{audio:0:00:00} Andy, a good place to start would be for you to provide some context to the state of the marketing landscape, when you joined Diageo, in 1999.

{audio:0:00:11} I stared at Diageo in January 1999 and it was an interesting time for Diageo, in that the business, primarily, had only been formed for one year. The business was, really, a merger of two very big businesses, that approached marketing in a very different way. So you had a whole new business of people and a function of marketeers who, actually, talked about, thought about, described marketing, with different language, with different tools, with different methodologies. The wisdom of the executive, at the time, was that we had to get one language. We had to develop a way that Diageo approached marketing, attracted consumers and grew its brands.

{audio:0:01:05} So there was an enormous transition, over the next 18 months, from really, a United Nations of marketing people, into a one way, which was called the Diageo Way of Brand Building. That became the way of talking about brands, of talking about, even more importantly, consumers, of understanding, globally, where brands were, how they were position and therefore, how we should move brands into a more global positioning, whilst driving performance.

{audio:0:01:43} It was an amazing learning period. I argue that I actually got my MBA in Marketing, through the Diageo Way of Brand Building. It was a real combination of learning and then practicing skills, on the job. Which I believe, is crucial for anyone coming into the marketing world, today.

{audio:0:02:03} What were the key principles in that Diageo way of marketing?

{audio:0:02:07} So these key principles, actually, form my key principles of marketing which, I’m sure, make sense. It was my formative years. First of all, understand your consumer. Who is your consumer? I’m not talking about all females, 25 to 85. That’s being everything to no one. I’m talking about, really get clear on who is the most commercially, high-potential target, that you could choose, that your brand can, authentically, weave its way into their lives and play a role.

{audio:0:02:46} So the first thing was, understand your target consumer. The second things was, understanding what your brand currently stands for, in their hearts and mind. How emotionally do they feel about your brand and then, functionally, how do they use your brand? What could your brand to, to actually help them, inspire them, encourage them to live the life they want to live, whilst using it? When you connect those two things together, what you have is a brand that’s starting to be clearly positioned, in a consumer’s mind.

{audio:0:03:26} The Diageo Way of Brand Building had a very clear set of tools and criteria, as to what great looked like and it pushed us all to get great happening.

{audio:0:03:36} That’s thinking and strategy. The next thing then was, how do you execute your brand positioning, so that it’s consistently on brand? So that it’s consistently building equity of the core DNAs, the core values that your brand stands for, in a positive way and doesn’t drift off positioning and start to deteriorate and eat into those core equities that your brand stands for. The system that was built and the behaviors and the language and the tools, actually ensured, globally, that you could be appropriate to your consumers in market, but actually be on brand, be consistent, globally. Very, very powerful.

{audio:0:04:24} Taking the first principle then, understanding your consumer. How granular do you get with that?

{audio:0:04:33} Very granular. In fact, I believe you should name them. I believe you should give them a name that you can relate to. Demographics are important, but demographics are like the ticket to the dance; they are base level. That will help you in things like media buying, for instance. But that’s about where it ends. What you need to get into is the psychographics of your consumer. What’s important to them, in life? What’s their structure in life? What’s their friend, family, social set up? What are their hopes, their dreams? What do they watch? When I say watch, I don’t just want Netflix; I actually want, which box sets do they get into? Which box sets do they actually talk about to their friends and binge on? When it comes to devices that they use their mobile phone; I want to know which apps are they using and for what purposes. If it’s a 45-year-old female, is she using mumsnet as a network, for instance, to find life hacks, to actually make her life much easier? I want to know what their values are in life. What’s important to them, from a values perspective? Is it honesty, is it integrity? Is it, actually, trust? Is it friendship? Is it family? I want to know, in detail, what those values are. Then I want to know what their unmet needs and motivations in life are. What are their dreams, their aspirations? What is it they hope to be? What is it that they are continually striving for?

{audio:0:06:22} That’s as a human. Then the next part of understanding your consumer is, their relationship to the category. When do they use it? Why do they use it? Where do they use it? What are they using, in the category? What are the competitive brands that they’re using? When we pull that picture together – I call that the 5 Ws, the What, Where, When, Why, Who – when we pull that together, we’ve got this rich picture of our consumer.

{audio:0:06:54} The first part that I explained, about them as humans, that’s where we position our brands. We position our brands against them, as people. Then when I talk about the second part of that, the what, where, when, why, who, that’s all about execution. Where do I now go, to find those consumers? How do I execute in a place that they’re in? How do I intercept them, on their journey to purchase? My answer is, as much rich detail as you can possibly get. You should know these people like they are a family member.

{audio:0:07:29} What do you think is the biggest challenge for the large brand houses, today, in really understanding younger consumers. We’ve seen a shift in the generations; how do you stay on top of that shift, in the consumer base?

