November 13, 2025 • 45 mins
Overseeing 400+ brands, Esi Eggleston Bracey’s roots in community advocacy has inspired her leadership as Unilever’s Chief Growth & Marketing Officer. Sitting down with Christian, Esi explains how her mantra, "Passion Power," has been the driving force behind the transformation of Unilever's marketing machine -- from using digital twins to revolutionize product design to implementing her "culture-to-cart" model turning cultural relevance into measurable growth.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Possible Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where
we dive into the leadership frameworks, bold ideas and personal
stories shaping the future of marketing, technology and leadership. This
is Possible Now, Stories of Possibilities, And I'm Christian Muchen,
Global president and co founder and host of this podcast
(00:26):
where we explore bold ideas and meet the leaders who
are challenging convention and listen to the innovative inspirational minds
reshaping business, creativity and technology. And today I have the
privilege of welcoming a special guest who truly embodies transformation
at scale, Izzy Egleson Bracy. She's an engineer turned growth leader,
(00:48):
a marketer who sees brands not just as products, but
as platforms for culture, commerce and change. And after twenty
five years at Prognan Gamble, she went on to redefine
beauty at CO before taking the reins at Unilever, first
as President of the US, then as CEO of Personal
Care in North America, and now as Chief Growth and
(01:09):
Marketing Officer. She oversees marketing for a global portfolio of
more than four hundred brands, including icons like Dove, Hellman's
and magnum for the world's fourth largest fast moving consumer
goods company. Her fingerprints aren't some of the most purpose
driven campaigns of the past decade, from Dove's leadership in
(01:31):
pushing the Crown Act into law outlawing hair discrimination, to
share Moisture's New Voices Fund, investing in women entrepreneurs of color,
and just as the industry questioned the future of purposeful marketing,
she doubled down. But she is not only rewriting the
social impact playbook, She's re engineering the growth model itself.
(01:52):
Under her watch, Unilever has accelerated AI digital twins that
slash costs and speed time to market by assimulating packaging
and creative before launch. She's introduced the culture to Card
strategy that fuses brand's storytelling with frictional as commerce, directly
converting culture moments into buying moments. And as she lives
(02:14):
her mantra passion power as a mentor, as a mother,
and as a leader who wants to shape not just
a more inclusive marketing industry, but a more inclusive world,
is he Eggleston Bracy A very warm welcome to Possible Now,
and thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Thank you for having me. What an incredible introduction.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Thank you so much. And there's so much more to
tell and we will cover a lot of different topics
in the next couple of minutes. Acy, but before we
dive into these kind of business topics, that say, if
I might ask and start with a more personal question,
if you're okay with that. So you described yourself as
an engineer at heart, what I could read, but also
as someone deeply shaped by your Chicago roots right and
(02:57):
your family. So when you look back, what was maybe
one experience, one dedicated moment outside of the business world
that most defines the way you show up as a
leader today. Was there anything you would remember that you
know was a moment, a key moment for me, which
still is still very valid for me in today's business.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What a thoughtful question, Christian.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, as I've mentioned, I am an accidental business executive.
You know, my mother is a lawyer and a real
community lawyer, and my father is a school teacher. They
were always very active in fighting for the underserved and
that has shaped me. And what I am is a
(03:43):
people advocate. You know, I advocate for the consumer. I
keep people at the center of the business and I
really believe what we do is about solving people problems
and solving business problems. So I like to go deep
and look for human insights, human problems and then create
the opportunity. And that's what I think about my parents,
(04:05):
you know, fighting for people, my father and his students,
you know, in an underprivileged high school, and my mother
for divorces and race discrimination cases. So that outlook has
shaped me, even though I apply that to business.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
In your role obviously, you know, working heavily with consumer
perspectives and the consumer itself. I mean, you can perfectly
combine that approach. I can see that. But we will
come back to this in a minute. So I've mentioned
that your education was you know, becoming an engineer means
you're used to problem solving. You is this is part
of your DNA. How does that engineering mindset distinguish you
(04:45):
as a marketer and gross leader today? Is it helpful
or would you say, well, no, it wasn't episode in
my life, but now you know it's a complete different story.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It is more than helpful. It's my foundation. What you
learn in engineering is a framework for problem solving, and
you get a lot of practice for solving problems, and
I think in frameworks as I think about, you know, Unilever,
what I'm trying to do with the brands and driving
desire at scale. It's changing the model from a one
(05:17):
to many to a mini to mini model, which we
can talk more about later. But I'm always thinking about
what are the frameworks, What does a mini to mini
model mean? What are the key elements that need to
be driven. So at the core of business, a growth
business is problem solving. It's pinpointing the problem you're trying
to solve. Many people don't take the time to identify
(05:40):
the problem, and for me, it's the people problem, the
consumer problem. Really, really what if? What if? What if?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
What is it? Is? That?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It is?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
That it?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And then it's creating the solution, and engineering just provides
a beautiful framework to practice that. So it's at the core.
I never practiced as an engineer you're outside of university
except for my several internships. So I moved straight away
into consumer goods brand management coming out of university after
(06:10):
about four engineering internships.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
As you said, problem solving is the base for everything
right to move forward and to do better than before
whatever you do. It sounds so obvious, but I agree,
sometimes the most obvious things in the world. You know,
not many people do this, so I really appreciate this
hearing from you. Let's talk about the CEM role, and
you know what we do every day year, and you
know far better than I do, whether on panels, on
(06:35):
stage and interviews. In our daily work, cimos are, let
me say, under pressure. I mean you can say everybody's
under pressure, but I feel cimos in particular to shift
marketing from a cost center to a growth driver. And
when you joined Uni Lever, what were the first levers
you pulled at Unilever to make that pivot stick, to
(06:55):
change the game in some way.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, It's what we were talking about earlier. What our
job is is to identify what we must do to
unlock growth. That is the core of how I define marketing,
particularly in CpG. The brands are at the core of
the enterprise, so you look at what is the opportunity
(07:18):
in the market. When I joined Unilever, the beauty part
of the market was really growing. The experience part of
the market was growing. So identifying the business growth driver.
If the beauty and experience part of the market is growing,
how do we move our brands from functional brands to
more experiential brands, and how do we participate in that
(07:41):
one problem to solve the other. The demographics of the
marketplace continue to change. You see underserved people or consumers
gen Z consumers, Black consumers, Latino consumers who actually index
wise over consume beauty and personal care products. Underserved, So
having the opportunity to grow by better meeting those needs.
(08:05):
So I always look at what's happening in the market.
Where are our brands, what can we shift or unlock
to capture that growth in the market. And that usually
starts with marketing because it starts with the consumer need.
It starts with product, and then how you market and
communicate those products, which is essentially you know, marketing management,
(08:29):
brand management, category management.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Was everybody on board from the beginning on when you
started to work on those topics, I mean the c suite,
the boardroom, was everybody on board? Or how did you
bring skeptics along?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I think the best leaders create inspiration, clarity and help
people do their jobs. So as a leader, it's my
job to help people see the opportunity and to speak
about the opportunity in a way that others can get
on board. So like most transformation, people don't say yes
(09:05):
right away, but you create the opportunities. People can say yes,
I liken it to exercise, and you say, yes, I
want that body, I want to be fit, but ugh,
do I want to do that work. But when you
see the opportunity and you're inspired by it, you start
to do that work. So I would say, you know,
Lever said yes when seeing the opportunities, and you create
(09:28):
one win and another win, and you see the growth
behind it, the impact behind it, and then the whole
team owns it as their own and you drive momentum.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That sounds fantastic and congratulates for doing this. We talked about,
you know, shifting from a cost center to a growth
driver with your department and your daily work. These days,
one of the most common questions I think when you
talk to potential partners are the budgets Do they keep
growing or are you saying, you know a will caution
on spendings prevail these days? What can the market expect
(10:03):
independent from Unilever?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, thinking about Unilever, Unilever believes in brands. It is
the core of our proposition. People don't always know Unilever
but they know our brands. It's our brands and our
products are what serve people. So we invest in the
brands and we continue to grow our investment in brands.
