In this addition of F&f’s Meet: series, we are delighted to feature our long-time client partner and friend Thomas Delabriere, a true FMCG marketing guru, or “the dream client” as he has been called!
His top flight CV reveals CMO at Mars in the UAE and China, Marketing Director at innocent Drinks and PepsiCo UK, as well as marketing roles at Unilever France and Danone on his globetrotting journey so far.
Hi Thomas, can you tell us a little bit about yourself professionally, your various roles, how long have you worked in the food and beverage industry?
I have been working in FMCG for nearly 30 years. I started my career in 1996 in the Home Care division of Unilever straight after my studies in a Business School. I moved to the food and beverage industry in 2001 when I joined Danone.
I have been in this industry since then! I worked for Danone, mainly in the Dairy business, first in France and then in the UK, for nearly 6 years. After a relatively short time at PepsiCo UK as Marketing Director at Walkers, I was poached by the innocent founders to help turn around the business. After 3 amazing years at Fruit Towers, I left innocent during the successful sale of the business to Coca-Cola. I then had the opportunity to join Mars where I spent 10 years in various Marketing, Sales and General Management positions.
My latest job at Mars was Global CMO for KIND, one of the fastest healthy snack brands globally. Mars gave me, and my family, the opportunity to live abroad, first in Dubai, then in Beijing and Shanghai.
After Covid and 6 years in China, I came back to the UK. I then joined Nomad Foods, the leading manufacturer of frozen food in Europe, to accelerate the development of its plant-based food business, a top priority for the company at the time. The growth agenda of Nomad Foods changed, and I left in April 2003. I decided to take a well-deserved year off. An amazing experience that I would recommend to anybody! A few months ago, I set up my consultancy specialized in FMCG while looking for my next opportunity.
In my career so far, I have had the privilege of working on many brands, some iconic and insurgent ones, some global and very local ones, some totally unknown and some very familiar to all. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list: Persil, Omo, Domestos, Activia, Actimel, Shape, HP, Daddies, Doritos, Monster Munch, French Fries, Quavers, Frazzles, Snickers, Maltesers, Galaxy, M&M’s, Revels, Twix, Skittles, Starburst and KIND – now one of the biggest healthy snack brands globally.
I also had the privilege of working in developing and developed markets (two totally different dynamics) and all sorts of challenges: business turnaround, launch and acceleration.
More importantly, I had the opportunity to work with amazing people some of whom have become very close friends.
Why did you choose food and beverage FMCG as your ‘thing’?
To be honest, I never chose food and beverage as my “thing”. I really enjoyed working on homecare products and genuinely find non-food categories very interesting. Having said that, food and drinks are particularly close to my heart. They impact people’s everyday life, bringing them all sorts of different functional and emotional benefits that are just fascinating to explore, especially as a marketer. There is also a cultural dimension with food and drinks which makes it particularly complex and therefore uniquely exciting.
What are your personal passions related to the industry?
My passion points about the food and drink industry are evolving. I have always been excited about how bringing great food (which can mean lots of different things) to as many people as possible – and that’s why I loved working for Mars and Danone.
Bringing disruption on brands or categories has always been another passion of mine. That’s how I met Derek (DJ) and Alex by the way. At the time, I was working for Walkers Sensations. It had been developed and launched by one of my previous bosses Jon Goldstone (with DJ and the team).Although this launch had been an amazing success that disrupted the category, we identified an opportunity to sharpen its execution and bring the brand closer to its “night in” territory. DJ and Alex developed an amazing design, moving Walkers Sensations from white to black. A big move that eventually paid off.
But for the past few years, my interest has more moved toward the reinvention of our food system which is totally broken. I am curious about how it is going to evolve, how fast and challenging it will be. When I think about plant-based and cultured proteins, or processes like precise fermentation, I genuinely think the coming years are going to be fascinating for the food industry.
Biggest success/biggest blooper?
One of my biggest successes has been on HP Brown Sauce. With a great team, I developed a campaign called “HP the official sauce of Great Britain” which was all about celebrating what’s great about Britishness, something that only an iconic brand like HP can do.
Amongst other activities, Graham Goodkind from Frank PR convinced Jimmy White, the famous snooker player, to change his name by deed poll to Jimmy Brown, creating a massive controversy involving the BBC and the Times! A really fun campaign, tapping into deep cultural insights, with a ridiculously high ROI and impact on sales.
My biggest failures have been on brand launches, or relaunches, in Dairy in France and in Snacking in China. When I take a step back, my main learnings about them have been to keep things really simple and stay close to consumers. No rocket science here, but trust me, I have learnt that the hard way!
How do you think the brands you’ve led have helped to grow your own career?
Simply speaking, I would say the brands I have led at Danone, especially Actimel, have taught me a lot about ownership and speed.
Innocent has taught me about entrepreneurship, decisiveness, commercial acumen and creativity.
All the chocolate brands I have led for Mars have helped in learning how to manage scale, complexity and the importance of cultural differences (but also similarities) in Food and Drinks.
What project initially led you to working with Family (and friends)?
I started working with DJ 15 years ago before Family (and friends) was founded , when he was leading the creative department of Landor Associates London, one of the biggest global design agencies and I was working for PepsiCo.
Since then, we have worked on a few projects together but the key one has been the launch of innocent juice when DJ and Alex had just created F&f.
At the time, innocent had made two unsuccessful attempts to launch an orange juice proposition in the UK.
One of my missions was to develop a new successful mix and fight against Tropicana. With F&f and a great team, we launched the breakthrough Innocent juice range, coming in a beautiful transparent carafe developed by F&f. It has now become market leader in Europe with sales in excess of £500m. It is crazy what great people in the right environment can achieve together.
The success of the innocent juice range would simply not have happened without the thinking, creative genius and provocations from F&f. They are a great team coming with a fresh perspective and positive provocations. No BS!
Finally, what advice can give to young marketers looking to build a successful career?
I would give two pieces of advice: stay curious and keep the main thing the main thing.
1. Stay curious: if during your career, you feel you stop being curious, interested in learning how things work and understanding how to bring consumers with you, you will not go anywhere. Work in another company, category, market … or get a new job.
2. Keep the main thing the main thing: it is so easy to be distracted by the “background noise”, details or new shiny tools, especially when you start in marketing. Always keep in mind what you want to achieve, focusing on the tangible end result, more than the process itself.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-delabriere-a239b3/?originalSubdomain=uk