Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
Nestlé marks its 150th birthday this year – an entire century and a half, marked by constant change. The tastes and habits of consumers have changed. Technologies have changed. Communication with consumers has changed. Everything has changed since Nestlé set foot in our lives. It has survived and has become an ever more important companion in our everyday life by adapting to the changes. Nestlé itself has often been the cause of changes and the creation of new trends and habits. The last major change, to which Nestlé very successfully adapted, was the arrival of digital media, which has significantly changed communication with consumers. Today our interviewee on this topic is Ivan Blaće, Media & Digital Team Lead – Nestlé Adriatic.
Media Marketing: Nestlé is the largest food company in the world. What was the key to its success?
Ivan Blaće: Nestlé is the largest food company in the world and it celebrates its 150th birthday this year. Today the company’s portfolio contains over 2,000 different brands, including the globally famous Nescafé, Nesquik and Kit Kat, with an annual turnover of more than one billion Swiss francs. The strategic building of brands, or rather excellence in brand management, creativity and discipline are the key to success.
The Nestlé architecture that builds strong brands is called Brand Building the Nestlé Way (BBNW). It consists of six pillars and is the strategic foundation for its entire digital communications. Within it, an existing brand or innovation is “drawn” through a number of tools which confirm their value, or a new value is added. The first step is the profiling of consumers – who they are, what they do and how they do it. Based on this insight, the vision and essence of the brand are created, which are then integrated with the mission and vision of the company. The experience that the product provides for the consumer, from quality and taste to the packaging, is the third pillar of this model, followed by the development of innovation, defining the key areas of contact, understanding customers and distribution channels, and finally excellence in execution.
These aren’t necessarily new concepts in marketing, but what we’ve been working on intensively over the past few years are the new possibilities that come with the new ‘digital’ reality. So we’re trying to build a strong digital capacity, anchored on the things that we know are almost timeless.
We manage all processes in a multidisciplinary way and include in the process various internal and external partners such as agencies for market research and media buying, as well as PR and digital agencies. Only in this way can you achieve excellence in brand building and its long-term viability.
Media Marketing: To what extent do the Nestlé brands adjust to the time and the changes that it brings by merging the online and the offline?
Ivan Blaće: Today businesses have advanced marketing tools and technologies at their disposal that provide insight into the behavior, interests and needs of consumers. It’s up to businesses to use this information and create high-quality content and a personalized experience. Personalization is one of the ways in which we respond to the demanding and changing environment in which we find ourselves. Although the basis of our communication is still the use of high-range media, the marketing mix is adjusted for each brand separately. The messages we transmit are defined through the constant monitoring of trends and listening to the needs of our consumers.
For example, for the brand NESCAFÉ Dolce Gusto we have developed a strong CRM (Consumer Relationship Management) platform. In addition, late last year NESCAFÉ became the first global brand that moved all its content from international and local sites to the Tumblr platform, which allows greater interactivity with visitors.
Media Marketing: How do you adjust your advertising strategy for brands whose target group is millennials?
Ivan Blaće: What I think is most important is integrated communication with an emphasis on activities that occur on digital platforms. The new generations use media completely differently, and content consumption itself is changing. In this regard, we are working on the relevance of the content by combining the values that are important for the generations that we address with our corporate and brand values. The Nestlé Initiative for Youth Employment is a good example because through it we strive to create value for society as a whole. At the same time, its content is fully adapted to the target group for which it is intended – the young unemployed.
On the other hand, in recent years, we have made significant progress towards the approximation of investment in paid media in relation to owned and earned media, because numerous studies have shown that over 90% of consumers put most trust in recommendations from people they know. These trends, in which recommendations are the best way to build consumer-brand trust, should not be surprising taking into account the growing influence of social media, which pushes all brands towards maximum transparency and two-way communication.
Media Marketing: How do you manage advertising and what is a good media mix in your opinion?
Ivan Blaće: We carry out our advertising activities in cooperation with external communication partners. Nestlé relies heavily on our global partners and their local offices, and cooperation with them is based on their full involvement in projects – from research and analysis to implementation. When it comes to social media, we rely on specialized local agencies. In addition, on the global level Nestlé has direct cooperation with Facebook and Google, which ensures our optimal use of these platforms locally.
Media Marketing: What trends should we pay attention to in the future regarding media?
Ivan Blaće: First of all, Social and MultiScreen. Most of today’s communication takes place via one of the social media, which creates great potential for our engagement as relevant interlocutors. In this area good, creative and interactive content plays a key role. When it comes to display, we definitely need to take MultiScreen into account as a mode of communication – advertising formats that help brands tell a coherent, consistent, multimedia story on different channels.
According to Google’s data from 2015, more and more consumers today are simultaneously watching TV and are present online. Serbia thus has 1.9 devices per person, which is an increase of 73% compared to 2013, and Croatia has 2.5 devices per person, or 23% growth compared to 2013. It’s clear that the potential in this area is huge.