Unilever CEO predicts marketers will become specialists, not generalists
Unilever CEO Alan Jope says the direction of travel for marketing roles is specialisation over generalisation – with senior marketing positions more likely to go to those that can draw on experience of several specialisations (The Drum)
Key points
- Whereas brand teams used to be made up of many generalists – product manager, brand manager, marketing manager etc. - Jope says functions becoming more niche
- “Nowadays we will increasingly specialise on business management experts, communications experts, and innovation experts, and within communications expertise you will have audience segmentation analysts, pure data analysts, programmatic media people” - Jope
- Jope says there will be further specialisation in roles, with marketers that move around to hone multiple specialisms best positioned for “bigger” jobs
A clear message for marketers that want to make it to the top from one of the world’s largest brand marketing companies: Take the Renaissance man approach.
Jope made the switch from marketing to CEO at one of the world’s largest brand marketers, working though numerous roles and regions since joining the company in 1985 as a marketing trainee.
Six months into the top job, he is suggesting that perfection of technical disciplines should be given more weight by marketers aiming to climb the food chain. That could require marketers to take several sideways steps before moving up to the next level.
