After another year of marketers having to navigate over and around a raft of pandemic-induced obstacles, those on the Power 100 leaderboard are ready to take their brands up yet another level, Jennifer Small writes

For the past year – and counting – there isn’t a single Power 100 marketer who hasn’t cogitated and, frankly, dreamed about what life might look like post pandemic. Phrases such as “great reset” and “new normal” have reverberated through all those marketing presentations delivered with ever-increasing aplomb via video calls. 

Now, here we are, on what could be the other side. And as the Covid clouds clear, or are pushed aside by the hunger for normality, it’s evident a lot has changed – not only because of the pandemic. The challenges have been extraordinary, and as a consequence, people’s needs have evolved.

It’s a “critical point in history”, according to Aline Santos, chief brand officer and chief equity, diversity and inclusion officer at Unilever. She says the virus has “only exacerbated the inequalities that exist within society”. The marketing industry has a responsibility to address these, she believes, by “creating marketing that is truly inclusive and representative of the people we serve, but by also taking on the issues people care about”.

This is borne out by Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer, which found that 86% of consumers globally expect brands to take one or more actions beyond their product and business. These include creating positive culture within society, displaying representative images and addressing political issues.

“The challenge – or as we see it, the opportunity – is for brands to redefine their place in the world,” Santos says. “We have long believed in the power of brands with purpose. Brands must have a point of view and, more importantly, they must take action to drive change. Together, we must use this moment to rewire the way we do marketing.”

The pandemic has prompted Unilever to launch its “Get on the frontline” marketing philosophy. This comprises a three-pronged approach: first to “get real”, to get closer to reality, solving live problems for actual people; second to “do good”, driving positive change for society and the environment; and third to “be unmissable”, through creativity and accessibility.

Put diversity, equity and inclusion centre stage

Increased consumer awakening to issues including diversity is also noted by Pete Markey, chief marketing officer of Boots. The retailer’s work with Creative Equals informed its summer campaign “Feel good as new”, created by a team from Boots and The Pharm, a cross-agency WPP team from VMLY&R, Ogilvy PR and MediaCom. The work used street-casting to recruit a “rich tapestry” of people of different ages and backgrounds to best represent people in the UK today, Markey says. 

Markey is executive sponsor for “marketing for change”, a Walgreens Boots Alliance global initiative that attempts to ensure all communication puts diversity, equity and inclusion centre stage. This also means recruiting diverse talent to marketing teams, which is done in partnership with WPP. 

“We’re working together very much on this agenda, so the whole piece on marketing for change is as much about what we do in Boots as it is about what WPP does with the talent it’s bringing in, and the quality of its work, which needs to reflect the communities we serve as well,” he says.

It’s especially important for 172-year-old Boots, Markey adds. With 2330 stores across the UK and 85.5% of the UK population within 10 minutes of a store, it’s a brand that serves everyone, but that must also stay relevant to everyone in order to thrive. In light of this point, Markey thinks it will be more vital than ever for brands to listen. Insight can help brands understand how customers feel, he believes, and the role they must play to address the needs of people as they come through the other side of the pandemic.

Current Boots research findings, Markey says, show “people want to feel good again, people want to get back into beauty products that they haven’t needed or been able to buy properly over the past a year and a half. There’s a big theme around wellness and people wanting to feel healthier, fitter, and hopefully happier again after the pandemic. For us, it’s about tapping into trends that matter in people’s lives right now.”

A reason to engage in person

Although online remains hugely important to Boots, Markey predicts retail will need to become more experiential, as retailers strive to give people a reason to engage in person, such as the offer of expert advice. 

To attract customers back, Boots has launched in-store services such as specialist beauticians to help people find the best products to fit their regime, and Macmillan Cancer Support-trained advisers to assist those with the disease and their relatives. 

“The role of a CMO now is as much about delivering a digital or physical customer experience that’s an exemplar and a demonstration of the brand, as it is about [asking]: ‘What’s the campaign going to be this Christmas?’,” Markey says.

It seems that for more and more marketers, the boundaries between marketing, customer experience and service are blurring. This key trend was emerging before Covid and is now a fixture, so understanding how to deliver on it will be at the heart of future success, according to Alex Naylor, managing director, marketing communications at Barclays UK. “The criticality of delivering a consistent and compelling branded experience, wherever the customer interacts, is self-evident,” he says. 

Listen to customers 

The biggest challenge, Naylor adds, is “relevance and emotional connection: people want brands to be socially active, to make a positive contribution. At the same time, polarised public opinion and social atomisation have never been so pronounced. Walking the line – demonstrating intent without creating division – has never been so difficult.”

He highlights Barclays’ societal programmes, such as investment in grass-roots football and financial education, “but the marketing job is to knit these into a narrative that engages and sets an agenda for the broader community”.

Barclays’ plan is to overhaul its approach to inclusion on many dimensions: ethnicity, disability, gender, sexuality. “I am more focused than ever on listening and understanding; spending time with our customers to feel their mood, and moving from passive support to positive action,” Naylor says. 

