The merry-go-round of marketers continued as ever this year with well-known and long-established figures perhaps surprisingly moving on from their positions in a volatile economic market.
With most brands expected to cut back or plan to maintain their marketing spend in the coming year, stability in that department would be a bonus. However, for various reasons, moves are being made either as new positions open up elsewhere or restructuring takes place.
Here is an overview of some of the major moves that have taken place over the past 12 months and some of those marketers worth watching as they begin to shape their new brand strategies.
Leslie Berland, executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Verizon Communications
Joining after two decades in marketing at major companies such as American Express, Twitter and, more recently, Peloton, Berland will succeed the tech and communications company’s veteran marketer, Diego Scotti, as she leads the global brand and marketing strategy. That will include marketing activation and creative, marketing effectiveness, consumer insights, media and strategic partnerships.
She will also join the company’s executive leadership team and report directly to Hans Vestberg, Verizon’s chairman and CEO.
Berland left Peloton after less than one year to take on the new challenge, beginning Jan. 9.
For its third-quarter results, released in October, the company revealed operating revenue of $33.3 billion, a decrease of 2.6% year-over-year despite broadband customer additions of 434,000, while total Verizon consumer revenue was $25.3 billion, down 2.3% year-over-year. Total Verizon business revenue was $7.5 billion, down 4%.
With a stock price that is seen to be underperforming at the end of this year, Berland will be looking for ways to quickly increase customers across the board.
Esi Eggleston Bracey, chief growth and marketing officer, Unilever
Bracey, who currently leads Unilever’s U.S. business and oversees the personal care division across North America, will take over the new position of chief growth and marketing officer following the departure of Unilever veteran Conny Braams.
Adweek understands that the decision to promote Bracey comes down to Unilever’s plans to look to a new era of marketing and creative excellence, creator-generated content, digital growth, artificial intelligence and performance marketing.
With a collective marketing budget of around $8.3 billion, Unilever is one of the world’s great marketing businesses. Bracey takes the reins after six years there, having initially held the position of executive vp and chief operating officer of North America beauty and personal care.
The company has been announced as a main sponsor for the UEFA European Football Championship in the summer. The soccer tournament will be led by brands Hellman’s, Dove, Lynx and Sure, which will no doubt provide some major activations, while Hellman’s will also once again be featured during the Super Bowl.
On top of marketing, Bracey will be dealing with the U.K.’s Competitions and Markets Authority, which announced an investigation into Unilever’s green claims. The results could go some way toward changing how other brands relay their environmental credentials as the stamp-down on greenwashing begins.
“We’ll be drilling down into Unilever’s claims to see if they measure up,” said CMA CEO Sarah Cardell.
Nicole Hubbard Graham, CMO, Nike
After leaving the sports apparel brand in 2021 to set up her own creative agency, Graham will return to Nike to lead its marketing globally.
The 18-year veteran of Nike will oversee the global brand marketing team and all aspects of its marketing, positioning it for growth. During her previous time at Nike, Graham was latterly its vp of global categories and consumer direct brand marketing.
She takes over from another veteran, Dirk-Jan “DJ” van Hameren, who leaves after 31 years within the Nike marketing team.
Graham joins amid other changes made across the company’s product innovation and design department to aid its product innovation, design and storytelling offers aimed at consumers, including the promotion of Martin Lotti to oversee all design across footwear and apparel to brand and retail concepts.
Next year will be a big year for sporting brands, with both the Olympic Games being held in Paris and the UEFA European Football Championship taking place in Germany. Numerous activations and athlete sponsorships will take place across both events, on top of regular sporting partnerships around the world.
Nike’s first-quarter revenue in September was up 2% year-over-year, at $12.9 billion overall.
“Q1 offered proof of what Nike can deliver when we connect great innovation, great storytelling and great marketplace experiences to consumers,” said John Donahoe, president and CEO of Nike, in a statement. “Moving forward, we are laser-focused on scaling these successes with greater consistency and speed as we continue to integrate and streamline our business. This is how we’ll extend our leadership position and drive growth over the long term.”
Nike rose by one place on the Interbrand Best Global Brands 2023 list, to No. 9, having grown its brand value by 7% this year, to $53.773 billion.
