Geoff Craig certainly knows how to create an impact on audiences. Craig-a key player in the global success of the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty”-was speaking at a Marketing Week panel when he dropped a bomb: as of Jan. 1 he is out of a job and is entertaining offers.
“At Unilever, we’ve announced a global restructuring,” he said. “My only job option was to move to the United States and continue my marketing career there. I said ‘no’.”
Currently, Unilever U.S. and Unilever Canada operate as two companies. The restructuring will merge the two under the name Unilever North America and will shuffle executives north as well as internationally.
Although the CPG company would not comment on the restructuring or other personnel changes, sources inside Unilever insist this is not an example of a multinational shifting its marketing presence south of the border, a scenario believed to be more likely in this time of financial uncertainty.
Craig’s role of vice-president and general manager of brand building will be merged with that of the Canadian president, a position currently filled by David Blanchard.
This new post, called vice-president and general manager for Unilever Canada, will be filled in the new year by Christopher Luxon, who was named to Advertising Age‘s Top 40 Under 40 list in 2006 at the age of 35. A 15-year veteran of the company, he is currently vice-president of brand development for deodorant products in North America, which includes products under the Axe, Suave, Degree and Dove banners. He will arrive in Toronto in the new year and will report to Kevin Havelock, currently president of the company’s U.S. division and soon to be president of the newly merged organization.
Blanchard, meanwhile, will move to the United Kingdom and become global chief supply chain officer for Unilever. There will be a “full cadre” of Canadian marketing staff after the shake-up, and decisions for the Canadian market will be made in the Toronto office.
While the restructuring is an attempt to attain cost “synergies,” sources say it does not represent an overall change in marketing strategy.
That’s good news for Craig’s soon-to-be-former agency partner Ogilvy & Mather, though it didn’t have much to fear anyway. One source close to the matter said O&M has a great reputation within Unilever’s global marketing hierarchy.
“Unilever will be looking to drive best practices in brand building across the whole [North American] region now,” the source said. “The Canadians are seen as leading best practices… the Ogilvy Toronto office is getting more work than they ever have before throughout the globe.”
