bottle, and while the water was different, the bottle was the

09:57same product difference, packaging similarity, it commanded the premium. But I'll be honest, like, and I'm

10:05kind of challenging my own thinking, I don't think I've ever thought about desire as relates, preference for

10:12sure, but desire and desirability, as relates to fabric softener, as one example, soap, where you have so much

10:20history, and its extensions. It's really interesting, and struck by the fact that it hasn't occurred to me

10:29before. And what's desirability, the brain, that unconscious urge, what makes you want to have

10:39something? I have to have that. Fabric softener, the sensorials, the smell, it reminds me of home.

10:47There's this belonging, this yearning. We've coded different areas. What does your brain want?

10:53Trust, trust, belonging, pleasure, and that's fabric softener. It makes a difference.

11:03So you're speaking to a theme that's cut across a lot of the show, and I want you to kind of open

11:12the aperture on it. What you're talking about, and have talked about since we started, is kind of

11:17the reality that while decisions are rationalized at the end, they're almost always, no matter what

11:25the decision is, fabric softener, cloud computing contract, made for subconscious and emotional

11:32reasons, and then rationalized. That is just the architecture of the human brain, right? That is how

11:39we buy. But it isn't oftentimes what we're able to measure. So what would your counsel be to a CMO

11:48working in a category that perhaps is less historically marketing oriented than CPG, about how

11:56they measure for, explain to, rationalize to their CEO, CFO, and board why that desirability,

12:06which plays to, again, things that are hard to measure matter so much, and how you can know if

12:12you're succeeding? Yeah. The measure for desirability to me is brand value. So if I look at a company like

12:21even Apple, do I desire that? It comes from design. That's not traditionally a marketing department.

12:28The value of the brand comes from these desirable elements. So I measure that through brand power.

12:34It's brand attractiveness. When I think about the business, what I want to do, you know,

12:40marketing, again, is all about the desirability of your brand so that you create demand and then you

12:49grow your business and you create value from that business. And when your brand is desirable,

12:57it has increasing value. Yes, for sure. Then you invest behind that brand to drive reach,

13:04engagement, and conversion. You measure through brand power, but you also measure through how much

13:11you have to invest to get that engagement and conversion. The strength of your brand or the

13:17product that you're offering, the actual less you have to invest to get that conversion.

13:23So the in-process measures like brand power, and then output metrics like conversion,

13:34engagement that drive the sales. I also very much like to measure sales growth attributed to,

13:43you know, your media and content investment, help you understand how much desirability you have

13:51of the brand and the content that you're using to communicate that brand.

13:56How do you separate and kind of in that moment, let's just use content and content's role in

14:04driving that conversion. As you're looking at whether, let's just make it about a TVC for the

14:09moment, right? Just, you know, a super tactical example and limited enough that we can talk about it.

14:15When you look at how that spot worked, what it converted, recognizing TVC may be upper funnel

14:22typically and less about conversion, but just play along with me if you will. How do you separate

14:29the efficacy of brand in that moment from whether the creative was good?

14:33So I'm going to answer a kind of a different question because I think what's really important

14:46is thinking that the understanding that the model has changed. So when you talk about a TVC,

14:52the old world that we all grew up with, for me, 35 years ago, was a broadcast model, which was one

15:00message, broadcasted to many people. It is now a many-to-many model to get the reach,

15:08engagement, and conversion you need. It's lots of other people communicating your brand to lots of

15:13other people. So the desirability and the engagement of the brand, when you say ask about the effectiveness

15:19of the TV ad, is fundamental in that many-to-many. To get people to talk about your brand, your brand

15:28itself needs to have the desirability, and then the content that is communicating that brand. Other

15:35people talking about your brand, or if it's your own direct content. So when you asked about the TVC

15:42ad, how do you know if it's the strength of the brand or the strength of the communication?

15:46You can measure your brand power, and you can also measure creative effectiveness. You can look at

15:52your brand across different creative types to see the relative impact. So you can see if it's,

15:59you know, what comes first, the chicken or the egg. To have compelling content, you need a desirable

16:05brand, and effective, compelling, engaging content can help make your brand more desirable as well.

16:14So it's an interesting question. You can parse it with certain measures. You can ask certain

16:21questions, the brand, the content, to figure out what's driving what, but you really do need to look

16:26at them in combination.

16:28Is there, is, is there, are there one or two fundamental questions that you ask of everything

16:34that you and your teams do?

