Podcast Summary

The episode explores how everyday products, such as deodorant and toothpaste, are being repositioned as premium goods, with brands utilizing storytelling, sustainability, and niche targeting to justify higher prices. Drawing on the European Marketing Confederation survey, the hosts note regional differences in priorities but agree AI will dominate marketing strategy in the coming years, despite ongoing challenges with data integration and consumer unpredictability. They conclude that while most marketers recognise the need for new skills, few organisations are investing properly in training.

 

Key Points

  • Premium deodorants like AKT show how brands can turn everyday commodities into high-value, niche products.
  • Inflation and shifting perceptions mean consumers now accept higher prices for basics like toothpaste.
  • The European Marketing Confederation survey reveals regional differences: AI is a top priority in some countries, while others focus on sales or brand.
  • AI is expected to dominate marketing strategy, though data integration and consumer unpredictability remain long-term challenges.
  • Nearly all marketers see skills training as essential, but few organisations invest properly in it.

 

Podcast Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated

 

Charles N (00:01.329)
Good morning and welcome to Opinionated Marketers for the first of 2025. And indeed, saying 2025 actually brings a certain realisation that we’re into a new year. It’s like it used to be when one wrote the first cheque of the year — but one doesn’t do things like that these days, so perhaps the podcast is the new equivalent.

We’re going to be talking about a couple of interesting issues — one serious, perhaps one a little bit not so. And in that respect, why don’t we start.

Kiran, you’ve seen something rather interesting about the underarm.

Kiran (00:35.038)
Yes, so let’s start with the light-hearted one. And happy new year to Charles and to our listeners.

I was reading about changes in the marketplace for underarm deodorant and antiperspirant, and it struck me what a brilliant marketing story this is, because it has all of the 7P elements involved.

Traditionally, when we’ve bought underarm deodorant, we’ve probably gone to the supermarket or perhaps to the corner of a retail store. There have been little plastic bottles, retailing between about £1.50 and £3, maybe up to £5 if you were really pushing the boat out.

What’s coming in now is much more designer underarm deodorant. One that caught my eye was a company called AKT, which was founded by two dancers. So you’ve got a nice theatrical backstory: they danced in London’s West End, they decided that none of the deodorants on the marketplace suited what they needed — because obviously, being dancers in the West End, they were sweating night after night and having to get back into the same costumes night after night.

They spent two years designing their new deodorant, then tested it out by giving it free to fellow dancers. It was all trialled, and has since been used on Taylor Swift’s tour dancers.

Here is a company that has managed to create something worth £30. There’s a sustainability element, a backstory, a brand, and a product that is genuinely different. I thought this was a really interesting view of marketing. We talk about Red Ocean/Blue Ocean strategy:

The red ocean of competition was all those little plastic bottles on supermarket shelves. The blue ocean allows you to move into specialised deodorant. But of course, we all like to think we’re really dancers in the West End. So maybe I will spend my £35 on my underarm deodorant. Charles, you’re laughing at me.

Charles N (02:44.261)
Well, I think you have to speak for yourself there about the dancing in the West End. It’s a little while since I did anything like that.

If I was going to be honest and take a slightly negative approach — though I do agree with you that it’s a very interesting case — it is an attempt to gain as much profitability as soon as possible until the product eventually dies.

The nature of the product for specialists, yes, I can totally understand. But for the general mass marketplace, it’s over the top and, if you like, overkill for the requirement. On the other hand, it is part of a very interesting trend: the reassessment of the value of any particular product.

Since the pandemic we have gone through a complete reassessment of what actually is valuable to us. The one that immediately comes to mind is toothpaste. Pre-pandemic it was probably around £1 for about 125ml. Now, an extra-large — classified as the same size, 125ml — is possibly up to £6.

The marketplace has been completely reassessed with new brands at the bottom — Oral-B being one that comes to mind — and Colgate moving right upmarket for those who want a specialist version for almost every olfactory requirement: white teeth, white teeth max, white teeth charcoal, white teeth anything you can imagine.