{audio:0:07:46} I don’t think that challenge is any different today than it was when I was a young marketeer. The biggest challenge we have is, we like to paint a picture of our consumers, just as we like to see them. Quite often, I see a target consumer understanding, that actually looks like the brand manager, that actually sounds like the brand manager. I did a piece of work in Spain, during the 2008 GFC and it was a brand that was targeting millennials. You read the target consumer understanding and they were going out to bars, they had nice little cars, they had the latest applications. They loved their jobs. This is at a time when Spain had a 55% millennial unemployment rate. I looked at the brand manager and said, that’s you.

{audio:0:08:43} So the biggest challenge is being honest. It’s truly walking in your consumer’s shoes, living their lives and continually being curious about how the world is moving and changing, for your consumer and being on top of that and being open to move with them, as opposed to defining what you think they are and what they should be.

{audio:0:09:05} How do you, personally, stay on top of that or drive humility in that understanding of your consumer, versus painting that picture?

{audio:0:09:15} There’s many techniques. Some of my favorite techniques, when I’m running a marketing team, every month, getting a minibus together and going, with cameras, with live questionnaires, and actually doing vox pops. Getting my marketing team to go out and interact with the consumers. Go out and be in their lives. Answering a set of distinct questions, which we’ve formulated beforehand, where we think there might be shifts, there might be things happening. Actually, interacting and learning live, learning really, while these consumers are living life.

{audio:0:09:54} You’ve got to be careful, because some consumers might be a little upset and might see that as a bit aggressive, so you’ve got to take protocol. But actually, any methodology where you can walk and live in your consumers lives, is the key. As you can tell, I’m not a young pup anymore, but I’m on a lot of feeds and streams, through my app, that aren’t my core interests and my core needs. I’m actually on feeds and streams that are my current consumer base’s feeds and streams and I’m watching and listening to what they’re up to, continually.

{audio:0:10:36} Let’s take Bacardi, for example and their core rum business. How did you look to formulate a marketing strategy?

{audio:0:10:52} Like any brand, the first thing is – and this might sound like a repeat record – is that you need to know your target consumer. What had happened with Bacardi is that it had drifted, with a target. It had become a reasonably old brand. It had drifted into a 40-year-old’s brand. Essentially, when you look at the Bacardi brand, it’s a recruitment brand and that talks to 18-year-olds, in many countries; 21-year-olds, here in the US. It needs to continually be a recruitment brand.

{audio:0:11:28} So the first strategic choice that any marketeer has to make, is choosing your target consumer. We made a choice, at that time, to actually go back and make Bacardi a recruitment brand. Of course, at the time, that was targeting millennials. The next thing we had to do was immerse ourselves in the millennial’s lives and, actually understand, as I said earlier, what are their needs, their wants, their beliefs, their desires? In that understanding, we drive out a huge insight, that exists in millennials lives, at that point in time. That insight is an unmet need, want, belief or desire, that exists in our consumers lives, that our brand can actually play a role in helping and answering.

{audio:0:12:19} At the time, the millennials needed the courage to live the life that they wanted to live and that excited us. If you think of a brand that’s survived adversity, through many, many challenges, it’s the Bacardi brand. We felt that we could do something about that. We then set about understanding what these millennials thought about our brand. This is where it gets interesting, because you need to be honest. You need to actually understand the good and the bad. You then need to understand where you want to take the brand. What changes from the current emotional engagement with your brand that those consumers have and where do you want to take it?

{audio:0:13:05} That’s called positioning a brand. You need to come up with the strategic positioning for the brand, and then execute really hard against it. What we found was, that millennials felt that they didn’t have a big relationship with Bacardi. It was okay. They felt that it wasn’t a quality brand. They didn’t know it had the heritage that it had. They didn’t know that it had actually created the blended rum category, as we all know it today. They had no idea about the heritage and provenance of Bacardi.

{audio:0:13:41} So we set about telling those stories. We set about actually talking to those millennials about the history, about the provenance and about the quality of the Bacardi brand. Then the next phase was to do that in a way that weaved that brand into their life, which meant understanding the connection moment; those moments of influence where your brand can talk, the mediums it can talk in and the message it should give. That saw us creating an event, called the Bacardi Triangle, where we took 1,862 leading edge influencers, journalists and consumers, to a very small island, the Bermuda Triangle and we put on a three-day music festival. That music festival saw us bring the brand to life in a very authentic, amazing way. It connected with the consumers that were there. But most importantly, we actually had a social media strategy that was pushing out content from that festival continually. I think we got upwards of seven billion hits on that event and we started to completely change perception, amongst millennials, around the Bacardi brand. They started to view it as a quality brand, a brand with heritage, a brand for me. A brand that’s becoming more popular nowadays, which are all the equity scores that we wanted to drive up. As a consequence of that, performance followed.

