In this episode of Frictionless Marketing, we welcome Jerome Brathwaite, the Global Head of Brand Equity and Marketing for Cetaphil at Galderma. Jerome shares insights from his extensive experience in the beauty and skincare industry, highlighting his role in transforming Cetaphil into a global brand. The discussion covers a range of topics, including the successful Game Time Glow campaign, New York Fashion Week activations, and the integration of AI in marketing strategies. Jerome also delves into the importance of cultural shifts, the role of emotion in marketing, and his approach to product innovation and talent development. 

Join us for an in-depth conversation on the future of skincare marketing and Jerome's passion for storytelling and brand management.

00:00 Introduction to Frictionless Marketing

00:06 Meet Jerome Brathwaite: Brand Management Expert

01:09 Diving into the Game Time Glow Campaign

02:48 The Ecosystem Behind the Campaign

04:45 Global Impact and Emotional Connection

08:32 Product Innovation and Market Needs

12:53 Leadership and Mentorship Insights

16:45 The Future of Skincare and Beauty Brands

19:03 Musical Past and Marketing Journey

19:59 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Frictionless Marketing is a production from /prompt, the leading earned first creative marketing and communications agency. Grounded in the present, yet attuned to the future. 

To learn more about how to make marketing frictionless, purchase Friction Fatigue by /prompt CEO Paul Dyer online and at booksellers worldwide.

Produced and distributed by Simpler Media Productions.

Welcome to Frictionless Marketing , where we explore the

latest trends and challenges in the world of marketing and beyond.

Jerome Brathwaite is an accomplished brand management executive with over

fifteen years of experience in the beauty and dermatological skincare industry.

Currently serving as the Global Head of Brand Equity and Marketing for Cetaphil at

Galderma, Jerome has been instrumental in transforming Cetaphil into a blockbuster

brand across a hundred plus countries.

His leadership in executing brand equity strategies through product

innovation, commercial campaigns, activations, and ESG initiatives has

significantly impacted both consumer and healthcare professional touch points.

Today we'll dive deeper into Jerome's background and discuss

the importance of creating cultural shifts and leveraging cultural

moments and insights to create impact.

We'll unpack how he contributed to the wildly successful Game Time Glow campaign,

New York Fashion Week activation, and how Cetaphil's integrating AI to create a derm

tech approach to frictionless marketing.

Hey, Jerome!

Hi, Kate.

Thank you for having me.

So nice to have you on the pod today.

Thanks for joining

- - awesome to be here.

Well, let's just dive right in, shall we?

We have great topics lined up.

I'm excited to chat with you.

Starting with my favorite topic, the Game Time Glow campaign.

And for those of you who don't know, the campaign really capitalizes on the

Taylor Swift Effect within NFL football.

Together we identified this surge in female viewership and co-viewing trends

as an opportunity to insert Cetaphil into the Super Bowl conversation.

But I'd love for you to expand a little bit upon the process and

the success of the campaign and how this idea was brought to life.

Absolutely.

It's one of my favorite topics as well.

It's so fresh.

Okay, we knew that 2024 would be the year that the world would be talking about

Cetaphil, and we already had some good plans to make that happen, but wanted

to make it something that really blew it out and took it to the next level.

It really started with a brainstorm by our newly appointed president, Tara Loftis.

We were already planning for New York Fashion Week activation, which would be

a week earlier, but with the Super Bowl being such a key moment of awareness, we

wanted to really take advantage of that.

So we held a brainstorm, and you'll remember this, Kate.

The /prompt team came in with some great ideas, taking into consideration all

that you shared about the insights on the Super Bowl moment, the cultural effect.

And we fell in love with the idea and eleven days later - because we said yes

and we trusted it - the video was out in the market and the immediate response was

overwhelmingly positive from the market.

It really was.

It was such an incredible experience, and showing how true partnership

can produce great work and even such a short amount of time and

really move at the speed of culture.

Can you talk a little bit about the ecosystem?

There was a lot of different components you mentioned a video.

I know there were a lot of different components as part of the activation.

Absolutely.

Now, we moved at record speed.

But the campaign was built thanks to the team's planning with the

holistic ecosystem, and that included influencer and derm partnerships,

highlighting the dad and daughter relationship and bonding, integrated

paid media support, earned national and trade media, CRM, all of those

good things for a full surround sound.

My favorite part of this was the video.

It was amazing seeing those reactions, but we did really have

that full ecosystem around it.

