Chaired by Nick Higham, BBC news correspondent, this year’s conference covered a wide range of global leadership themes delivered by a particularly impressive collection of speakers.
Sustainability is a growth opportunity
Unilever’s aim of doubling profits while halving its carbon foot print was Unilever’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Keith Weed’s opening presentation. Developing the theme that was to run through the day, he illustrated how crises and dilemmas are where real marketing leadership shows.
Although Unilever has traditionally promoted its brands individually, transparency provided by the internet is forcing companies to develop a corporate presence, making their vision and values clear. Keith’s role, encompassing marketing and communications. allows for an integrated sustainability strategy.
Illustrating how sustainability, social good and profits can be achieved, Keith described three brands developed in emerging markets.
- Lifeboy: a brand developed in England in Victorian times is a disinfectant soap, which, sold in areas of the world that are infected with disease, teaches children to wash their hands.
- Puretin: a technological breakthrough which produces clean water from contaminated sources.
- Comfort One Rinse: another product of technology which addresses the worldwide water scarcity by allowing clothes to be cleaned in one –rather than several – rinses.
- Trashion: clothes made from trash, an initiative supported by Unilever in Indonesia turns trash into fashion items: one ton of trash can produce 23,000 items.
Changes bring opportunities
How and why companies need to respond to the truly changed the world compared to a decade or more ago was the theme of David Smith, CEO of Global Futures and Foresight. The potential is immense providing the mega trends are recognised, many of which require doing things very differently. Opportunities are presented by:
Globalism: the sheer impact of numbers of new consumers in emerging markets. The world population has increased by an unprecedented 300% in 100 years and continues to grow.
Governance of the world is changing: from the mature West to the emerging East, the complexity of which needs to be understood. 70 million people becoming middle class every year which combined with the particular needs of different religions will require new products and new presentations: Halal products, for example.
Aging, obesity, the imbalance between the old West and the young East, the increasing dominance of women business leaders are just a few of the social mega-trends offering opportunities
The entire shopping environment, aided by the internet - now considered a ‘human right’ - and the increasing disintermediation this is producing means companies need, more than ever, to establish strong and trusted brand strategies.
UK needs to be more business friendly
In conversation, Willie Walsh, CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG) and formerly BA CEO voiced strong criticism of government policies towards business. He regretted that a third runway for Heathrow is probably dead and there was unlikely to be another one – such as the Thames Estuary plan – since airports are funded by airlines not governments and the 30 bn or so required was unlikely to be forthcoming.
Developing this thought, he criticized the failure to improve infrastructure and high taxation policies as two ways in which the government was deterring foreign companies from investing in the UK as well as driving British companies abroad.
He quoted his own company, IAG the operations group that consolidates a number of branded airlines to run more efficiently as an example of a how companies are looking to expand outside the UK rather than inside.
More big British brands needed
This was the message of Rita Clifton, Chairman of Interbrand. She felt too many companies associated the idea of branding with merely design, logo and advertising.
Consequently, many successful companies are not as well known as they should be – as through deliberating keeping a low profile rather than celebrating success.
Recommending Evan Davis’s book, Made in Britain, she went on to describe Burberry - ‘accessible luxury with British attitude’ as a shining example of a British brand that demonstrates the ‘three Cs’ necessary for a successful brand: clarity, consistency and leadership. There should be more.
The golden age of marketing
Andy Fennell, Global CMO of Diageo developed the marketing leadership theme by naming five reasons why the best opportunities for marketing are ahead of us. Although he emphasised potential outside the UK, a number of these themes apply inside the UK as well.
- Technology: universal broadband and what that will ultimately deliver in terms of customer access and relationships
- Massive new markets: the combination of relentless economic growth in the new BRIC markets and sheer numbers of potential consumers
- The fusion of entertainment: no longer ads and content, now just good content or bad content
- CSR: Echoing the Unilever theme -sustainability is far more of an opportunity than a problem
- Retailing: new formats, new opportunities whether in physical stores of via the internet
Diageo’s record of experimentation, risk taking and innovation demonstrate that leadership is a state of mind that turns problems into opportunities.