{audio:0:15:10} How did you look to tell the story of the heritage, to young people?

{audio:0:15:17} That’s a terrific question. We couldn’t just say, hey, here’s our story. We set about building a hugely creative and engaging way, to bring to life that story. A way that would engage millennials and have millennials actually want to share it and say, hey, wow. So there’s two things. I touched on them earlier, but I’ll make them super clear.

{audio:0:15:45} The first is, we did make, what I would call, traditional communication, that was filmed in Brazil. Very edgy, set to an Arctic Monkeys soundtrack. The Arctic Monkeys were very, very big at the time. It was a beautifully told story, told in a visual, cinematic methodology, with a soundtrack that was relevant and engaging for our consumer, which we then ensured that we showed through the relevant channels. But we then took that to the next stage, where we ran this event. Bacardi is from Cuba, so we did it down in Latin America, in the Bermuda Triangle. It’s always been surrounded by mystery, the Bacardi brand. So we ensured that the location was mysterious and engaging.

{audio:0:16:41} We put on acts that helped us story and helped us bring our story to life. Then, of course, as I say, we ran a social media strategy that ensured we got so much content being pushed out of that. By the way, it was consumer generated content, that was on brand, pushed out of that event, that changed perception.

{audio:0:17:05} How do you think about changing your messaging across different channels and how did you use that at Bacardi? You mentioned various different channels – the events, social media. How do you look to alter the message that you send across these channels?

{audio:0:17:21} This is extremely important. For young marketeers, I think there’s an understanding that’s required here. At the moment, people are still saying that digital is everything. How do we go digital? Digital is a channel. Streaming is a channel. Radio is a channel. Social media is a channel. The key strategic piece of work that needs to be done, is what I call, connection moment planning or moment of influence planning. That is understanding, what is the message that you can say, through a given media, that’s going to connect at the right time, for your consumers and have them say, wow; I’m going to consider that.

{audio:0:18:20} I’ll share a little story, which might bring this to life, which is a personal story, which I think is simple, in terms of connection moment planning. I used to play golf very, very badly. I played in a club and for our upcoming game, we were informed that we were the first group off the tee. In other words, we were the first to hit off, very early morning, to play golf. What that meant was, that I was going to have a lineup of guys, watching me tee off. I was bad at golf and that made me as nervous as I could be. So I’m driving to the golf course, that morning and all I’m thinking is, I just want to hit it straight and I just want to hit it long. That’s all I want to do. As I pulled into the golf club, there was an outdoor billboard, on the roof of the pro shop that said, Top Flight golf balls, straighter and longer than you’ve ever hit before.

{audio:0:19:23} I said, wow, I wonder. As I walked into the pro shop, to pay my fees, there was a little display of golf balls: ‘Top Flight golf balls. Longer and straighter than ever before’. I bought two boxes, there and then. This is a guy who used to buy his golf balls, second hand, at a dollar a ball. I think I paid $750 for two boxes or something, because they got me. It was the right message, they understood me. The right medium, at the pro shop. At the right time, just as I was about to tee off. The punchline of that story is, I did line up with my new Top Flight golf ball. I teed off and it was a scrubber, along the ground and into the bush and everyone laughed at me. But anyway, Top Flight got me.

{audio:0:20:10} But it’s the important point about the message and the channel, but also the moment and meeting your consumer there, at that point where the essence of your brand captures them.

{audio:0:20:22} 100%. At the moment, we’re seeing great examples of connection moments or moments of influence planning coming to life. With all that’s tragically going on in the world, at the moment, you’re seeing hand sanitizer brands advertising in buses and in the tube and at bus stops and in public places. The message is, the ultimate protection. That’s an amazingly powerful example of, the right message, in the right medium, close public proximity, with the right message, which is the ultimate protection. We’re seeing examples of brands doing that today.

{audio:0:21:06} In terms of storytelling, in your opinion, is this the essence of it, in terms of this moment that has to capture the consumer? How do you think about story telling?

{audio:0:21:21} Personally, I think story telling is everything in life. As marketeers, what we’re trying to do is influence consumers, to at least consider, but at best, engage and purchase our brands, our products. That’s what we’re trying to do. In order to do that, you need to understand how to win over the consumer’s hearts and minds. How to story tell. The one thing I’d say to young marketeers is, ensuring you know what your story is. In other words, what is the position of your brand, strategically? Therefore, the stories that you can tell that are on brand, that will deliver the performance that you need to deliver, whilst growing the brand equity that you are charged with growing. That’s it. That’s marketing. There is nothing more important.