And an award-winning campaign at that.

Absolutely.

We've won a Webby and I'm certain of many more to come, which

was quite fantastic to see.

How do you see this campaign living on, and how do you think Cetaphil

as a brand that can use this campaign as a learning opportunity?

The campaign was a viral bet and it paid off well, but I think most

importantly in the learning that we took from this was that it was an exercise

in cultural immersion, agility, and trust in our team and our partners.

Eleven days, that's insane for full production to getting out to the market.

So there have been opportunities to build on the Game Time Glow campaign,

and we've done so to a certain extent, but we don't wanna overstretch it, right?

So can we replicate it?

Certainly, there are essential themes around bonds between daughters and

fathers, sports, music, and skincare.

We've also seen as certain markets start to localize and initiate partnerships

with sports organizations to bring that to life outside of just American football.

So I do see there being a place for it, but what's key to this

was really leaning into the moment and timing was super key to this.

Yep.

Leaning into a moment's right.

And I think we also, we were just all in Cannes for the Cannes Lions

Awards, and there were a lot of really interesting themes around Cannes

Lions, around the emotional connection.

One that got a lot of play was around humor, but obviously

this campaign was really one that pulled at the heartstrings.

How do you feel about the role of emotion and bringing people into the work?

Yeah, emotion is such a key thing.

It's such a human thing, right?

And as marketeers, we have to remember, I think we always get caught up in

our presentations, our conversations, our meetings, our decks, excels.

And you forget that what we're doing is interacting with human beings.

And so that, I believe, is at the heart of it.

When you can harness a human truth, if you do that well, then it proves

to tap on a universal thread.

And that's what we did here with the Game Time Glow campaign.

Yes, it was around Super Bowl.

It was football, music, skincare.

We brought all of that together.

But at the heart of it, it was that emotional story around the bond that a

moment like this has with daughters and dads, and that proved to be something

that gave this incredible legs.

And I think you saw that a lot in the reaction.

We actually, as part of some of our analytics, looked at how many different

emojis were used that were crying emojis versus happy emojis, and you

could really get a sense for how people connected and why they connected

because the emotion that it sparked.

A lot of videos going around with people showing themselves crying after

watching it, which was really cool.

Absolutely.

Which was super powerful.

Yeah, that was really gratifying.

We know American football was a central theme of the campaign, and the cultural

moments here in the US may not be received the same way in other places.

How have you seen this play out in other markets, and what is that

multidisciplinary, cross-functional way to execute these cultural moments globally?

I think it, it ties back to what I said before.

The human truth that we tapped into this was really a universal one.

So it does really transcend beyond American football and can just be a

story around the bond that is created, a cross-generational bond, a familial bond

that's created when you connect certain things like sports, music, skincare.

Skincare was a bit integrated in there.

It really worked for American football because of the moment that we were

talking about with the Super Bowl, but it does have a lot of relevance

outside of that and internationally.

Like I said, we did have, and we do have markets who have started to initiate

those partnerships with local sports organizations because it is something

that goes beyond American football.

Then to your point on just the, how to rally the cross-functional

and multidisciplinary teams, I think it's probably- I simplify it.

'Cause collaboration's a big, I'd say strong suit and belief of mine.

It's simply clear communication of the intent and the goals.

You have to have conviction, conviction in your idea.

Especially if it's something that's new and uncomfortable to the organization

and to the cross-functional partners.

And then keeping consistent updates on the progress because everybody wants

to feel a part of something bigger.

And when you can nurture that environment of genuine partnership, co-creation, and

collaboration towards a shared goal, then you do tend to reap some amazing benefits.

So we did have great support from our teams across regulatory, legal,

R&D, everyone in the organization was really rallied behind it.

It seems like it was an all hands on deck campaign, that a lot of people really

bought into, thanks to a lot of the communication that you did internally.

Yes.

That's awesome.

All right, switching gears a little bit.

Curious, you've been involved in developing new product categories

and award-winning products.

What would you say is your approach to product innovation and how do you

ensure that new products meet market needs and consumer expectations?

It's a loaded question.

There's so many ways to look at it.

I'm big on yes, product marketing, but also branding.

And you first need to have a strong command on who you are as a brand, right?

What your promise and your place is, and how far your portfolio

can stretch for your consumers.

So there's a combination of things that I use - market intel, trend reports,

social listening, competitive tracking.

All of that comes into consideration.

