Ep 51: Opella's Alberto Hernandez on the commercial payback from curiosity, courage and purpose

At the end of 2023, uh when um you know when the the conversation of AI was speaking, I mean you couldn't open your LinkedIn account without seeing like articles and articles of people. What one of the things that we decided to do is I sat down with my leadership team and I told them our approach is gonna be different. We're not gonna talk, we're gonna do. We're gonna start doing.

Because if you ask someone to what is the future of websites back in 2002, they didn't know what it was gonna look like. And basically uh having philosophical conversations about what it would look like 20 years down the line is not adding value at this moment in time. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of WFA's better marketing. Um, uh supported by Meta, to whom many thanks.

And today, absolute privilege to have um on screen, sadly, um, a man who I saw in person back at the Stockholm Global Market a week, Alberto Hernandez, the chief growth officer at Opel. And Alberto, you did a fantastic job on stage. I'm really looking forward to this chat. But let me start by the most important question.

How are you? I'm good. Thank you for asking, David. It was great to see you in person and great to talk to you today.

Yeah, no, we had a great chat, and I'm sure we'll come on to some of it along the way. But can I start with the simplest of questions? You know, some of our audience may not know who Oppella are. Um, can you just give us the background to the brand name?

Of course. So Opella is uh the third biggest OTC, so over-the-counter, and vitamins, minerals, and supplements company in the world. It actually is the separation of Sanofi Consumer Healthcare into an independent company, which was born exactly one year ago. So we're one year old.

One year old. With all the enthusiasm of a one-year-old. Um, but I mean it's amazing to think you are only one year old, having seen some of the progress. But I wanted to really start by one of the things that I found very impressive is the way you you, as health brands, are thinking about treating illness.

Um, very different from the way other companies do and a very different mindset. Could you could you take us through that? Because I think it's a really category-shifting idea you've got. Yeah, so I think it's uh let's let's put it this way.

If you think about the things that are important for human beings, potentially health is top one, top two as priorities for all of us, right? So health is absolutely a must uh for us. Um, and when it comes to the democratization of information that we have experienced in the last 10, 15 years, the amount of access that we have to information regarding our health has multiplied significantly, which is great. There is a great component of it because we can check on different perspectives, different points of views, we can have access to information that before was limiting.

So it is, it has a lot of positive aspects. But with all that positivity, it comes a ton of confusion. Actually, we have data that showcases that around 50% of the information that we consume about health in social media is either incomplete or wrong. And I'm talking about 50% of it, which basically translates into four out of five people in the world do not feel comfortable making self-care choices for themselves.

And two out of three are actually not treating things that are pretty much treatable, like cough, cold, digestive disturbances, allergies. I'm talking about two out of three, and they don't do it basically because either they don't recognize their symptoms, or they don't know that their symptoms are treatable, or they don't know what to treat their symptoms with. Which basically what it does is that it puts an emphasis on our role as an organization to ensure that we're being uh or that we're guiding people to understand how to self-assess their health and then put our brands as vehicles for them to help themselves.

And and how it in a highly, highly regulated sector, this of course is easy to say and very tricky to do. I mean, uh, and having looked at some of your brochureware, I think you've also found a really engaging way of guessing, you know, what would normally have been the that long piece of paper that you take out and tell people that you're if it what goes wrong. How have you set about doing that and how have you dealt with the kind of compliance issues that must have caused you and your team?

So, first of all, uh, you know, first of all, is by embracing a culture that we call it the challenger mindset. And it's basically a culture of believing that the solution is not within the criteria that has defined this industry in the last 20 years. Yeah. So if we want to be best in class uh at connecting with consumers through the right content, through the right media, through the right products, through the right services, the solution to become best in class is not the same thing that this industry has been doing for the last 20 years.

Because if not, those percentages that I talked to you about before would be much better. Yeah. We have our part of responsibility in two out of three, not treating. So being courageous and being a challenger and pushing the envelope and looking at what the benchmark is outside of our walls is actually how we challenge the status quo.

