By NDA columnist Tom Ollerton, founder, Automated Creative
It’s been said before but, putting the consumer at the very centre of your marketing strategy will yield the best results, according to Charles Steinmyller, Senior Brand Manager for Tampax Europe at Procter & Gamble. His top tip is to always make sure you’re doing the job that the consumer expects you to do.
It may seem unusual for a man to head a feminine care product’s branding, but Charles has welcomed the challenge by working first on the Always range, and now more recently on Tampax within Procter & Gamble. Creating a strategy that matches consumer expectations across Europe is his biggest challenge, since attitudes and priorities can differ quite widely.
At the same time, consumer knowledge is the key to understanding how to shape a winning marketing strategy. Deliver on the basic promises of the brand, and consumers will identify with your brand ethos and maintain their interest in your product.
A huge priority for P&G is environmental impact and sustainability, with the impact of plastic use being a big part of this. So, for French consumers, reducing plastic use is big item on the agenda when choosing brands they want to purchase from. While this may not align with consumer expectations in all other European markets, Charles thinks that working in P&G gives him enough opportunity to scale his efforts. This means that if one initiative is done at a smaller scale in one market, it can gain momentum over time and open up the opportunity for other markets to benefit from it subsequently, too.
Charles is a big believer in brands taking part in the circular economy and coming up with ways to change from simply wishing for a more positive future, to actually living it, one step at a time.
Listen to Charles’ thoughts on embedding the circular economy in product development and brand marketing, as well as more top marketing tips, here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4UpNEkIEPO57MWZC0SWDFX.
The Shiny New Object podcast is a production of Automated Creative, an adtech platform that turns brands’ media impressions into marketing intelligence. Find out more at www.automatedcreative.net