16:38Um, I like to think about how much reach, engagement, and conversion you get. That that's

16:47a fundamental for me in any many to many communication model. That's one. Two, outside of the model to

16:59have a desirable, to create desire, you need a desire proposition. So I'd like to ask, what is your

17:07differentiated desirable brand position? Those things together, the desirable brand proposition,

17:16plus your model for communication, as I mentioned, reach, engagement, and conversion are the two

17:23fundamentals that I look for.

17:25I don't, I want to get, I want to say something just so I remember it later. So help me remember

17:32this because we're going to talk, you all have made a, a massive commitment to creators and the

17:37creator economy and using them to drive. And I think I'm quoting you from something I saw on

17:42LinkedIn desirability at scale. But I'm still struck by your use of the word reach in this moment and

17:50wondering if, um, to your point about kind of, you know, the, the change from, uh, when you and I

17:56started our careers, mass markets still existed, right? Scale was easy to get, um, with a television

18:03commercial. Now it is not with the exception of basically the Superbowl. Um, when you think about

18:11reach, do you have different kind of, uh, quant benchmarks for what that means across different

18:18channels? We need broad scale reach. Um, so we measure reach the same, uh, right. Is it the whole

18:36is equal to the sum of its parts? Yeah. It's how many people you reach with your message. That doesn't

18:42change. How you reach is what changes. You can, you no longer can reach the audience that you need

18:50because there's no captive linear broadcast model anymore. You know, we've got CTV. We have all the

18:59social platforms. We have people that don't even engage in the social platforms that might be an

19:06engaging in an LLM or a search tool. So the way we deliver reach has to change. And that's where that

19:12many to many model come in, but reach is not enough. You can reach people and not get attention

19:18because there's so much competition. You can even reach them, get attention and have it not convert

19:22because you know, that's the mimetic economy, right? Which is. And it's not differentiated.

19:28Yeah. And so that's the first thing of making sure your brand is wired, design for desire and

19:33execute for desire and design for desire. It starts fundamentally with what is your message

19:40that is relevant. It's true to where your brand has been. You can never, uh, there's no substitute

19:47for consistency and not a lot of people realize that, you know, you think in today's world,

19:52culture is moving so fast. I have to keep changing. That is true, but you change off of an area of

19:58consistency that drives engagement. I think about dove 20 years of the campaign for real beauty.

20:04Since we launched it, the business has grown three times, three times in terms of sales and we take

20:10real beauty and we keep bringing it to life in different ways, in different ways, which is,

20:15you know, where we ended up with such success at Cannes this year, which was, you know, great to see

20:20with, um, a titanium for 20 years. And it was so creating a self-esteem movement, but consistency is

20:27another way that you can drive reach and more engagement if it's re-imagined in a way that cuts

20:33through. So with, with all of this, let me ask a hypothetical, right? Which is, um, I want to take

20:45Unilever for the moment. You're now, you're now the chief marketing and growth officer at Acme Widget

20:51Company and Acme's, Acme's CEO. You're a fortune 500 company, or as we like to say here, a Forbes

20:582000 company plus 1500. Um, and your CEO comes to you and says, I don't really understand marketing,

21:05but I want to. What are the first things you're going to talk to them about? Like what, as you look

21:12at the world and I know you do because of your curiosity and your intellect and you, you see so many CEOs,

21:21around the world, struggling to understand marketing, what do you think kind of the

21:26fundamentals that in this world of, of, you know, where there's a balance between what's staying

21:31the same and what may be changing, you'd want them to know in that first conversation.

21:36The first conversation is marketing is about creating demand for your brand.

21:42You know, I, I keep saying it's desire for your brand, the different language that you can use.

21:46It's fundamentally about creating demand for your brand. We all understand what sales is.

21:52It's selling the brand. This is creating your customer's desire for your brand. That is

21:58fundamental. And that's why we invest in marketing. Now to do that, how do you create demand for the

22:06brand? It's Drucker's comment on the, you know, purpose of a business is to create a customer. You have

22:11to understand who that customer is that the brand matters to. And then in that you come up with the

22:21way that your brand with clarity stands out. And then you invest in different ways, earned or paid to make

22:32sure that audience is aware of your brand. That's the piece that has changed where people are and what

22:43tools you use to make people aware and interested in your brand have just exploded between social

22:52platforms through AI to get the insights from people, to help create content, to find the right

22:59creators that best bring your brand to life. So very fundamentally, CEOs like, why do I need

23:07marketing? It's because you have something to sell. You wouldn't be in business if you didn't have

23:13anything to sell. And it's the fundamental way that you create demand for that thing you're selling

23:19relative to the other options.