And then once you are courageous, then you have to make sure that the company is holding hands with you, going in that direction. Actually, courageous is one of the behaviors that we have defined as a company that we want to establish as the way that we behave, organizationally speaking. And if you look at the description of courageous in our um in uh you know, in our culture, it actually says that we want to use creativity as an angle to differentiate ourselves as a company, not as a function, as a company.

Yeah, which then gives you the it gives you the freedom to be able to push and challenge the status quo into places that you've never been before. Which is fabulous. I mean, we're gonna get on a roll here with a series of C's, I think. You'll come back to creativity in a minute, but let's go with, you know, I've heard you talk about before, one of the defining things about your career has been your inbuilt curiosity.

Yeah, and you know, now you're one year into uh what must be an incredibly challenging role, six global brands, remarkable commercial pressure. So, how do you foster curiosity in your team? How do you keep curious yourself? And is that also driving this desire to be creative?

It is. So, first of all, you know, I think in our conversation, we could say I'm a very curious person. So I actually believe, I believe in two big C's. The first one is curiosity to ensure that you're looking beyond what the limits of what you were being told uh you should um behave.

And the second is courageous enough to be able to ensure that you're activating towards that curiosity, right? Because curiosity, for the sake of being curious without action, it means nothing. So I'm very curious. And I try to implement that curiosity in the way that we um uh behave as an organization and as a team.

I'm gonna give you very clear examples of something that is very personal. Every time I see something that I consider to be best in class in one of the areas that we wanna be better, like content creation or media or product innovation or you know, service development or whatever it is, I take a picture and I share it with my leadership team. Actually, last week I just was walking here in Paris and I saw a McDonald's ad that I thought it was absolutely brilliant in Out of Home.

Just took a picture, share it, and say, what a great idea! How well executed is this, uh, et cetera. And I think just by showcasing the example of sharing that curiosity, it creates a ripple effect on other folks taking pictures on other things and sharing it. So we're very active on that.

So that's personally. Now, company-wise, what I do normally is first we establish benchmarks that are beyond. I'm gonna give you a very clear example. If I wanna be great at social media, I know my industry is not the best, but I know personal care and beauty are doing a great job.

So whenever I have to discuss how to approach social media, what I will do is I will bring people from the personal care industry and the beauty industry to talk to us. If I wanna do big innovation or rapid innovation, for example, I invited someone from Red Bull or a startup to come to discuss with us our projects and to see how are we evolving. So basically bringing that outside in of the industry so that we can copy-paste 70% of it and adapt the other 30% that it's specific to us, to our regulations, to our limitations, to our challenges as a company, to our scientific credentials, to the all the good things that we bring to the table.

But having that curiosity of bringing that outside in, copy 70%, and putting the 30% that is extra for you, it's helping us quite a bit. Yeah, as is your focus, I think, on creative excellence, which again in in your category, I think I'm gonna say is unusual and industry-wide, you know, we've seen a decline of creativity. One of the great things to see in Stockholm was our research amongst our members that show that creativity is on the rise. Yeah.

And it served you well. I think you were mentioning a few winners along the way. Yeah, touched on that. But uh, you know, what would you what would you say to the CMO who thinks creativity is discretionary, not necessary?

Well, it's difficult for me to say anything to any CMO, but I'm I'm gonna tell you it won't stop you though. I'm um I'm let me let me tell I think I think we have a little bit of a narrow view of what the concept of creativity is. Uh you know, creativity is it goes beyond big idea development, campaign development, content development. If you look at the description of creativity in the dictionary, uh, and based on my English, I'm not the best one in giving advice on dictionary, so take take take that with me.