{audio:0:22:24} Additionally, ensuring that those messages land at the most powerful moment they can, is what connection of moment influence planning is all about. I’d just say to marketeers of today, that story telling is not just about your consumers. It’s also about your internal organization. Have you told your story to your internal organization? Does your internal organization believe that they can win with your brand? Believe that your brand is the brand that they want to go out and talk about and tell stories about, to their customers, to their stakeholders, today.

{audio:0:23:08} For me, storytelling is the core of what marketeers do. The only preface I put on it is, you’ve got to do the strategic work first, so that you know the stories that you should be telling, you have a right to tell and are believable and engaging to your consumers.

{audio:0:23:27} What makes a great story, in your opinion?

{audio:0:23:33} I think it needs to come from a foundation of truth. I think, from that truth, you need to find ways that it can actually tell a story in an engaging manner that has your consumers wanting more. That has your consumers going, you know what, this brand gets me. It understands my life. It’s talking to me, in my language and it’s saying things where I go, wow, have you seen that? I want to tell other people that story. I want to share that content. I want people to understand and feel the same way as I’m feeling about this brand. Again, it goes back to being strategically clear and having your strategic foundation absolutely solidified.

{audio:0:24:27} Then understanding your consumer’s world and the insights and the motivations and needs that are driving them and matching your story and your telling of your story, to the way in which your consumer wants to receive that information and will have them go, wow; this brand gets me, I get it. Let’s get together.

{audio:0:24:50} I always refer back to Joseph Campbells, The Hero With a Thousand Faces and that whole comparative mythology, where there’s a similar story of people’s life, my life, your life, is a similar process, in itself. But with a product, it has to come from a different foundation, a true foundation, like you said. Something that really is true to the heritage of the brand. Specifically, with premium spirits and with any brand, I guess.

{audio:0:25:17} Any brand. That strategic foundation, we see it all the time. Great brands drift and they lose their way. I won’t mention any brands here, but I can give you dozens that are great brands but they drift; they lose their way. The reason they do that is that they’ve forgotten, actually, who they are, where they were from and what their story is. They just start telling stories to consumers that they think consumers want to hear. That may work, for a short period of time. But consumers will see through it. They will say, I’m not sure about that; it’s not jiving with me, anymore; I don’t even know what it is.

{audio:0:26:06} They’re not saying this out loud, consciously. This is happening subconsciously. It’s happening via osmosis. Until, eventually, you have a brand that’s completely lost and is in the wilderness. That’s why I say, with brands, it’s the same with people. If I start telling you stories about me that are not quite believable and I tell you a story about what an amazing golfer I am, one day and then the next day I tell you the story about how I duffed that ball off the tee, in front of 30 people. You’re going to be starting to say to me, I don’t understand Andy; I lose trust in Andy. I’m not sure what Andy’s about. Brands are exactly the same.

{audio:0:26:48} Understanding your story, what you stand for, what you promise to do, as a brand, then understanding how your consumers want to hear that, where they want to hear it, what they want to hear in that story, so that the two come together; that’s the key to long-term strategic brand growth. That is also brand management.

{audio:0:27:11} When you’re running a marketing team, how do you ensure that that team has those foundations set and true and ready, rather than drifting away, like you see some brands?

{audio:0:27:25} It’s a great question and it’s back to the belief that I have, as a brand builder. Don’t do anything, until you know your brand’s position. Your brand position is, who is your target consumer, what’s their massive insight – that unmet need, want, belief or desire – that exists in their life, that your brand can play a role in? What do they think of your brand today? What do you want them to think of your brand? What does your brand stand for and what does it promise to do for them, every day? Then everything you do, needs to absolutely be on brand.

{audio:0:28:05} The truth is, consumers don’t care about our brands. They really don’t care. We like to think they do. We live our brands, every day, but they don’t. They’ve got family, friends, work, bill, housing, healthcare, Wi-Fi, to worry about. Our brands are not even in that hierarchy. So we’ve got a very small opportunity, to own one little place in their mind. Just one little place in their mind. If we’re telling them different things, all the time, they won’t understand our brand and we won’t occupy a place in their mind. If we’re consistently telling them, we are about sharing happiness and refreshment – Coca-Cola – if we’re continually telling them the same thing, we will occupy that space in their mind. When they’re thinking sharing happiness or refreshment, they’ll think Coca-Cola. That’s what I call a well-positioned brand. That’s what we’re trying to do.

{audio:0:29:05} Just rounding off the discussion on Bacardi, what was the biggest challenge you faced in telling that story to the new consumer, the millennial consumer?

{audio:0:29:17} I think it’s understanding how they’re consuming messaging, where they’re consuming messaging and how to make your message be authentic and on story, consistently. Consumers are receiving – and I’m not even going to put a number on this anymore, because the numbers aren’t true – thousands and thousands of messages, every day, across so many different mediums, that trying to keep on top of those connection moments, those moments of influence, and ensuring your message is authentically put into and received out of your consumers lives, is really difficult.