23:22You know, it's your, your point, your reference to, you know, the CEO or the CFO who might say,

23:31why do I need marketing makes me think of, of, um, a data point. I quote a lot and it's,

23:37it's like five years old at this point. Um, but, and I think it is actually relevant specifically to the

23:43category in which you play, but that, um, 84% of searches on Amazon, um, are by product category, not

23:51by brand. And I don't know how that's gone up or down in the last, um, period of time since I first sourced

23:58it. Um, I probably should look into that. I will. Um, I've long thought of that as a reflection on brand,

24:05right. Which is right. The brands don't have enough desirability speaking broadly, painting with a broad

24:12brush, um, because the work is commoditized and boring and the world is difficult, blah, blah, blah.

24:18It was actually only this morning when I was doing some quick prep for our, um, for our conversation

24:24that I'm like, that's as much oftentimes a reflection on product, which is to say that the product isn't

24:32differentiated enough speaking broadly, not about your portfolio, of course, that the product isn't

24:38differentiated enough that it actually matters. And I'm wondering, I'm wondering with all of that

24:44said, right. Because when the products are good enough, right. Product or service for that matter,

24:49brand matters more than ever, right. Because that becomes the differentiator, right. And it's not

24:55whether, you know, I prefer the smell of lemon to the smell of roses, right. But all things being

25:01equal efficacy, equal brand matters. Um, and so with that said, and you talked about, you talked

25:09about marketing and selling, what, what do you think the difference is? Cause I think, I think,

25:15well, there's some functional differences within a global enterprise like yours. Marketing's job is to

25:21sell, right. The demand that you're talking about, the desire you've talked about, that's just to sell

25:27more product. So when you differentiate between marketing and selling, where do you see the

25:34difference and distinction? I see marketing as a sales tool, but it's also a positioning tool.

25:41You know, selling, I often think it's a sales force selling a product into a retailer,

25:47where it's a sales force, uh, persuading someone more functionally

25:54to buy their product. They get it on the shelf, you get it off the shelf.

25:59Right. That's a way to look at it. Marketing is what creates the demand without actively selling,

26:08and then you convert it into the sale. So it is a sales tool where you create draw.

26:14And, uh, the other thing I would say, the data you shared on Amazon, and I've seen some data about

26:21that shifting and it's the impact of social media. When you, there's something you see on TikTok,

26:27the TikTok makes you buy it. You don't search the product category. You search that thing.

26:33That thing is usually that brand, that product. That's the ultimate in desirability.

26:38What is changing in the world that we grew up in is the greater emphasis on earn than paid.

26:47Yeah. And when we have to raise the bar on what our brands do and the power of marketing,

26:53which by the way, for a CEO also drives efficiency, it drives growth and efficiency,

26:57is how do you earn it? And that's not just selling, it's earning it because there's something.

27:04And I, I almost want to apologize. I keep using the word desirability. You're attracted to it. You

27:10desire it. You want to have it. And that comes from something that is just irresistible. An aesthetic

27:17you see. You talked about product performance, something that's really differentiated. You think

27:22about in beauty, there's a technology that you know will make a difference. Even on cleaning surfaces,

27:28there's a probiotic clean that's safer for you. You're vested in that thing. There's an addictive

27:35sensorial experience. Your friends are talking about it, not just your friends, but the people

27:42that you admire. That's what marketing does that sales doesn't do, especially today is earn. It's earn

27:50that desire. You earn the impression, which means you can actually invest less and pay because other

27:57people are advocates are selling your brand for you, which creates more views for content.