The key is ensuring that that brand investment is returning
(10:28):
growth and profitability, so that every cent counts. That is
true industry wide. Industry wide, we want to make sure
every cent has an impact. The key on that impact
is the impact could be in the short term, but
it also needs to be in the mid and long term.
When you invest a cent, it might drive a return
(10:50):
in the first three weeks, but what we see in
our brands also when you invest that cent, half of
that drives a return in the next three or four months,
and then depending on your content, it drives a return
later in the year. So you have to continue the
investment in the brands. Your question is about the industry dynamic.
The industry dynamic is about unlocking growth and profitability. So
(11:13):
it's our job when we create programs to invest in
our brands to drive that growth and profitability and be
clearer than ever before on the return we get. And
with the tools and technology we have today a unilely
where we use rapid ROI, we have more visibility, more data,
more granularity. So as marketers, we are experts on the data.
(11:35):
That's not a finance job. That's not the other people
that do the business job. The core of our job
in marketing is to understand our impact, but first by
understanding what opportunity we're trying to address and then closing
the loop that how we're choosing to invest in that
opportunity is having the desired impact.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
That's a good moment to go to the title. I mean,
everybody has a title, and in your case it's Growth
and Marketing officer, in some cases just marketing officer, or
there are a lot of combinations in the market. You
talk about growth and profitability, it's obvious that we also
talk about trust, consumer trust relationships. What could be the
perfect title, or let's say, description of your understanding what
(12:19):
you're doing every day. Is it the growth and marketing officer?
Is it the trust and profitability and relationship manager? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It really is transformation officer. It's really what it is.
It's growth and transformation officer. And here's why we all
know how much the world has changed and continues to change.
It's been changing our whole lives but the pace of
change and how much it's accelerating is starving consumer attention.
(12:51):
Consumer attention I read a stat has gone from twelve
seconds a decade and a half ago to eight seconds.
They say that's less than a goldfish. Everyone is buying
for consumer attention. So the transformation is how do we
stand out in the face of that. Mass reach models
don't work. You know, Unilever a sixty billion euro company.
(13:11):
We have multiple multi billion dollar and multi billion euro brands.
We have to drive reach at scale. We're not a startup.
We need to drive reach at scale. The broad reach
model broadcast doesn't work, so we have to transform that.
In this world at scale, all these things are transforming,
the media platforms, the diversity, the tools, the technology. If
(13:35):
you remissed if I didn't talk about what AI makes
possible and the spirit of you know possible, it's truly exciting.
But so a lot of what I do is clarify
the change that needs to happen and work within the
enterprise on how you unlock the change to drive growth.
So it's more a chief growth and transformation officer, especially
(13:59):
at a company you know Lever, where marketing is at
the core.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And You've mentioned already a lot of topics. We would
come to this in a minute. When I read you're
responsible for four hundred plus brands currently, I cannot imagine
how you do this every day with your team. Of
course you have teams around the world, but from Dove
to Acts to Wesilin and so many more brands. How
do you balance that thrill and the risk of such
a vast portfolio? Can you give a kind of insight
(14:24):
to our listeners, you know how your daily work look
like looking after four hundred plus brands.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Like most complexity, it's a matter of focus. And while
we have four hundred brands and one hundred and ninety markets,
we have thirty that are power brands and that account
for three quarters of our revenue and growth potential. So
those thirty brands make a big difference over the four hundred.
Then within those thirty brands, those brands are across various
(14:52):
business groups. The business groups have c mos for those categories,
those groups, and the within the brands. So really what
I'm doing is leading a team of leaders and experts
inspiring and driving change in terms of what the marketing
model is giving the how to what's the platebook to
(15:13):
drive that change, bringing partners and people together to unlock change.
So you manage complexity through focus. And I know I
keep repeating myself being clear on what problem you're trying
to solve, and the problem I'm trying to solve is
moving us into a modern marketing model that drives growth
because we drive reach, engagement, and conversion at scale. It's
(15:37):
the culture to cart that you talked about.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
You know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Really trying to drive within that address this point on attention.
That's where desire at scale comes in. Desire is I
just have to have that, not that I need that.
And because the brand is crafted for a desire, that
means its whole proposition is what you want in culture
(16:04):
that's relevant. You're using brands that we call it sase
that have science backed by science, esthetics, sensorials, they're shared
by others, they're young spirited, they're designed for desire, and
then they're executed for desire through culture to kart, culture moments,
(16:26):
content that's relevant, and art that it converts literally to purchase.
So having that level of focus back to how do
you manage the role, focus on the brands, those thirty
power brands focus on the model and moving us to
this modern model of marketing because not just because it's modern,
(16:50):
because it's the way to unlock growth and this intention starved,
more fragmented world where it's harder to earn the purchase.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That's amazing. And we come back to this culture to
cut strategy because you're already touch based on that. But
out of these thirty power brands you've mentioned, is there
one Maybe you don't want to mention one dady game,
but is there one north Star which you could use
for your daddy work as a role model When you
come to difficult decisions, you can always go back to
this case and say, Okay, we did so perfectly well
(17:20):
with this dedicated brand, or is it really Across these
thirty power bands, each.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Brand plays their role, and if you rank for thirty brands,
they all have different weight. We have multiple brands over
four billion euro right, so we've got important brands, so
you can't just focus on one. Also, when you think
you've nailed it, the game is over. You know. I
like to look at things as half full and half empty,
(17:47):
so I appreciate things across the brands. Dove, It's clarity
a proposition in today's cluttered environment, it's more important than
ever before for your brand to know what it stands
for with crystal clarity, so you know what you communicate
in the world and how you partner with others to
(18:07):
be relevant in culture. Dove does that beautifully. It is
truly about real beauty and making sure beauty is a
source of joy, is a positive experience for people instead
of a source of anxiety. And its mantra is let's
change beauty and we celebrate the joyful experience and address
(18:29):
the challenges of beauty so that it can be that
it's crystal clear. And while it's crystal clear, it doesn't
just do it by ourselves. We partner. We partner with
Crumble cookies dessert cookies that extend that to help drive
the business but also help bring in new users who
hadn't even considered the brand. And by the way, almost
(18:51):
half of our Crumble users were new to the Dove franchise.
So when you say, as there brand that I point to,
each brand has something they do well. I'm giving an
example of Dove and its clarity of proposition and how
it's able to extend that also in partnerships, and I
could go on and speak to others. Another one of
my favorites that is not as known in the US
(19:16):
is our franchise of brands that we refer to as
Dirt as Good. It's the largest laundry brand in the
world by volume and by penetration. Brands like Omo Person
are there. Again, back to that brand, how it connects
to culture, celebrating the joy of dirt. You think that
laundry is about staying clean, but no, get out and play.
(19:39):
Dirt is Good is more important today than ever before.
Everything we're seeing around the impact of isolation from technology
out in the world, connecting with people its proposition dirt,
it's going to be more importantly bringing that to life
with its partnerships. I think about the Arsenal partnership. Every
stain is a part of the game, a great program
(20:00):
idea that's in the UK with the Women's Arsenal team
so amazing, and then in the US, what I really
admire about the brands is the culture to Kart and
the partnership with retailers, with Walmart, with Amazon, with NFL
programming to make sure every cultural entertainment moment gets in
(20:21):
the basket. You know, with Hellman's as a part of
the NFL, so I said a lot there. What I'm
saying is there are things to learn, pockets of excellence
across a range of brands and markets, and my job
is helping identify those and leveling up those across brands.
There are things that are working, and then there are
(20:41):
opportunities in markets, and that's the growth, that's the fuel
for the growth.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That Emiti came to my mind. You know, when we
were kids, you know, we enjoyed to plan the dirt. Right,
we come from there. Right, It's so obvious, as I
said before, and the most successful things are the most
obvious ones. But for some reason, you know, sometimes we
hesitate to bring it up or to use those kind
of examples. You mentioned culture to Card strategy, and we
understand it's all about converting culture moments directly into commerce.
