At HUL, Abhinav Ravikumar has been named chief marketing officer for personal care and separate CMOs will be hired for home care and food, according to people familiar with the matter. Leandro Barreto, currently CMO for beauty and wellbeing, has been promoted to corporate CMO at Unilever, retaining his role in the business group.
The move is aimed at tightening the brand’s business alignment, speeding up marketing decisions and execution in the highly competitive Indian FMCG market. HUL, the Indian unit of Unilever, has seen sluggish sales growth over the past two years as inflationary pressures, weak demand and a slew of niche online brands eat into its dominance across the personal care and household segments.
While HUL has long been seen as a scale-driven marketer, the company is undergoing a significant shift in marketing, which is increasingly important for India as digital adoption accelerates.
“Under the new CEO, the company has renewed its focus on consumers, with the role of chief marketing officer gaining importance as media moves beyond traditional channels. For HUL, sharper brand differentiation, higher investment in marketing and R&D are key differentiators,” said Abneesh Roy, managing director at brokerage Nuvama Institutional Equities.
Moving away from traditional broadcast-heavy models towards social-first marketing, the company is investing in product marketing supported by influencer verification. “The shift is likely Unilever’s push to sharpen regional decision-making, with India’s massive and mature market emerging as a key example of marketing being driven locally, not centrally,” said a former Unilever executive.
Priya Nair took over as HUL’s first CEO on August 1 and as part of the leadership reshuffle, the company also brought in new leaders from top domestic companies including Britannia to run its grocery business and Hero MotoCorp as CFO.
“The bold transformation of our brands is essential as India is transforming and consumers in India are changing what they are looking for,” Nair said during his visit to investors last quarter, adding that the overhaul will include everything from packaging and marketing to the expansion of new products at higher prices.
“It’s not enough to just have a higher brand value. You have to have brands that consumers really want. Today we have almost 400 million Gen Z consumers in India. And these consumers are really driving change and transformation in India. So when we reimagine brands, we need them to be more modern and youthful,” she added.
The nation’s largest consumer goods firm also sees three distinct cohorts driving the 60-80 million-strong upper echelon of spending power at the top: premiums in the middle and Democrats at the base of the pyramid.
At a JP Morgan fireside chat in London last month, Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez said India remained central to Unilever’s medium-term growth ambitions alongside the US, even after a period of slower consumption driven by high food inflation and tax pressures. While he said there has been a resurgence in consumer demand, he also hinted at a change in how the company markets its brands.
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