28:07The machine can work on our behalf. So marketing is much more sophisticated. And I would say distance

28:14from just selling, that's the output. It's creating the demand. Then it's converting that demand into the

28:21sell and the purchase. Yeah, I think, you know, when I was beginning my career, my father, who was also

28:27a marketer, said to me, marketing is what facilitates the sale. It's what facilitates and drives the

28:35transaction. And so kind of I've always, you know, collapsed the two. You know, what you bring up kind of,

28:44you know, in terms of, of using TikTok as, as a reference, um, you know, speaks to the collapse of

28:50the funnel. Absolutely. The traditional quote unquote consumer journey, um, from not knowing who

28:57the fuck you are to loving you forever. Um, but it also goes back, I think to a lot of what you were

29:03talking about up front, which is why we buy and the nature of why we buy. Well, fundamentally

29:07is the same in a world where, where there's less trust of traditional institutions and I'll put

29:16companies in there. And while they have probably higher trust, they do have higher trust in government,

29:20for example, there's less trust in them than there used to be. Um, that peer to peer social proof

29:27that I believe Sally more than I believe Acme only becomes more important, but then it raises the

29:34question of how in that world do we build brands with scale? Um, right. Which is, yeah. Yeah. I think

29:47that's the point to build brands at scale is that you said a few things, one about the collapse of

29:53the funnel. So let me comment on that. Uh, and I really do believe the funnel is dead or has been

29:59collapsed because in today's environment, every moment is a chance to build a brand.

30:04And every moment is a chance to earn a conversion. Every single, every half a second,

30:12you know, brands are created every day because of, you know, what they're able to do with content

30:21and social today. So every moment, so we can't say, well, there's upper funnel, we're building great

30:27awareness and brand equity. And then we go down to the funnel. People are in the moment of convenience

30:33and wanting to buy now and the tools allow us to do that. So I think we have to raise what we expect

30:38from our content and communication that even in what was considered lower funnel content that you

30:44can build the brand in that and have loads of examples of where we are building the brand with

30:49retail media content. We're building the brand and in what you might think is more traditional content

30:57that it is converting. Um, so, so that's one thing. The, the second thing you talked about was at scale.

31:06I think that's a, uh, a new way we have to think these social platforms are scaled today.

31:16So that's how we build the brand at scale. We have, we build the brand with bespoke audiences.

31:25We identify the pieces that are consistent across the brand that are non-negotiable. And then we

31:32want to call them, adapt them, personalize them for the audience and the platform. These platforms

31:38drive scale. 65% of people today are on social media and that's growing. In the past six months,

31:46there were 200, um, there were, what was that? 200,000 added. Actually, no, I think my stats are

31:55off 200 million added since the beginning of the year in social media. So it's continuing to grow

32:02that 65% is going to be 85%. It's going to be 90%. So the only way we can build our brand at scale

32:08is to use the diversity of the platforms. But the thing that's different when we say scale,

32:14what it does not mean is one size fits all. You still need the integrity, the consistency of the

32:20brand, what dove stands for, what does it look like? What does act stand for? What are the cues?

32:24It's black. It has an irreverent personality. We have cues, but we adapt it for those different

32:29audiences and the different platforms. So it's relevant for the communities.

32:33It's kind of a channel specific take on the old axiom, you know, uh, think globally,

32:39act locally. Um, and, and yet I wonder, which I don't buy that anymore. That's the old local

32:46think global act local, I think has changed. Yeah. What do you think? What's it changed to?

32:50I think it is, uh, act local scale global, like it's local wins hearts. Global wins business.

33:02It's local, local, local today. Are we talking metaphorically or literally geographically?

33:11Cause I'll have a followup question depending upon it. I say both. So, but, but I mean, by the way,

33:20it's not that I disagree with you because I don't, but my question is, if you're not thinking

33:26metaphorically, if you're not thinking globally, which is to say what that brand means around the

33:35world, what that product prop, what problems that product or service solves for people around the

33:41world, and then adapting it to geographic, cultural, individual nuance and desires, right?

33:49Or the things that might drive desire, where are you starting from, right? How do you find the

33:55consistency you've talked so much about if you are starting with the micro rather than the macro?

34:02I don't, um, so maybe it's a bit on language. You have a brand proposition that is consistent

34:08globally. It has to be expressed in a way that's local. Why I talk about, I don't buy local anymore is

34:16we, that forces us to think about how we deploy a brand in the market instead of the other way

34:23around, which is what is the local market need? And then how do we build that brand locally based on

34:30its overall value proposition? And so maybe that is semantic. What we see, what we used to think is

34:37how do I take this? And this is a debatable point. My brand means X. Let me give you an example on

34:45Tresemme. I'm going to give you, um, we launched an anti-frizz product with, uh, an influencer called

34:54Batania. It was very, very local. The local team came up with Batania. Uh, she has a big expressive

35:02full hair that you might call frizzy. She says, there's no way I'm using this. I'm a little

35:09envious, but, but go on. She says, there's no way great product, but not for me. I'm not using

35:15this product because she has this iconic, I almost want to call it an Afro, but it's not quite an Afro.