(21:10):
You've mentioned a couple of partnerships around the globe. Is
there one dedicated campaign you can mention, you know which
proves you know, the culture really can go straight to
KRT to better understand for our listeners. You know, maybe
in the US what they dedicated campaign you could mention.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I think about culture to Kart as a strategy
and a mindset even more than a campaign that means
every program, if it's beauty, never gets old on Dove.
You know, if it is the acts effect when you're
connecting into culture, it's how do you partner with the
(21:48):
retailer to make sure that cultural moment lines up in store?
You know with the big game, the Super Bowl? How
are you visible? How do you do that online through
digit commerce so that when people are compelled to buy
because they see the program and have the opportunity to buy.
That said, there are several programs. You know, I'm really
(22:10):
proud of the success of the Vasoline team, you know,
one of the big winners this year, it can but
really quite frankly for the business was this campaign called
Vassaline Verified. But Vasilline Verified did was showcase the range
of hacks that people use vasaline petroleum jelly for some
(22:32):
unimaginable hacks, some of them that we deem safe by
our scientists, for example helping shave with vassaline or removing
plasters or band aids that get stuck, or managing your
dry lips with vassoline, but some not approved, like eating vassoline.
We worked with influencers to share their hacks, had our
(22:58):
scientists say a proved or not approved, and shared those
in social media became a cultural phenomenon, but we also
connected those to commerce, so we actually had influencers that
were also partnering with retailers and selling through social commerce.
(23:18):
Vasoline based on these hacks that drove our business forty
three percent when that campaign was running. It actually is
continuing to run, but the period that we tested, that's
culture to Kart, taking that cultural moment connecting it with
the in store retailers. So that's one. The other one
I mentioned was doub Crumble. We partnered just with Walmart
(23:38):
on that and drove over fifty million in incremental sales
behind that plan. It was all designed with Walmart, so
every moment that we communicated with one of our influencers.
When you look at Crumble, they're these incredible twins that
actually communicated Rumble before Dove launched, and we worked with
(24:04):
those twins to highlight Crumbles now available at Walmart, and
of course you can click here to buy or go
in store before the product runs out, and of course
we sold out the product. So those are a couple
of examples, but more of it is the mindset to
create the programming so that you're not just driving engagement,
(24:24):
but you're actually capturing that engagement into purchase.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
And definitely some unexpected outcomes and sometimes turns, you know,
as you described. You also mentioned before the you know,
(24:49):
going from one to many to many to many. You
talked about the move about this communication? What does that
mean in practice? Let's talk about this. I mean, everybody
can imagine many to many in today's world, especially via
social media, But does that really mean as I interpreted
this or can you expland a bit more how you
do this, how you execute this in your daily work,
(25:10):
and most important, how do you ensure personalization at scale
that it doesn't sacrifice authenticity. When we talk about this
many to many, it must be a massive scale of
you know, different type of communication. I cannot imagine. How
can you guide this, you know, or control this in
a way you want.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
You used an interesting word about control. The thing with
many to many is you drive it, but you can't
control it how you drive it? As I was saying earlier,
it's really thinking about and codifying your brand's purpose and culture.
What unique role you play that's the glue that ties
(25:52):
your brand together, That is the brand. Then you look
at what community your brand can appeal to and ensuring
you're looking at those communities and not pushing your brands,
but you're clearing their passion points. So if it's sports enthusiasts,
what does sports enthusiasts care about? What do swifties care about?
(26:17):
Music fans? What do they care about? What do gamers
care about? Those communities? What's the intersection between your brand
and the communities you choose? That doesn't mean you choose
all communities. So again, when you think about sports fans,
what's the connection between Dove and real beauty and sports fans?
And that is keeping her confident? So many to many
(26:41):
is about translating your brand, its unique proposition to the
areas that are valuable to those communities and their passion points.
Then once you're clearing those areas, it's having people, influencers,
creators share your brand message with other people in their
(27:03):
tribe or their community. So you have these many influencers.
When I say influencers, maybe it's a mega influencer, but
mostly it's nano influencers. There's many of them that know
their communities. You find those ones that match your brand proposition,
and fit with those communities, So you have many people
(27:23):
sharing a message with many other people. That's part of it.
The other part is what you've called personalization at scale
is in this massive world of technology in AI, you
can translate your big brand message into content, a diversity
of content that speaks to the communities. That doesn't mean
you don't keep your brand identity. In fact, you must
(27:46):
keep your brand identity, but you express it. If I
use a brand like trust to me, I have curly
hair or textured hair. My friend has straight black hair.
I can address all those issues on trustime, so I
highlight that variant for curly hair to me and maybe
color treat it. I highlight straight dark hair rich dark
(28:10):
hair with another variant on Trusteme. So the modular content
and the leverage of GENAI help in our brand content
to also go to mini. So let me just summarize
the mini to MANI. The mini is one brand idea
translated to many communities and people with different desires and
(28:33):
needs shared by other people influencers and adapt it in
our content that we share with people, so it's relevant
and they share with other people. So it's many people
sharing brand messages with many other people.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And it feels like limitless right because we have in
theory we have seven billion, eight billion? What is the
world population? Right now? You know, influence us out there.
We're waiting to transport this message. How do you see
because you talked about influencers, how do you see the
influence of marketing evolving. Do you see it as more
transactional or is it more of the future of trust
(29:11):
building trust? Is it something completely different? What do you think?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I think of it as a lot about trust and relevance.
I believe gone are the days of transaction because my
CEO says a marketing is suspicious. As consumers, we don't
want to be marketed to or manipulated. We want to
engage authentically and we want to learn about products that
(29:38):
we might like. Who do we want to know about that?
And learn about that from people that we trust And
the old days that was word of mouth, the neighbor
next door. So what the influencer ecosystem does is creates
the opportunity to find the people that you trust, not
people that are paid to sell a brand message. The
(30:01):
model that is working moves more to this whole idea
of an influencer in every zip code. Really, what it
is is an influencer for every community that you trust
that can give you relevant advice and they share your interests.
They're a part of your tribe.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
You've mentioned AI. You did something very famous. You've scaled
AI powered digital twins at Uni err Replicans that cut
costs by fifty five percent if I remember right, and
speed campaigns by sixty five percent, which is super impressive.
What is the most surprising thing you've learned by testing
(30:39):
the virtual world? First? Was it so brand new? Were
there so many unexpected outcomes? Or was it more than
what you was expecting?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Here?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Do you use these digital twins across all these power
brands or just for a few Can you explain it
a bit more for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So our ambition is to drive desire at scale. We
want products and brands that people just have to have.
What that requires is elevating our brands, including our packaging.
Our products are part of that with the esthetics and
the sensorials of the packaging. What's amazing about digital twins
(31:21):
in addition to speeding up the process more than twice
as fast, in addition to saving costs more than half
the cost, it's the quality that you get because we
use the omniverse and video technology and if you've ever
experienced the video games of late they are hyper realized
romanced imagery. We bring that to our product and we
(31:47):
bring that in three sixty. So we create this picture perfect,
pixel perfect image of every product across skews. That means
each of our markets have access to this desirable product
package and then when we connect that with retail, back
to culture to cart, can actually turn that product around.
(32:09):
You can see the product ingredients, you can see the
glow of the beautiful package. You can actually see the
product and some of the creaminess and the texture some
of our digital twins that even come out. So the
beauty of digital twins is the better, the more desirable,
the more cost efficient and faster. So it's not just
(32:33):
a productivity drive, it's a desirability drive. And yes, we
use digital twins across the Power brands, and yes that
drives one hundred percent consistency around the product packaging around
the world. Irregardless of the affordability of doing a product
shoot in a particular market.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Is are you at the very forefront doing this or
are you aware of other brands doing this? A similar.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
We're at the forefront. You know, the omniverse technology is
out there. We worked with a range of partners, one
that's called Collective to bring it to life. So I'm
sure there are others that are using the technology, but
I see us at the forefront at scale is using
that as our practice based on again our ambition of
(33:21):
desireed scale. I think there's so many tools today you
can get distracted by and you can fall in love
with that tool. Every day, there's now over thirty nine
thousand AI tools, and every week there seems to be
a new hundred taking shape because AI tools are being
used to create new AI tools. That means us as
(33:44):
marketers can be totally overwhelmed and we can actually miss
the plot. What we don't want to do is lose
the forest for the trees. We have to stay focused
on what our ambition is. So our ambition is to
create desireed scale to address the attention fragmentation and then
from a culture to car or a content message, it's
(34:06):
the many to many. So we use digital twins, a
range of other AI tools. If it's Google's vo three,
if it is pencil pro, all those tools in service
of that. Instead of there's a new tool called digital twin.
