Linda Bethea on KPIs and keeping up with consumers
- Tim Healy
- Renegade Agency
Danone’s US chief marketing officer, Linda Bethea, opens up to Tim Healey about managing a huge portfolio of brands while balancing “the number one role in my life” as a single mom.
You have a degree from Tufts University, an MBA in marketing from Northwestern University, and your career spans eBay, Mondelez, a series of roles at PepsiCo, and VP Marketing at Diageo for over three years. Most recently, you’ve made Danone your home where you are chief marketing officer. Could you please talk us through your journey and some of the key roles you’ve had along the way?
I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up! I changed my major several times throughout my college career. In my senior year of college, I took a course on the history of advertising and I absolutely fell in love with the discipline of advertising and marketing.
That led me down the path of trying to forge a career in marketing. It was definitely more difficult than I anticipated. Luckily, I landed a role with an email marketing startup out of college, where I had an amazing mentor who encouraged me to go back to school and pursue my MBA in marketing to advance my career in this field.
I went to the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. And there, I knew I wanted to do marketing, but needed to zero in on the type of marketing I wanted to do and the type of companies I wanted to work for. I have a huge passion for food and beverage. So that led me down the path of brand management for Consumer Packaged Goods companies.
I had a fantastic internship at Kraft Foods in Chicago, where I worked on the Oreo and Jello food service portfolio. I think I gained over 15 pounds that summer, spending most of my time in the kitchen with the culinary experts working on new product development. It was a fantastic grounding and introduction to the world of food and beverage marketing, which is where I’ve spent my entire career.
Next I had a fantastic 12 years at PepsiCo, working across both the food and the beverage business: domestically and internationally. PepsiCo was a great training ground across different categories and functions, where I really honed my skills as a marketers and a leader. From there, I went to Diageo, and for three and a half years I was running their North American rum portfolio. That was a lot of fun in a fun and challenging industry.
I then reached a point in my career, and in my life in general, where I had started to question: “What is my purpose? What’s really going to get me excited to get out of bed every day?” I started testing the waters and looking around for what other jobs and roles were out there. I was approached by a recruiter about Danone, which is one of the largest B corporations in the world – which means we believe in using business as a force for good. That really resonated with me as I had been asking: how can I take my marketing expertise and do good in the world? I’ve been at Danone now for four years and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. We truly walk the talk as a B corporation and I’m excited to go to work every day to deliver against our mission of delivering health through food to as many people as possible.
Silk Feel My Planty Good Campaign starring Jeremy Renner and his daughter Ava
Looking at Danone’s financial reports, I can see that the US is the number one territory in terms of sales.
The whole business made $27bn last year. In North America, sales are up 3.1% on a like-for-like basis. Coffee Creations and your yogurts are the lead products.
We have a very broad product portfolio across a number of categories, from yogurt, ready-to-drink coffee, coffee creamers, plant-based food and beverages, waters, and baby food and formula. It is very diverse.
The benefit of our portfolio is that we’re really focused on delivering health through food to as many people as possible. One of the reasons why we’ve been able to sustain such amazing growth is that people are looking for healthier options that deliver against their nutritional needs but also taste great.
As a CMO, how do you stay across marketing all of those products?
It’s a lot of brands to manage, that’s for sure. At times, it is like being a parent in a big family – everybody asks: “Who’s your favorite child?” Luckily, I have a really fantastic marketing team. I’m able to delegate and try to stay out of the weeds on a lot of things. This allows me to really focus my efforts on where we want to go as a marketing organization.
It gives me the time and space to consider how we can set ourselves apart as an industry leader. One of the reasons I love marketing so much is that it’s constantly evolving. My job today looks nothing like it did when I started my career. The evolution of marketing is constant and we need to stay on top of that.
Even in the four years I have been at Danone: the media and retail landscape has changed dramatically. As a CMO, it’s my responsibility to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s happening with consumers and shoppers, so that we can make sure our brands are delivering the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
What is your focus for the next 12 months?
My focus is on: how do we achieve our mission? And our mission, as I mentioned, is: delivering health through food to as many people as possible. My challenge is to get our beloved portfolio of brands into the hearts and minds of as many consumers as possible.
I truly believe that at Danone, we have a brand that can meet almost every consumer food and health need. I need to ensure that our marketing function champions the role of each brand and product in a consumer’s life.
Danone has received some criticism for its extensive use of plastic for many of its products. What’s your take on that?
At Danone, we are committed to using business as a force for good. It’s not just good for people, it’s also good for the planet. So we have very specific sustainability goals as part of our ‘Danone Impact Journey.’
With regards to plastics, one of our brands is Evian – a large bottled water business here in the US and globally. We’re very much focused on ensuring that the packaging for Evian is 100% circular by 2025. That’s just one example of how we’re addressing sustainability in our initiatives.
Another example would be on our yogurt cups where we are looking at packaging innovation that uses fewer materials. We are really thinking about the sustainability impact of everything we do.
You said that in your marketing team, you’re lucky to be flanked by a load of talented individuals. Can you tell us about how your team is organized and structured?