35:22She engages with another Tresemme influencer has straight, perfect, precise hair and they go viral

35:28millions and millions based on this local conversation. This wasn't a global idea that

35:34was driven in the market. The framework of the brand anti-frizz, the cues of the brand that was

35:40there. That's the big overarching brand promise, but the execution, the campaign itself, the story

35:49was born from the market. But in that there are examples across the world and that are, but Tanya

35:55might be from Brazil, but this dialogue that can happen between, uh, and, uh, someone that says,

36:02I refuse to use that product because I like my big hair and someone that has straight hair, that's

36:07relevant across multiple markets. So what you want to do is act local and then scale global.

36:15But what you were asking is, do you build your brand in itself local? That I would say it depends

36:22in the U S brands travel. So you build the brand in the U S and you often get desire for that brand in

36:30other places. So if you start with how do I build a global brand, you have trade-offs. So it depends

36:36on the scale of the market. Can you build a brand, um, just for one market? So I think we're probably

36:44saying the same thing. I'm just emphasizing the importance of local insight today and the ability

36:51to create local scale because of the new ecosystem of technology and social, you're able to connect

36:58in a way that, and engage in a way that wasn't possible in the past.

37:04It's a perfect segue to a, um, a more tactical question, but one with, I think, massive strategic

37:11implications. So, you know, Gary V is amongst others, you know, who says, and I think he's absolutely

37:20right. Social media is really by and large, not so social anymore, right? It's all algorithmic.

37:25We're, we're less, it's less a friend graph than, and even maybe sometimes situationally, depending

37:31upon your utilization of it, even an interest graph than it is just like, what's capturing my attention

37:36in the moment. And then the algorithm just keeps feeding the echo chamber. So I want to put a pin in

37:44that, refer back to the need and, and, you know, to scale globally, right? Act local and scale global

37:52is the perfect segue here back to what I referenced before, which is Unilever's massive commitment to

38:00creators, right? And I think, I think, um, uh, your investment in creators, um, has grown and is intended

38:10to grow exponentially year over year. And so I'm wondering, um, a few things, why, what the why

38:19says about how you all are looking at the nature of marketing today, how brands are built, desire

38:26created products and services sold and importantly tomorrow. Um, and then I'll ask some questions along

38:35the way I know. Yeah. The creator choice starts back from how the world is changing and what we need

38:43to do. Unilever has, uh, 400 brands. We're at 190 markets. We identify 30 of those as power brands. You

38:53know, we're a 60 billion euro revenue company. So we have big scaled brands. So scale is important to us and

39:01building our brands are important. The creator model is all about shifting what I spoke about before

39:09to a new way of driving reach engagement and conversion and the old way where we had paid

39:16media and we broadcast it to lots of people aren't delivering, no longer working in delivering reach

39:23engagement and conversion because now everyone has a phone. Everyone from Indonesia to India, to the U S

39:31have aspirations of what the world looks like and they see others and they, and engage with others.

39:39What you started with, what Gary V and O is, is true is in the early days of social, it was around

39:46connecting with our friends. Now it's around engaging in content that, and the creators have their

39:54communities who are sharing content. So creators are all about this many to many model. They create

40:04content. You have hero mega influencers or creators, and then you have nano influencers or creators that

40:12are sharing content with their tribe. That's the idea of a creator and influencer in every zip code. You

40:19have big cut through creativity that people are engaging with on social, and then you've got local

40:25relevant community leaders. It's like the old word of mouth, if you will, that are making that content

40:32relevant for the customized communities and audiences. You know, I referred earlier to, and I can't remember

40:42if we were talking specifically about a linear and broadcast model, but I referred earlier to the

40:47challenge of, you know, there really is no scale anywhere except the Super Bowl. Regardless of the

40:54context in which we were talking about half an hour ago, today creators, some of them anyway, are really

41:01what broadcast media used to be, which is say across channels, within channels, they can have a fan base's

41:08communities of 100 million, 500 million. Look at Mr. Beast. I mean, it's, it's, it's just, but Mr. Beast is,

41:19is, is, you know, one of some, one of many, not perhaps so many. And, and they really are the new

41:26mass media. Um, and I keep, I keep coming back in my head throughout our conversation to something Phil

41:34Knight said back in, back when there was mass media, Phil Knight, of course, the, the founder

41:38of Nike, and I think he's chair of the board now. Um, and he was talking about, I think somebody

41:44questioned him on why, why they spent so much money to put Michael Jordan in commercials when

41:49they were Nike, excuse me. And he's like 30 seconds isn't much time to tell the story, but when you have

41:56Michael Jordan, you don't need much time, right? Which is the quick metaphor, the quick cue, the quick,

42:02uh, uh, uh, vehicle to capture attention and creators seem different channels, different times,

42:10different, different world, um, to be a reflection of that, uh, today. Would you, would you agree with it?