Let me give it a try.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I've recently read and I think it was another interviewer
podcast you've done, and you posted about this not such
a long time ago, and I've seen one of a
post comments underneath from a common friend and a quote
he said. Where this all gets tricky is that we
are building brands on emotional foundations, but consumers are increasingly
(34:45):
encountering brands through AI intermediaries that stripped away from the
sensory and contextual magic. And further on, as AI crashes
the party, how do we ensure the emotional justifications for
our brands survived the translation layer. I thought that it's
a very interesting Christian and I wanted to use it
here as well.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I think it's consistent with what I've said. The
most important thing I also think about. Let me say
it this way. Marketing, I believe, is about helping people.
We started this at the top of the conversation, understanding
people problems and desires and then solving them. Technology can
be an enabler to that because you have reached your
(35:23):
deeper insights, but human wise, you still have to listen
and tap into what are the drivers of those needs
and desires, and it's our goal to create our brands
and our products to address those. When we don't listen,
when we don't know that, that's when we miss the
plot and can be very transactional or only do performance marketing.
(35:47):
Desiraed Scale is not about performance marketing. It's about addressing
people's deep desires and then connecting authentically into them and
using the tools to do that. So these AI what
he called intermediaries, those are at our service. It's us
as the marketers, to be clear on what passion points
(36:09):
we want to address, to identify the elements of the
content that tap into that, and us to choose you know,
human in the loop, what moves forward. This isn't. I
don't believe that it's a one hundred percent automated advertising process.
You go for that. The big risk is losing human connection.
(36:32):
We go for. We believe humanity, our brands, how they
emote hence desire I have to have. That will be
the magic and because of that we won't fall into
the risk or trap that our colleague asked about.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
At the moment, I feel and I think it's obvious
that some are retreating from purpose and DEI these days
you've doubled down. I've mentioned in my introduction year championing
the Crown Act. She moises new Voices Fund and more.
Let's talk about this for a second, and please explain
what else you do yourself as a company in your
(37:11):
role and whether you see d I as a growth
driver in a positive way? Right? Not doing it because
of that, but does it come along with a lot
of growth potential as well, So maybe you can mention
in addition to the Crown Act and she was just
New Voices Fund, which I've mentioned already, how this impact
also the growth story of your portfolio.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
For me, my role is to drive growth and the
role of our brands is to make sure we're meeting
people's needs to drive growth. So you've got to look
at the market and identify where those growth opportunities are.
And the growth opportunities exist with growing populations all over
(37:54):
the world or underserved populations, So we make sure our
brands where there's dry skin, and then we want to
show the care of Dove through dry skin, we address
and super serve those needs. So it's really important that
we identify market segments that are growing and address the
(38:17):
needs authentically of growing market segments, including demographics. If it's
gen Z, if it's black or Latina in America, if
it's you know, young women in Latin America, it's really important.
Those with textured hair, it's super important. The other thing,
we were just talking about a brand's emotional connection, how
(38:39):
it resonates and addresses people's needs. I use something called
purpose and culture. Every brand being clear on what its
purpose or role is in culture, people care about me,
what's in it for me? And brands getting clear in
their purpose and culture. Again, for Dove, it's campaigning for
real beauty and how that translates into their culture and community.
(39:04):
So in that framework, purpose is alive. I call that
purpose and culture. And then how you serve those growing
demographics through purpose and culture. So you have the Basiline
story where you know the great influencer Nano influencer in
Africa talks about how she again helps remove plasters, textured
(39:24):
hair shaving. It connects and meets those needs. So the
short answer to your question is, really there's no change
in making sure our brands thrive by deeply resonating with
people and meeting their needs using purpose and culture and
being committed to addressing needs of you know, high growth, emerging,
(39:48):
important demographics.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Your mentro's passion power. What does it look like in
the way you lead your team every day? How can
I imagine this, you know, working with you and experiences
every day.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I think passion is interesting. I think you know, why
do you like chocolate and I like vanilla? You know
why do some people like to run and others like
to swim. I think passion is there for us to
tap into what we're here in this world to do.
And I think you can power up your impact based
(40:23):
on that passion. So passion power is listening to what
brings you joy, what lights you up, what takes you off,
and leaning into more of what brings you joy and
what lights you up and driving an impact from that.
For me, passion power has been my career. I've chosen CpG,
(40:44):
I've chosen brands and make a difference. I've just proportionately
at my career been on the beauty and personal care side,
and I lean into that and I drive impact. I'm
passionate about the underserved, so I lean into that, and
the power up is driving impact. So passion power is
pastially making a difference and driving impact in areas that
you're passionate about, and our brands are credible brands I'm
(41:08):
passionate about and investing time to really make sure our
brands are resonating deeply with people and our future fit
that the brands will thrive for another century or another
decade or another fifty years, depending on the brand, and
to beyond, because we are at the forefront of where
(41:31):
society is headed. So that's what passion power looks like.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
To me, I'm one hundred percent on board. I feel
that whatever you do, passion makes for me personally. Also,
the biggest difference. If you see somebody doing what somebody's
doing this passion, it's a massive difference. I totally agree
with that. Let's look forward a bit. I see maybe
I don't know five years, maybe it's a bit too long.
Let's say two three years from now on what is
(41:56):
in our industry, marketing industry. What's the one thing will
change forever and the one thing you hope never changes
over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Starting with the latter, what I believe will never change
is the role of people in humans. Because we are humans,
are ones that drive choice. We are what you know
inhabit the planet. So I believe humanity will remain at
(42:30):
the center of marketing that grows, not automation. I believe
automation will be of service to that humanity. And there
is a lot and I say automation, I mean agents,
gin Ai, robots, which you know, if it was all
about gin Ai and this year it's about agentic Ai,
(42:55):
next few years will be about physical ais. Those will
all be of service to our humanity. I believe that
won't change. And in your question, hope that's the one
thing I really want us to lean into and hope
that endures. In terms of the one thing that I
really want to make sure changes is that we are
(43:17):
not pushing our brand messages, forcing our messages onto people,
that we are instead connecting with people and because of that,
having people share and express our messages with other people.
I want marketing to be more authentic of the community
(43:38):
for the community. And there's a lot of change that
has to happen because we can think about marketing is
transactional performance marketing, you know, only trying to get the purchase.
What I want to make sure continues to change is
that we think about earning our purchase because other people
(43:58):
are authentically bought in and sharing our message.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I think what a wonderful final comment or closing of
art today's conversation, Isy, I really enjoyed our conversation today
and I think you know everybody who listened to this
understand that this has been a masterclass in not just
leading brands, but reshaping what marketing can mean for business,
for culture, and for the people. And I think your
(44:22):
role model what you do, and you've shown us how engineering,
precision and human empathy can actually co exist ex scale.
So thank you so much for your time today and
for joining Possible Now.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Thank you so much, Easy, It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Thank you Christian, and for everybody listening, remember it's all
about choosing between purpose and performance and not about proving
they belong together. This is the goal, and keep pushing boundaries.
This is what my message is for the listeners, and
I will welcome you back very soon for the next episode.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Thanks for tuning in everyone.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Once again, I'm your host, Christian Moha. If you have
a question or suggestion to me, reach out send me
DM on LinkedIn. If you're curious to learn more about Possible,
sign up for our newsletter or if you want to
join us at the Possible Show in Miami, visit possibleevent
dot com. Possible Now is a co production of iHeartMedia
and Possible. Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Yasmin Melendez.
