I’ve always been a proud advocate, supporter and servant to the FMCG sector, and particularly so – with a degree of smugness – about its marketing excellence. The sector is home to some of the best and most ubiquitous marketing campaigns, from ‘Got Milk?’ in the 1980s to Cadbury’s drumming gorilla and Dove’s recent ‘reverse selfie’ campaign. But in the last year, my unshakable confidence has been tested. Perhaps most tellingly, when I reflect on the shortlist candidates featured in our most recent CMO searches in the sector, we are finding that more than 50% are from outside of the sector, typically with experience leading more digitally-versed omnichannel operations.
Slightly reluctantly, I have to ask: how valid is FMCG’s claim to world domination in marketing in 2022?
As customer expectations change and technology develops, chief marketing officers in FMCG have been facing a raft of new challenges and opportunities that have brought the very CMO title itself into question for a number of years. Over the past month, I’ve sat down with global CMOs, both in and outside of FMCG, to explore the current landscape and take a poll on what are their biggest priorities at the moment.
The first consideration for CMOs is influencer marketing. Leveraging the audience of public figures has long been a winning strategy for brands – just think of George Clooney and Nespresso, Davina McCall and Garnier, and Gary Lineker, who has now been an ambassador for Walkers Crisps for more than a quarter of a century. But in 2022, influencer marketing has evolved beyond celebrities becoming the ‘face’ of a brand.
Involving household names is still central to many FMCG strategies – but in a new way. Increasingly, we’re seeing brands offer celebrities pseudo-executive roles, often in return for investment. In 2019, Jennifer Aniston became chief creative officer at Vital Proteins, Scarlett Johansson was made creative director at health-focused food business HumanCo in 2021 and just this month, Kate Moss became chief creative officer at Diet Coke. These sorts of partnerships can be highly beneficial – for both parties – but come with risks around what’s expected of the new team member.
At the other end of the scale, modern-thinking blue-chip and challenger brands alike are reaching new audiences and gaining prominence via small online content creators. When once high-profile endorsements spoke to our obsession with celebrity, today brands are appealing to the public desire for authenticity, through partnerships with small-scale influencers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Razor brand Estrid, for example, collaborates with dozens of content creators across social media. Through a strategy known as ‘nano-gifting’ – sending products to influencers with a smaller following (1,000 – 30,000 followers) – the brand has recreated the power of word-of-mouth online. Alongside these unpaid collaborations, Estrid is pursuing a data-driven approach to paid influencer marketing, requesting request certain insights and statistics from a profile before its booked, and setting benchmarks for each partnership.
While FMCG brands have come a long way in this area, there are lessons to be learnt from other sectors about how to use influencers, often in fairly cost-effective ways. Gucci, for example, really knows how to tap into the zeitgeist. At the beginning of this year, the luxury label ran two phenomenal campaigns – the first with Francis Bourgeois (a teenage trainspotting fanatic who has gained a cult following on TikTok), and the second with Gerald Stratford (a retired fisherman-turned-gardener known as the “veg king” on Twitter).
The second area of consideration is data and insight.
Gone are the days when P&G would go door-to-door to quiz American housewives on how they cleaned their homes – in 2022, the winning brands are designing their marketing and growth strategies around the analysis of vast swathes of customer data gathered from many different sources.
“Gone are the days when P&G would go door-to-door to quiz American housewives on how they cleaned their homes – in 2022, the winning brands are designing their marketing and growth strategies around the analysis of vast swathes of customer data gathered from many different sources.”
Indeed, today, brands have never had more data on their customers. Since Covid-19, many FMCG businesses have moved from an exclusively supply model to include DTC offerings and even experiential retail. Equipped with never-before-accessed customer information, global CMOs must understand how to use, and own, this data to predict trends, provide personalisation and inform new product development.