42:20Largely. Yeah, go ahead. Tell me, tell me where you don't agree.

42:23Um,

42:26I think connectivity and relevance is really important. You have creators that have big

42:35audiences. I think them alone are insufficient. The power come from a big creator connected to

42:44someone that you really trust. It's the new virality. Uh, I'll give you a, um, Superbowl Kendrick.

42:52Let's call him a creator. He's a massive, incredible creator. Everyone's engaged in that content. So

42:59that's the, yes, I largely agree. What makes that content continue to go viral and is still

43:05Superbowl is what in February and it's August and is still relevant. It's because a local YouTuber

43:12is commenting on something that's happening in culture. Now that is connected to something Kendrick

43:18did. And then, you know, my son is following that local YouTuber. So I really agree with what you said

43:26in terms of the creator is like the new celebrity. And I think our model is such that you can't just

43:34stop with that push content. It's connecting it to your local passion point through your view. So that

43:42content on Kendrick isn't just about the music. It's about some other cultural element that someone

43:48might connect to. You could even connect that content to cooking something that's inspired and

43:54you've seen creators do that. So I agree with what you're saying. I would just add that proximity

43:59point. You should talk about Unilever getting that proximity is what gets us the scale, gets us the

44:06engagement, and then also gets us the conversion because we connect in with the retailer based on

44:12a lot of times that local perspective. So I want to ask one big question that may be too big for

44:22the time we have left, but I'm going to try it anyway. And then ask you a couple of quick answer

44:29questions. The big question, and I've been thinking about this nonstop and all I do is think about it.

44:36I don't have a point of view on it yet. If we imagine, still to be borne out, but if we imagine a

44:47moment when bots are buying from bots, the agentic era, if we think that that is coming and it will

44:57come differently in different categories, if brands have been built to create an emotional connection,

45:05engagement, reaction, and then a tangible behavioral action, right? If emotion has been kind of at the

45:15heart of that desire, and of course it is, in an agentic era, are you thinking about how you translate

45:24the things that, the emotional things that make up desire to a functionally driven world where the bot

45:31may not certainly today be able to kind of parse emotional differentiation?

45:39I think it's such an important question, so much so my talk at Cannes centered on this.

45:45If marketing in the past was about capturing hearts and minds, I really believe marketing in the future

45:54is about capturing hearts and machines. I think about the machine as an audience.

46:03We think about the human audiences and their machine audiences, and they're different drivers of those

46:09machine audiences based on the algorithms. Each LLM has a different driver. It's called share of model.

46:18You know, the Gemini is fed by YouTube. You know, Rufus is fed by Amazon. So there are different

46:25characteristics that come through. To win in the future, we've got to win the machine audience.

46:31So you're asking, what does it take to win the machine audience? There's data and insights that help us

46:37understand where we need to show up, what we do with our websites, what platforms we invest in like

46:42Reddit with their partnership with OpenAI, what other platforms of publications of authority.

46:50All of that is understandable, hackable. The same way we think about a human or an audience or community,

46:58we understand what they need, what drives. So we have to think about the machine as an audience. I think

47:03it's really, really important. Your second part of the question was about emotion and how do we think

47:07about that? I think if your brand doesn't matter to people, hasn't had that emotional resonance,

47:16it's getting relegated to a machine. It's getting relegated. The more you can, you resonate

47:23emotionally, the more you can bypass the machine and ultimately feed the machine because the machines

47:29are smart. They know what people want. So in the space of desirability, I do think desire is the

47:34antidote to help win hearts and machines. But there's also some science in ensuring that we win

47:44those machines too. I really, I mean, you've, in a second, excuse me, given my thinking clarity,

47:54I want to go. So thank you for that. And I'd love to see your canned speech, send it to me.