So there’s an interesting way that marketers can now consider whether their product, relative not to its standard competitors but to other items in the grocery bag, is actually something that should be priced higher.

Why did we spend so little on what we used to consider a commodity? Probably because the only reason we did was the good old advert for people who used to strap-hang on the Tube during commuting. And really, you only wanted it occasionally — for high-performance sports or jogging, or whatever it happened to be.

So I think that’s a very interesting marketplace and a very interesting way in which the market has changed its attitude to pricing, especially given the fact that inflation has made these things acceptable.

Kiran (05:18.926)
It is interesting, isn’t it? Because on the one hand, we talk about a squeeze on households and everybody talks about the cost-of-living crisis. And yet, on the other hand, you have a clear market for these — I can’t call it anything other than high-end, perhaps rather than luxury — but it’s still a deodorant at £35 that presumably lasts a month, if I’m lucky. That’s a lot of money to find, but clearly they’ve found a marketplace.

Charles N (05:46.363)
Well, I think the likelihood is that it’ll probably last you six months, because you won’t use it on a regular basis. You’ll use it only as and when required. And I think that’s quite an interesting aspect from a sustainable point of view: the more it costs, the more you think about do I need it? And if I do, when do I need it?

The tendency is, if you have a larger product — whether it’s mayonnaise or anything else — you tend to take larger amounts from it. If it’s a smaller one, you take less. As a result, you’re more economical. So the tendency now is to think more about: what do I want? when do I want it? Because it is more expensive. And I think that from a sustainable point of view, that’s probably a good thing.

Kiran (06:40.354)
Right, well that was my sort of light-hearted one. Now you had a much more serious discussion.

Charles N (06:44.881)
Yes, I’m sorry to be rather serious about that one as well.

The European Marketing Confederation — which is the group of marketing organisations from around Europe, including the Chartered Institute of Marketing from the UK, NEMA, Germany, Slovakia, Lithuania and about eight others — produced their annual survey.

This one is quite interesting, because it shows two things. One is strategic imperatives and how they differ from tactical imperatives for marketers. That’s quite an interesting point for those of you thinking about where the company will be in three to five years’ time. Strategic imperatives are top of mind, whereas tactical issues at an operational level are probably different.

The other is the regional diversification of ideas. I find it interesting that the report shows what people believe are the top priorities in individual countries. The UK, and quite often Germany, have a similar view, whereas others differ on what their top priorities are.

For marketers working in and around Europe, understanding these differences is probably key to success.

The language in the report is really quite interesting as well. And possibly to get us to the heart of the matter, I quote from section F: “No parking on the AI dance floor.” Now, I don’t quite understand what that terminology is or how it became translated, but I get the point. And there are some very interesting discussions about AI which, to put it in a nutshell, is seen by most as the key strategic issue for the next five years.

Kiran (08:50.622)
Yes, I found a lot of this quite interesting. We should say this is based on a survey they sent out. Now, as ever with surveys, the highest response was “not interested.”

I can’t see the figures at the moment, but I think they sent out—

Charles N (09:07.153)
They sent out 10,000. The EMC has got 100,000 members. They sent out 10,000 questionnaires and got about 1,100 to 1,200 responses. They were mainly from senior marketers.

Kiran (09:18.658)
Yes, so a huge proportion of people — including, I suspect, me — didn’t bother to fill it in. It’s always worth pointing out that with any survey, you only get those who are engaged enough to respond.

But I agree with you. I found it fascinating straight away. Early on — page 11 of what’s quite a detailed report — they talk about AI being the top strategic priority.

Until you look at the countries. Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal all say usage of AI in marketing is really important to them — over 50% of their concerns. But in Switzerland they’re more interested in the lower funnel: sales and performance marketing.

