Warc, 9 August 2013
VEVEY: Nestlé, the food group, is seeking to develop a
"common language" that will help it allocate resources more
effectively to activities such as marketing and innovation across the globe.
The Swiss multinational trades in over 184 countries, and is
attempting to find a meaningful way to measure its operations in highly
variegated trading environments against one another.
"How do you compare noodles in India versus pizza in
the US versus coffee in China?" Wan Ling Martello, the firm's chief financial
officer, said in summing up this challenge on a conference call.
"Having the tools, having a common language, that looks
at all the cells - which are basically category in a [given] geography - and
putting everything on an equal footing is very important for us."
Nestlé has boosted its consumer-facing marketing spend by
15% over the last six months, with digital recording a 30% improvement.
While Nestlé's outlay in this area is ultimately decided by
management teams in individual nations, the firm does set certain standards to
be followed worldwide.
"That's one of the core things that we hold our market
management responsible for," said Martello. "Our expectation of the
market is to make sure that marketing spend is never sacrificed in order to
deliver margin."
In terms of specific projects, Nestlé recently boosted it
spending in Brazil for the Confederations Cup football tournament, and in
preparation for the FIFA World Cup next year.
This impacted confectionery margins in the region, Martello
revealed, but the "opportunities to invest" behind its brands during
were simply too strong to miss.
Last year, the firm also celebrated 100 years of trading in
Singapore and the Philippines, as well as reaching its 90th anniversary in
Brazil.
These efforts must be balanced against product launches,
introducing existing lines into untapped markets and introducing new systems.
"It's a lot of moving parts depending on what's happening," Martello
said.
Data sourced from Seeking Alpha; additional content by Warc
staff
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