Guest
Nathalia Amadeu, Global Brand Director, Vaseline
Related Podcasts
“Relevance builds brands. Control just increases the risk of irrelevance.”
In this episode of The Persuasion Game, we’re joined by Nathalia Amadeu, Global Brand Director at Vaseline, to explore how the 150-year-old brand is reinventing itself in the social-first era.
It centres on the hugely successful Vaseline Verified campaign (winner of nine awards at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, including a Titanium Lion). A campaign which, as Nathalia puts it, “challenged decades of brand control thinking.”
With millions of people already sharing their own ways of using the product, instead of leading the conversation, Vaseline chose to listen.
The result is a new model of brand building – one that validates, amplifies and co-creates with its community.
That shift in approach is not just a campaign idea, it is also reshaping innovation, with new products, co-built with creators, in production.
This is an inspiring, must-listen for anyone looking to grow a brand in a completely new way.
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This is an 18Sixty production for Forge.
Transcript
Nathalia: To protect a brand, you should not lock it down. A big shift is starting our innovations, not from a PowerPoint slide, talking about white spaces, but observed behaviours.
Adam: Hello, Laura. How are you?
Laura: I’m great. How are you doing?
Adam: Yeah, very well. Thank you. Thrilled to be here today for this interview. We’ve had some more success with sliding into the DMs of important marketers.
Laura: Just keep at it and one day they’ll have to say yes.
Adam: Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. You’ve managed to convince Nathalia Amadeu.
The global brand director for Vaseline at Unilever to come on today to talk about the Vaseline verified campaign, which I’m sure a lot of our listeners will have heard about in terms of the communications platform it provided to, Vaseline and all of the Cannes awards that they won last year on the back of it.
But she’s here today to talk about 2.0 isn’t she?
Laura: Indeed. It was really exciting last year, at Advertising Week, Europe, to hear the Vaseline team talking about this. And this was before Cannes. They were kind of gearing up and I think it felt really bold and exciting. You know, we had talked a bit about how it felt like a big swing and was it gonna pay off?
And I think 13 Cannes Lions later. Yes, yes, it definitely has. So we are very excited to hear about what’s next and I think it’ll be a very thought provoking and generous spirited interview. If it’s anything like the brand.
Adam: Let’s get into it! So welcome Nathalia to The Persuasion Game. Great to have you with us today.
Nathalia: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here with you.
Laura: It’s a little full circle moment for us because, this time last year we were hearing all about Vaseline Verified at Advertising Week Europe, and ever since then you’ve been on our watch list.
Adam: So we’re here today to talk a bit about Vaseline Verified, but also about how that’s developed and, and, and gone further as the year has kind of gone on. Before we dive straight in, would it be okay for our listeners, if you were to just give us a top line about like Vaseline Verified, like where it came from, maybe share some of the success that it’s had to now. And then we’d love to talk about how it’s become much bigger and how that’s kind of pushed on and become something that, you know, is really about how brands are being built now at Unilever in this kind of new social first way.
Nathalia: Well, I think Vaseline Verified started from a very simple idea that became this proof of principle of how we do marketing at Vaseline, Unilever and I guess it has influenced the industry.
So it started from a very humble jelly created in 1870 that became this lighthouse in the sea, in the chaotic sea of TikTok hacks. A brand that has been out there for so many years. We had this obsession of turning it into a social first and shaking off the dust while you’re evolving the trust. And when we tried to understand what social first meant, we realised that we had to stop talking, to start listening more, right? And when we started listening more, we faced more than 3.5 million social posts, organic social posts of people sharing their own inventions of how to use our product, their way.
The most frequent comment among those posts was, does it work? Is it real? I was shouting and inviting the brand to engage. As a brand backed on science for over a century we felt the responsibilities because at the same time, there were incredible, very creative ways of using Vaseline. There were some ideas that also posed some harm and, and danger to them. So we decided to fact check the user claims. We took the hacks to our labs. We dispelled harmful myths, brought them back to culture, and through that we’ve really unlocked even more brand love.
