If you were about to purchase a Clearasil product, would it matter if you knew they were manufactured by the same company that owned Airwick, Veet and Finish?

Perhaps you might not pay particular attention to the parent company when buying a branded product, but when you’re looking for Marketing Graduate Programs in the FMCG industry, it important to understand who produces what and which company has a portfolio of strong brands to work for…

Think back to before you started Marketing 101, would you have known who manufactured Pringles or Dove? Why is it that most consumers are familiar with Nestle and Johnson & Johnson’s portfolio of products, but generally draw a blank when we’re asked about Reckitt Benckiser or Henkel?

It boils down to whether a company’s strategy is to individually brand or umbrella brand their portfolio of products – and both strategies have their own merits. We may have strong, recognisable brands amongst our 17 global power brands, but I’m sure our name does not come to mind when you’re planning which marketing/sales job to apply for, even though RB is one of the top performing FMCG companies in the world and just recently, our RB UK Marketing Director topped the list of UK’s most influential people in the Marketing industry. 

As a graduate, what resources do you have to find out about FMCG companies? When I was in my penultimate year at university, I went on Wikipedia.org and typed in ’FMCG’, firstly to see what it meant (!), but secondly to find out which companies fell into this category. From there, I went to each local corporate website and had a look at which ones were offering internships, graduate programs or entry level jobs.

Alternatively, you can go to your local supermarket or department store and look at the labels on recognised brands to find which parent company they belong to…you may be shocked to find that there are only a handful of key players in the market!

I think it’s important to research and investigate which company culture suits you – from reading their company brochures to attending career fairs where you can ask the graduates themselves, its vital to know what you’re getting yourself into. As mentioned most recently in my colleague Chris’ blog post, RB is not for everyone but if you share our cultural values of achievement, team spirit, entrepreneurship and ownership, you will thrive at RB.

What is RB doing to increase its corporate profile? In 2009, we updated our corporate logo to the high performance, pink kite display to better reflect the fast, direct and strong nature of our business and our brands. We have a strong presence on social network websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube –do you remember last year’s Facebook campaign where RB challenged users to upload videos of their suggestions for innovative products that would meet the needs of people going to music festivals?

Given that there are only a handful of global FMCG companies operating in Australia/New Zealand, you need to do your homework early or risk missing out some great opportunities that can take your career to the next level. Mind you, not everyone has a graduate program or positions in your country but at least you can have peace of mind know about any opportunities that do exist.

I don’t need to tell you that Marketing is a well sought after career and that the applicant pool is competitive, but do your research and you might just end up on top!

Hi everyone I’m Bia from Brazil.

Today I want to share something that I realized today in a client’s meeting.

Have you ever stopped to think what a woman’s most common beauty treatment is – no matter where they live, which religion, social economic level or political view?

Hands up who said moisturizing – you got it right!

Of course, that botox is also very common! But let’s focus on what happens in all social economic levels, in all countries – and most often.

It was not until a few years ago that hydration was proved to be not only a beauty treatment but also a health matter.

Here in Brazil there’s a skin specialist who says you must worry about the level of hydration of the skin because the lack of it causes irritation, itches, wrinkles and peeling – and can even lead to more serious problems.

And, according to this specialist, by using common methods of depilatory, you interfere with the external layer of your skin, which causes the problems I mentioned above and means you have to use moisturizer afterwards, if you want to keep your skin looking healthy.

So it is important to use a product which will not traumatize your skin and will also moisturize it in the process.

Here at RB, we are once more ahead! Not only by the technology involved in hair removal, but also in the treatment that comes after – so Veet will remove hair and also hydrate the skin in the process, so you don’t need to use a moisturizer afterwards.

That’s why Veet is the leading brand in the market – we are always in search of innovation.

We have technology and expertise playing on our team. To develop a product we do a great deal of research in our labs and with consumers all around the world to understand efficiency, perception, usage, improvements, design, formula etc.

We care about what consumers have to say, and before a product goes into the market we make sure that we have the best formula, with the best benefits and performance.

And of course, it must be highly approved by its user.

That’s why I’m glad to hear that 83% of Indian women who have used Veet recognized the smoothness (according to research by a female magazine in the country), and I’m positive that for other countries it is the same.

Check out the whole article in Brands today for more details about Indian women’s perception of Veet: Veet gets thumping seal of approval from Women

In order to make that success happen we have a big team committed to breaking the status quo and always bring new thinking to our range of products.