But um, you know, basically it's the use of original or innovative thinking to solve problems or create something new. So if you use that description, and as a CMO or CGO in my case, you become the ambassador of innovative thinking to solve problems in an organization, that changes the value perception that you bring to the organization. It's no longer about beautiful videos, it's about how you are empowering people to have a different way of thinking to solve problems beyond just content creation.

It can be um uh AMP allocation. So basically, how do you support uh financially speaking your business? What are your new go-to-markets? How can you accelerate your innovation by half versus where you are?

All of that in reality is creative thinking. Now, there is a set way that we have defined creativity, which I think becomes limiting. Now, when you take on that role saying, Yeah, I'm gonna be the ambassador of creative thinking, it's a little bit complicated. You have to prove the point.

And to prove that point, one of the things that I wanted to do is I wanted to demonstrate that this industry does not deserve to be boxed as boring. Yeah, it doesn't deserve it. Let me tell you why. We have at least the same equal emotional impact in humans than any other industry.

Actually, if I dare to say, and if I uh if you allow me the uh the push, I would say we have even more. Because if you cannot go out and play with your kid because you have allergies, or you cannot sleep at night because you have a big presentation the following day and you're nervous as hell, or if you have belly pain and you cannot be with your couple, all of that has a very strong emotional connection that we as an industry haven't been able to leverage. So, my point there is if I can elevate the way that I engage with consumers, if I can make them not only understand me but feel me as a brand, then I can make sure that my consumer engagement becomes a competitive edge.

Yeah. And then my memorability and the amount of time that I'm gonna be in the brain of people is gonna be much higher because they will see that I'm connecting with them at a different level than any other ones. You have an unusual amount of responsibility commercially as well, and your PL responsibility, which most CMOs would aspire to. Um, and I think what you're doing is turning all of this curiosity, focus on creativity into the thing that really matters, which is commercial success.

I mean, how did you get there and uh how did you negotiate that part of the role? Because I presume you did. So, David, you know, what the here is is uh how do they say uh credit to who credits to, right? Um it was a C it's it was a CEO decision, right?

It was a CEO decision. So my C my CEO believes that consumer centricity and brand building, it's a competitive differentiator for a company that tries to stand out in self-care, that at the end is a consumer choosing a product by themselves or through the advice of someone else. So the point here was if I become only a creator of guidance or best practice or frameworks, but I don't have the possibility to implement that. What it does basically is that it creates a significant amount of internal negotiation that creates very limited value.

So the point of my role was basically I can define what the future looks like, but I am accountable for making that future happen. And operationally changes absolutely everything. Because of course I care about all the KPIs that every marketeer cares about. I care about my brand love and my reach and my frequency and my uh serable first party day.

I care about all of that stuff. But at the end of the day, if I cannot showcase that I'm delivering top-line improvement with the actions, actually I'm filling the role of being chief growth officer. At the end, I'm a growth officer. So the point here, and what it does is that it gives me the possibility to implement much faster what we're thinking about that is going to help us grow.

And if it works, I can kill it much faster. I if it doesn't work, I can kill it much faster. And if it works, I can scale it much faster than anyone else. Um, and that is the that is the beauty of having that responsibility.

It gives you an incremental accountability, 100%, but at the same time, it gives you an angle towards impacting the business directly. Which is fabulous. And I think that you know it sets you up for success as well, so it gives confidence. And I guess it's the it must be the same CEO, uh, along with you and your leadership team who've done a remarkable job because uh you're the first um global consumer healthcare company to achieve B Corse status, which is by no means an easy thing to do, but gives you a kind of credibility and a purpose as well as all the things we've already talked about.

What's that journey been like? And you know, how big a celebration was there when you achieved it? So uh, you know, when when we set up to to to become a pella, one of the things that that we decided is we we we say our um uh ambition, our vision is to be the best FMCH, fast moving consumer healthcare company in and for the world. In and for the world.