Listening to customers has been similarly key at Co-op, which relaunched its 10,000-strong customer panel earlier this year to better reflect the diversity of communities that surround its 2700 stores.

Ali Jones, chief customer officer at Co-op, says the reset is “expansive”, covering different communities and ages. “I don’t like the phrase BAME. You can’t group BAME communities together, because actually what they’re looking for, fundamentally, is very different. So by getting to a much more granular panel, we can start to really understand what different communities want.”

The retailer, which also relies on a network of 1000, salaried “member pioneers” to listen to and connect communities, has joined the UN-founded Unstereotype Alliance to ensure that even where a diverse cast is featured, it avoids typecasting groups of people. Additionally, it’s working to ensure its agencies, which include Lucky Generals and Dentsu, tap into diverse groups of people in their own teams.

Doing the right thing

Changing consumer behaviour should be viewed as a marketing opportunity, Jones says. “People are focusing more on the impact on their local community, their broader community – and on the planet.”

The brand was as keen as its customers to get back to real-life festivals, where it operates on-site shops and deposit-return machines for plastic bottles. At Latitude, held in July, Co-op recorded far greater use of the machines than in 2019, signalling that “people wanted to do the right thing”, Jones says. 

“As a society, we’re more interested in purpose-led, customer-centric businesses, so marketers should take the opportunity to leverage the way consumer behaviour and attitudes have changed. We have leant into this with our vision of co-operating for a fairer world.”

Co-op has also tapped into customers’ climate change awareness: it relies on its existing network of local stores to provide the last-mile-delivery for online shopping, meaning low-carbon, shorter journeys. In addition, it has reduced the price of its vegan range, Gro, to match its meat equivalents.

“Hopefully, the pandemic is over, but there’s going to be a knock-on impact, and for many people it’s going to be tough for a while, so we’ve got to keep making it as easy as possible for people to do the right thing,” Jones says.

Authenticity: the “antidote to perfection”

At TikTok, now a community of 100 million people across Europe, the post-Covid state of mind presents both challenge and opportunity. Here, the fight for attention has never been fiercer, with a constant stream of content and noise making it tricky to cut through in the digital environment. 

Trevor Johnson, head of marketing, global business solutions, Europe, at TikTok, says: “This underlines the importance of truly understanding the audience and speaking to them on their terms.”

Recent TikTok research found that defining a person based on a mindset, rather than age, leads to a deeper understanding and more meaningful interactions. This could represent an opportunity for advertisers and marketers to change the way they engage with people and build different associations with their brands. 

It’s important for advertisers to recognise that “diversity in advertising is no longer optional”, Johnson says. Diversity of skin tone, background, body shape or age, runs deep within those that have grown up with digital and social media, and a lack of diversity will be called out quickly. 

A shift towards authenticity and the sharing of real-life experiences on digital platforms has emerged as an “antidote to perfection”, Johnson adds. “Marketers should take note. If they get this right, it gives them a stronger platform to speak to their audience and a real opportunity to build meaningful and long-lasting connections with customers.”

Just as consumer behaviour has changed, the role of the CMO has evolved, requiring marketers to adapt to culture on a daily basis and navigate an ever-changing technology landscape, while marrying up the creative with the commercial. After such a long period of remote working, adjusting to hybrid scenarios is the next step for the marketing industry.

“The pandemic forced the marketing industry to work at full throttle for the past 18 months, and the challenge of navigating an ever-changing, digital-first environment isn’t going to go away,” Johnson says. 

While nothing can be taken for granted, at present togetherness, connection, and customer experience are the shifting sands on which to build the marketing strategies of the near future. 

Pixel illustrations by HappyToast

There has been a huge amount of change to the rhythms of life since the Covid pandemic began, and with it, to consumer behaviour. This has meant that the best paid and most stimulating jobs for marketing leaders are not necessarily where they used to be. That’s one reason – among many others – that half of this year’s Power 100 (55 marketers) are new to the list, either this year or last year, or have returned to it after an absence. 

This year, Campaign welcomes five new inductees. Barry Moore (1) has worked at Adidas for more than 20 years, and been vice-president global key cities since 2018.

Alessandra Bellini (2) enjoyed an 18-year career at Unilever until 2017, when an ex-colleague from the FMCG giant, Tesco’s then-chief executive Dave Lewis, brought her to the supermarket as chief customer officer.

After eight years at Tesco, Claire Farrant (3) joined Lidl in 2015, initially as an executive consultant, before being appointed by the supermarket as UK marketing director – a role she has held since.

Aline Santos (4) joined Unilever as global senior VP laundry in 2011. Four years later, she became executive VP global marketing. In June this year, she was promoted to chief brand officer and chief equity, diversity and inclusion officer. 

Sheena Sauvaire (5), meanwhile, has led marketing at several brands during her career. She spent 12 years at the now much-diminished Topshop brand, the last five as global marketing and communications director, before joining Belstaff in 2019 as chief marketing officer. Last July, she jumped to Net-a-Porter, where she is also CMO.

The above five join 14 other returning members of the Hall of Fame: