My colleagues and I were at the University of Sydney in March to promote the RB Commercial Graduate program to prospective graduates.

Reckitt Benckiser who?

It wasn’t surprising that students had no clue who we were. But when we started listing about our brands – Strepsils, Nurofen, Pine-O-Cleen and Napisan, they were more inclined in finding out what we had to offer in terms of a marketing/sales career.

Working at the University of Sydney Careers Tent

No doubt our company is held in high regards amongst the FMCG and financial industries, but final year students often overlook our graduate program, not only because of the lack of familiarity of the RB corporate name, but because of many unfounded qualms and reservations which I would like to address in this blog post.

Working with unglamorous brands

Sure, marketing air fresheners or insect repellents doesn’t sound like the most riveting job and for many of you, your ideas of marketing products revolve around luxury goods or cosmetic products with massive launch parties. However, just because our products aren’t glamorous doesn’t mean that you won’t be learning heaps along the way.

“When I found out I was going to be working on multipurpose cleaners, I thought it was going to be a challenging brand to work on because I hate cleaning!” said Katie, Assistant Brand Manager for Pine-O-Cleen and Glen 20 in Australia and fellow Commercial Graduate.

“However, when I started getting involved with the product, I quickly understood just how loyal consumers are to these brands, even though it’s just a general household item. Combine that with an understanding of our fantastic strategies and you soon become just as compassionate as your consumer.”

“You’ll still be actively involved in new product development, designing ads, dealing with PR and advertising agencies and have access to huge marketing budgets – just as exciting as any cosmetic product,” Katie said.

RB is ranked 14 in top 20 Advertisers in Australia. (Source: Nielsen Australia, June 2009)

In Australia, RB rates as one of the top advertisers in Australia, ranking higher than P&G, Unilever and McDonalds. So whilst there are more glamorous brands out there in the marketplace, working with strong FMCG brands means big marketing budgets and frequent advertising touch points, so it’s a sure way you’ll develop your skills and experience to become a savvy marketer.

3 Years for a Graduate Program is too long!

How can we compete with competitors who offer programs that only last for a year? How about the opportunity to develop a strong foundation in both marketing and sales that puts you yards ahead of the competition?

Whilst some marketing graduate programs are shorter in duration, the chances are you will finish and get an entry level position within the company. At RB, you’ll be expected to take on the role of a Brand or Account Manager position after the Commercial graduate program, a position which normally requires 3+ years experience.

Think of the 3 years as your developmental playground, a time in which you will be exposed to both sales and marketing functions, get involved in meetings, conferences, get full transparency amongst the senior and regional leadership teams and access to training and mentoring that other direct entry employees may not get access to.

Time flies when you’re having fun, learning new things and experiencing new challenges!

I’m only interested in Marketing and don’t want to do Sales

Bet you didn’t think that you’d be slaving away at university for 3+ years and end up implementing layouts in a supermarket in your first full time job.

“From the outset, it was certainly the least appealing part of working at RB, sales always felt like a dirty word when I was at university. But looking back, my time on the field was the most valuable base foundation I could take into my marketing role. You can offer a different perspective based on your experience on the road and have a greater understanding of how a customer may react to a new product launch or campaign” Katie said.

Katie giving a presentation at University of Sydney about life as an RB Graduate.

To think that you can have a successful career in marketing without being exposed to sales is quite risky, considering the two are interrelated. And don’t discount sales as a fulfilling career either, as graduates who were so keen on marketing as a career have ended up as successful Account Managers after their graduate program.

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High expectations are put on all of the RB graduates, but if you’re a go-getter, you’ll thrive and get the opportunity to hone your skills in a flexible yet structured environment. Have a look on our careers website for more information.

Many of you may have seen the media coverage on the freak dust storm that blanketed Sydney for most of Wednesday morning.

What was more exciting for marketers was the great opportunity to get caught up in an advertising storm with Vanish leading the charge.

Do you know what cooperation in the company is?

I have worked in RB for 1.5 years and step-by-step every week I’m discovering new and interesting things.
And I learned how cooperation with other partners can be used for brand development.

In the case of Calgonit development, we cooperate with white goods manufacturers, so every dishwashing machine buyer can find a small present of Calgonit tabs in their new home appliance.
The last 2 years RB in Russia has had 2 enormous campaigns with the claim: “Woman is not a Dishwasher”.

Dishwashing machines are not very popular outside Moscow, so the idea was to show people (and women) all the advantages of having dishwashing machines.

We created the leaflets with the Cagonit and dishwasher description which were given to the promoters and they attracted the attention of consumers in large megamalls.

This campaign has also had a strong media and internet exposure (a link there for those who can speak Russian!).

And here is a TV advert for the campaign – is also in Russian.

The Calgonit team created new unusual TVCs, which were shown on all the leading Russian TV channels.

As part of this we imitated some kind of “strikes” with women who wanted to spend their free time be a good wife, a mother, a woman – not spend it dish washing.

This event took place in Voronezh (a Russian city) and seemed like a real strike, but of course there was no aggression! It was just to draw housewives’ attention to how they could simplify their life with the help of dishwashers.

You can see from the picture it was funny but really useful.

These pictures were placed in the popular Russian magazines for a long period.

Now I’m involved in a new project – it is not as large-scale as the previous one but also very interesting.

It is also closely connected with the cooperation activity and we have already started to implement it.

It is joint work with Vanish CC and vacuum cleaners manufacturers. I will reveal the details in my next post!

Whilst I was on holiday in NY, I stumbled across this piece of street art,

Ironically the same day I went to see Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup.

An image that could be viewed as essentially an ‘advertisement ‘ for tinned soup has evolved into one of the most iconic images of pop art.

The statement got me thinking about the role of advertising: To educate, inform, inspire, convince and ultimately sell the brand, product or service.
If advertising is done well and creatively whose to say that it can’t be considered art?

This is one of my favourite ads at the moment,  it’s for retailer Target in Australia. It uses a fantastic combination of creativity, soundtrack and animation.

I was also surprised to discover that RB Australia ranks in the top 20 paid advertisers in Australia according to Nielsen Australia.

However, given the number of strong brands we own it’s not surprising that on any given day consumers are touched by RB ads.
And some of my colleagues are currently working on some masterpieces of their own!

Nielsen Australia’s Top Advertisers