Maria Fernanda Albuquerque participated in the videocast series ‘The new marketing manual: great CMOs in Brazil’; see the interview in full
How to stay current and relevant in the market after 60 years? With a landscape of trends that changes at the speed of a feed update, keeping an eye out is a fundamental essence for a well-done marketing job with good purchase conversion.
On this topic, the last episode of the videocast series ‘The new marketing manual: great CMOs in Brazil’ hosted Maria Fernanda Albuquerque, Havaianas’ marketing director.
The program was presented by Carolina Vilela, journalist for PROPMARK, and the founder and CEO of Zmes, Marcelo Tripoli.
The CMO of the Brazilian brand talked about the growth of e-commerce in these two years of pandemic and how the brand has been doing to stay current for consumers. In addition, Maf also highlighted the importance of humor and the use of digital influencers in Havaianas pieces.
We grew almost 20% in revenue in the last year. Over the course of the pandemic, in some European countries, e-commerce has more than doubled in size and, today, it represents for us, in the world, one of the strongest channels in terms of sales.
With the digitization of the world, brands needed to allocate part of their funds to online. According to Maf, currently 50% of Havaianas’ media budget is totally directed to the virtual world and, outside Brazil, this percentage rises to 85%.
For Tripoli, this is a trend that should remain in the market. Fashion brands have learned to create good experiences and, today, the number 1 category in Brazilian fashion e-commerce. There was a change with the maturation of e-commerce itself. I think Havaianas represents this new moment.
The Zmes founder also highlighted the change in companies’ view of marketing and the importance of having measurement data so that companies can feel the results in product sales.
Marketing is usually a real expense for the company’s CFOs and CEOs, so much so that it’s common to start the year with X budget and end with half X budget. cost of sales, and if you take that money away, the sale goes down, it changes the game. Those in marketing have always understood that investing in a brand generates sales, but for those who are not in this area, they need to have a more direct measurement mechanism. With digital it is possible, he added.
Another point raised during the conversation was the way in which Havaianas uses Brazilian humor to show other countries the essence of the country. As a global brand, CMO explained that one of the company’s main jobs is to show the real Brazil, beyond stereotypes, by appropriating market trends.
For me, one of the main values of the brand’s DNA is precisely to have been born in Brazil. We were born and raised here, so the brand takes to the world everything that Brazilians carry. Havaianas brings freedom of spirit to people. The important thing here is not to stereotype, to take the value and essence of the brand. In addition, he will always be open to understand what is the moment in the world, what is relevant and how to adapt. For me, attachment is in the essence and DNA of the brand, added Maf.
All episodes of the series ‘The new marketing manual: Brazil’s great CMOs’ are available on PROPMARK’s YouTube and Spotify channels.