Even more authenticity and interest and Vaseline Verified, became more than a campaign. It turned to be a platform first.
Adam: I guess one question I had is, I was actually just listening to the Fernando Fernandez interview with JP Morgan, and he talks a lot about building desire at scale and the kind of sassy framework.
This is really a brilliant example, isn’t it, of like leaning into that new way of approaching brand building.
Nathalia: I think the brands matter more when they understand their role in people’s lives, not only in the category. It’s impossible for you to keep evolving and growing without your communities. They have the best stories to tell about your brands even more than we do, right?
When they have shared their inventions. They have shared ideas. We as a brand could have never briefed or desired for or even imagined. And I think this sense of how we build desire at scale is a way to really steward our communities and serve them. It’s more coming from them than the brand.
Laura: It’s quite interesting to hear your language here because you talk about service and people having better ideas than you do. And this is a brand that’s in 1.5. billion households, so it could be quite easy to be like, well, we’re built on something. We do know what we’re doing. But actually it feels like you are very much handing the reins over with trust and you talk about stewardship rather than kind of ownership.
Can you talk a bit more about that, that shift in thinking like what had to switch on within your brand team and perhaps within the organisation to think differently?
Nathalia: I think the social first transformation we have gone through. This obsession that I mentioned that I know many brand developers that are listening to us today have experienced too.
Made us really pay attention to how people were using our product, what they were talking about, our product, and the more attention we paid, more things we discovered that were quite uncomfortable, but powerful. We realised the brand had been reinterpreted already, repurposed, reinvented millions of times without us. Consumers were not asking for permission, right?
They were solving their problems in building health in everyday hacks in ways we, as I mentioned, like we could have never imagined. Ownership at that point feels like a friction. If a brand is being used in more than 1.5 billion households across different cultures, different climates, different contexts, its meaning is no longer defined by a marketing plan. It’s defined in real life.
For me, the shift from looking at our penetration. Not as ownership, but as stewardship was unavoidable. If we really stayed still. If we didn’t listen, we were taking the risk of getting irrelevant in the ways people were using us. And I think that was the biggest shift of all- how we really decided to catch up with reality.
By that we really unlocked this authenticity and even more trust.
Adam: I think the comms campaign is brilliant. I think we’ve sort of established that, bringing people in, joining the conversation. You know, it’s just a brilliant example of really making the brand everyone’s, but you went one step further, didn’t you?
It wasn’t just sharing communications with these people. You’ve actually now brought them into developing products with you, haven’t you? Which I think is really quite interesting. Do you wanna share a bit more about how you’ve done that and, and kind of how that’s worked?
Nathalia: I think Vaseline Verified helped us see the creators in our communities as co-authors of our stories. We say we have co-founded this brand through the hands of those who love it and, and use it. And that is not just for marketing, that is not just for campaigns. That affects the way we innovate as well, right? When we call them to be co-founders or co-authors of our stories we are also talking about the future of listening.
So we decided to look at the creators, not just as exemplifying our media channels, but participants of our brand development. Right? I think the evolution of Verified is indeed the launch of new products inspired by the hacks coming from the communities, by observing the behaviours that we see and serving them.
We had to understand if we really wanted to take them as co-founder and co-authors, we had to listen and also prioritise their agenda while we deprioritise ours.
So that’s the evolution really. And that’s where we are right now. Vaseline Verified brings then new applicators, new formats, new ways to use our products, that most important even before it reached our labs had been verified by the communities.
Laura: And you were saying it’s not just about sort of magpieing different ideas. You’ve really worked to try and find who are the originators of the ideas, who was the original sort of test case of this person and kind of bring them in on the journey.
Can you tell us a bit more about why that’s important to you?
Nathalia: Yes. I think in his social world, it’s not rare to see ideas being stolen. Right?
Laura: Lifted. Yeah.
Nathalia: It’s the nature of social media, but at the same time, we feel some of the creators who usually come up first feel quite frustrated for not having the recognition of their creativity.