(45:21):
Our supervising producer is Meredith Barnes. Special thanks to Colleen
Lawrence Mack from our programming team. Our theme music is
composed by Anthony Ketcoli. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
the iHeart app Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Possible Now Stories of Possibilities, the podcast where
we dive into the leadership frameworks, bold ideas and personal
stories shaping the future of marketing, technology and leadership. This
is Possible Now, Stories of Possibilities, And I'm Christian Muchen,
Global president and co founder and host of this podcast
(00:26):
where we explore bold ideas and meet the leaders who
are challenging convention and listen to the innovative inspirational minds
reshaping business, creativity and technology. And today I have the
privilege of welcoming a special guest who truly embodies transformation
at scale, Izzy Egleson Bracy. She's an engineer turned growth leader,
(00:48):
a marketer who sees brands not just as products, but
as platforms for culture, commerce and change. And after twenty
five years at Prognan Gamble, she went on to redefine
beauty at CO before taking the reins at Unilever, first
as President of the US, then as CEO of Personal
Care in North America, and now as Chief Growth and
(01:09):
Marketing Officer. She oversees marketing for a global portfolio of
more than four hundred brands, including icons like Dove, Hellman's
and magnum for the world's fourth largest fast moving consumer
goods company. Her fingerprints aren't some of the most purpose
driven campaigns of the past decade, from Dove's leadership in
(01:31):
pushing the Crown Act into law outlawing hair discrimination, to
share Moisture's New Voices Fund, investing in women entrepreneurs of color,
and just as the industry questioned the future of purposeful marketing,
she doubled down. But she is not only rewriting the
social impact playbook, She's re engineering the growth model itself.
(01:52):
Under her watch, Unilever has accelerated AI digital twins that
slash costs and speed time to market by assimulating packaging
and creative before launch. She's introduced the culture to Card
strategy that fuses brand's storytelling with frictional as commerce, directly
converting culture moments into buying moments. And as she lives
(02:14):
her mantra passion power as a mentor, as a mother,
and as a leader who wants to shape not just
a more inclusive marketing industry, but a more inclusive world,
is he Eggleston Bracy A very warm welcome to Possible Now,
and thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Thank you for having me. What an incredible introduction.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Thank you so much. And there's so much more to
tell and we will cover a lot of different topics
in the next couple of minutes. Acy, but before we
dive into these kind of business topics, that say, if
I might ask and start with a more personal question,
if you're okay with that. So you described yourself as
an engineer at heart, what I could read, but also
as someone deeply shaped by your Chicago roots right and
(02:57):
your family. So when you look back, what was maybe
one experience, one dedicated moment outside of the business world
that most defines the way you show up as a
leader today. Was there anything you would remember that you
know was a moment, a key moment for me, which
still is still very valid for me in today's business.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
What a thoughtful question, Christian.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
You know, as I've mentioned, I am an accidental business executive.
You know, my mother is a lawyer and a real
community lawyer, and my father is a school teacher. They
were always very active in fighting for the underserved and
that has shaped me. And what I am is a
(03:43):
people advocate. You know, I advocate for the consumer. I
keep people at the center of the business and I
really believe what we do is about solving people problems
and solving business problems. So I like to go deep
and look for human insights, human problems and then create
the opportunity. And that's what I think about my parents,
(04:05):
you know, fighting for people, my father and his students,
you know, in an underprivileged high school, and my mother
for divorces and race discrimination cases. So that outlook has
shaped me, even though I apply that to business.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
In your role obviously, you know, working heavily with consumer
perspectives and the consumer itself. I mean, you can perfectly
combine that approach. I can see that. But we will
come back to this in a minute. So I've mentioned
that your education was you know, becoming an engineer means
you're used to problem solving. You is this is part
of your DNA. How does that engineering mindset distinguish you
(04:45):
as a marketer and gross leader today? Is it helpful
or would you say, well, no, it wasn't episode in
my life, but now you know it's a complete different story.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It is more than helpful. It's my foundation. What you
learn in engineering is a framework for problem solving, and
you get a lot of practice for solving problems, and
I think in frameworks as I think about, you know, Unilever,
what I'm trying to do with the brands and driving
desire at scale. It's changing the model from a one
(05:17):
to many to a mini to mini model, which we
can talk more about later. But I'm always thinking about
what are the frameworks, What does a mini to mini
model mean? What are the key elements that need to
be driven. So at the core of business, a growth
business is problem solving. It's pinpointing the problem you're trying
to solve. Many people don't take the time to identify
(05:40):
the problem, and for me, it's the people problem, the
consumer problem. Really, really what if? What if? What if?
Speaker 1 (05:47):
What is it? Is? That?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
It is?
Speaker 1 (05:48):
That it?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
And then it's creating the solution, and engineering just provides
a beautiful framework to practice that. So it's at the core.
I never practiced as an engineer you're outside of university
except for my several internships. So I moved straight away
into consumer goods brand management coming out of university after
(06:10):
about four engineering internships.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
As you said, problem solving is the base for everything
right to move forward and to do better than before
whatever you do. It sounds so obvious, but I agree,
sometimes the most obvious things in the world. You know,
not many people do this, so I really appreciate this
hearing from you. Let's talk about the CEM role, and
you know what we do every day year, and you
know far better than I do, whether on panels, on
(06:35):
stage and interviews. In our daily work, cimos are, let
me say, under pressure. I mean you can say everybody's
under pressure, but I feel cimos in particular to shift
marketing from a cost center to a growth driver. And
when you joined Uni Lever, what were the first levers
you pulled at Unilever to make that pivot stick, to
(06:55):
change the game in some way.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, It's what we were talking about earlier. What our
job is is to identify what we must do to
unlock growth. That is the core of how I define marketing,
particularly in CpG. The brands are at the core of
the enterprise, so you look at what is the opportunity
(07:18):
in the market. When I joined Unilever, the beauty part
of the market was really growing. The experience part of
the market was growing. So identifying the business growth driver.
If the beauty and experience part of the market is growing,
how do we move our brands from functional brands to
more experiential brands, and how do we participate in that
(07:41):
one problem to solve the other. The demographics of the
marketplace continue to change. You see underserved people or consumers
gen Z consumers, Black consumers, Latino consumers who actually index
wise over consume beauty and personal care products. Underserved, So
having the opportunity to grow by better meeting those needs.
(08:05):
So I always look at what's happening in the market.
Where are our brands, what can we shift or unlock
to capture that growth in the market. And that usually
starts with marketing because it starts with the consumer need.
It starts with product, and then how you market and
communicate those products, which is essentially you know, marketing management,
(08:29):
brand management, category management.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Was everybody on board from the beginning on when you
started to work on those topics, I mean the c suite,
the boardroom, was everybody on board? Or how did you
bring skeptics along?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I think the best leaders create inspiration, clarity and help
people do their jobs. So as a leader, it's my
job to help people see the opportunity and to speak
about the opportunity in a way that others can get
on board. So like most transformation, people don't say yes
(09:05):
right away, but you create the opportunities. People can say yes,
I liken it to exercise, and you say, yes, I
want that body, I want to be fit, but ugh,
do I want to do that work. But when you
see the opportunity and you're inspired by it, you start
to do that work. So I would say, you know,
Lever said yes when seeing the opportunities, and you create
(09:28):
one win and another win, and you see the growth
behind it, the impact behind it, and then the whole
team owns it as their own and you drive momentum.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
That sounds fantastic and congratulates for doing this. We talked about,
you know, shifting from a cost center to a growth
driver with your department and your daily work. These days,
one of the most common questions I think when you
talk to potential partners are the budgets Do they keep
growing or are you saying, you know a will caution
on spendings prevail these days? What can the market expect
(10:03):
independent from Unilever?
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Well, thinking about Unilever, Unilever believes in brands. It is
the core of our proposition. People don't always know Unilever
but they know our brands. It's our brands and our
products are what serve people. So we invest in the
brands and we continue to grow our investment in brands.
The key is ensuring that that brand investment is returning
(10:28):
growth and profitability, so that every cent counts. That is
true industry wide. Industry wide, we want to make sure
every cent has an impact. The key on that impact
is the impact could be in the short term, but
it also needs to be in the mid and long term.
