VP of corporate communications is the first Brazilian woman to occupy a seat on the company’s global communications board
Having been at Bayer for just over three years, Malu Weber has been making significant changes to give more relevance to the company’s corporate communications area in addition to medicines and agricultural chemicals. According to her, the main challenge is having an integrated team and how to build a single voice, respecting different accents.
These different accents could be the different businesses, it could be the different countries or the different moments that the business is going through, exemplifies the vice president of corporate communications at Bayer in Brazil.
A journalist by training, Malu is also the first Brazilian to occupy a seat on the company’s global communications board. I understand that this invitation was very driven by the company’s global ESG and diversity commitments, she explains, modestly.
Do you take care of all of Bayer’s corporate communications?
Today we have a communications vice-presidency, for which I am responsible in Brazil. We have four main areas: a communications department focused on business; a communications leader for pharma; a consumer leader and an integrated communications leader. The objective is to look not only at the institutional part of the brand, but also at how to integrate so as not to have cannibalism between the areas themselves. It’s a complex universe, there are three big businesses. In Brazil, agriculture represents more than 90% of the business, but we have an important pharma and consumer operation.
How is the Bayer brand positioned in the market today?
Our global positioning Health for all, hunger for none. Bayer is a German company with 127 years of existence. In Brazil and Latin America, we still use Se Bayer, well. We did research on the slogan, which recently turned 100 years old and is one of the oldest in Brazilian advertising. And it is very well accepted here, because it reflects quality and trust. These are two attributes that Bayer wants to increasingly reinforce.
At some point in history, the slogan If Bayer, good stopped being used?
What happened is that, when the brand completed 125 years of operation in Brazil, in 2021, we also used Se Bayer, well. You and Bayer, well, in honor of everyone who helped build the brand’s history. Ipsos carried out a survey that showed that Voc e Bayer, well, interestingly, brings a responsibility that, often, the public does not want. I never imagined this, for me it was a tribute. So, we just continue with Se Bayer, good.
Who created this slogan?
It was created by the poet Bastos Tigre during the Modern Art Week, in 1922.
What is your involvement with the company’s marketing?
Generally, the vice-presidency of corporate communications carries out training with the company’s professionals so that, regardless of the brand that the spokesperson is representing, they have brand unity, because at the end of the day, everything is Bayer. Therefore, it is important to have an integrated corporate communications team to achieve this alignment and understanding internally.
And what are the main challenges to having integrated communication?
The main challenge is how to build a single voice, respecting different accents. These different accents could be the different businesses, it could be the different countries or the different times that the business is going through. This is how to strengthen the Bayer brand, but also promote its products, taking into account the complexity of the various businesses. My challenge when I arrived was how to evolve the meaning of success for the area of communication. And we also changed the way we operate. I also ended up being invited to sit on the global communications board and this had never happened before. It is the first time that a Brazilian woman sits on a global communications council at Bayer. And corporate communication in Brazil ended up being a benchmark in management style and also in projects. Before, success was how much we increased the brand’s presence in the media. Today, we have to understand what brings value to the organization and, at the same time, that we are responding to a need in society. We establish different metrics, because it is no longer about quantity, but quality. Data helps us to say, both in internal and external communication, that a certain communication, for example, is not the most important. Within this context, our objective is to humanize care. And humanize in the sense of how you build trusting relationships. And not in the technical area, which is almost like a commodity. how to build a relationship with the team. One of the ideas was to give a voice to Bayer influencers, who are professionals who have speaking skills and like to position themselves more on social media. So, the idea was to prepare them to be the company’s spokespersons, both internally and externally.
Read the full interview in the November 27, 2023 edition