So this year we decided to go after the originators. We have truly mapped and tracked down them on the internet across the globe, trying to see where this trend, this crazy 3 million posts started and we have found some of them. We are still looking for more because there are so many hacks out there.
We have started with some of the most viral hacks, some of the beauty hacks. We have found, actually a creator in the US, one of the first posts that we could find sharing a beauty hack on how to use Vaseline jelly as a makeup primer. And that was genius. It was even in a blog before social media even existed.
Adam: A Tumblr somewhere.
Nathalia: Yes. Somewhere. And we reached out to them to reward them for their creativity. And for their contribution to this beauty world and how they were sparking this explosion and we invited them to co-create these products with us. We invited them to be even more influential in the beauty world.
For us, this is the commitment we have with our communities really to give them the space for the creativity to shine. Of course, we grow together. For me, it’s very important that the brand grows with the community.
Adam: What I love about all of this is, we mentioned earlier the one and a half billion households, and that’s kind of a penetration ceiling for most brands, right?
I mean beyond the wildest dreams of many brands. But what I love about this is all of the stuff you’re doing is really reinforcing the usage occasions, trying to come up with new products for new occasions, for new ways of just getting people that already have the product to just use it much, much more.
And this social kind of first approach is really helping you to deliver on that, isn’t it?
Nathalia: I think that that was a big unlock when we reached the ceiling. We felt, okay, we’ve got what we could now it’s just like some could have just looked for maintenance. We broke the walls. Right? I think Vaseline Verified made us realise skincare was just a continent in the Vaseline World.
Adam: Yes.
Nathalia: Made us realise that actually our briefings were limiting us. Because people were already using us in different situations, in different moments that we had never considered before. And that represents business opportunities.
Adam: Yeah.
Nathalia: Right. I think Vaseline Verified, unlocked doors even for commercial footprint. The purpose people buy Vaseline and also the words that start appearing. When we left this control of our own narratives, our creators started taking us to, you know, words we had never engaged before. Fashion, sports, foods, pop culture.
When we leave meetings with our stakeholders, our investors, they feel even more encouraged and optimistic about the future of a centenary brand.
Adam: So it became like a multi-category approach. The category expansion wasn’t just about how we’re gonna grow in skincare. It’s like, how can we access all of these other ways that people are using this brand and be there in the right places for them in those moments that they want it.
Nathalia: Absolutely. You know, one thing that really excites me was the discovery of a nickname the brand has among their communities, which is the Wonder Jelly. And I tried to understand why is this right? One of the reasons I understood was the versatility of Vaseline. The miraculous healing power of Vaseline too.
But that really made us open our eyes and to rethink actually our business and understanding the category you operate in might not be skincare. It might be the wonder category.
Laura: What’s so interesting about that though is for 150 odd years, you’ve kind of been established in a different way, and I can imagine that there was a lot of excitement from stakeholders, but also the way you are physically set up in the business is probably around the world of skin.
So different stakeholders, R&D development. All of those kind of things were probably finding it a bit more of a surprise and having to adjust thinking a bit more. How do you balance that idea of sort of risk and opportunity, and how did you get people bought into this more expansive view of what you could be?
Nathalia: I believe, Laura, that to protect a brand, you should not lock it down. You encourage. I like this, this idea of some things you fix, some things you flex. So for us, there are some non-negotiables that nobody can touch, and this is absolutely what we fix, which is safety, efficacy and trust. All the rest; culture, usage, context are allowed to evolve.
I think at Unilever, we have a framework that is called the ‘brand-verse’, which helps us give guidance on, on some guard rails of what Vaseline stands for. While you’re giving room for the creators’ authenticities to shine, that truly helps because we know how we show up and how we engage, and at the same time, it helps us give the reassurance that we have the right to play.
But that does not mean that internally it’s easy or with no friction. It’s very robust, very heated conversations. I think actually internally it has challenged decades of planned, controlled thinking.
Laura: Yeah.
Nathalia: Right?