{audio:0:30:07} What it demands, more and more today, is brands not just telling you who they are, but actually being who they are. Being in your life, weaving themselves through everything that you’re doing, in an authentic manner. I say that and it sounds easy. It’s not easy, but it can be done and powerful brands are doing it every day.

{audio:0:30:35} I want to refer back to one of the points you made about setting foundations, as you are running the team. How is being a CMO or running a marketing function evolved, over the last decade or two, in your opinion?

{audio:0:30:52} I think, more and more, the CMO’s job is one of the harder jobs in a C-suite. I know that CFOs will probably say the same, but the marketeer today needs to be strategically on point. In other words, the most important job at the start, is to get those strategic foundations of brands absolutely right. The CMO then must be able to, with dexterity, flexibility and a real sensibility to learning and testing, allow their teams to go out and execute and weave their brands into consumers lives. Test the different mediums, test how your brand resonates in the best possible way.

{audio:0:31:45} The CMO must then, understand how to analyze the many things that a brand is doing and codify them as growth drivers, the ones that work. Then say, right, let’s go. Let’s hammer away at this. The CMO of today is also accountable, I believe more accountable, for performance, than they’ve ever been. That’s why a lot of the titles are now moving to Chief Growth Officer. Because we’re not the pretty pictures department anymore.

{audio:0:32:15} Then the last thing I’ll say is – and this is a personal difficulty for CMOs – relating to your younger team members, in a really effective manner, staying relevant with where your consumers are moving and how they’re consuming messaging and what they think about brands, whilst remaining very strategic and keeping everything inside the guardrails. It’s a really difficult job, but it’s one of the most enjoyable jobs and I’d encourage anyone out there, to have their sights set on a CMO’s role, because it’s fully rewarding, the learning is hourly and, as long as you’re up for that, it’s an amazing role.

{audio:0:33:13} How would you describe marketing spirits, versus the healthcare brands, within the pharmacy world, at Walgreens Boots Alliance?

{audio:0:33:24} They are two really different categories. I call everyone a brand manager. Everyone in the world is a brand manager, who touches a brand in any way. It’s absolutely imperative that brand managers understand their category, understand how their category operates and what the drivers for consumer choice are, of their category.

{audio:0:33:57} The spirits category is an emotional category. You can’t talk function in the spirits category. You can’t market off, mine is stronger than yours. It’s illegal. If we boil it down, all spirits are, are ethanol. What you’ve got to do, in the spirits category is build the emotional reasons that consumers want to purchase your brand. You’ve got to build a world, in your consumer’s hearts and minds, that’s better than the world they currently live in and a world that they want to go to, that differentiates from your competitors. It’s all emotional. It’s all badging.

{audio:0:34:47} If this didn’t exist in the world, we’d all be walking around drinking plastic bags of ethanol. But we’re not. We’re buying Grey Goose, at three times the price of Smirnoff, because we’re creating worlds when we do spirit marketing. We’re creating this emotional place, that consumers want to say, this is me. I badge with this.

{audio:0:35:07} In the healthcare world, consumers aren’t looking for emotional benefits, primarily. Primarily, they are working for efficacy. They’re working for, I have a symptom, I have an issue and what I want is efficacy. I want to know that what I’m taking is going to work, first and foremost. It’s going to work better than, perhaps, the brand that I’m currently consuming. In the healthcare world, the messaging shifts, very much, to an efficacy first driven message, followed by an emotional message.
{audio:0:35:53} People are still buying into the emotionality of the brand, otherwise there wouldn’t be brands in the healthcare world. But they want to know that they work, first. So very, very different.

{audio:0:36:06} How did you emotionalize Grey Goose, as a product?

{audio:0:36:14} Let me say how we positioned Grey Goose, as a product. Actually, the founder of Grey Goose, was a genius, a guy called François Thibault, who actually said, I’m going to create a vodka, in France, off baking wheat – actually, not just France, in Cognac – and I’m going to put it in a wine bottle, not a vodka bottle, not a spirits bottle. Functionally, the brand had many reasons to believe.

{audio:0:36:53} There’s a bit of flavor to Grey Goose, which is actually French baking wheat. That’s the flavor. You know the bread in France, you come home and say, I’m going to eat baguettes, after a visit and you come home and buy one from Tesco and it’s just not the same. That’s the wheat that does that. He created the brand in Cognac because, actually, the water, the aqua de vie, in Cognac, is filtered through very minerally sandstone. So the water is very soft and very minerally. That makes a much purer spirit.

