Few brands resonate with consumers like Campbell’s Soup. Not only are their labels American icons immortalized by Andy Warhol, the Campbell Soup Company’s Godiva, Pepperidge Farms, Prego and Swanson brands help bring in revenues of $7.5 billion. Carl Johnson, the firm’s Chief Strategy Officer, outlines his three pillars of consumer marketing success and shares his recipe for dealing with media fragmentation in a recent podcast with Brand Connections CEO and founder Brian F Martin.

Whether marketing consumer packaged goods or working in another sector, Johnson believes the central challenge facing all companies is driving incrementable, profitable, organic growth. To achieve this goal, the Campbell’s man describes three crucial areas of consumer marketing knowledge:
1. Understanding your competitive frame of reference.
2. Understanding the profit pool and trends in your category.
3. Understanding your differentiating trademark equities.

To grasp the first point you must determine who or what else competes with your product and why consumers choose it, he says. The profit angle should break down what retailers and manufacturers are making, and evaluate your relative share and absolute share of this profit pool. As significant, in Johnson’s mind, are the financial trends. The third point is perhaps the most complex. Ascertaining what matters to consumers and why they value your product is never an easy task, but Johnson says you need to go a step further and filter the idea of a trademark apart from an overall brand.

“Trademarks are words or symbols that are applied to categories that create a brand. Trademarks should be able to stand alone apart from the brand,” he says. “A brand is a compilation of many things, not just the trademark, not just what you call it, but it’s the positioning in all its respects – including the emotional part of that as well.” A firm grasp of this third tenet allows for an understanding of the trademark apart from the product category to which it’s been applied. It’s also the key to unlock brand positioning and extension, Johnson says.

Beyond the three-fold path, today’s marketing officers face a myriad of tasks that prevent them from focusing on putting money in the bank, according to Johnson. He believes top executives should clear marketers’ plates of non-marketing activities. With successful turnarounds and brand debuts at Colgate-Palmolive, Polaroid, Kraft, ConAgra, Cadbury Schweppes, and others, Johnson just might know what he’s talking about. Rather than spending time forecasting and becoming mired by administrative tasks, he says brand managers should focus exclusively on tasks that directly and strategically touch the consumer.

At Campbell’s since 2001, Johnson has enjoyed his time there partly because he’s able to make a difference and instill his “customer first” approach. “At heart, being a consumer marketing person, I have tried to keep in mind always the consumer because that’s really where it starts,” he says. It’s a point he drives home through a broad scope of duties that range from influence over product conception to commercialization. Part of that commercial plan forces him to tackle media fragmentation. To counteract it, Johnson embraces smart new-media experimentation and seeks out experts already mastering the media. He suggests the use of test cases that utilize these pioneering elements to evaluate their potential and yield growth measurements.

Beyond the more patent hallmarks of success, Johnson identifies wise time management and a discerning eye for what lies ahead. Focusing on what’s truly important and de-cluttering your to-do list is a critical ability that few achieve, he says. Reading signs and anticipating their impact on the future is also key. While these skills may require years of experience to develop, it’s clear that Carl Johnson has already mixed a tasty broth for himself and the Campbell Soup Company.

As Chief Marketing Officer for Kraft Foods Inc., the world’s second-largest food and beverage company, Jeri Finard is a window into consumer insights and the packaged goods industry. She recently shared her thoughts on cozying up to consumers along with advice for burgeoning brand marketers targeting the fast track in her Q-and-A session with Brand Connections CEO Brian F Martin.

Despite the prominent shelf position enjoyed by so many Kraft brands, Finard says she spends a good chunk of time on the road speaking directly with consumers in the U.S. and around the globe. The Northfield, Ill., -based company brings in revenues exceeding $35 billion worldwide and employs 90,000 strong, but it’s not resting on its laurels. Finard sees her role as creating big breakthrough innovations and disseminating marketing excellence throughout the company’s complete stable of brands. The CMO stays in close contact with consumers to be sure the CPG firm continues to meet their needs – frequently going into consumers’ homes to talk about how they cook, how they shop, and their values.

That’s how it all starts for Finard, by doing your homework. “I really feel like the first thing you have to do is to get the facts,” she says. “Whether you’re on a business that needs to be turned around (like I had when I was running the desserts businesses for Kraft), or whether it’s a new business that you’re growing (like when I was managing Altoids), you always have to start with the facts….” Get to know the consumer, both light- and heavy-users, on a deep level that goes beyond demographics and psychographics, she stresses. It’s important to discern motivations and what makes people tick, Finard says, because “overtime you begin to develop an intuition, and that, I think, is where the creativity of marketing comes in.”

Beside consumer in-market activities, Finard says marketing construction framework data is invaluable. Understanding why consumers make purchases, and what items they’ll substitute a product for, often reveals “white spaces” a brand can innovate and expand into. Still, she believes the biggest challenge facing marketers today is keeping their brands relevant. “Really, right now the power is all in the hands of the consumer, and it’s no longer about what we manufacturers want to say to the consumer, but it’s really about what he or she chooses to listen to.” Equally important is what you’re selling and when you’re trying to reach your target, she elaborates. The media fragmentation development isn’t making marketers’ jobs any easier.