If there are gaps in the portfolio, meaning offerings that we don't

have in formats, benefits, what be it, that our consumers would expect

from us, and are going elsewhere for, then we should prioritize that

based on the incremental value, the upside versus the investment in time.

Those, to me, I see those as those line extensions and gap fillers.

That can be fun.

And you can do a lot of innovation there.

But the real magic, and this doesn't come as frequently, is when

through science, through research, through breakthrough ideas, you

really have a disruptive innovation because you've created a category.

Doing that has been really fun.

That's awesome.

I know there's a lot of really exciting things on the horizon from the brand.

More for us to talk about in the future as it relates to product innovation.

With that, how do you ensure that you leverage a moment, or you resonate

with your audience to create cultural impact through product innovation?

Ears to the ground.

I think you could say product innovation, commercial innovation, communication,

ears to the ground, hands on the pulse, whatever term you can use for

staying connected to your consumers.

That's really key.

And knowing where you stand in that whole environment and ecosystem, and having

a team internally and through agency partners who are also connected is key.

So you wanna make sure that you're being authentic with your product offering.

As I said before, understanding what your brand's purpose is.

There may be certain products that just don't make sense for your portfolio.

As there may be certain things that don't make sense for your brand

to say, or conversations to be in.

So, really understanding your branding coming from there is important, but

also having the ears to the ground.

I think with Game Time Glow as a campaign, we found the right

balance of skincare relevance in this Super Bowl celeb music moment.

But that's not always gonna be the case.

Not every trend needs you to join it, right?

And consumers will quickly let you know if you're trying too hard.

I love that.

That's such a valid point that I think a lot of us forget sometimes

when we get pulled into the momentum of the next big thing.

Is there obvious and important space for this brand in this

conversation, or is there not?

And to your point, the consumer will know the difference and is smarter than ever.

Yeah.

Yeah, we have to be careful of the shiny object syndrome, right?

Especially marketers.

Absolutely.

Do you oftentimes look to what is happening in D2C and Prestige

for sort of inspiration and a lot of times those brands because

of the way that they're sold?

They have the ability to be thoughtful in different ways.

They're not driven by a lot of the same confines that mass market brands are.

So, curious if you take inspiration sometimes from those categories, as well?

Absolutely.

And I'd say even beyond that, definitely across channels, but I'd say just

multidisciplinary outside of our industry.

There are nuggets that can be found anywhere.

How many times have you sat down and seen a commercial or an ad and

you're like, that was brilliant.

And that inspires you to do something, moves you to do something.

I do try my best to step outside and, obviously, that requires

time to think, which can be difficult these days many times.

But to step outside and see what's going on from an industry

standpoint, understand the things that really inspire me as a consumer.

So putting my mind in the consumer's, 'cause we all are, and try to

bring that thinking to continue to challenge our team and challenge

myself as we innovate in both product, but also marketing communication.

That's great, and it's a good segue to talking a little bit about you and your

sort of leadership and mentorship style.

I know you've managed multiple, and mentored multiple associates

throughout your career.

What would you say is your approach to developing talent and helping

new team members grow professionally and continue the legacy of

Cetaphil's cultural relevancy?

I love that.

I've done my best to refine, it's a daily endeavor probably until we stop, right?

To refine your leadership for just at least human engagement skills.

For the team, I tend to lean on, it's not cleanly three, but three essential Cs.

Communication.

And under that are two Cs, clear and consistent communication.

And then celebration and conviction.

Celebrating those milestones, small and big.

Because we will undoubtedly, if we're doing something big, we

will fail and that's okay, right?

But amongst that, there are things that we can continue to celebrate and that

also gives us, I think, the conviction to continue to drive to be better.

So there should be constantly a thirst to be better.

When I'm hiring, when I'm looking for team members, I look for

some of those things that may not necessarily be able to be taught.

There are tons of things that can be taught.

So I drive that with the team.

And not accepting the status quo and being a better you brand daily.

I think that's what helps us to continue to stay linked to the culture,

linked to the brand's relevance, and how we can continue to grow.

Outside of that, if you ask someone who is on my team, they'd probably

say from my transparency, I hold accountability very strongly.

And then just empathy is probably what keeps us glued as a team.

Many times I say we're in this boat together.

If the ship is rocky, if the seas are rocky or if they're smooth, I just

need to know you're in the oar with me.

So that means I know you have an oar in your hand, I have one in my hand.

That's the empathy and the accountability that I know you're rowing with me.

