THE ESSENCE OF MARKETING: INTERVIEW WITH MASSIMILIANO CAPORUSCIO, NEW BUSINESS UNILEVER.
Today we’d like to share with you an extract of the interview we conducted with Massimilano Caporuscio, currently New Business Development Director for Food & Beverages at Unilever. His experience during the previous decade includes being responsible for the “Ice Cream Retail Channel”, “Beauty and Personal Care” and “Food & Beverages” business units, as a board member of Unilever Italy and part of the European Sector Team.
THE ESSENCE OF MARKETING: THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE BRAND.
We asked Massimiliano Caporuscio what he thought was the role of the brand within the ambit of precision marketing, a process focusing on the consumer as an individual. He replied that ‘the brand plays a crucial role, it has a primary responsibility: that of understanding its customers, whatever the sector, supplying effective solutions for their needs. Precision marketing, and the digital toolset we have available today, become means through which the brand may provide even more targeted and effective solutions to its customers’.
THE ESSENCE OF MARKETING: THE VALUE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY.
Regarding Unilever, the multinational in which Massimiliano operates, we asked how it was possible to manage such a complex reality, which incorporates many brands so very different from each other, in such a way as to harmonise this diversity in order to create a cohesive brand identity. He answered that ‘marketing is a unique activity, whatever the sector and the brand. Certainly, among managers, some are more predisposed towards the food sector rather than personal care or vice versa, and the brand should take these attitudes or preferences into account. Having said that, the rules of the game are very similar, so actually it is about understanding the consumers vis-a’-vis their “desiderata” and going through the customer journey along with them, guiding them in their choices to satisfy their necessities, which is what we touched upon even in the conference today’.
THE ESSENCE OF MARKETING: CREATING VALUE FOR PEOPLE, THROUGH PEOPLE.
Lastly, we asked Caporuscio what was his essence, his principal characteristic? He replied that what he defined as his “personal corpus” was ‘creating value for people, through people, which means adopting very specific teamworking modalities with a high level of delegation and a high capacity for listening to others, because I think that everyone who is part of a team, whether brand or sector specialist, is able to add the greatest value in answering consumers’ needs’.
We can only agree with him, and we wish to remind you that you will be able to find the full interview in the playlist on our YouTube channel which is dedicated to the Philip Kotler Marketing Forum.