And we believe that for the world plays a critical role in the world. Basically, what I was telling you, if we can help two out of three people treat themselves, we will be helping people be healthier, and at the end, it will deliver good business results for us as an organization. Now, going back to the to the first the second question that you asked me, if I want to set at a benchmark that it's best in class, doing that by myself, it's gonna be limiting because I have a preset definition of what I consider to be best in class.

What we wanted to do is we wanted to bring someone that made us uncomfortable. And in the case of for the world, V Corp makes you uncomfortable uh because it makes you look inside yourself and identify your strengths and your weaknesses and make sure that you're addressing your weaknesses to be able to be at that place. Now, the big pride as an organization to become the first worldwide self-care company to be B Corp certified as you know, as talent attraction, as engagement with the organization, as what it has done for us in order to understand that we're here to deliver the business, we can do well while doing good.

And actually, that piece was such a glue for us as a team uh that helps us go to new heights. You know, you've got the success, but can we can we perhaps touch on a couple of other things? Because it can't have been as easy as you're making it sound. You know, you put you put in place um a consumer-first marketing culture inside a company that was previously farmer-led.

And for I don't mean to be um insulting of farmer-led, but they would have had a way of doing things. This is just the way we do things around here. Um, and I presume you must have broken a few eggs to make this omelet. So, you know what was difficult along the way?

What did you learn? I mean, and how are you continuing to make sure you're open to learning from your colleagues? So uh breaking uh uh uh a couple of eggs is an understatement. I broke a whole farm, I would say.

Um and so let me tell you, I think looking back, if I could go back, there are there is one thing that potentially a key learning that I would do differently. So if you think about this, uh Sanofi Consumer Healthcare before now Opella, and being very, we're not a destination for marketing talent. I you know, I would love to think that we were, but we were not. Um, so one of the things that we were very happy to do is we were able to attract talent from different companies that have had a very strong brand building culture.

So I have team members from Unilever, from Wrecket, from Danon, from Nestle, from PNG. Um one of the things though that I underestimate underestimated is that not everyone has the same common understanding of how to do brand building. And then what happens when uh that is that is ongoing is that you can move at speed, but when you speed, when you move at speed without alignment, one of the things that happens is that you cannot um create critical mass as fast. You cannot create best in class sharing as fast.

You cannot basically make sure that one thing that is working in one place, you can move it to the other place, because the way that that fundamental brand building has been done is different. So one of the eggs that I broke and I had to go back was basically to establish a common way of defining how we at OPELA want to build brands. Yeah. And going back to what I told you at the beginning, we decided to benchmark against who's best in class.

And we came back with what we call the repeatable model of growth, which is our way at OPELA to grow brands, which is actually established in the entire organization, not only marketing, the entire organization follows the same principles when it comes to building the business. It's consistent, we use the same language, and now we can move at speed and make sure that we're cross-fertilizing in the different geographies and brands. Wow. And I think the other thing, you know, you you joined us in Stockholm, I'm gonna say fresh from a flight from Japan.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure you were fresh, but you've certainly you certainly really performed well. But you've also, I think you've you've understood the importance of building personal relationships, going to see people on the ground, going to engage with the business. So you're not, you know, you're not just kind of Zoom CMO either.

That that must have been tough as well. But you must be building remarkable internal energy. And are you pulling talent now? Is talent wanted to come and work for Oppella?

They do, they do. And uh this is actually one of the most remarkable things. Um, the moment that we start being curious and being courageous, what that does basically is it creates good noise about Oppella being a great destination. And now I now we're becoming a destination of people that really believes that can bring value to our organization, but at the same time wants to be part of something that is agile, that is courageous, that moves fast, and that wants to challenge the status quo.

And not only within my team, actually in the agency world is happening. Uh, creatives are asking to participate in our account. Which think about this, David. Back in the day as a pharma company, um, we were not clearly a destination for creative folks.