It has been an internal debate. It has been actually a big internal learning curve too as we let it go. But more, I think the unlock was showing to the leadership and the whole organisation that it was not just about letting go, but it was really the importance of getting back to the game that we were late.
Right?
Laura: Yes. That’s really striking about what you said just now and you’re like, this has already happened. You know, we can’t close the barn door. We need to get into the game now. Do you think it’s easier to do so with a brand that has quite sort of, has humble, down to earth origins that is really about being for everyone than perhaps brands who are used to a narrative of being a bit more sort of elite or aspirational?
Do you think there was actually a strength in being that ubiquitous brand that kind of had to listen to people?
Nathalia: I wouldn’t say a humble brand because Vaseline has so much power.
Laura: That’s true.
Nathalia: And the way we are leaders in this category, it could feel quite the opposite. We know how to do it right?
And I think this is valid for all the brands. I think what drives our decisions is really the relationship we have with our consumers. Any brand can opt for that if they have the intimacy or if they have people with their communities, right? Because then they have this space to advance and also this space to give away.
And this is a new way of thinking about marketing today, right? This for me, is really the manifesto of the future of marketing, as we call it, the co-participatory brand building. Right. You need to understand you are not the sole voice in it.
Adam: When you say it like that, it’s no different to what we’ve been doing for years and years and years. It’s just the circuit loops, the feedback loops are much, much quicker now.
You know, you can see, you can get instant response, get instant ideas of feedback back, and then go again and kind of share and kind of build in a much more like iterative, continuous, rather than the long phase of like insight followed by long phase of r&D and product development. Long phase of launch, long phase of insight has just really shortened it up quite a lot, hasn’t it?
Nathalia: I agree. I couldn’t agree more. The fundamentals haven’t changed, but the ways of doing it, yes. We see now the creators are an extension of our brand, right? As almost sensors that could surface community insights in real time.
Adam: They’re almost like a micro retail partner.
Nathalia: Yeah.
Adam: You know, feedback from people that are buying the products.
Nathalia: Yeah.
Adam: And then ideas for what product launches might work for the audience. And that kind of loop.
Nathalia: Absolutely. And the speed and agility required, is really game changing. Exactly one year ago, I remember when we were starting with Verified and doing our social listening homework, we noticed Vaseline being mentioned and emerging from some conversations around, hay fever. People sharing their symptoms and their suffering and some recommending a Vaseline hack. And when we saw that repeatedly, I felt, first I felt quite rude because I said, if that is true, half of my Spring issues are solved.
And second, I felt really surprised and I immediately called our verifiers, that team. And I asked, is it true? Does it really work? Is it verified? And when they came back to me, with the confirmation that not only is it verified but also even recognised by the NHS. I immediately called the UK team and said, guys, we need to shout that out.
Laura: Yeah. Get it out there.
Nathalia: But don’t produce anything. Just amplify what people are saying.
Adam: Yeah.
Nathalia: Boost it. You know, it’s already out there.
Laura: I really thought it was just me that did that, by the way.
Adam: What’s the hack?
Laura: You put Vaseline around the inside of your nose and it stops you during hay fever.
I also do it on flights. Maybe you can ask your team about that to stop getting sick.
Nathalia: That’s a good one too to verify. But how can we unlock that as a commercial opportunity?
How can we ensure people will buy Vaseline for that? Call the customers, jump on the antihistamine aisle, but in a week because we’re at the peak of the season right now.
Laura: Yeah.
Nathalia: And by doing that, we simply double the volume in stock and imagine the impact that has in supply chain customer sales. So this speed, this requires us to build a system that responds in hours or days, not in quarters. It is incredibly critical.
Laura: I wanted to ask you about that listening piece you mentioned, you said it was like a sea of content. There is so much there and I think what your brand has been incredible at is determining the kind of signals from the noise. Like really linking back to things that have a kind of enduring cultural resonance.
It doesn’t feel faddy, the stuff that you are doing. What is your process for actually finding those kind of enduring things that feel like a platform you can build on over time versus the kind of flash in the pan ideas?