{audio:0:37:30} So the reasons to believe the foundations of the brand are amazingly strong. What François Thibault did, was actually, nothing ordinary. So the way that you position Grey Goose is all around defying the ordinary, to achieve the extraordinary. The way you bring that to life, is by emotionally messaging the extraordinary things that humans can do. The extraordinary things that can happen in life, down to the extraordinary nights you can have, in that nightclub, where you’ve got a VIP table and paid $1,000 for a bottle of Grey Goose.

{audio:0:38:11} What creative did you use around Grey Goose, to message that?

{audio:0:38:17} The campaign was called, Fly Beyond. It was really interesting, when I came into Grey Goose, because the GFC had hit, the 2008 global financial crisis had hit, and conspicuous consumption had become not really cool. The brand, again, had drifted a bit and people didn’t understand what made Grey Goose special.

{audio:0:38:41} Again, similar to Bacardi, we went back, we understood what were the reasons to believe? What’s the story, the provenance, the heritage? We told that story. We told it in a very engaging way. The creation of Grey Goose. We then created a campaign called, Fly Beyond. Fly Beyond was all about, don’t live an ordinary life. Live this extraordinary life. Everything that we did on Grey Goose, from the ice buckets that you received a bottle in, in a club, were all beautifully LED lit, from the bottom and there were sparklers in the bottle. Everything was about the extraordinary.

{audio:0:39:23} The core human motivation, for a brand like Grey Goose, or Champagne or Johnnie Walker, is all about, I’ve made it and I want you to know I’ve made it. Anything you could do, to actually have people clearly highlighting the fact that they had made it, was all part of the Fly Beyond strategy.

{audio:0:39:47} It’s also interesting how you even go that step further, and really build or curate the experience, when they’re actually consuming it. When they’re buying it in the nightclub, you have that bucket there for them and it’s lit, for example.

{audio:0:40:06} Again, this is really important. Let’s go back to that. It’s even before that. We wouldn’t sell Grey Goose to just any nightclub. The nightclub had to have a certain level of clientele. It had to be a nightclub that was in demand. There needed to be a door outside that nightclub on a Thursday night. Not a Friday night, a Thursday night. We needed to be in the clubs that were hot, that were attracting the right type of consumers. We then needed to ensure that that club would price Grey Goose in the right manner. We couldn’t tell them how to price, but we could recommend that the prices needed to be up. You needed to have a VIP area, where to get into that VIP area, you needed to buy a bottle of Grey Goose.

{audio:0:40:54} So it started with your outlet selection and then every touchpoint, every moment of influence, even an ice bucket, is a connection moment. What’s the story? This is extraordinary. What’s the medium? It’s just an ice bucket. When is it? When I want to be special and I’ve paid $1,000. That’s a connection moment; that’s a moment of influence. It’s an important point you raise. This is not just media. This is everything.

{audio:0:41:28} I can remember when we were developing the ice buckets. I had the procurement team come to me and say, “Andy, I’ve got this ice bucket that’s the Grey Goose ice bucket, worth $150. I’ve got this one, for $75. It’s nearly as good.” I asked why it was nearly as good. They said, “Well, over time, we think that the finishing on this ice bucket will start to give up a little bit.” I said, “We want the $150.” The worst thing we could do is buy the $75 ice bucket. We want the 1000th bottle of Grey Goose that comes out of this ice bucket, to be served in the ice bucket that the first bottle was served out of. Everything needed to be extraordinary.

{audio:0:42:17} What about for Bombay gin, versus Tanqueray, for example. It’s a different category, different positioning. How did you position that brand, versus Tanqueray?

{audio:0:42:32} For any brand, in any category, you have to be able to be true to your story, but tell it in a differentiated way. You have to be differentiated. Let’s face it, Tanqueray is the king of gins. Its big juniper flavor, it’s the ultimate gin and tonic. It’s the king of gins. Or, perhaps, the queen of gins. With Bombay Sapphire, it was really important, again, to go back to the start and work out why and how Bombay was created. It was created with 10 really subtle botanicals, no big juniper and it was infused gin, as opposed to pot-boiled gin. The infusion process means that you’ve got a much more subtle, soft flavor. Much more discerning. There’s the first clue. We’ve got a much more discerning gin brand here.

{audio:0:43:48} Let’s look at target consumers. It became clear that the subtlety of Bombay was never going to satisfy the target consumer of Tanqueray, which is a big flavor. So who will it satisfy? It will satisfy those consumers who are discerning in understanding how things are put together. Discerning about the stories; discerning about the ingredients and understanding the ingredients that go into a brand. So the target consumer for Bombay was different. It was an epicurean consumer, who was into craft beers, into alternative, probably shorter, movies. Who was into food, but understanding how food is put together and the recipes. Differentiation is all about your consumer. What’s their insight? Their insight was about a world of discovery. We want to discover things in the world. We don’t want to go on a package holiday; we want to go on the intrepid holiday and put a tent, hanging off a cliff, where we can take photos of the Savannah, as the sun’s coming up.