We have our brands teams that are really focused on managing the portfolios for specific brands and categories. And then we have our marketing center of excellence, where we have deep expertise that supports the brand teams.
Within the center of excellence, we have brand strategists that are really focused on thinking through the brand purpose for each brand, and how that comes to life across every consumer touchpoint. We have a media connections team that’s looking at how we bring our campaigns to life across the right media channels where our target consumers are consuming media today.
We have a licensing team that’s looking at both inbound and outbound licensing. So, from an outbound standpoint, how do we license our brands into more categories, do brand collaborations, or insert our brands into culture? We have a top-notch creative and design team that is winning awards left and right as they think about how to bring our brands to life visually and through creative campaigns.
We have a digital commerce team doing excellent work as consumers shift their shopping habits from traditional retail shopping to more omni-channel shopping. They are constantly making sure that our brands are showing up in the right way, on the digital shelf or that our products are the first choice in consumers carts on their phone or on their desktop.
We also have a consumer connections team who is communicating with consumers every day, whether they’re contacting us by phone, email, social media.
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Comprehensive. You’ve spoken about how your career will only ever take second place your role as a mom to your daughter? How do you ensure that you maintain your work/life balance?
That is absolutely the number one role in my life. I’m a single mom, I have an amazing 14-year-old daughter. And she’s the reason I get out of bed every day. She is also the reason I wanted to move into a role doing more good in the world.
For me, it’s all about work-life integration. I don’t think you can really ever achieve perfect balance. My approach is to ensure that I’m integrating things. I make sure that my team at work know that my daughter is my number one priority.
When I leave the office at 3pm to go to her volleyball game, they understand that’s what I’m doing: I’m not scurrying out, under the radar. I’m very vocal about it: “Hey, I’m gonna go to my daughter’s volleyball game, I’ll be back online at this time, if you need something.”
I drive my daughter to school every morning, and my team knows that. So they don’t schedule a meeting with me before 9am. These are the boundaries that I set. Of course, you need to be flexible, and there are certain meetings that can’t be changed. But by and large, everyone at work knows that my daughter is my number one priority and that I schedule my day around her.
On the flip side, I want her to understand why I love what I do and who I’m spending the majority of my day with. She frequently comes to the office with me. She’s met the majority of my team. She’s met our CEO, and she has done some work on some of our social media campaigns.
So, my daughter is very much aware of what I do and who I work with. When I say, “Hey, I can’t come to your volleyball game today because I have a meeting with Dan,” she’ll know who Dan is and say, “Okay, tell Dan I said ‘hi’ and have a great meeting.”
For me, it’s really all about blurring those lines and integrating your work and your personal life together.
How do you feel about synthetic data where AI-created models of your target customers can be asked questions as part of a body of research?
Danone just announced a long-term partnership with Microsoft on AI, which we are really excited about. I spent two days last week in Seattle, at the Microsoft headquarters, on an AI immersion journey, which was fantastic. The breadth of what Microsoft are doing in the AI space is pretty mind-blowing.
Our approach to it, from a marketing and data standpoint, has really been about testing and learning. There are so many different applications. Our job is to figure out what makes the most sense for our brands and our business. We have tested AI in the media space, as well as the creative space. We’re also exploring other applications that we could use in the future.
It’s really important not to lose sight of the fact that data can only tell you so much. Most data today, and most AI models, are based on existing data. They’re not that great at predicting the future – and helping us to better understand where the consumer is going to go. Doubtless this will improve but the human element will never disappear. You need really smart people that can put the pieces together and imagine things in a new way to really evaluate what the data is telling us. These experts are able to analyze the consumer trends and then propose a point of view on what they think the future is going to be, which enables us to build strong long-term plans.
What have you learned in your career journey that enables you to get the best out of your marketing teams?
I think the most important thing is meeting people ‘where they are at’ and truly understanding them on a personal level. What motivates me is not going to be what motivates my direct reports. We have candid conversations around what motivates each member of my team and what is going to drive the most engagement for them today, this week, this month or this year.
This helps me motivate each member of my team to deliver to the best of their ability. It’s about being very direct and getting to know people on a different and deeper level.
I’m very open, I’m very vulnerable. I share a lot about my personal situation with my daughter. I hope that makes my team feel more comfortable and more able to open up to me. I think we spend so many hours at work, and if you don’t feel comfortable bringing your whole life into that setting, you’re never going to feel like you can be your best self at work.
Understanding what motivates somebody and what success looks like to them is crucial. Again, what success looks like to me could be very different to where a team member may want to take their career journey. If I understand that then I can be a better manager.
I have some people that are very happy in their current roles and don’t have ambitions to grow beyond that. They want to continue to learn and be challenged in that current role, which is great, but that I’ll manage that person a little bit differently than somebody who has told me: “I want your job someday.” Understanding each individual and what their path may look like is key.
As a marketer, we are faced with an almost daily barrage of new technology solutions to solve our marketing challenges. How on earth do you approach this to ensure that you make the right choices?
The world of marketing is constantly evolving and we’re surrounded by new technologies that we have to evaluate and adapt to our businesses. What we found works best is a ‘test and learn’ culture.
