You’re meeting with a newly promoted Marketing Manager to review the figures for a toothpaste

promotion which includes a free toothbrush with each purchase. Reviewing the figures before the
meeting, you’re concerned that the promotion will cost 10% of the total marketing budget for this
brand, which would be the largest spend on a single promotion for that brand to date. You’d also like to
see a stronger return on investment and more financial controls in place. At the start of the meeting, it’s
clear that the newly promoted Marketing Manager is passionate about the promotion going ahead and
quickly. He predicts it will be a key lever in regaining market share from the competition and is keen to
make a positive start to his new role.

How would you go about winning the newly promoted Marketing Manager’s respect and trust?

How would you share your concerns with the newly promoted Marketing Manager?

How would you ensure that the newly promoted Marketing Manager takes your concerns seriously?

How would you go about building an ongoing relationship?

First, I’ll congratulate Paulo for his career milestone. It is important to celebrate the success
within the team as this builds motivation and drive to work harder. It’s not every day anyone
can acquire such growth. Next thing that I will do is build my rapport by asking his vision as
the newly promoted Marketing Manager on how he will induce more company value in
Unilever. After that, I will offer my expertise in the Finance areas as a premium for Paulo
wherein he can go to me directly if he has any concerns with the financial data for any
promotion campaign. Before the meeting begins, I will see to it that I have gone through the
marketing plan in order to give my take on what I believe may help Paulo and back him up
with possible alternatives if proposed plan will be deemed costly.
After building my rapport, I will discuss my concern regarding the promotion cost of the signal
toothpaste; its face value to our stakeholders, its effects such as stakeholder viewing it as a
huge chunk of the marketing budget for a specific brand with only less than 90% return
excluding the production costs. To back up my concerns, I will show the figures for the past
and current promotion cost for Cignal toothpaste to provide a trend analysis and comparison.
After providing such data, I will suggest some alternatives in the promotion. For example,
instead of per tube sold, customers can have a free toothbrush upon purchasing three Cignal
toothpaste. In that set up, even though it will still be the largest spend for Cignal toothpaste,
it will also yield the highest return.

You’ve been given four days to prepare a presentation to the Vice President of Personal Care in Kenya
on the impact of a community product awareness campaign for soap. You’d normally ask both members
of your team to help you prepare for this, including sourcing data from different departments, analyzing
and interpreting the data, and preparing the presentation materials. Unfortunately, one of the members
of your team is on holiday for the next five days.
How would you approach organizing this project?

Given the fact that one of my teammates are on holiday leave for the next five days, I will
have to make use of the members I have that are not on leave but I’ll make sure that our
teammate that is on holiday leave is looped in on every email communication regarding the
community product awareness for Lifebuoy soap. The strategy I’ll put in place is Divide and
conquer to make sure that each step needed will be completed on time. On the first day, I’ll
gather every data such as Work Instructions/ established ways of working and Step out and
Workaround processes that will affect our presentation to provide a fluid working
arrangement for my Team. The second and third day will be the data sourcing from different
departments such as production and sales as well as the analyzing of data sourced from each
department. On the fourth and final day, will be the collation of the result of analysis and the
preparation and finalization of the presentation.

What is the most important priority here?

The most important priority in this community product awareness campaign for lifebuoy soap
is the data sourced from the different departments with the analysis and how will it affect the
community impacted by the Awareness Campaign.
How else would you ensure you and your team member perform well in this task?

Aside from providing the existing ways of working/ work instructions and step out work
around processes put in place, I will conduct a daily meeting to keep everyone up to date
with the progress of the campaign as well as the presentation. This will keep everyone on
track and be able to capture any complications or issues that may occur and be able to
address and find solutions within our time frame. But, the ultimate assurance I can give my
team to work well in this task is the repercussions of the campaign program to the
community impacted and that is to add vitality to life and making a sustainable living
commonplace; building a community based on the mission and vision of Unilever.

Working in Sales Finance in Pakistan, you’re on a one-week placement with the field sales team selling
products to very traditional and small corner shops in a remote and rural area. You’re particularly
interested in a promotion for new dry shampoos; however, the field sales team don’t appear to have
recognized that it’s performing below expectations. One of your many insights from the experience is
that consumers often don’t ask for brands by name, instead shopkeepers select one for them. You know
the sales team have much more experience than you in direct sales, but you’re convinced you could
bring a fresh perspective based on what you’ve seen so far.
How could you better understand consumer needs in this situation?

Since it’s a one-week placement, what better place to start understanding the consumer
needs is through immersion. By first-hand interaction, I can easily know what the consumer
community needs. Also, I will be able to directly speak to the shopkeepers and let them
understand the value and the good results when using the products. The consumer has a tight
relationship to the shopkeepers as they are fellow locals of the community. This strategy will
help reach the consumers as they would be more comfortable in getting the opinion of a
fellow local than from a person who may be new to them.
From there, I can come up with a strategy that will gear towards a win-win situation; which
is: for the consumer, not only we cater but also provide a sustainable avenue of their needs,
for Unilever, we deliver more business value for the company, also increase above par our
sales in rural areas in Pakistan.
How could the company exploit this opportunity?

Based from the information, our sales will majorly depend on the shopkeepers of each stores
in the rural areas of Pakistan. With the help of our sales team, I will suggest that their direct
sales market target should be the shopkeepers. Since they can serve as an avenue of
marketing and product awareness to the community, the best way to induce sales growth is
to introduce a competition between the shopkeepers of the area. Introduce an incentive
program to the shopkeepers; whoever has the greatest sales of Dove shampoo in a span of a
week or month will receive an incentive from our Sales Team.
How could technology be used to engage the field sales team in product performance?

From my given suggestion, technology can be used to engage the field sales team in
monitoring the sales during the incentive program wherein they can use programs such as
Salesforce Program or even MS Excel, for the determination of the shopkeeper with the
highest sales of Dove Shampoo. Technology can also be used to create advertisements such
as posters to be put up in each participating store to provide product details and product
usage perks.