Nathalia: There are three main elements we look for to establish like it’s worth betting on, right?
One is the repetition of that, right? How we see this going through communities is not just when viruses spike.
The other is how people adapt to that. You see people remixing communities remixing the same for different needs.
And the third is the perseverance of the content. A trend is like a moment. But an insight is a behaviour. If it lasts a week, it’s just entertainment. But if it keeps evolving, then it’s utility and then we are in.
Laura: And it’s such a good fit with the brand as well. As you say, like utility, something people are actually going to find relevant to their lives every day.
It’s a nice way of linking back to actual brand purpose as well, isn’t it?
Nathalia: Absolutely. For us, there’s nothing more purposeful than being useful. That is why it becomes a social currency, right? Because people know this is really valuable for others. It’s not just entertainment and then it spreads. It is crazy really, the amount of countries that have come back to us talking about hacks without us even deploying the campaign there. You know, because when it’s authentic it can be un useful. Social media does the heavy lifting.
And these stories travel globally. And this is what has happened with Verified, I think it’s really the empowerment of the communities and how they take their stories further.
Adam: And you’ve actually brought some of the products with you today, haven’t you?
Can we have a look at some of them?
Nathalia: Yes, please do.
Laura: Let’s talk about this one as an insight because as a child of the noughties eyebrows were not really a thing and now we’re desperately all trying to grow them back. I absolutely love this product. So we’ve got something where you smooth it on one end and you brush it on the other.
What was the origin of this? Because this feels like such an obvious one to go for, for Vaseline, but I just wouldn’t have thought of it.
Nathalia: You thank the creators. Not me. But this is indeed giving this space to the community to create. We notice people using our jelly and taking brushes, you know, and just trying to apply to tame their brows.
Okay, there’s a need here.
Laura: Yeah.
Nathalia: That is not so explicitly set, but when we feel more intimate with the consumers using that, we understand. And the idea actually is the evolution of the hacks becoming products, same product, but a better applicator, a better experience coming completely from the communities.
Laura: Nathlaia is gonna have a hard time getting this out of the record because I’m definitely gonna try and put it in my pocket. It’s so funny because I used to use this and then I always found a problem with the shininess level that you got from doing this. So it’s like you’ve really closely observed the pain points and the usage as well. Not just gone, oh, we could just start saying it’s for eyebrows. You’ve actually thought about the use education and really like detailed what the solution could be, which is super cool.
Nathalia: Yeah. You know, Laura, I think. A big shift in Vaseline is starting our innovations, not from a PowerPoint slide, talking about white spaces, right?
But observed behaviours. This is observed behaviours, and this is space the community has to really bring what they want. We had to deprioritise our calendar, you know, our own agenda to give space for this. This is what we are doing now with the Verified innovations when we bring the hacks to new formats.
Laura: What I love about this is, you know, even from when God was a boy and I was at Unilever and there were videos of like consumer usage, there was always so much richness around how people use products and like really close observation. But what it feels like now is that that is not just seen as validating, it’s like an actual tool to springboard from.
And you know, is as important. And it kind of gives a more democratic role to everybody. You know, wherever an insight comes from, that’s where it’s valuable because it’s in service of the consumer rather than in service of like a hierarchy of, as you say, PowerPoint.
Nathalia: And not only that, it’s not just like giving space for them to have a voice, but also rewarding them for their contribution. Right. I think in Verified, there’s this commitment we have to truly unlock what we call the creator economy. Right? It’s not just recognising, or liking their work, their contribution, but making them feel seen. Show them their creativity matters.
The creators of those hacks and the co-creators of those products are actually getting even part of the sales of those products because we believe this is really rewarding and unlocking the communities. Their growth is important for our growth.
Adam: One thing I love from the Verified Video. The trailer of like, the success of it was just all those people, like, so pleased when they got their thing Verified, like in their social posts, they were like, really happy about it.
