There’s no shortage of exciting new brands taking a unique approach to growth in the market. However, only the best graduate to joining the suite of consumer brands owned by Unilever. What sets them apart? Most often, it’s now a strong purpose and sense of values that drives brand success in the marketplace.
Matthew McCarthy, VP of Foods, Unilever North America, knows all about finding and working with innovative new brands as they join Unilever’s rosters. He was part of the team behind the recent acquisition of condiment brand Sir Kensington’s and before that, the acquisition of Dollar Shave Club while he in Unilever’s personal care and men’s grooming division.
We had the chance to sit down with Matthew and gain his insights into why Unilever looked towards those brands, and how they fit a wider goal of infusing all of Unilever’s work with a strong sense of purpose and responsibility.
brandchannel: What does sustainability and Unilever’s Sustainable Living plan really mean for brands like Hellmann’s?
McCarthy (right): For me, the Sustainable Living plan is one of the reasons why I’m so proud to work at Unilever. I’ve had the great fortune of leading a range of brands across food and personal care, but the common thread has been bringing sustainability to life in a way that’s both relevant for the category and the individual brands.
For Hellmann’s, it’s been a decade since embarking on a program to help people understand the simple ingredients of mayonnaise—just eggs, oil, and vinegar—and we’ve challenged ourselves to take stronger positions on where we source these ingredients. We had talked about going cage-free at a time when there wasn’t any market size for cage-free eggs. I’m really excited that as of January 2017, all Hellmann’s Mayonnaise and Mayonnaise dressings available for sale to consumers in the US are made exclusively from Cage-Free Eggs, and that’s three years ahead of our commitment as a brand.
We know it’s the right thing to do, and we work with our nutrition community, both internally and externally, to bring sustainability to life while also providing people with really delicious meals they can serve their families.
Are there any learnings on the ROI of sustainability and infusing brands with purpose?
Well, the facts are really clear. People are demanding sustainability in all aspects of their life—especially in food. So while we may talk about brands and purpose and how brands with sustainability grow faster or have higher ROI, I like to think of it the other way around. It doesn’t start with the brand, it starts with people. It starts with us really caring about the products that they bring into their home.
So when you look at it through the lens of the consumer and what they want, it’s not surprising that the brands that have purpose first are growing over 50 percent faster than other brands. The brands that are doing so in our portfolio delivered more than 60 percent of our company growth in 2016.
You have a really unique perspective coming from both the personal care and food side, working with two breakthrough brands, Sir Kensington’s and Dollar Shave Club. What are the benefits of bringing people and brands like those to work with Unilever?
In my prior role, I led the men’s grooming portfolio for Unilever in North America that was part of the Dollar Shave acquisition project. And then most recently I was part of the team responsible for the acquisition of Sir Kensington’s, and so I feel really fortunate to have that opportunity to be part of those businesses.
They are quite different businesses. Dollar Shave was already very successful, already dramatically transforming the industry of men’s grooming, not just shave, and also doing it in a disruptive way in how they go to market by going direct to the consumer.
And Sir Kensington’s is a really focused, beautiful brand that is growing like crazy—one of the fastest growing condiment brands in the natural channel in the United States. So the brands are quite different, but what they share is an entrepreneurial spirit, a mindset about trends that transforms the categories they’re in, and strong leadership teams headed by their founders, like Scott Norton and Mike Dubin for Dollar Shave.
They are also passionate and super-focused on their people. Their entrepreneurial spirit is creating a lot of disruption in their categories and that disruption, I think, is a force for good to help advance our products—products that feel or taste great, that don’t cost the earth, that are mindful of their impacts on communities in the world.
What are some of the things you’re doing to drive a more balanced approach to growth?
There is a lot of tumult in the markets right now, and being able to steer through these changes and capitalize on the forces that are driving them is where my team and my focus are at.
I don’t really set out to create balanced growth. I don’t agree that there needs to be a trade-off between value and values. The reality is that both consumers and our stakeholders, which includes our employees and shareholders, demand both, and we need to be growing and creating financial value that’s more vibrant so that we can continue to invest in our vision around values.
Which of your experiences in personal care and grooming have really prepared you for this role?
I spent the first 13 years of my career in the food business and the last seven in personal care, and so for me to try to have the opportunity to do both has been incredibly rewarding. It taught me a lot.
I could go on about the golden thread of purpose and sustainability, because it is as important for the men’s grooming business for brands like Dove Men+Care as it is for Hellmann’s. I will tell you that most of the customers are really the same.
A lot of the work that I’ve done on the personal care side helped me understand more channels more deeply, and how different channels can bring our brands and the purpose of our brands to life. We still want to create growth, still want to create tremendous growth for retailers and really delight consumers, together with both our brands and the services they offer.
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