RB marketing director responsible for Dettol brand talks through the latest external brand partnerships, their impact, and why they're so important to growth
As to examples of strong partnerships struck by the global RB business, one Turgoose was particularly impressed with is that between the Durex brand and Russian Government to lift awareness of that country’s sexual health issues.
The business worked directly with the government to drive awareness and education and through a multi-faceted approach, used its media budget to drive public safety announcements around good sexual health practices and HIV.
“This had an incredible impact on this very important topic,” Turgoose says. “As marketers of commercial bodies, I’d love to see us partnering more across the spectrum with NGOs and governments to drive consumer behaviour change where appropriate.”
Turgoose agrees it’s a particularly pertinent trend given consumers are increasingly expecting companies and brands to play a role in doing good in society.
“The brands that do that improve their relevance and equity scores by being more purposeful. I could sell as many bars of soap and sanitiser as possible, but I’m far better working in partnership with someone to do greater good and play a bigger role to deliver against our purpose,” he comments. “That’s where our partnerships are coming from.”
As countries start to emerge from the COVID crisis, Turgoose spies significant opportunity for further partnerships between public and private sector.
“We are going to have governments with increasingly stretched budgets looking to regrow society, and often the government or NGO’s ambitions, who will have equal challenges, are parallel to what brands are trying to work through – be that environment, personal health and pressure on the healthcare system, or rebuilding economy,” he says. “What I’d love to see is more collaboration between government and commercial entities where we can work to deliver a synergistic ambition.”
For Dettol, the impact of COVID has been obvious: Hygiene is something consumers want more reassurance and confidence with. As they travel, they’re thinking about how clean their hands are, and use of restaurants, telephone services and physical spaces has changed completely.
“To stay relevant to these changes quickly, it’s not like we have three years to change how we show up for the consumer. We have to build new allegiances and partnerships,” Turgoose says.
What usually prevents external partnerships being formed is not necessarily the lack of ideas, but material aspects of delivering on partnerships, according to Turgoose. To overcome this, he again stresses having clarity around how both sides are realising value.
“That enables a clear and candid discussion. And there is always an element of compromise,” he says. “Approaching things like a genuine partnership, where it has to be materially interesting to the other party as a way of working has been a learning for me, particularly over the last year. It’s about mutual value and embracing that as much as possible.”
Because ultimately, partnerships allow a brand to enter a new occasion, event or part of the consumer psyche.
“Partnerships have most relevance when they take a brand and business out of its box and space,” Turgoose concludes. “They’re most valuable where they really change how a brand or business shows up to consumers to play a more meaningful role.”
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