Kellogg's marketing chief: Marketers in charge of delivering sustainable business growth

Gaining the c-suite’s trust and respect comes down to marketers delivering on what they promise and leading long-term growth, Kellogg’s marketing director for A/NZ, John Broome, claims.

Speaking about marketing’s contribution to growth during the latest AANA Marketing Dividends episode on Sky News TV, Broome said marketing holds two roles at Kellogg’s: One, to continuing to build the brand, and two, to drive innovation and growth for the future.

He noted the brand’s own global marketing leader, who holds the title of “chief growth officer”, is a reflection of the much more holistic and commercial approach to growth expected today across the organisation.

“The marketing within the c-suite is the one person that the rest of the... leadership team will look to provide that future direction for the business,” Broome said. “Marketing has a great opportunity to step up to this challenge.”

Marketers increasingly need to look at what levers the business can pull to drive growth sustainably for the future, Broome said.

“Short-term growth is relatively easy; having a plan and knowing what your destination is going to be, and providing sustainable, profitable growth is the real challenge,” he said. “Did we deliver what we promised? It’s the simplest and easiest way of answering that question [of commercial contribution]. Of course there are mechanisms and processes sitting behind that simple answer, but at the end of the day it comes back to accountability of the marketer.

“The c-suite will trust marketing when they deliver what they promise.”

Tools being used to gauge marketing’s commercial impact at Kellogg’s include econometrics and market mix modelling, as well as equity tracking.

Broome also detailed how Kellogg’s is actively embracing a more scientific approach to marketing by drawing on the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s mathematical capabilities. Marketers have to become business advocates and look “through the lens of economic thinking”, he said.

“Ehrenberg-Bass actually is the language of the c-suite. It does lean more towards the scientific, empirical, economic language that lends more credibility in the board, we need to speak through that lens,” he said.

Related: Not all big data is created equal, warns Ehrenberg-Bass Institute scientist

Across the marketing mix, Broome added that he must divert 80 per cent of his efforts to reaching as many people as the brand can.

“Breakfast cereal and indeed, snacks, are repertoire categories,” he said. “We have to reach as many of our light users as we can. There are many, many more light users out there than there are loyal users. We have to reach all of them in order to sustain the business.”

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