When you invest a cent, it might drive a return
(10:50):
in the first three weeks, but what we see in
our brands also when you invest that cent, half of
that drives a return in the next three or four months,
and then depending on your content, it drives a return
later in the year. So you have to continue the
investment in the brands. Your question is about the industry dynamic.
The industry dynamic is about unlocking growth and profitability. So
(11:13):
it's our job when we create programs to invest in
our brands to drive that growth and profitability and be
clearer than ever before on the return we get. And
with the tools and technology we have today a unilely
where we use rapid ROI, we have more visibility, more data,
more granularity. So as marketers, we are experts on the data.
(11:35):
That's not a finance job. That's not the other people
that do the business job. The core of our job
in marketing is to understand our impact, but first by
understanding what opportunity we're trying to address and then closing
the loop that how we're choosing to invest in that
opportunity is having the desired impact.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
That's a good moment to go to the title. I mean,
everybody has a title, and in your case it's Growth
and Marketing officer, in some cases just marketing officer, or
there are a lot of combinations in the market. You
talk about growth and profitability, it's obvious that we also
talk about trust, consumer trust relationships. What could be the
perfect title, or let's say, description of your understanding what
(12:19):
you're doing every day. Is it the growth and marketing officer?
Is it the trust and profitability and relationship manager? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It really is transformation officer. It's really what it is.
It's growth and transformation officer. And here's why we all
know how much the world has changed and continues to change.
It's been changing our whole lives but the pace of
change and how much it's accelerating is starving consumer attention.
(12:51):
Consumer attention I read a stat has gone from twelve
seconds a decade and a half ago to eight seconds.
They say that's less than a goldfish. Everyone is buying
for consumer attention. So the transformation is how do we
stand out in the face of that. Mass reach models
don't work. You know, Unilever a sixty billion euro company.
(13:11):
We have multiple multi billion dollar and multi billion euro brands.
We have to drive reach at scale. We're not a startup.
We need to drive reach at scale. The broad reach
model broadcast doesn't work, so we have to transform that.
In this world at scale, all these things are transforming,
the media platforms, the diversity, the tools, the technology. If
(13:35):
you remissed if I didn't talk about what AI makes
possible and the spirit of you know possible, it's truly exciting.
But so a lot of what I do is clarify
the change that needs to happen and work within the
enterprise on how you unlock the change to drive growth.
So it's more a chief growth and transformation officer, especially
(13:59):
at a company you know Lever, where marketing is at
the core.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
And You've mentioned already a lot of topics. We would
come to this in a minute. When I read you're
responsible for four hundred plus brands currently, I cannot imagine
how you do this every day with your team. Of
course you have teams around the world, but from Dove
to Acts to Wesilin and so many more brands. How
do you balance that thrill and the risk of such
a vast portfolio? Can you give a kind of insight
(14:24):
to our listeners, you know how your daily work look
like looking after four hundred plus brands.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Like most complexity, it's a matter of focus. And while
we have four hundred brands and one hundred and ninety markets,
we have thirty that are power brands and that account
for three quarters of our revenue and growth potential. So
those thirty brands make a big difference over the four hundred.
Then within those thirty brands, those brands are across various
(14:52):
business groups. The business groups have c mos for those categories,
those groups, and the within the brands. So really what
I'm doing is leading a team of leaders and experts
inspiring and driving change in terms of what the marketing
model is giving the how to what's the platebook to
(15:13):
drive that change, bringing partners and people together to unlock change.
So you manage complexity through focus. And I know I
keep repeating myself being clear on what problem you're trying
to solve, and the problem I'm trying to solve is
moving us into a modern marketing model that drives growth
because we drive reach, engagement, and conversion at scale. It's
(15:37):
the culture to cart that you talked about.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
You know, I'm.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Really trying to drive within that address this point on attention.
That's where desire at scale comes in. Desire is I
just have to have that, not that I need that.
And because the brand is crafted for a desire, that
means its whole proposition is what you want in culture
(16:04):
that's relevant. You're using brands that we call it sase
that have science backed by science, esthetics, sensorials, they're shared
by others, they're young spirited, they're designed for desire, and
then they're executed for desire through culture to kart, culture moments,
(16:26):
content that's relevant, and art that it converts literally to purchase.
So having that level of focus back to how do
you manage the role, focus on the brands, those thirty
power brands focus on the model and moving us to
this modern model of marketing because not just because it's modern,
(16:50):
because it's the way to unlock growth and this intention starved,
more fragmented world where it's harder to earn the purchase.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That's amazing. And we come back to this culture to
cut strategy because you're already touch based on that. But
out of these thirty power brands you've mentioned, is there
one Maybe you don't want to mention one dady game,
but is there one north Star which you could use
for your daddy work as a role model When you
come to difficult decisions, you can always go back to
this case and say, Okay, we did so perfectly well
(17:20):
with this dedicated brand, or is it really Across these
thirty power bands, each.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Brand plays their role, and if you rank for thirty brands,
they all have different weight. We have multiple brands over
four billion euro right, so we've got important brands, so
you can't just focus on one. Also, when you think
you've nailed it, the game is over. You know. I
like to look at things as half full and half empty,
(17:47):
so I appreciate things across the brands. Dove, It's clarity
a proposition in today's cluttered environment, it's more important than
ever before for your brand to know what it stands
for with crystal clarity, so you know what you communicate
in the world and how you partner with others to
(18:07):
be relevant in culture. Dove does that beautifully. It is
truly about real beauty and making sure beauty is a
source of joy, is a positive experience for people instead
of a source of anxiety. And its mantra is let's
change beauty and we celebrate the joyful experience and address
(18:29):
the challenges of beauty so that it can be that
it's crystal clear. And while it's crystal clear, it doesn't
just do it by ourselves. We partner. We partner with
Crumble cookies dessert cookies that extend that to help drive
the business but also help bring in new users who
hadn't even considered the brand. And by the way, almost
(18:51):
half of our Crumble users were new to the Dove franchise.
So when you say, as there brand that I point to,
each brand has something they do well. I'm giving an
example of Dove and its clarity of proposition and how
it's able to extend that also in partnerships, and I
could go on and speak to others. Another one of
my favorites that is not as known in the US
(19:16):
is our franchise of brands that we refer to as
Dirt as Good. It's the largest laundry brand in the
world by volume and by penetration. Brands like Omo Person
are there. Again, back to that brand, how it connects
to culture, celebrating the joy of dirt. You think that
laundry is about staying clean, but no, get out and play.
(19:39):
Dirt is Good is more important today than ever before.
Everything we're seeing around the impact of isolation from technology
out in the world, connecting with people its proposition dirt,
it's going to be more importantly bringing that to life
with its partnerships. I think about the Arsenal partnership. Every
stain is a part of the game, a great program
(20:00):
idea that's in the UK with the Women's Arsenal team
so amazing, and then in the US, what I really
admire about the brands is the culture to Kart and
the partnership with retailers, with Walmart, with Amazon, with NFL
programming to make sure every cultural entertainment moment gets in
(20:21):
the basket. You know, with Hellman's as a part of
the NFL, so I said a lot there. What I'm
saying is there are things to learn, pockets of excellence
across a range of brands and markets, and my job
is helping identify those and leveling up those across brands.
There are things that are working, and then there are
(20:41):
opportunities in markets, and that's the growth, that's the fuel
for the growth.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
That Emiti came to my mind. You know, when we
were kids, you know, we enjoyed to plan the dirt. Right,
we come from there. Right, It's so obvious, as I
said before, and the most successful things are the most
obvious ones. But for some reason, you know, sometimes we
hesitate to bring it up or to use those kind
of examples. You mentioned culture to Card strategy, and we
understand it's all about converting culture moments directly into commerce.
(21:10):
You've mentioned a couple of partnerships around the globe. Is
there one dedicated campaign you can mention, you know which
proves you know, the culture really can go straight to
KRT to better understand for our listeners. You know, maybe
in the US what they dedicated campaign you could mention.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, I think about culture to Kart as a strategy
and a mindset even more than a campaign that means
every program, if it's beauty, never gets old on Dove.