Things were surely simpler in the past century, when marketers could rely on the traditional media or television, radio and print. Now time-shifting innovations, like TiVo and podcasts, have reshaped when and where marketers can reach the consumer. For Finard, breaking down the message barrier is tied to understanding the consumer and how they spend their time. She also thinks web and word-of-mouth marketing have become more important than ever. “Event marketing, public relations – there’s lots of vehicles out there – but the problem, I think, is that marketers are loathe to try some of them because they don’t all have paybacks that are easy to read.” The solution, she says, “is for marketers to be a little braver and go with their intuition a little bit more until the research can catch up with some of these new vehicles.” Balancing a hunch alongside the data is a wise way to proceed, according to Finard. “You do want to have some facts, you can’t just go straight with gut and intuition, but I think over time you’ve kind of seen what works and what doesn’t work. There’s some mix of science and art there that is probably the right balance.” Part of that balancing act includes in-store marketing, where Finard says most brands fail to realize their full leverage.

Like many of her peers, Finard broke into the business as an assistant brand manager. After more than 20 years with Kraft, Finard says she’s still experiencing personal growth with the company. The marketing chief has also figured some things out during those two decades. “The most important business lesson that I’ve learned is you’re not always going to be right, and that’s OK,” Finard says. Coming up through the ranks it’s easy to think you always have to have the right answer, but often “the truth is that no one has the right answer,” she says. Sometimes one can do little more than analyze available data and provide the best answer at the time while planning to adjustment as necessary. “It’s not about getting it perfect the first time, because if you try for that you will almost never be successful.” Calling on team input is another element for success, as is remaining objective about data and avoiding emotional attached to a product.

Besides staying as close as possible to the consumer, Finard recommends focusing on what really moves business and pushing less important concerns to the periphery. Lastly, keep it fun, she says. “Marketing is fun, food marketing is particularly fun… if it’s not fun then you shouldn’t be doing it; you should find something else to do.” Following that advice could be as simple as following the Kraft Easy Mac directions.

Peter Klein was among the handful of major players who engineered the 2005 sale of Gillette to Procter & Gamble – a $57 billion deal that still ranks as the largest ever global consumer products industry acquisition. You don’t get to participate in discussions of that magnitude unless you’re among the world’s marketing elite. A wealth of advertising, sales, distribution, and consulting knowledge, Klein explores today’s management and brand marketing challenges in a recent conversation with Brian F Martin, CEO and founder of Brand Connections. He also shares tips on what it takes to climb the corporate ladder and make your mark in the cut-throat CPG marketing sector.

On the corporate level, it’s important to take stock of where you’re going and how you’re getting here on a daily weekly and monthly basis, according to Gillette’s former senior vice president for strategy and business development. Klein uses two tools to keep things on track and evaluate progress: an executive summary-style check sheet model and a marketing framework model. His preferred managerial philosophy is based on individual employees articulating their roles, responsibilities and accountabilities. “I start there in the management process and that, to me, drives the strategic plan, which drives an operating plan, drives annual objectives, drives quarterly priorities, drives typical rewards recognitions…” The flip side of the equation must answer the questions “what do we believe in, how do we think, how do we feel about marketing, and why specifically do we think and feel that way?” he says. This framework provides management with a broad view, but what they do with it is of equal import.

For Klein, it all comes down to knowing your category, segments, industry, consumers and their needs better than the competition. “What you know about your own business that competitors don’t know or aren’t doing anything about is critical and is a day-to-day tactical challenge,” says the Gillette officer. In that sense innovation is the most critical ingredient to CPG firms’ sustainable success. “When we think of innovation it does not only mean new products, line extensions, flankers, etc. … Total innovation is about simplifying work, taking complexity, duplication, and low-valuated work out of job descriptions, and it’s really getting more employee value and getting more productive every day across the entire business system.” Companies committed to sustainable growth, he says, would do well to group their brightest minds together, provide them with dedicated resources, and ask them to focus on this singular task, treating growth as a process, not an objective.

Other major challenges facing brands, according to Klein:
1. Managing constant market shifts and growing competition,
2. Maintaining the “efficiency/cost challenge,” and
3. Finding and keeping exceptional talent in the consumer industry.

To achieve both personal and professional success, change is Klein’s magic word. Whether you’re focused on your own career path or running a multi-billion corporation, “managing and understanding change for a company, a business unit, a department, a brand, as well as personally,” he says is crucial. “Change is a friend, you have to embrace it. You have to confront it. Never be satisfied.” The former Gillette man also prizes integrity, business knowledge, uncommon commitment, anticipation, collaboration, and an ability to deliver results. For up-and-comers, Klein says it’s important to establish expectations then produce results that meet or exceed them. Getting involved with specific programs that lead to concrete measurable results is also essential. He likens this approach to hunting moose then showing off their mounted heads. It all comes down to “what moose heads on the wall can you point to that you were a key driver of?” Happy hunting.