Innovative Marketer Interviews: Claire Dominic from Friesland Campina

Claire Daphne Dominic is a highly experienced marketer who has an impressive track record of success with the brands she’s worked with.

In addition to doubling sales and market shares of existing brands, Claire has also driven newly launched brands to leadership positions through highly engaging integrated marketing campaigns.

We spoke to Claire to learn about her career path and how she continues to innovate in her role as a marketer and customer experience expert.

Hey Claire! Thanks for chatting with us today. Can you tell us about your background in marketing?

I've worked in brand marketing for my whole career and I always tell people I’ve covered all products from top to toe! I started out working with German hair care brand Wella, then moved to face and body care brands. Once I moved on from that category I went straight into food and beverage with a role at Cadbury and now into Infant care.

I started working in diapers and then progressed to infant milk where I’ve been working for the last 8 or so years. Originally I worked with Abbott and now with Friesland Campina for the last couple of years.

Tell us more about your role when working as Marketing Manager at Friso?

In essence my role is to promote brand growth. At Friesland Campina they are very focused on the fundamentals of how brands grow and ensuring all of their markets practice the same principles. This is one of the primary reasons why I have engaged with Creatively Squared because as a company we believe that penetration is the key to brand growth.

Our goal as a brand is to engage as many consumers as possible, such as light, medium and heavy buyers. To achieve this you need to have highly relevant content for each type of customer in the category. Creating the right assets will help catch their attention and guide them through the conversion mechanics.

What's the biggest challenge in your role at the moment?

Competition! It's a very competitive category, especially here in Malaysia. In the premium infant and family milk category there have been so many new brands entering the market. Just in this last year we’ve seen at least 10 new launches.

Having competitors is a common challenge in every product category but infant milk brands also have to comply with a strict code of ethics which restricts the way we can advertise to consumers. Even if a new mom is actively searching for infant milk we aren’t allowed to advertise to them!

What's your favourite thing about being a marketer?

My favourite thing is coming up with crazy ideas and new ideas. I find it very satisfying to be the first to do something in the market and to make an impact, even with a limited budget.

If you could double your budget today, what would you spend it on and why?

I’d probably focus on increasing my reach through media investments. A lot of the time I’m only able to invest 20 to 30% of what I’d like to achieve optimal reach so with more budget I would be able to reach more consumers.

How do you continue to learn and stay on top of trends in the industry?

My mobile phone definitely facilitates my learning journey, if I’m curious about something or want to learn more about a subject matter then Google is my best friend!

What's the biggest challenge the marketing industry is facing today?

The marketing industry continues to be more fragmented, both in terms of media and point of purchase. The same budgets we had previously now have to get spread across so many channels and initiatives.

Marketers need to be ready to keep up with the speed of change, the pandemic accelerated certain channels much faster than we expected. In the infant care category we previously only had around 5% of our sales come from online, now it’s as much as 30-40%.

What's something you're really proud of achieving in your career?

I feel very accomplished every time I contribute to a brand’s growth and move it to a higher position in the market, especially when I’m working for a challenger brand with a smaller budget.

I was especially proud of my success working on pharmaceutical level brands at Abbott because with my background in FMCG it was uncharted territory to market to healthcare professionals.

If you could go back to the start of your career and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Choose the right company to work with that will help shape your career path. I’ve worked for multinationals, local companies and trading houses and it’s vital to find the right place to support your growth.

[#cta]

‍

What problems were you trying to solve when you started working with Creatively Squared?

The problem we wanted to solve was how to be more relevant to our target audience. At Friso we get the bulk of our assets from the global team, many of which are very westernised or repetitive. These alone weren’t relevant enough to stay competitive and engage our local market here in Malaysia so we needed another solution.

What other possible solutions to this problem did you consider?

Our other localised content comes from our Friso Gold ‘Mombassadors’ program which we launched two years ago. Word of mouth has a big impact in this category so this program featuring influential Moms has significantly helped with our online reach and also produced some user-generated style content.

The content that comes from moms is very authentic, but I don’t have a lot of control over the output which is why it’s great to combine it with the results from Creatively Squared where I can be much more specific with the briefs and communicate exactly how I want it to look.

What have you been most impressed with working with us?

It has been a really simple process to submit briefs and receive the photos. When I got my first submission back I was impressed with the quality of the images and the talent featured. The team has also been very helpful!

What's your advice to others who might be considering working with Creatively Squared?

Don't be afraid. Just take a calculated risk and go for it. If you’ve got room in your budget it’s a very small price to pay for a potentially good outcome.

How would you summarise your experience with Creatively Squared?

It exceeded my expectations and I’m confident that it will help the brand achieve our objective of growth.

__________________________________________

Note that Claire is no longer working at Friesland Campina