You know, if it is the acts effect when you're
connecting into culture, it's how do you partner with the
(21:48):
retailer to make sure that cultural moment lines up in store?
You know with the big game, the Super Bowl? How
are you visible? How do you do that online through
digit commerce so that when people are compelled to buy
because they see the program and have the opportunity to buy.
That said, there are several programs. You know, I'm really
(22:10):
proud of the success of the Vasoline team, you know,
one of the big winners this year, it can but
really quite frankly for the business was this campaign called
Vassaline Verified. But Vasilline Verified did was showcase the range
of hacks that people use vasaline petroleum jelly for some
(22:32):
unimaginable hacks, some of them that we deem safe by
our scientists, for example helping shave with vassaline or removing
plasters or band aids that get stuck, or managing your
dry lips with vassoline, but some not approved, like eating vassoline.
We worked with influencers to share their hacks, had our
(22:58):
scientists say a proved or not approved, and shared those
in social media became a cultural phenomenon, but we also
connected those to commerce, so we actually had influencers that
were also partnering with retailers and selling through social commerce.
(23:18):
Vasoline based on these hacks that drove our business forty
three percent when that campaign was running. It actually is
continuing to run, but the period that we tested, that's
culture to Kart, taking that cultural moment connecting it with
the in store retailers. So that's one. The other one
I mentioned was doub Crumble. We partnered just with Walmart
(23:38):
on that and drove over fifty million in incremental sales
behind that plan. It was all designed with Walmart, so
every moment that we communicated with one of our influencers.
When you look at Crumble, they're these incredible twins that
actually communicated Rumble before Dove launched, and we worked with
(24:04):
those twins to highlight Crumbles now available at Walmart, and
of course you can click here to buy or go
in store before the product runs out, and of course
we sold out the product. So those are a couple
of examples, but more of it is the mindset to
create the programming so that you're not just driving engagement,
(24:24):
but you're actually capturing that engagement into purchase.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
And definitely some unexpected outcomes and sometimes turns, you know,
as you described. You also mentioned before the you know,
(24:49):
going from one to many to many to many. You
talked about the move about this communication? What does that
mean in practice? Let's talk about this. I mean, everybody
can imagine many to many in today's world, especially via
social media, But does that really mean as I interpreted
this or can you expland a bit more how you
do this, how you execute this in your daily work,
(25:10):
and most important, how do you ensure personalization at scale
that it doesn't sacrifice authenticity. When we talk about this
many to many, it must be a massive scale of
you know, different type of communication. I cannot imagine. How
can you guide this, you know, or control this in
a way you want.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
You used an interesting word about control. The thing with
many to many is you drive it, but you can't
control it how you drive it? As I was saying earlier,
it's really thinking about and codifying your brand's purpose and culture.
What unique role you play that's the glue that ties
(25:52):
your brand together, That is the brand. Then you look
at what community your brand can appeal to and ensuring
you're looking at those communities and not pushing your brands,
but you're clearing their passion points. So if it's sports enthusiasts,
what does sports enthusiasts care about? What do swifties care about?
(26:17):
Music fans? What do they care about? What do gamers
care about? Those communities? What's the intersection between your brand
and the communities you choose? That doesn't mean you choose
all communities. So again, when you think about sports fans,
what's the connection between Dove and real beauty and sports fans?
And that is keeping her confident? So many to many
(26:41):
is about translating your brand, its unique proposition to the
areas that are valuable to those communities and their passion points.
Then once you're clearing those areas, it's having people, influencers,
creators share your brand message with other people in their
(27:03):
tribe or their community. So you have these many influencers.
When I say influencers, maybe it's a mega influencer, but
mostly it's nano influencers. There's many of them that know
their communities. You find those ones that match your brand proposition,
and fit with those communities, So you have many people
(27:23):
sharing a message with many other people. That's part of it.
The other part is what you've called personalization at scale
is in this massive world of technology in AI, you
can translate your big brand message into content, a diversity
of content that speaks to the communities. That doesn't mean
you don't keep your brand identity. In fact, you must
(27:46):
keep your brand identity, but you express it. If I
use a brand like trust to me, I have curly
hair or textured hair. My friend has straight black hair.
I can address all those issues on trustime, so I
highlight that variant for curly hair to me and maybe
color treat it. I highlight straight dark hair rich dark
(28:10):
hair with another variant on Trusteme. So the modular content
and the leverage of GENAI help in our brand content
to also go to mini. So let me just summarize
the mini to MANI. The mini is one brand idea
translated to many communities and people with different desires and
(28:33):
needs shared by other people influencers and adapt it in
our content that we share with people, so it's relevant
and they share with other people. So it's many people
sharing brand messages with many other people.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And it feels like limitless right because we have in
theory we have seven billion, eight billion? What is the
world population? Right now? You know, influence us out there.
We're waiting to transport this message. How do you see
because you talked about influencers, how do you see the
influence of marketing evolving. Do you see it as more
transactional or is it more of the future of trust
(29:11):
building trust? Is it something completely different? What do you think?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I think of it as a lot about trust and relevance.
I believe gone are the days of transaction because my
CEO says a marketing is suspicious. As consumers, we don't
want to be marketed to or manipulated. We want to
engage authentically and we want to learn about products that
(29:38):
we might like. Who do we want to know about that?
And learn about that from people that we trust And
the old days that was word of mouth, the neighbor
next door. So what the influencer ecosystem does is creates
the opportunity to find the people that you trust, not
people that are paid to sell a brand message. The
(30:01):
model that is working moves more to this whole idea
of an influencer in every zip code. Really, what it
is is an influencer for every community that you trust
that can give you relevant advice and they share your interests.
They're a part of your tribe.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
You've mentioned AI. You did something very famous. You've scaled
AI powered digital twins at Uni err Replicans that cut
costs by fifty five percent if I remember right, and
speed campaigns by sixty five percent, which is super impressive.
What is the most surprising thing you've learned by testing
(30:39):
the virtual world? First? Was it so brand new? Were
there so many unexpected outcomes? Or was it more than
what you was expecting?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Here?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Do you use these digital twins across all these power
brands or just for a few Can you explain it
a bit more for our listeners.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
So our ambition is to drive desire at scale. We
want products and brands that people just have to have.
What that requires is elevating our brands, including our packaging.
Our products are part of that with the esthetics and
the sensorials of the packaging. What's amazing about digital twins
(31:21):
in addition to speeding up the process more than twice
as fast, in addition to saving costs more than half
the cost, it's the quality that you get because we
use the omniverse and video technology and if you've ever
experienced the video games of late they are hyper realized
romanced imagery. We bring that to our product and we
(31:47):
bring that in three sixty. So we create this picture perfect,
pixel perfect image of every product across skews. That means
each of our markets have access to this desirable product
package and then when we connect that with retail, back
to culture to cart, can actually turn that product around.
(32:09):
You can see the product ingredients, you can see the
glow of the beautiful package. You can actually see the
product and some of the creaminess and the texture some
of our digital twins that even come out. So the
beauty of digital twins is the better, the more desirable,
the more cost efficient and faster. So it's not just
(32:33):
a productivity drive, it's a desirability drive. And yes, we
use digital twins across the Power brands, and yes that
drives one hundred percent consistency around the product packaging around
the world. Irregardless of the affordability of doing a product
shoot in a particular market.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Is are you at the very forefront doing this or
are you aware of other brands doing this? A similar.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
We're at the forefront. You know, the omniverse technology is
out there. We worked with a range of partners, one
that's called Collective to bring it to life. So I'm
sure there are others that are using the technology, but
I see us at the forefront at scale is using
that as our practice based on again our ambition of
(33:21):
desireed scale. I think there's so many tools today you
can get distracted by and you can fall in love
with that tool. Every day, there's now over thirty nine
thousand AI tools, and every week there seems to be
a new hundred taking shape because AI tools are being
used to create new AI tools. That means us as
(33:44):
marketers can be totally overwhelmed and we can actually miss
the plot. What we don't want to do is lose
the forest for the trees. We have to stay focused
on what our ambition is. So our ambition is to
create desireed scale to address the attention fragmentation and then
from a culture to car or a content message, it's
(34:06):
the many to many. So we use digital twins, a
range of other AI tools. If it's Google's vo three,
if it is pencil pro, all those tools in service
of that. Instead of there's a new tool called digital twin.