47:59Um, if you would, I want to go back though, to, to kind of the tools of translating for hacking

48:07machines. Right. And of course, you know, there's how you codify X and how you, um, rank within Y,

48:14how do you differentiate then in the mind of the machine? Um, like, are there, are there,

48:24because you'll, or is that hacking the machine, the, uh, how you differentiate, which is say,

48:30if your brand is differentiated, if your product is differentiated as you, you know, in, in the

48:36physical world, right. And in the mind of the human, the codification of, and the hacking of the

48:42machine just continues that different. I don't know that my question is making sense because

48:48it's not well formed in my brain. I think it is. Um, it's, it's a very astute point because

48:57there's a consumer person that we have as a business owners or marketers, we have a view of

49:04what our brand stands for. When you talk to a human, they might have a different view of what your

49:10brand stands for. When you talk to a machine, they have a range of views of what your brand stands

49:15for based on where they're feeding from to understand your brand. So you have to build your

49:22brand with those machines in the same way you do with people by understanding where they're feeding

49:28from, what you're saying and articles, because some of those articles are earned. So there's as,

49:34if as much effort, if not more to set up, how to feed those machines. Now, how, what do you start

49:43versus just listening? You get insights and use tools to see what they're playing back today. And

49:48those machines are continually changing. So it's a, um, it's a, uh, it's, it's a work in progress for us

49:57all as the LLMs develop in their sophistication, more searches are done, but the way I'd like to

50:04think about it is the new search, the same way we hack search and we want to be ranked in the one,

50:12two, three position. So same thing that's going to happen for LLM. And we'll keep learning how we

50:18have the brand positioning that we want through those LLMs and what resonates in the same way we do

50:25with humans. I find it fascinating. It's what keeps you sharp on your toes as marketers, but net, you

50:32know, we just can't forget fundamentally, why do we care about any of this stuff? We don't get caught

50:37up in these tools. What we're trying to do is create demand for our brands through people and

50:43understand where people are and how to reach them, how to engage with them and how to ultimately convert

50:49that engagement into a cell. And now it's more complex and we have more tools to master to sort

50:57out how to do that and make sure our brands are positioned, uh, in a compelling differentiated and

51:04a desirable way. So you and I are going to talk more about this. Uh, I've just decided, I hope you're

51:10with me on stage at the Forbes Europe, uh, CMO summit in London in November, because it's a conversation

51:18that deserves more time than we have. Contrary to what I said about asking you a couple of quick

51:24questions. I'm going to ask you one last question that brings us back to almost the first thing you

51:29said, your title is chief marketing and growth officer given everything you've said about the

51:37role of marketing, right? Which is to drive growth. Why the bifurcation of the title? Why, why have we

51:44gotten to a place where growth at a macro level where growth isn't implicit in the CMOs title? Do you

51:51think? I think it deserves the double click to, from a Unilever perspective, we are resetting that

52:01brands are going to be at the core of our growth strategy, not even strategy at the core of our

52:10growth. Cause what we do is we sell brands and because of that marketing will be at the source.

52:16There's so many other elements you could choose that would not be the right choice to grow. You

52:23could say the frontline sales machine organization, you could say optimizing our product mix to create

52:31more efficiency is going to be the source of our value creation. So having growth in our,

52:38and the marketing title goes back to reinforce that creating desire for our brands is at the core of

52:46the growth strategy. So an important redundancy. I really love that. And it sounds, if I interpret

52:51it right, that it's as much a signal to the organization or Pat, more of a signal to the

52:57organization and your ecosystem than it is a reflection of anything more broadly. And, and it's,

53:05you know, I've kind of an, yeah, I'm going to end there and that's it. And the expectation that we

53:11have of marketing is growth. We can get obsessed with, you know, metrics that I even talked about

53:17engagement, et cetera. They're all working towards. They'll have a consequence or they don't. And the

53:22consequence is either growth or it's not. Um, thank you so much for being with me. This is an amazing

53:29conversation. Um, it could have kept going, but we are at time. And so to our listeners and our

53:37watchers, thank you for listening and watching. Um, always in the show, the same way, smash that

53:43subscribe button, give it five stars. If you thought it deserved it. And please, uh, leave a review

53:48because that's how others like you who might be interested in learning from the wit and wisdom

53:53of our guests, like AC will find the show. Thanks so much for being with us. Bye everyone. Thank you

53:59for having me. Thanks.

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