Now they actually want to participate because we have they have seen that if you give up the chuckles, if you give them the opportunity to play with your brands, you're willing to put money behind them and fund it and make those ideas happen. Yeah, and I think we again we had a great conversation about that, some of which we we won't share here. But the, you know, you clearly focused on building great external partnerships as well to attract talent. Can you can you talk because I feel for the agency world who are going through some real turmoil in these changes, but you know, how are you coping with that?

How you built such positive partnerships? So, uh, first of all, I think it's it's you know, it's basically making them business partners rather than uh transactional stakeholders, right? Um, I have um every single month, we have four hours of what we call the creative lab, in which my leadership team, together with the regional um marketing heads, together with all our agency partners, get together in one room and review all the work that we want to review together to basically elevate it, make it better.

And basically giving them the feeling that creativity is such an important part for us as an organization, reduces the barriers and they become partners on basically helping you elevate the creativity, even if it is for an idea that it's not yours. Brilliant. Even if it's an idea that it's not yours. So the the thing there is that when you showcase the level of partnership, and by the way, we have this, it's called the Creative Lab, and we have something called the Crazy Creative Fund, which is a fund of money that I reserve that if someone comes with an idea that we believe is crazy enough to be able to move the needle in how our brands perform in the marketplace, we will fund it.

And we will decide in that meeting that we will fund it. And actually, out of the seven can lions, three come out of that. Fantastic. And also, I think you're delivering can lions that do the really important thing of celebrating creativity, but with commercial success.

Because it doesn't always follow. And I think the two two other things. Did I hear you say that you're generating 20 times more content um than previously, and you're using AI to do that? And and by the way, we've done very well.

We're over 20 minutes in, and we haven't even mentioned AI. You know, how is how is AI helping you? And is that is that the true stat? 20 times more content?

It is, it is. So let me let me let me tell you a little bit of a story on this one. Um at the end of 2023, uh, when um, you know, when the conversation of AI was speaking, I mean, you couldn't open your LinkedIn account without seeing like articles and articles of people. What one of the things that we decided to do is I sat down with my leadership team and I told them uh our approach is gonna be different.

We're not gonna talk. We're gonna do. We're gonna start doing. Because if you ask someone to what is the future of websites back in 2002, they didn't know what it was gonna look like.

And basically uh having philosophical conversations about what it would look like 20 years down the line is not adding value at this moment in time. I rather prefer do to do. So what we decided to do is I decided to bring someone from the agency world, someone with a strong agency background, creative background, and someone with a very strong Martech background. I put them together, very senior people, and I gave them an assignment.

You have three months to bring 300 pieces of content. This is I'm talking about the end of 2023. Okay. In six weeks, they came with 300 pieces of content, 350 pieces of content, in which I went one by one, and I could tell you that 328 out of the 350 were high-quality content pieces.

So when then what they told me, what I told them is, all right, that's great. Now I want three months, I want a thousand pieces of content. And what these guys told me is, okay, you want a thousand pieces of content? That's great, but I need a copywriter, I need a graphic designer, and I need a creative director.

And then I will give you a thousand pieces of content. So, what I did is I went to my global brands and I told them, your budget, your budget, your budget, and your budget is reduced by 20, 30, 40k. I will consolidate it, I will fund those resources. And then in again, in seven weeks, they came back with 1500 pieces of content.

Wow. From there, the qu and by the way, the quality of the content was mind-blowing. It actually created new ideas for us to uh communicate our brands. From there, actually, today in Paris, we have 40 people working, creating content on a bi-weekly basis for our global brands and our European brands.

We have a studio in Brazil, we have a studio in the Philippines, we have a studio in India, we have a studio in Japan, and we have a studio in the US. All of them creating 20 times more content than what we used to. And because you would tell quantity. Well, quantity for us, first of all, it was an unlock because we were scratching the surface in social, we were scratching the surface in e-commerce.