I can only imagine what it’s like now when the products turn up on shelf and they’ve got the Verified stamp on it as well.
Laura: Yeah it’s so cool.
Adam: There must be such a real kind of, I guess infectiousness in the kind of social world about people that also want to get their products built and recognised.
Nathalia: Absolutely.
Laura: What have you got in your hand there?
Adam: It’s an all in one primer and highlighter jelly. I’m not going to pretend to know what that does.
Laura: It’s not the nipple protector though.
Nathalia: Well, could be!
Laura: Whatever you want it to be.
Nathalia: Yes, but this, this one actually came from another beauty hack.
We saw people using our jelly as a makeup primer. Just to smooth their skin, to ensure the grip of the makeup, and even after, they wanted to highlight, to have some highlights and some shine. We said, okay, there’s an opportunity to deliver the same in a more convenient way. That people can carry in their bags in a way that is more relevant to them. So they came up with the idea too, of these applicators.
I think that the ultimate way that Verified made us behave is understanding that the brand gets better the more people shape it.
Laura: I love that because it always used to be like almost a sense of compromise. Like if you want to get the benefit, you have to use it in this slightly tricky way, or you have to accept that you need to go wash your hands afterwards or something like that.
And actually for the brand to say, no, no, you know. It’s in your hands and we’ll create something that’s better for you. It feels quite generous as a principle. And that seems to be quite a striking theme that you’ve talked about, like intimacy, generosity. It’s quite an interesting way for a very established, and as you say, very powerful brand to talk.
Nathalia: I think it’s important for a brand to become stewards, right. More than owners. It’s to understand it’s no longer about owning the message or how you should do that, right? It’s about earning participation. It’s really being relevant, ensuring you are still relevant to them. And I feel, it’s important for the marketing teams, for the brand developers to change this role of creators, inventors to redistribute these authorships somehow.
Adam: I mean, I noticed on the boxes there you’ve got the Vaseline Verified tick. Is this now the predominant part of the innovation funnel Vaseline Verified? Or is it a part, a section of it and you also have innovation from the old model coming through as well? I’m just interested to know what the kind of balance is here between the two types or two different ways you’re innovating.
Nathalia: Vaseline Verified has evolved to the position of our branch. Our new tagline is ‘If it’s Vaseline, it’s verified’.
Laura: I love it.
Nathalia: So yes, it’s about validating the creativity of the communities, but also ensuring that everything we deliver, it’s verified, it has the results, it has the three non-compromises that we mentioned at the beginning, right?
The safety, the efficacy, the trust.
Adam: Yeah.
Nathalia: Vaseline starts from the trust, right? It’s one of the most trusted brands across the world. So everything we bring to the world. Has this coin, this seal of verification, even these specific innovations, we said that even before it reached the lab, they had been verified in the wild.
Adam: Yeah.
Nathalia: Right. But also in other segments, in other categories, our world is really encouraging health beyond hype. When we bring proof of our promises, proof of trends, and this is how we innovate and we build the brand for the future.
Laura: But it’s also the same as it has always been for so many years, right?
That the evidence, the reliability, the trustworthiness,
Nathalia: It’s in our roots, right? We are the OG.
Adam: Yeah.
Nathalia: We are the skin obsessed brand. It’s very interesting if you see the history of the brand. And in our archives, since the brand was born, there’s an obsession about tangible proof. The creator of the brand, Chesebrough the chemist back in 1870s when he created Vaseline. He started selling Vaseline, failing miserably, but he didn’t give up and he took his cart, his horses, and he did a tour around the US to show the power of Vaseline and he even burnt himself. The archive shows he used to burn himself to apply, to show the miraculous power of the Vaseline. The tangible proof.
The verification is with us since the beginning.
Laura: Yeah.
Nathalia: And we are not abandoning that. That is part of our roots. And it’s our commitment with our communities.
Laura: What kind of assumptions do you think you’ve had to let go of about innovation? What do you think this has actually disproved for you?