Using data to accurately anticipate trends is particularly critical for large groups, for whom bringing a new product to market can take years. As social media continues to lower the barriers to entry in FMCG, blue-chip businesses must work harder than ever to see over the horizon to compete with the challengers who can respond to trends in real time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in FMCG, players like Unilever and PepsiCo are leading the way in this area. In 2019, Unilever launched Idea Swipe, an app designed to rapidly collect customer feedback. Billed as the ‘Tinder for ideas’, the smartphone app puts a new product idea in front of the user, who swipes right if they like the idea and left if they don’t. Results can be analysed in seven days, compared to a matter of weeks with customer surveys. Since its launch, Idea Swipe has allowed Unilever to test 10,000 new ideas in 43 countries.
However using data for personalisation is probably the biggest challenge for FMCG businesses, who have been slower to adopt personalised approaches to products and marketing than other adjacencies in the consumer-facing sector such as retail, travel, telco, hospitality, consumer electronics and fashion. German multinational Henkel is doing some exciting things in this area though, having launched the Schwarzkopf Professional SalonLab, which analyses customers’ hair. The tool provides information about hair structure, colour and condition, which Henkel can use to provide personalised products and make recommendations.
Data and its management are certainly still the biggest challenge for FMCG marketeers. Without a firm grasp on customer insight, and an understanding of how to collect and analyse data in an efficient and ethical way, businesses will find themselves outrun by competitors. It is no wonder that FMCG CEOs are increasingly looking to hire CMOs from more digitally-versed omnichannel sectors beyond FMCG.
Lastly, global CMOs must consider how to effectively manage their brand’s reputation. PR and communication have always been central to the marketing remit, but the current consumer landscape requires a more deliberate approach. In a market saturated with supposedly purpose-driven labels, and customers who are quick to scrutinise and subsequently “cancel” brands, chief marketing officers must think carefully about how to position their brand.
“Lastly, global CMOs must consider how to effectively manage their brand’s reputation. PR and communication have always been central to the marketing remit, but the current consumer landscape requires a more deliberate approach. In a market saturated with supposedly purpose-driven labels, and customers who are quick to scrutinise and subsequently “cancel” brands, chief marketing officers must think carefully about how to position their brand.”
There are a few lenses through which to consider this.
Firstly, through a brand’s long-term reputation. In the past decade or so, we’ve seen many businesses evolve to better reflect modern-day values of health, sustainability and inclusion. For example, retail apparel trendsetters such as Nike, Patagonia and Pangaia have clearly and clinically put purpose at the heart of their business leading to much greater customer acquisition and retention.
In FMCG, Unilever have long been heralded as a messianic trailblazer in sustainability – however just earlier this year we have seen that resolve tested by a major investor accusing the FMCG giant of prioritising its ESG agenda over financial performance. Clearly the two need to go hand-in-hand and one must commend Unilever for its positive impact to date – one also hopes they can prove that doing good translates into good business. Success here means carefully-considered marketing activities that are underpinned by tangible action – not just lip service or ‘greenwashing’.
Secondly, through individual marketing campaigns. Many will remember PepsiCo’s misstep in 2017. Its “Live for Now” campaign showed supermodel Kendall Jenner joining a protest and handing a police officer a can of soda. The ad, which aired on the 49th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, received widespread criticism for co-opting the work of social activists and the protest movement. While Pepsi pulled the ad after fewer than 48 hours, in many ways the damage was done.
On the other side of the coin, KFC’s 2018 apology in response to its chicken shortage was heralded as a masterclass in crisis management. The QSR business ran an advert in which it tweaked its logo to read ‘FCK’, and released a down-to-earth and light-hearted apology statement which struck exactly the right note.
In our recent conversations it is clear that, amongst others, influencers, data and reputation are the prevailing themes of focus for the modern day CMO. Whilst FMCG is slowly beginning to make progress with infuencers and data, they are still playing catch up with other consumer adjacencies. If FMCG wants to retain its marketing crown, complacency cannot creep in and these critical capabilities need to be cemented as core skills.
In what other areas do the modern FMCG CMO need to focus? I would love to hear your thoughts.