So basically, having more content allows us to be able to connect with consumers in different channels that we couldn't. Our e-commerce sales have multiplied by three, and actually our engagement in brands through digital ecosystem has increased by 50%. So um again, now we do that with a very clear principle. First, we have to be fast, we have to be creative, daring, we have to ensure that there's creative daringness, we have to be scientifically sound, and we have to be culturally relevant.

And always a human will start and a human will end. We call it human first, human last. And and maintaining the pace while you do that, because again, we talked about this a lot in Stockholm. You know, the uh when I was pondering it, it struck me to make the most of AI, first of all, you have to slow down before you can speed up, get the right people in place, get the right construct, and then you're off to the races.

Sadly, we didn't use any C's in those something speaking. But we'll find a way. But I do think the you know it is a remarkable story, um, Albert. Congratulations for the the work you and your team have done.

But you know, I know how this kind of end result is difficult to get to, and it must have been challenging along the way, but you've got that challenger mindset, you've got the curiosity. You know, when was it in this, I think now almost four-year journey that you got the real, okay, now now we're on to something. I mean, how long did it take you to get your your mojo up and running and see that's coming? I think being honest, David, it comes and goes.

Um, I would I would say how how was it? Uh there was this this saying, I think it was Kierkegaard says life can only be understood backwards, but it must be leaf forward, right? And yeah, yeah, and uh you know, I I would say I've I have I have throughout these four years, I've never been 100% certain. And I actually I I I believe in today's world certainty is a fallacy.

Yeah, uh we want to believe in certainty, it doesn't exist. Um though if I'm telling you the moment in which it was really a realization, it was when we decided to separate ourselves and become an independent company, and we had to do the whole process of due diligence. That moment forces you to stop, right? It forces you to stop to look backwards and say, okay, what have we accomplished?

What are our strengths? What are our weaknesses? Can we stand alone as an organization and continue to compete to the degree that we had, or even better moving forward? And I think that moment when we decided to separate and the decision uh became a reality was the moment that it was a realization that we had created something that could stand on its own feet and compete um the best way possible in the marketplace.

That's a wonderful story. And I love your whole notion of crazy elevate programs. And actually, I was paid, I was just uh after Stockholm in Transylvania, and the last hotel that we left, the guy who was saying goodbye to us paid me what I consider to be the highest compliment, which was stay crazy. Because I think the you know, the other thing that's really important, and again, we saw this in Stockholm is when people are really enjoying what they're doing and are really good at doing it, it creates an energy and a purpose and a growth.

And you know, I love the notion that you talk, you know, what you do is good for all of us. The longer I can stay healthy, the better for me, the better for my family, the better for my grandchildren, etc. And actually, you're helping make the world a better place. So, you know, what more could you ask of marketing?

What a delight to talk to you, Alberta. Really enjoyed it. And one one last question perhaps for you. You know, if you have one piece of advice for the CMO out there, what would it be?

Wow. Um can I can I give you two? I would say you are the you are the ambassador of what's possible. You are the ambassador of what's possible.

So the organization has has to see you come in the room as someone that is gonna open possibilities. Um, that's point number one. And point number two, it has to translate into results. Yeah, you have to make sure that you're connecting the dots that will give you a seat at places, at boards, at discussions that actually are the ones that are gonna define the future of brand building.

Fantastic. Okay, Alberta. Well, listen, thank you so much for your time. Really, really enjoyed it and uh hope you did too.

I did. It was great. Thank you so much, David. I appreciate it.

Thanks so much. A fantastic conversation featuring a veritable sea of C's, but the one I really liked and has caused me to hover over it is broadening this definition of creativity. And I love the fact that Alberta went back to the dictionary definition and reminded us that creativity is a way of thinking, a way of solving problems, and goes way beyond that narrow thought that many marketers have about execution to a much bigger um commercial impact through broad creativity. So fabulous conversation.

Um, thank you so much, Alberto. Thank you, everybody, who put this episode together and looking forward to the next one. See you again very soon.