And so those are key to really driving the cohesion and the trust with the team.

I love that.

I think that the biggest part of leadership is relationships, right?

So if you don't have 'em, somebody's not gonna be in that boat, and

they're not gonna be, or they're not gonna be rowing with you.

That's right.

That's exactly right.

Fingers pointing, right?

[chuckling] Who's rowing?

Who's that?

Tell me a little bit about what drives your passion for storytelling

and brand management, and how do you harness its power to connect

consumers with your brands?

I didn't really understand till earlier on in my career as a marketer how much I love

storytelling, but it makes a lot of sense.

Growing up with the likes of Disney stories and just the overall hero's

journey that really struck hard for me.

And storytelling, it's an ancient and proven art.

Stories have been used to convey messages of varying complexity, to inspire

confidence, passion, and bravery, instill a sense of purpose and belonging.

And then even to paint a vision for the future.

So a versatility of stories and their effectiveness and really corralling

the team and getting everyone, as I said before, connected to a goal

is really powerful and I love that.

And I'd say from a consumer standpoint, we have to understand that consumers

are human and they all have journeys.

What we need to be careful as marketers is thinking of how we can really seamlessly

insert ourselves into their journey and enhance their stories, be a solution to

the problem, and scratch for an itch.

And help folks to aspire to be their higher selves.

So that's for me where storytelling is really amazing and has a lot of

versatility and variety, and I love to utilize that as a key tool for marketing

and communication with our consumers.

That's awesome.

And where do you see the future of skincare and beauty brands heading

and what role do you envision yourself playing in that future?

a big one.

You are hitting me with some good questions.

[chuckling] I've been in the industry for a while, for fifteen years, in anywhere

between skincare, personal care, beauty.

I think from a product standpoint, what I love is that efficacy and integrity of

your products will continue to win out.

I don't think that will ever fade away.

Consumers are smart.

They've always been smart.

They're more vocal, and they're less patient and tolerant for

anything that's not working.

I've seen over time, and it's probably because, as I said, consumers are more

vocal, we have a social environment where there's a lot of conversations

that, yeah, if you're not delivering on your promise, you might as

well just close your doors, right?

Because a brand is that.

A brand is not just an identity, it's a promise.

And so we have to do that, I think, from a overall communication

and advertising standpoint.

It's interesting to see how big the attention economy has gotten, if you will.

How the influencers, the amazing thing about just the influence marketing

space is that they've infused this ingredient that was probably missing

from, maybe, the celebrity approach, let's say the Madison Ave, old school

approach, which was authenticity.

So they build these huge communities and followings

because they're being authentic.

And I see that being something, whereas folks may have thought that

was a fad, I think that becomes the new influence and driver in markets.

And how we move to that and leverage that partner, again, authentically

with influencers and brands is something that we'll continue

to see moving in the future.

Listen, as long as the consumer is at the heart of everything we do, and

then I see myself always being one to partner with the market and the consumer.

I see myself always being there because, as I said, empathy is a key piece.

And then also consumer centricity is key.

So, we have a fun journey ahead because the consumers are stronger

than they've been before, ever before.

I love that.

Alright, final question for you.

A little birdie told me that you do have a past, a musical past, and

had done some singing in your day.

So my question for you is, if you were to

- Are you gonna me to sing?

[laughing] I dunno...

On our next one.

Maybe on our next one.

If you, were to give your marketing journey a song

title, what would it be called?

That's a, I love that question.

It's not easy, but I love it.

I'd say probably Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

Oh, ooooh!

Nailed it.

There's always, the market's always changing.

From when I started, even before, up until now.

And the rate of speed, as folks say, the rate of culture, the speed

of culture is quickly changing.

There's always a new challenge, but it's fun.

So there really is no mountain high enough in this approach I've been

taking with my marketing journey.

Amazing.

Jerome, thank you so much.

It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today.

Thank you so much, Kate.

This was awesome.

Well, talk soon.

Talk soon.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Frictionless Marketing.

For a complete transcript of this conversation or more information on

/prompt, please visit us at MeetPrompt.co.

If you found this episode insightful, share it with

your connections on LinkedIn.

To learn more about how to make marketing frictionless, purchase Friction

Fatigue by /prompt CEO Paul Dyer, online and at booksellers worldwide.

Frictionless Marketing is a production from /prompt, the

leading earned first creative marketing and communications agency.

Grounded in the present, yet attuned to the future.

Produced and distributed by Simpler Media Productions.