Let me give it a try.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
I've recently read and I think it was another interviewer
podcast you've done, and you posted about this not such
a long time ago, and I've seen one of a
post comments underneath from a common friend and a quote
he said. Where this all gets tricky is that we
are building brands on emotional foundations, but consumers are increasingly
(34:45):
encountering brands through AI intermediaries that stripped away from the
sensory and contextual magic. And further on, as AI crashes
the party, how do we ensure the emotional justifications for
our brands survived the translation layer. I thought that it's
a very interesting Christian and I wanted to use it
here as well.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, I think it's consistent with what I've said. The
most important thing I also think about. Let me say
it this way. Marketing, I believe, is about helping people.
We started this at the top of the conversation, understanding
people problems and desires and then solving them. Technology can
be an enabler to that because you have reached your
(35:23):
deeper insights, but human wise, you still have to listen
and tap into what are the drivers of those needs
and desires, and it's our goal to create our brands
and our products to address those. When we don't listen,
when we don't know that, that's when we miss the
plot and can be very transactional or only do performance marketing.
(35:47):
Desiraed Scale is not about performance marketing. It's about addressing
people's deep desires and then connecting authentically into them and
using the tools to do that. So these AI what
he called intermediaries, those are at our service. It's us
as the marketers, to be clear on what passion points
(36:09):
we want to address, to identify the elements of the
content that tap into that, and us to choose you know,
human in the loop, what moves forward. This isn't. I
don't believe that it's a one hundred percent automated advertising process.
You go for that. The big risk is losing human connection.
(36:32):
We go for. We believe humanity, our brands, how they
emote hence desire I have to have. That will be
the magic and because of that we won't fall into
the risk or trap that our colleague asked about.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
At the moment, I feel and I think it's obvious
that some are retreating from purpose and DEI these days
you've doubled down. I've mentioned in my introduction year championing
the Crown Act. She moises new Voices Fund and more.
Let's talk about this for a second, and please explain
what else you do yourself as a company in your
(37:11):
role and whether you see d I as a growth
driver in a positive way? Right? Not doing it because
of that, but does it come along with a lot
of growth potential as well, So maybe you can mention
in addition to the Crown Act and she was just
New Voices Fund, which I've mentioned already, how this impact
also the growth story of your portfolio.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
For me, my role is to drive growth and the
role of our brands is to make sure we're meeting
people's needs to drive growth. So you've got to look
at the market and identify where those growth opportunities are.
And the growth opportunities exist with growing populations all over
(37:54):
the world or underserved populations, So we make sure our
brands where there's dry skin, and then we want to
show the care of Dove through dry skin, we address
and super serve those needs. So it's really important that
we identify market segments that are growing and address the
(38:17):
needs authentically of growing market segments, including demographics. If it's
gen Z, if it's black or Latina in America, if
it's you know, young women in Latin America, it's really important.
Those with textured hair, it's super important. The other thing,
we were just talking about a brand's emotional connection, how
(38:39):
it resonates and addresses people's needs. I use something called
purpose and culture. Every brand being clear on what its
purpose or role is in culture, people care about me,
what's in it for me? And brands getting clear in
their purpose and culture. Again, for Dove, it's campaigning for
real beauty and how that translates into their culture and community.
(39:04):
So in that framework, purpose is alive. I call that
purpose and culture. And then how you serve those growing
demographics through purpose and culture. So you have the Basiline
story where you know the great influencer Nano influencer in
Africa talks about how she again helps remove plasters, textured
(39:24):
hair shaving. It connects and meets those needs. So the
short answer to your question is, really there's no change
in making sure our brands thrive by deeply resonating with
people and meeting their needs using purpose and culture and
being committed to addressing needs of you know, high growth, emerging,
(39:48):
important demographics.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Your mentro's passion power. What does it look like in
the way you lead your team every day? How can
I imagine this, you know, working with you and experiences
every day.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
I think passion is interesting. I think you know, why
do you like chocolate and I like vanilla? You know
why do some people like to run and others like
to swim. I think passion is there for us to
tap into what we're here in this world to do.
And I think you can power up your impact based
(40:23):
on that passion. So passion power is listening to what
brings you joy, what lights you up, what takes you off,
and leaning into more of what brings you joy and
what lights you up and driving an impact from that.
For me, passion power has been my career. I've chosen CpG,
(40:44):
I've chosen brands and make a difference. I've just proportionately
at my career been on the beauty and personal care side,
and I lean into that and I drive impact. I'm
passionate about the underserved, so I lean into that, and
the power up is driving impact. So passion power is
pastially making a difference and driving impact in areas that
you're passionate about, and our brands are credible brands I'm
(41:08):
passionate about and investing time to really make sure our
brands are resonating deeply with people and our future fit
that the brands will thrive for another century or another
decade or another fifty years, depending on the brand, and
to beyond, because we are at the forefront of where
(41:31):
society is headed. So that's what passion power looks like.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
To me, I'm one hundred percent on board. I feel
that whatever you do, passion makes for me personally. Also,
the biggest difference. If you see somebody doing what somebody's
doing this passion, it's a massive difference. I totally agree
with that. Let's look forward a bit. I see maybe
I don't know five years, maybe it's a bit too long.
Let's say two three years from now on what is
(41:56):
in our industry, marketing industry. What's the one thing will
change forever and the one thing you hope never changes
over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Starting with the latter, what I believe will never change
is the role of people in humans. Because we are humans,
are ones that drive choice. We are what you know
inhabit the planet. So I believe humanity will remain at
(42:30):
the center of marketing that grows, not automation. I believe
automation will be of service to that humanity. And there
is a lot and I say automation, I mean agents,
gin Ai, robots, which you know, if it was all
about gin Ai and this year it's about agentic Ai,
(42:55):
next few years will be about physical ais. Those will
all be of service to our humanity. I believe that
won't change. And in your question, hope that's the one
thing I really want us to lean into and hope
that endures. In terms of the one thing that I
really want to make sure changes is that we are
(43:17):
not pushing our brand messages, forcing our messages onto people,
that we are instead connecting with people and because of that,
having people share and express our messages with other people.
I want marketing to be more authentic of the community
(43:38):
for the community. And there's a lot of change that
has to happen because we can think about marketing is
transactional performance marketing, you know, only trying to get the purchase.
What I want to make sure continues to change is
that we think about earning our purchase because other people
(43:58):
are authentically bought in and sharing our message.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I think what a wonderful final comment or closing of
art today's conversation, Isy, I really enjoyed our conversation today
and I think you know everybody who listened to this
understand that this has been a masterclass in not just
leading brands, but reshaping what marketing can mean for business,
for culture, and for the people. And I think your
(44:22):
role model what you do, and you've shown us how engineering,
precision and human empathy can actually co exist ex scale.
So thank you so much for your time today and
for joining Possible Now.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
Thank you so much, Easy, It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
Thank you Christian, and for everybody listening, remember it's all
about choosing between purpose and performance and not about proving
they belong together. This is the goal, and keep pushing boundaries.
This is what my message is for the listeners, and
I will welcome you back very soon for the next episode.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Thanks for tuning in everyone.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Once again, I'm your host, Christian Moha. If you have
a question or suggestion to me, reach out send me
DM on LinkedIn. If you're curious to learn more about Possible,
sign up for our newsletter or if you want to
join us at the Possible Show in Miami, visit possibleevent
dot com. Possible Now is a co production of iHeartMedia
and Possible. Our executive producers are Ryan Marx and Yasmin Melendez.
(45:21):
Our supervising producer is Meredith Barnes. Special thanks to Colleen
Lawrence Mack from our programming team. Our theme music is
composed by Anthony Ketcoli. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
the iHeart app Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
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