Nathalia: The biggest belief, I think that was reconsidered. Is that consistency builds brands, relevance builds brands. Consistency without relevance is just repetition and this is very important for a legacy brand to understand.
And the second I think is really control, reduces risks. Which actually is proven to be quite the opposite, right? Controlling just increases the risk of irrelevance, and I think the biggest risk is really not participating in culture at all.
Laura: So I think there’s an amazing sense of all of this being a bit full circle for you as well, going back to your roots, but exploring it in a different way and really expanding the brand from what it’s always been into something really exciting.
I’m sure there are hundreds of brands and people outside Unilever, within Unilever who are, who come to you and say like, tell me some secrets. You know, tell me what you did. What do you think the conditions need to be for a brand to, to build participatory brand building? Because not everybody can do this.
What are some of the principles you would live by?
Nathalia: I think one important one is to listen in a way that you give space for culture to intervene your decisions. Because there are many brand developers out there defending the social listening, but entertaining themselves with what they listen without really opening the space for the listening to intervene in these decisions you make, I think this is something valuable that we have learned. And to be comfortable if the imperfections show, when you open the space to co-create it doesn’t always feel polished, but it feels real.
And I think that is the most important thing for consumers to understand. That there’s a meaning. We are not dictating the meaning, but we are recognising the meaning and being meaningful is really our biggest achievement.
Laura: Amazing. What a fabulous note to finish on. Thank you so much, Nathalia.
Adam: Such an interesting interview. Thank you so much for coming in.
Nathalia: Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure.
Adam: I mean, Laura. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. What a great interview. I really, I was hanging on every word there. I was absolutely fascinated by what Nathalia was saying.
Laura: I’m definitely getting some t-shirts made up with some of the key quotes. They were absolutely excellent.
Adam: I mean, it’s sort of challenging me slightly thinking like, why aren’t all brands doing this? I mean, it just makes sense and we heard it from Fiona Hughes on a previous interview. We’ve heard it about Burger King with the campaign, like listening to what people were really using Burger King for. You know, this social insight approach to kind of gaining insight, but then playing it back to people, it just seems like a win-win all round.
Laura: But it is challenging. And I think, you know, the point, the reason it’s won awards is not everyone can do it. And I think the principle she had of- she said, making space for culture and really like deep listening, actually understanding the behaviours in detail. What are people actually needing rather than just saying, oh, you know, I’m gonna jump on it with a like, or I’m gonna repost it.
That kind of consideredness, I would say is actually quite challenging in the sea of content. And so to really sort of keep the consumer in mind and just identify that, yes, this social stuff is fascinating, but what’s fascinating about it is the humans behind it, is really like the key differentiator and the reason that all of this innovation and the positioning has been so successful.
Adam: You know, there will be critics out there that maybe at the end of like vastly and verified went, oh, well it’s all right for you because you’ve got a brand that’s used, you know, it’s 150 years old and it’s used for all these use cases. And it’s a really easy idea. It’s very easy to have ideas, you know, when you haven’t had them yourself.
But the fact that they took that one step further to say, well actually now let’s make some products based on some of these hacks. I think just shows like real bravery and like conviction in what they’re actually doing. It’s not just a campaign idea now. It’s actually changing the way that they are going to market and changing the way that they’re innovating.
Laura: I think for insights people it is especially exciting because where it gets us out of is it’s an idea of a the role of insights is to validate this sort of top down idea that’s come from, you know, a marketing PowerPoint, that actually insights are, their job is to uncover areas of growth potential.
And to kind of nurture the right way of developing that so that it amplifies itself.
Adam: Yeah.
Laura: It’s, it’s a really fascinating inversion of the model and the point we’ve had with Nick Graham, it gives insight more of a seat at the table because it’s actually showing the opportunity to drive value, both for the brand, for the consumer and for the bottom line.
Adam: Absolutely. I mean, and it’s increasingly becoming the place where in this sea of noise that is where you’re going to find the signal is yeah. So, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant interview. Well done for sliding into the DMs and, and getting us a great interview.
Laura: You are very welcome.