Connecting with a global audience
Mark Brittain, Global Head of Commercial, Sycho Entertainment, described how Sycho’s approach to finding partners for its major brands – X Factor and Got Talent – is different from traditional sponsorship.
He is looking for companies with whom a relationship can be formed, who will participate in the development of the Sycho brand, whose brand values are consonant with Sycho’s and who will integrate the Sycho brand into its marketing activity – as Pepsi US has done successfully.
Dan Cobley, MD Google, UK and Ireland demonstrated with actual phones on the platform the extraordinary capabilities of the now ubiquitous mobile where increasingly web access is standard (currently 20 million in the UK)
- Mobile social: 40% of Facebook users access it over the phone and the use for all social media is increasing. Voice recognition is being developed enabling a question to be asked and instructions given in different languages.
- Mobile commerce: in addition to dimply ordering from the phone, it is possible to go one step further: take a photo of an advertisement and be instantly connected to the company to order
- Mobile local: Here he demonstrated how local restaurants including table reservations, shops, goods and services are all capable of being accessed with a couple of clicks from any location.
Where the new markets are: Brazil, India, China
Three presenters working in these markets illustrated the vast potential of these three countries. Different though they m may be from each other and also, internally - all of these countries are characterised by extremes in economic conditions as well as a multitude of languages and religions - they share a common optimistic approach to consumerism and a fascination with brands.
Dr. Tim Lucas, CEO of the Listening Agency, Sao Paulo described Brazil as a Portuguese island in the middle of a Spanish continent which has always seen itself as an outsider. But this is Brazil’s moment. Its new world status – having won bids to host the World Cup and the Olympics – is leading Brazilians not only to discover other countries but also to discover themselves.
Brazilians are very emotional people and have taken to the idea of brand relationships with great relish and with an increasingly affluent middle class, are eager for exciting and vibrant approaches to marketing and branding.
Rajan Krishan,founding partner of The Philosopher’s Stone in Mumbai, developed many of the same themes in describing the potential opportunity presented by India’s 1.2 billion consumers With 17% of the world’s population, 12 religions and 22 languages, India is truly a land of contrasts.
Marketers in India should note the following:
- Indians are a nation of storytellers. A story cuts through clutter faster than repetition of brand messages
- Like Brazilians, Indians are very emotional and particularly responsive to emotional strategies
- The most exciting subjects, nationwide, are: religion, family, politics, cinema and cricket
- Indians are extremely class and status conscious and observe very fine nuances
- Finally, they are highly cynical of talkers, preferring doers and are very digital savvy
Finally, Dr. Linda Yueh, eminent economist (Oxford University) and government advisor described China’s accession to the world stage in three stages: from gradualist growth to managed growth to the ‘open door’ policy of market supported growth which underpins their phenomenal success.
The good news for western countries is that China has adopted a ‘going out’ policy and is investing outside of China and will continue to do so. But she warned of conflict between state and private investment complicated by a lack of transparency.
Will China be leading the world economy? Not yet. China’s institutions are still unstable and will need to stabilise before leadership can be assumed. And significantly, China is still a very poor country. But growing at the rate of 10% a year means that although this rate will slow, it will generate enormous growth in a relatively short period of time.
Icing on the cake
Heston Blumenthal, easily one of Britain’s more inventive entrepreneurs, in an extraordinary display of virtuosity, emphasised what food marketers should know: that enjoyment of food is an intense blend of sensual experiences. Illustrating how taste perceptions are strongly influenced by context, customers at his restaurant, the Fat Duck, can eat a seafood dish wearing earphones and listening to the sea.
An important lesson for marketers is the process he has instituted at the restaurant based on the belief that the experience should begin the minute a reservation is made. Prospective diners are given access to a website – part of which was shown – that is as close to a sublime, gustatory experience as glorious animation can get.