{audio:0:45:04} They wanted a world of discovery. Bombay Sapphire was all about discovery. It was about opening up a world of sublime discovery. Again, building an authentic platform, off which we could weave Bombay into those people’s lives was, actually, the key. I want to talk about those connection moments and I want to talk about it in a different context here. We learnt, through understanding that consumer in very, very fine detail that, actually, documentary movie makers, short movies, independent movies, were a huge part of their life.

{audio:0:45:43} So we created the Bombay Sapphire Discovery Series. We got Adrian Brodie involved, we got Robert De Niro involved. We got people from the movie industry, who were into independent films, involved and we invited our epicurean consumers to actually write a move script, based on a structure that Jeffrey, from Babe, had outlined for them. We got tens and tens of thousands of entries. We made five short films, which were the consumer’s scripts. Adrian Brodie directed. As it turned out, one of our short films won the Bafta award for the short films, that year.

{audio:0:46:41} It was real, it was authentic. Bombay Sapphire had the right to do it. And we still sold a lot of gin and tonic, of course.

{audio:0:46:49} Was that consumer a relatively old consumer, versus Tanqueray or was it a similar age?

{audio:0:46:59} Very similar age. Lots of demographic overlap and that’s why I talk about demographics just being the ticket to the dance. Psychographically, they were so different. That’s why getting to the gritty understanding of who your consumer is, is the key. Understanding what’s that big insight that you can drive off. For this consumer, it was that they wanted a life full of discovery. So we gave them discovery, through Bombay Sapphire.

{audio:0:47:32} Back to the healthcare brands. They are more functional, rather than emotional, you could argue, although people do still want brands, in that space. How did you approach building stories for those brands, at Walgreens?

{audio:0:47:54} It’s the same way. First of all, understand who your target is. Let me give you an example. Boots Cold and Flu Defence, which is a nasal squirt that if you catch your cold or flu early enough, it encapsulates the bacteria and greatly reduces, first of all, immediate symptoms. But actually, shortens the length of time for recovery. When you looked at who the core target consumer for that was, it was mum. It was mum, who was 42 years old, two kids, husband, living a busy, busy life. Crunched between being the caregiver, the money earner, the friend, the mother, the aunt and the individual. That was mum’s life. The one thing that mum wanted was to ensure that she stayed healthy and confident so that she could protect those that she loved. That was a big driver for her.

{audio:0:49:07} The positioning for something like Cold and Flu Defence, is all about partnering mum, in helping keep her and those she loves, healthy. First message is, it works. Second message is, not just for you, but for you and your family. That’s the emotional message. You build a campaign; you do your connection moment planning. You build a campaign, which is about the ultimate protection. You ensure that your connection moments are at those points in time, where mum feels most vulnerable, which is in winter, flu season, crowded spaces; the tube is a great example. The communication is, mum and her family in space suits and the line says, keep yourself and those you love protected through this flu season.

{audio:0:50:10} There’s efficacy, as the first driver. There’s an emotional piece about what she wants most, which is for her to stay healthy for her family. Then the moment you deliver that is when people are feeling at their most vulnerable, just as someone has coughed over your shoulder, on the tube, on the way to work.

{audio:0:50:28} There’s almost always an emotional element to this, right?

{audio:0:50:32} My belief is that there always is. You have to drive in first, the functional underpinning reasons to believe which, in healthcare, is efficacy. This works. If you stop there, though, all your competitors will be saying, well, I work too. That becomes a race to the bottom. That becomes, who can do this the cheapest.

{audio:0:51:04} When you can ladder into an emotional benefit, that’s where you start to become differentiated. That’s where you start to add, what I call, material brand value. People will pay much more for an emotional benefit than they will for a functional. But if you jump straight to an emotional benefit, without underpinning the functional reasons to believe, consumers won’t understand you. You won’t have answered, my first need is to be well. Therefore, they won’t purchase you.

{audio:0:51:36} I’ll give you an example of this. Gillette. When you first seen a new Gillette blade, let’s say three blades – I think we’re up to 25 blades now. But let’s just say it’s three blades. The first pieces of communication that you are hit with, are the schematic of the razor going over skin. The first blade chops the hair, pulls out the hair. Second blade chops, pulls out. Third blade chops. The smoothest, closest shave you can get. That message will be absolutely proliferated, until enough people understand that three blades is better than two. The next minute, you’re a jet fighter pilot, because it’s the best a man can get. Of course, all of us men, at some point in our lives, hoped to be a jet fighter pilot. But I can’t understand why you’re telling me, because you’ve got three blades, I’m a jet fighter pilot, unless you tell me, I can have the smoothest shave I’ve ever had, which makes me feel more confident than I’ve ever felt, which is me at my best, I can be a jet fighter pilot. That’s the structure.