We’ve embedded that into our marketing organization. We specifically set aside dollars to test and learn with new technologies. We’ll choose a specific brand or a specific media channel and test things before we decide to go all in and sign up for a multi-year contract.
It doesn’t have to be a huge test budget either. In my earlier years, whenever we found some extra added value savings, let’s say in the media budget, for example, we took those dollars and put them towards media experiments. One year we were able to do around 50 pilots – all testing and learning with new technologies. Some of them had terrible outcomes. And I’m very glad we tested before we went ‘all in.’
In contrast, others were fantastic and delivered outsized ROI. This enabled us to sell the idea into the business and easily explain why this would be a good investment for the future.
Imagine you’re speaking to perhaps a younger version of yourself, as you start your career in marketing: what advice might you give her? What should she do more of, and what should she avoid?
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How do you go about balancing the need for longer-term brand building with more short-term sales activation campaigns?
I’ll be completely honest, it’s a daily challenge. When you need to deliver the numbers and there’s pressure internally and from external investors, it’s a very real challenge.
I think what helps is to name the challenge. I’m very much a believer that you have to name something to overcome it. We might talk about the fact that we’ve been very focused on delivering the numbers this month or this quarter. So we take a step back and think about the long-term strategy for a brand in our portfolio, or the long-term strategy for Danone. Naming a challenge makes it easier to address.
Recently, we have restructured the business and embedded long-term resources into each category. So we now have people that are specifically dedicated to thinking about long-term planning and innovation for each business.
I also truly believe you should ‘measure what you treasure.’ So we’re very intentional about laying out the KPIs for each marketing initiative. We have to think about the full sales funnel. If you’re not priming the funnel at the top with more of those brand-building initiatives, you’re not going to have great success further down the funnel when you get to more of the performance marketing initiatives.
Another aspect is to remember that not every marketing initiative should be driving sales. Sales are not the main KPI for everything we do. I have some really great conversations with our CFO, around the role of brand building and how long-term marketing can really enable pricing power in the market – and that really matters to them. It’s important to understand what’s important to each of your stakeholders, and then have conversations with them that show that you share their concerns and goals.
How do you ensure clarity around your market orientation with your various products in your portfolio?
We have a fantastic analytics and insights team that we speak with on a daily basis. My team is responsible for really understanding the consumer and building the right brand positioning and purpose to go after that consumer in the most effective way.
We leverage the data and insights to understand the lay of the land: what is the competitive set we’re playing in? What is the demand space we’re playing in? For us it’s not a category lens, but a consumer-led lens. We’re thinking: “Okay, for this consumer in this demand space, they are consuming this broad range of products outside the yogurt category to meet these specific needs.” And insights like that helps us to better understand how we think about our brand positioning and our innovation pipeline, and refine our marketing messaging to better compete in that space.
Martin Lawrence and Shannon Sharpe starred in the ‘Hold My Oikos’ campaign that launched during the 2024 Super Bowl
Imagine you’re speaking to perhaps a younger version of yourself, as you start your career in marketing: what advice might you give her? What should she do more of, and what should she avoid?
So I like to talk about what I call the four C’s to success as marketing leader. The first is curiosity. As a marketer, you have to be insanely curious about the consumer and about the evolving landscape. You have to always be questioning and open to learning in order to be successful.
Number two would be compassion. I think, obviously, as a leader, you need to have compassion for your team and the people you work with, but above all, you must have compassion for the consumer. As marketers, we sometimes forget that we’re not the consumer for most of our brands and products. So really putting yourselves in the shoes of the consumer and trying to understand them on a deeper level will make you a better marketer.
My third c is courage. I think in order to be a great marketer, you have to take bold risks. You’re not always going to have all the data and information – but you will still need to make decisions. You have to trust your gut and take a leap of faith. I believe that bold risks deliver outsized results.
The fourth c is conviction. If you don’t believe in the marketing campaign you’re proposing or the decision and the bold risk you’re taking, no one else will. So you have to have the conviction to convince others that it’s the right thing to do.
The other piece of advice that I give all of my female mentees is this: ask for what you believe you deserve. So many people don’t ask, they believe if they just keep their head down and do great work, they’ll be recognized. Sadly, that’s not always the case. And what I always tell people is: ask. The worst they can do is say no. And then you’re just right back where you were before.
Linda being quizzed on food and drink marketing at a recent conference
If there’s one thing you’ve learned about marketing it is?
It’s very complex. I think some people outside this business (and marketing as an industry) look at my role, and think: “Oh, she gets to go to Cannes” and “she gets to travel the world and make these really fun ads for the Super Bowl.”
Yes, that is absolutely a part of my job. And it’s a really fun part. But to be a really good marketer, you have to wear many hats. You have to have daily conversations with the CFO, you have to understand growth drivers, you have to understand data and analytics, you have to deliver effective campaigns. And you have to balance it all.
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This article was first published in The Drum, August 2024 Tim Healey, founder and curator of Little Grey Cells Club, the UK’s premier Senior Marketer meet up.
Little Grey Cells is Tim Healey, founder and curator of Little Grey Cells Club, the UK’s premier Senior Marketer meet up.
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