Luckily, I was able to be part of some of them during my period in marketing. Just to give an idea this team has people from Marketing, R&D, R&A, Supply, Project and they all contribute with positive ideas and actions to delivery the best product – the one that you buy.

So girls (and boys), hear my plea: do consider all that I have said before choosing something to put on your skin – it has to be efficient and it has to have a successful background.

Feel the power of hydration!

Ciao! ‘Til the next post!

Hi everyone.

As Marcus has already told you, I´m the new Brazilian blogger here on My RB Opportunity!

I am a trainee too and he helped me a lot during the 6 months I’ve worked in Indirect Channel (for those who don´t know what Indirect Channel is: This is a Sales Channel, that negotiate with distributors and wholesales).
So thanks Marcus for all your advices and learnings.

I am really anxious to start blogging. This is an important space to exchange experiences and to learn about other countries reality. It stimulates people to know more about RB and how we work here.

Two weeks ago, I was invited to a new challenge: going back to marketing to be part of the Pest Control team (this mean that I have to know everything about flies, roaches, ants and even dengue mosquito!).
I was extremely happy and excited with this new position. I had already worked in marketing during the trainee program (with Finish and Vanish), and now I had the possibility to go back to the area and focus my career on it.

We work with two different brands of insecticides: our global brand Mortein (sold all around the world), and SBP, our local hero (SBP is a Brazilian brand, bought by RB in 2003).
These two brands have different positioning: Mortein communicates power, efficiency. SBP sells protection for you and your family, as it is the only aerosol line with a water-based formula in the Brazilian market.

Our 2010 season (from August 2009 to March 2010), when this kind of product is mostly sold (it´s our summer time), is beginning in August, and we have developed a strong strategy to gain SOM (share of marketing) and distribution.

I still can’t tell you what we’ve planned – we have some secret launches!
But … I can anticipate that we´re launching Mortein Powergard here in Brazil! The new Mortein brand platform was named in RB’s big results announcement as a key company strategy to continue to outperform the markets with consistent innovation.
If you want to know more about it, you can read the full report on the Reckitt Benckiser home page or read the story of our success at The Times and the Wall Street Journal.

With Mortein Powerguard, together with all the new launches, I can guarantee that we’ll rock this season!

See you next week! And wait for more news from here!

Pati

 Last week we assembled all of our sales force. The target was to analyze the YTD results, clarify the main strategies and launch the new products.

We launched 13 new products. It´s a lot! For a short period.

Air Wick new fragrances were one of the main launches with Harpic Power Plus.
Vanish brought a consumer promotion that will be very significant to the brand building block NR. What`s more, the pest season control is starting now and we prepared a very strategic and strong plan to achieve the leadership (we are getting closer … just 0.3% behind our main competitor).

See you soon. We are in rush moment… 

Marcus

Hi All. Have been pondering over what to write and finally I thought why not share with everyone an interesting exercise that was rolled out for the India Sales Team. To give you a brief background, the exercise was a part of the Dettol Race for 8 program, which was an initiative to gun for the next mark of 8% market share in the extremely competitive soap market in the country.

Each ASM team was given Rs.10,000 and was asked to come up with an innovative visibility campaign in their local markets. It generated a lot of buzz amongst the teams. For example in my JC (monthly meeting) we came up with a lot of ideas. Lemme share some of them with you.

1. Dettol Lassi Ki Chabeel: This is a concept wherein during the summer months people put up tents along roadsides to offer passer bys refreshments to beat the heat. We thought we could hand out chilled buttermilk in Dettol branded glasses with people wearing Dettol Tees. This could generate goodwill & a buzz around the brand.

2. Street Play: We thought that we could engage a local dramatics team which could tour to the smaller towns and demonstrate in an interesting manner the importance of personal hygiene and how using an antiseptic soap like Dettol could contribute towards good hygiene.

3. Owning An Outlet : We also thought that we could completely brand an outlet with dettol logos and insignia right from the entrance arch , branding the staircase, cutouts from the ceiling and run a consumer contest from the outlet which would translate into more bang for our buck as Rs.10,000 could lead to a sale of Rs. 4,00,000.

4. Branding Delivery Vehicles

5. Gate Arches or Dealer Boards

6. Free Health Check Up Camp in the Markets Under Dettol Canopies

After discussing with our seniors we decided to go ahead with Option 5 since it would create a more permanent visibility asset for us.

I shall soon upload pics of the same as well as tell you some of the fantastic stuff that other ASM teams have done.