Antonio Lucio, chief marketing and corporate affairs officer, HP
Returning to HP over five years after he departed to lead marketing for Facebook, Lucio made a surprise move. Lucio will succeed his own successor, CMO Vikrant Batra, who is leaving the business after 14 years.
Lucio, an Advertising Hall of Fame inductee, will take up the position in January, following fourth-quarter results from the company that revealed net revenue of $13.8 billion, down 6% year-over-year for the period.
HP has said that it plans to place a “relentless focus on driving profitable growth” next year while reducing its structure costs.
“Under his leadership, we successfully reintroduced HP to the world, grew revenue and market share, and enhanced our reputation as one of the world’s most trusted brands,” president and CEO Enrique Lores said. “We have a big opportunity to further strengthen our capabilities in ways that drive business growth, support local markets, enhance our brand narrative and, ultimately, foster lifelong relationships with our customers.”
One initiative Lucio will be charged with building prominence for will be HP Amplify for All which went live at the beginning of November. It brings together all HP solutions and services into the HP Amplify Program to support the needs of its partners, including distribution partners, through a unified global platform across 48 countries.
Diego Scotti, executive vp, general manager, consumer group and global marketing and communications, PayPal
Having left Verizon after eight years as the telecommunications company’s CMO, Scotti quickly reemerged at online transaction platform PayPal.
The high-profile marketer has been charged with developing PayPal’s consumer products and services together within a customer experience and value proposition, while leading its global marketing and communications to grow brand awareness and use of PayPal and Venmo.
According to its third-quarter results from November, PayPal saw total payment volume grow by 15% to $387.7 billion, with 6.3 billion payment transactions (up 11%) made during that period. Despite that, the company also revealed that it held 428 million total active accounts, compared with 432 million during the previous year—a decline Scotti will be charged with helping reverse.
“We are redesigning PayPal with our customers at the center and creating an environment that unleashes our teams to move with speed and build the best possible products and experiences to meet their needs,” explained Alex Chriss, recently appointed president and CEO of PayPal, when announcing this hire.
Last year, Scotti also became chair of the Ad Council board, which will see him work with the nonprofit’s executive committee, the governing body of its board and Ad Council leadership to further the organization’s mission of addressing America’s critical social issues.
Tressie Lieberman, CMO, Yahoo
Becoming Yahoo’s first CMO since 2015, quick-service-restaurant marketer Lieberman joined the omnichannel business in the summer.
Alongside its branded platforms, Yahoo also owns media brands such as TechCrunch, AOL and Engadget. It recently introduced a new suite of AI-powered ad tools called Yahoo Blueprint, which sits within its demand side platform, offering access to its 335 million logged-in users around the world.
In total, Yahoo claims to hold 540 million unique user profiles, which it claims will become an asset as the cookieless future approaches in 2024.
Reporting directly to CEO Jim Lanzone, Lieberman was made responsible for overseeing all aspects of Yahoo’s global marketing strategies, brand positioning, user acquisition and customer engagement initiatives.
She was also charged with shaping the brand direction and growth strategy as Yahoo positioned itself as a solutions platform that could help users achieve their goals online using search and advertising.
Lieberman had previously spent five years with Chipotle as its vp of digital marketing and off-premise.
Takeshi Numoto, CMO, Microsoft
Stepping up from executive vp and commercial CMO, Numoto will succeed Chris Capossela after the latter’s 32 years at the company.
Numoto takes on the mantle as Microsoft has been strengthening its AI offer to customers, an innovation the technology giant is very much at the forefront of developing. This helped the company to grow its revenue by 13% year-over-year during its first quarter, to $56.5 billion.
Cloud services will continue to be a major focus for Microsoft in 2024, with Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increasing by 15% for the period, while its gaming division Xbox content and services revenue increased 13%, and search and news advertising revenue was up by 10%. That is ahead of the company’s integration with Activision Blizzard after overcoming the CMA’s blockade of the $75 billion deal.
“Takeshi has been at the heart of our cloud transformation. He’s a fantastic systems thinker who works end-to-end across all functions from engineering to finance to operations to sales, and he’s built a great team of marketing leaders,” said CEO Satya Nadella.