{audio:0:52:51} That’s almost the essence of brand equity. That emotional layer, on top of the functional layer, which gets that premium, which gets that place in the consumer’s mind.

{audio:0:53:04} 100%. Let me give you another example here, of brands losing their functional ability to believe. Going back a couple of years, Heinz ketchup started to be criticized because sugar was the first ingredient on the label. People started to criticize the brand; people started to emotionally move away from the brand. You saw Heinz re-recipe, go back to advertising that was just tomatoes in a bottle. Because when I buy tomato sauce, I just want a big tomato flavor. I’m after that big tomato flavor. They went back to advertising just bunches of tomatoes in a bottle.

{audio:0:53:45} Then you saw them start to introduce lower sugar, organic, to start to take back their place as the unrivalled owner of big, natural tomato taste. I’d argue that they did a pretty good job. Now, they can start talking about the role of Heinz ketchup in your family meal and how it makes your family meal a much more enjoyable experience, because your kids will eat the food and everyone is happy and that’s what we want, happy families.

{audio:0:54:17} Yes, it is part of your core equity. Generally speaking, as brands drift, they might need to go back to the start and start to underpin again, those reasons to believe. That’s what I call them, reasons to believe; functional reasons that I buy into this, before they can start laddering again, to emotional benefit.

{audio:0:54:40} How do you measure brand equity?

{audio:0:54:43} There’s many different ways to do it. I think the first thing you’ve got to do, is understand what are the equities that you want to measure. One of the mistakes that I see made by young brand managers – well, old brand managers as well, actually – is trying to measure everything.

{audio:0:55:00} So first of all understanding, what is it that consumers, in the category you play in, care about. For instance, tomato ketchup, I want a big tomato flavor, would be one of the first things they care about. So you’d better not lose your ownership of that. Understand what they care about and that will be a combination of functional and emotional core attributes. Things like, big tomato flavor; things like, tastes fresh; things like, I can always find it. There will be a bunch of functional and then there will be the emotional. It’s a brand I trust, it’s a brand for me. In Grey Goose’s case, it’s a brand that inspires me to go beyond.

{audio:0:55:52} So understanding what your core equities are, that will deliver performance, have your consumers engage, be on brand; first thing to do. Then the next thing is really a discipline of mechanics. Do you have a tracking study, in the market, that’s continuous? Do you do, what I call, dipstick equity tracking, where you just come in every quarter, test your equities? Have you got social listening set up in a way that you’re listening to what’s happening from your consumer’s point of view and what are they saying about you? Have you got social heat being measured? If you’re a spirits brand and you’re Captain Morgan, you need to be really hot amongst 21-year-olds. How hot is your brand and are you measuring your social heat, right now? Because if you’re not hot, you’re not recruiting.

{audio:0:56:45} In summary, it’s about understanding, what are the drivers and what are the really important things that you’ve got to measure. Then mechanically, how do you do that? It’s pretty clear that, if you’re a brand whose target consumer is a 50-year-old man, probably social heat might not be what you want to measure. Probably, social listening might not be the mechanism that you want to measure your equities on. You might need to approach that consumer through a more conventional, perhaps, brand tracking device.

{audio:0:57:28} What do you believe most people, or marketers, typically misunderstand about brand building?

{audio:0:57:37} I believe, this is the money shot; this is the key, for marketeers. What most marketeers believe is one or the other of these. It’s all about performance, so I’ve got to deliver growth, no matter what cost. Or, it’s all about equity; people need to feel good about my brand. The truth is, it’s about growth and equity, in equal measure. You have to remember that. The way that you do that, is understanding, strategically, all the foundations of your brand, who is your consumer, what do they think about me, what do I stand for, what’s my brand promise? What are the big insights in their life, driving them? Then, understanding how you can tell that story, authentically, that delivers the business objectives – growth – and builds the core equity of your brand. As a brand manager, you have to do both. Deliver your objectives and leave the brand in a much better place tomorrow than it was today, when you got hold of it. That’s your job.
{audio:0:58:56} What a lot of brand managers don’t understand is, it’s both. So they chase one or the other, at the cost of the other. No business, no enterprise is going to be satisfied with that. That is the difficulty of brand management.

Bacardi Brand Marketing & Storytelling

Former Chief Marketing Officer at Bacardi & Walgreens Boots Alliance

inpractise.com/articles/bacardi-marketing

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Andy Gibson

Former Chief Marketing Officer at Bacardi & Walgreens Boots Alliance

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Bacardi Brand Marketing & Storytelling(March 26, 2020)

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