Influx

At a time when product performance now trumps marketing spin, Unilever’s Chairman is looking for more product innovation from the giant multinational.

According to an interview in the Times of London.

“Michael Treschow thinks there is not enough “wow” at Unilever.

The Swedish chairman likes inventions, gadgets and new whizz-bang things. He
has been in his job for a year and, after a shake-up and streamlining of the
top team at the Anglo-Dutch food and soap company, he wants the men in white
coats to work faster, creating an assembly line of new products.

The marketing is good, the selling is good, it’s the product line that needs
attention, he says. “The single most important thing is that we speed up our
innovation machine, which means that we bring more highly appreciated
products to the consumer so that they say, ‘Wow, this is really something I
would like to have’,” he says.”

Can we now expect increases in R&D spends as packaged goods companies go back in search of product performance and difference?

Posted by Ed Cotton