Unilever's marketing director, HPC & Foods, NAME, Tina Chikhani talks to Kareena Khanchandani about life at the company.
Tina Chikhani sits at the helm of one of the region's marketing departments, responsible for one of the region's largest marketing budgets. Her professional, and it seems personal, remit is to develop non-stop.
Sadly Chikhani, the CMO of Unilever, North Africa and the Middle East, can not share regional specifics in numbers and spend, but on a global level, the British-Dutch multinational FMCG spent $8bn on marketing in 2011.
"We are known to be one of the top media spenders in the region, which obviously means our budgets are quite substantial. We never shy away from putting [in] the right amount of money for the brand to develop marketing and consumer habits," Chikhani tells GMR.
There is no specific structure or numbers allocated to their marketing budget; it is based on market activity, innovation and development needs.
What is beyond doubt, however, is Unilever's commitment to brand building, especially within the Mena region, which Chikhani says is one of the fastestgrowing, boasting double-digit growth for many years.
Regional growth, she says, is largely due to market development more than innovation, but that is changing.
Every category - personal care, household care, F&B - has a specific budget, Chikhani says, but that does not stop them from investing in additional marketing if extra potential is identified... even if the investment does not deliver immediate ROI.
"For us it is important to build the brand and not just spend for the sake of spending."
However, as we know, these days it is the consumer who shapes marketing strategy. Through technology, Unilever is able to be in constant touch with its consumers, which affords R&D access to deeper insights.
In the MENA region, where almost 50 per cent of the 340 million population is under 25, the majority are pretty much digital natives, so development potential is huge.
Chikhani cites Egypt as a country where huge value is placed on the actual product, because consumers there have a greater propensity to spend on basic products, rather than luxury.
Marketing spend allocation, therefore, varies from country to country.
Unilever also commits significant resources to consumer research. "What we do as a company has to revolve around the consumer and adapt to the marketing strategy accordingly.
Digital media spend, she says, will increase five fold.
Companies simply have to go online in order to communicate to the consumer and see what is happening in their lives. So what new products or product extensions lie ahead for 2012?
In true Unilever corporate fashion,
Chikhani remains tightlipped, other than to share that launches and innovation are expected in all Unilever units - personal care, home care and F&B. Chikhani does add, however, that all products will be promoted via two-way communication between Unilever and the consumer.
Bloggers and brand ambassadors will help connect to the consumer.
Pond's skincare is a good example.
Since 2009, the range has been growing due to, Unilever says, bloggers and brand ambassadors interacting with consumers through the Pond's Arabia Beauty Council in Dubai.
The council comprises: media personality Simone Heng; Jordanian Dana Hamdan, fashion designer; Rosemin Manji, event consultancy organiser; and Saudi national and TV presenter, Amira Al Fadl.
The women were selected for their "approachability", which sparks brand affinity and encourages engagement through dialogue.
"It is important to put someone in front that they can relate to, reach out to and open their hearts to. We are looking at brilliant brands available for all, any type of person, any nationality.
We are there to serve at the end of the day," says Chikhani.
In its food sector, Knorr is one of Unilever's heavy hitters, especially in North Africa where products are modified for local tastes through the use of specific seasonings and mixes. Nonetheless, as Chikhani points out, food is a tricky business as it is about individual tastes and they can vary.
Another challenge, and one that provides massive potential in the Mena region, is personal care - particularly the deodorants and dental care segments. Usage frequency is still not daily for the majority of consumers, especially in Saudi Arabia, she says.
As part of an education campaign promoting the benefits of daily use, Unilever developed the "Wetness Challenge," for its Rexona deo brand.
The two-year TV campaign hinged on showing the difference between a wet and drag paper strip when deo is applied.
The top-selling brands in MENA include Lipton, Lux, Dove and Knorr.
More specifically, Egypt , f o r example, has a personal care brand called Good Morning, not available in other countries.
"We like to globalize, but if there are opportunities to localise, we do so as well," Chikhani said.
From a world- wide perspective, Keith Weed, global CMO, has talked to the media about the concept of crafting brands for life.
Asked how Chikhani implements this locally, she smiles and says, "Reinstilling the magic in marketing and adding it to logic."
It's all about crafting the brand around the consumer, she says, discovering what they need and "sales will come."
The company is also highly committed to what it calls its Sustainable Living Plan. The main goal is to help everyone enjoy a better quality of life, while simultaneously respecting the planet.
A regional example is a water cooperation partnership with the Saudi Arabian government to reduce consumption in the kingdom and spread awareness about water scarcity.
Other plans include female empowerment. On a personal note, Chikhani says: "Unilever cares about us at the end of the day, so it is impacting me as a person, impacting the future of my kids, and impacting every single one of them, and not stopping at any obstacle; it makes me proud and makes me look for better ways of implementing sustainability plans."
In the midst of everything, Chikhani plays a crucial role in Unilever being in such a highly influential position in a male-dominated society.
It is definitely challenging, but that's what keeps her going and wanting to achieve. "As long as you work in a company that shares the same values as you have, you will be fine," she says.
Since moving to Dubai to join Unilver from her native Lebanon six years ago, Chikhani says the company has never doubted her capabilities, driving her to grow, especially as an Arab woman. "Unilever believed in me, made me grow.
"Unilever and I are a perfect match, which makes us a great couple."
COMPANY CREDS Unilever is one of the leading FMCG companies in the Middle East and is the region's single largest TV advertisers. In 2007, to achieve greater synergistic and alignments and cost arbitrage, the three clusters of Arabia, Mashreq and Maghreb, which had operated independently, were combined to create Unilever North Africa Middle East - NAME. Unilever NAME is operated through four BUs; Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya), Mashreq (Egypt and Levant - comprising Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria - and Sudan), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Saudi Arabia and Yemen) and the Gulf (the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar). The regional HQ is in Dubai. Unilever is the market leader in most of the categories within which it operates in the Middle East. With several factories across the region, almost all ranges are produced locally. Production facilities for home care are in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; foods in Morocco and Egypt; tea factories in Dubai and Egypt; and personal care in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt.
Unilever NAME has a unified leadership team; its role is to align, coordinate and leverage the operations across the four BU.
© Gulf Marketing Review 2012