The UK and Slovenia are more focused on brand management and reach, and see that as almost equally important. So as you said, there’s a regional and national variation in what’s seen as important.

Charles N (10:28.785)
And that’s an interesting perspective, because normally we concentrate on what we’ve read in the UK about the UK, and possibly about America as it influences us. Yet we still spend most of our money on goods that come from Europe. Europe is still our biggest trading partner.

So from a marketer’s perspective, understanding priorities in the European marketplace is still critical. And this is one of the few reports I’ve come across that gives real insight.

You’re absolutely right: there are different stages in looking at where AI will be applied, where retail marketing and retail media will appear. And that’s probably another big aspect of the report: the whole concept of retail media, the aggregation of data, and how you can use that to reach the customer in what they call a “360 degree” way.

The constant understanding of what you’re reading, what’s influencing you, and then what you’re buying, is still a challenge for a large number of marketers in Europe.

Kiran (11:42.19)
Absolutely. Another section that really caught my eye was Section D, on hurdles and challenges in 2025.

What interested me was that the top areas of concern were equally split: firstly, what they described as the evergreen consolidation of distributed customer data. Now, I remember 20 years ago going to conferences about how we were going to get a 360 degree view of the customer from all the various siloed data. And here we are in 2025 with the same problem.

The second was lack of knowledge and understanding of how AI can change how we do business. So I think it’s important we get excited about AI, but we shouldn’t forget there’s still an evergreen problem.

Charles N (12:35.857)
Yes, and in one respect we’re pursuing a moving goal. The more you understand about a customer, the more you want to know even more. And in many instances, the customer doesn’t understand themselves.

Back in the boom in direct marketing, direct mail was considered the nirvana: you could count the outgoing, count the responses, and be in perfect efficiency. But of course you can’t, because you don’t actually know what’s going on in the customer’s brain, or how time delays affect a buying decision.

Unless you automate the purchase through robotics — i.e. the computer does the purchasing for the individual and the individual just consumes — you will always have a consumer who isn’t quite sure when or why they’ll buy, because other things get in the way. It’s called life.

But I do think bringing that together is still something we pursue.

The AI aspect I find fascinating. There’s a more granular approach now, with five different types of AI systems:

Reflective agents — they don’t remember past experience but make judgements.

Model-based — they retain information from previous interactions.

Goal-based — aimed at selling specific products.

Utility-based — focused on maximising outcomes such as positive responses.

Learning agents — constantly adding to their database of interactions.

As I said in a conversation towards the end of last year’s podcast, I came across one voice chatbot that was pretty close to being genuinely responsive — it actually answered questions rather than deflecting them.

This report highlights that there are lots of different AI solutions, not just one. And that’s an important consideration for marketers.

Kiran (15:11.022)
The other thing that inevitably caught my eye — running a training company — was towards the back of the report, page 43, where they talk about training needs.

This made me laugh: 98% of respondents said there was a need to enhance and broaden skills and competencies. So nearly 100% thought it was really important.

And yet, alongside that, maybe 40% of respondents said they actually had training plans for the year. So you can’t have it both ways — saying it’s the most important thing, but then not committing to it.

Charles N (16:14.171)
Yes, it’s interesting to see where the inertia is. Because as the Prime Minister made out yesterday — and I think correctly — this is the future. However much we want to avoid it, it’s here.

It may take a while to arrive, it won’t change our lives tomorrow, but we’re already sitting here using computers which are now ubiquitous. We’re having video calls, which are also ubiquitous. That revolution started in the 1980s, but you couldn’t do business globally now without those technologies.

This technology will be part of that future. And it’ll probably arrive faster than the 40 years it took for computers to reach ubiquity. The smartphone was launched in 2007, and now there are more smartphones on the planet than people.

So, as ever, Kiran — very enjoyable to have this conversation, very enlightening to see some ideas for the new year. Look forward to talking next time.

Thank you for listening, everybody. Goodbye.