How to succeed in marketing, by the people who do it best

(From L to R) Cristina Diezhandino (Diageo), Marc Pritchard (P&G), Asmita Dubey (L’Oréal) and Raja Rajamannar (Mastercard).  

At WFA we’re fortunate to have access to some of the world’s best marketers, and to mark the 10^th edition of Global Marketer of the Year, we asked four past winners three key questions: what’s changed, what matters now and what one piece of advice they would share. Their answers point the same way: how brands are built has been transformed, but the fundamentals of brand building have not.

Across a decade even the winners job titles have evolved, showing how far the role has widened. Keith Weed took the first award in 2017 as Unilever's Chief Marketing & Communications Officer. It has since gone to a Chief Digital Officer (Lubomira Rochet, L'Oréal, 2019), a Chief Brand Officer, a Chief Digital and Commercial Officer (Conny Braams, Unilever, 2021) and, most recently, a Global Chief Marketing & Consumer Officer (Cheryl Goh, Grab).

So what’s changed?

Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer at P&G and the 2020 Global Marketer of the Year, says technology has changed how global and regional marketers need to build brands.

“Leadership today means navigating exponential media fragmentation, the tectonic shift to digital commerce, and the ubiquity of AI that turbocharges everything.  We’ve shifted from slow, batch marketing processes that took months to execute into an agile, continuous model that delivers a massive volume, variety, and velocity of brand assets in minutes, hours and days – all directly connected to commerce," he says.

Similarly, Cristina Diezhandino, Global Chief Marketing Officer at Diageo and the 2022 winner, says that while marketing still means building brands that people love, choose and enjoy by deeply understanding consumers’ needs, the context has changed.

“Technology is constantly expanding our access to information, to richer and more immediate insights and the pace of change keeps accelerating. Consumer preferences are evolving faster too and as a result, continuously building competitive advantage requires decisions to be made at greater speed. Sustainable growth will come from quickly being able to distinguish what truly matters to our consumers and meaningfully act on it," she says.

Raja Rajamannar, Senior Fellow at Mastercard, who won in 2018 as its Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, sees a transformation that goes well beyond today’s hot topic of AI.

“While AI is understandably commanding much of today's attention, it is only one part of a much broader transformation that is underway that includes automation, the emergence of augmented reality, advances in behavioural economics, and neuroscience," he says.

For Asmita Dubey, Chief Digital & Marketing Officer at L'Oréal and the 2023 Global Marketer of the Year, the decade has been one of fragmentation. “Over the last decade, marketing has been fragmenting – moving from brand-say to influencer-say, creator-say, and people-say across an ever-expanding ecosystem of touchpoints," she says.

What matters now?

For all the talk of how to succeed in a fragmented and technology-focused environment, our winners also describe an approach that sticks to some fundamentals: trust, rigour, embracing opportunity and consumer insight.

“In this era, what is extremely important is trust. Trust is the single most valuable asset any brand possesses and the foundation of long-term success," says Rajamannar.

“CMOs must help marketing teams embrace these opportunities, we must build and expand new capabilities, and we must remove barriers to change in our organisations. But we must also keep grounded in the fundamentals of great marketing; leaders and brands that bring empathy, creativity with rigour and commercial discipline will win," says Diezhandino.

“Despite significant change, the fundamentals of brand building endure – you still need to understand who you serve, what your brand stands for, and deliver a superior brand experience that’s ‘worth it’," adds Pritchard.

If you do one thing, do this

So what advice would our winners pass on to our peers? For Dubey, the answer is to move faster and keep pace on two fronts at once.

“My one piece of advice to CMOs today is to move both at the speed of culture and pace of technology. On one hand keep (real) consumer centricity firmly at the core and be even more distinctive on your brand ideas when both people and machines have to decipher it. And then demand more from AI, to help reshape marketing and augment us, by consolidating end-to-end processes,” she says. “Use the ‘math’ of data, algorithms, speed, and use the ‘magic’ of intuition, creative daring and empathy.”

Pritchard’s advice is to stand out by understanding consumers better. “Foster a culture of consumer obsession. Operate like a direct-to-consumer founder, immerse yourself in their daily lives, and take more ‘shots on goal’. And remember that those shots will score when they deeply connect a genuine consumer insight with what makes your brand unique in a moment that matters,” he says.

And for Rajamannar, the answer is always to keep learning. “Leaders must commit to continuous learning, stay ahead of emerging technologies and trends, and create opportunities for their teams to do the same through ongoing development and education. The organisations that will succeed are those that foster curiosity, adaptability, and a culture of continuous growth,” he says.

Nominations for the 10th edition

The answers describe a role that has grown in scope and speed while its purpose has stayed the same.

For our 2026 Global Marketer of the Year we’re looking for someone who has shown outstanding leadership in two or more of the following four areas:

• Driving initiatives that contribute to business growth;
• Developing talent and capabilities within their marketing organisations;
• Delivering stand-out innovation and creativity; and
• Demonstrating industry leadership, for example in relation to inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Later this year a jury of peers will decide who best demonstrated the power of marketing in 2026.

Nominations are open until 9 November at gmoty.wfanet.org/nominate, for any client-side marketer in a senior global or regional role who has been with their company for at least two years.

Finalists will be announced in December and the winner named in February 2027.