Tamara Rogers

101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior

Tamara Rogers, Global Chief Marketing Officer/Consumer Healthcare Executive, formerly GSK, now Haleon.

Tamara Rogers is the Global CMO for Haleon (formerly known as GSK Consumer Healthcare). At Haleon, she manages the creation of marketing plans, strategic portfolio management, product development, and branding for the global categories of oral health, wellness, pain relief, respiratory, and therapeutic skin products.

Ms. Rogers was at Unilever for 25 years, where her last role was EVP of Personal Care North America. In this role, she helped create and build brands with a purpose like Love Beauty & Planet, Dove, Axe, Tresemme, and Vaseline.

Tamara is English. Born in Africa (Zambia), she has gathered experience working in both developed and developing markets and considers herself a global citizen. In addition to driving growth, Tamara has a proven track record of building high-performing and diverse teams.

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“As marketers, we're often at the forefront of change, whether it's driving change within our organizations to embrace the new and the different externally.”

— TAMARA ROGERS, GLOBAL CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER/CONSUMER HEALTHCARE EXECUTIVE, FORMERLY GSK, NOW HALEON.

Uli Reese: Tell me about your background and career at GSK? 

Tamara Rogers: When I was a kid, my dream was to be a doctor, but I managed to get myself run over, and after that, seven years of medical school sounded like my whole life, so I turned my place down. I somewhat fell into advertising with a direct marketing agency and loved it but was advised to get experience on the client side. So I joined Unilever and was there for 25 years. I worked predominantly in personal care on brands such as Dove and Tresemme. By the time I became EVP of Personal Care in North America, I wanted to get back to my original dream, and get into health. I got a call from GSK and went from marketing into a general manager position. I ran the EMEA region and later became Chief Marketing Officer. Then it was announced that the consumer business would separate from the GSK business, and in July 2022, we created a new consumer healthcare business called Haleon.' Everything from how we selected the name, to the development of the visual identity, to the sound of the new corporate identity has taken us on a really exciting journey. Our purpose is to deliver 'better everyday health with humanity.

Reese: Tell us more about the brand-building process at GSK.

Tamara: The GSK consumer business has always had solid brand-building skills. That includes the power of the science behind the brands because, obviously, these are brands that address health issues – their functionality is critical. We work with MassiveMusic, and they’ve helped us create a sonic identity for pretty much all of our biggest brands. We have nine power brands, which drive 80% of our growth. Each of these power brands has its own sound and identity. In terms of process, we have something called a ‘brand heart.' The purpose of this 'brand heart’ is to articulate on one page the positioning and purpose of the brand. For example, Theraflu is fighting for a flu-safe world. The brand manager isn't necessarily an expert in music, but they know their brand and bring together a cross-functional team. The Massive team then produces an original soundtrack. The ad agency is usually involved too, and we all listen for what we think brings the brand to life. For example, the Panadol brand is gentle but tough, and there’s a moment of release when you go from suffering a headache to feeling better, so sound is designed around that moment of release. We used this process when we created Haleon.

Reese: Do the corporate brand and the nine power brands share the same DNA?

Tamara: Part of the brief for Haleon was that we were creating something new, almost like a start-up, but drawn from the strengths of our own identity. There's something that a consumer can feel about the brands - an atmospheric glue is the best way to describe it. When I was at Unilever, I observed that if you bought one of the brands, you'd be likely to purchase something else from the rest of the portfolio, and the same is true for GSK Consumer Healthcare. That comes from the corporate identity and its culture, so as we set out to create Haleon, we wanted to draw on our strengths as a company. Sonically, we wanted something that felt human, bold, modern, and innovative. At center stage is a vocal melody with acoustic and digital instrumentation that has a human touch to it. It moves you. During the process, there were two finalists; one felt comfortable and obvious, and the other had an edge to it. All of us, even our CEO, initially felt comfortable with the first, but then we all gravitated to the one where the edge had a unique identity.

Reese: Can you delve further into the decision-making process?

Tamara: Having the bravery to recognize when something is on brand and is a little bit fresh or sometimes provocative – but not polarizing – can incite an emotional reaction. As with the visual identity, we had a very small group that was fully immersed in where Haleon was developing sonically. There were only five of us, with only 2 of us, me and Dana Bolden, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, leading it. We brought in the CEO at key decision points. As for Massive, when you've got magic in a relationship, there’s trust. I've never written a piece of music, so I had to trust them as they described how this music created mood and emotion. They put into words how I and others were feeling.

Reese: CMOs have an average tenure of between 18 and 24 months, so how do you protect sonic brand capital within the company?

Tamara: Firstly, part of our philosophy is that we want everybody at the company to feel like they've got their fingerprints on the creation of Haleon. We shared the track with them and invited them to record themselves singing so that we could integrate their voices into the sound. We had over 250 submissions. Then Massive took these voices and blended them together. Secondly, at GSK, a heart shape would come up at the end of an ad, and you'd hear a 'boom-boom' heartbeat sound, so we had the discipline and were used to having a branded sonic for our communications. Thus, we engineered the Haleon sound for each of the Power Brands so that you could seamlessly go from the brand sound into the Haleon sound. Thirdly, we have in-house production, which gives us control of our assets, and we can add the Haleon sound to all of our communications.

Reese: How can we get to something we own, like James Bond, and still continue to build sonic brand capital?

Tamara: Your go-to should be to own your brand’s sonic experience, but there's nothing wrong with “borrowing” to trigger memories and up your engagement by being relevant to your audience. The 2022 Voltarol ad is a great example; it uses the 1967 Bee Gees track, To Love Somebody. Highly memorable for the target audience. But also very expensive! In a fragmented world, brands have to cut through, and sometimes, using a more famous artist or piece of music is powerful. In our case, as we think about health and how consumers want and need help with everyday health, we must consider how we show up, whether it's in a chatbot or voice-assisted instructions. When you hear the sound of a healthcare brand, you really need to incite a sense of trust, comfort, authority, and reassurance.

Reese: Consumers want dependability, predictability, and safety from a health care brand. Does that play into the process when choosing a sonic identity?  

Tamara: We've started to test this. We’ve had to think about the voice of Panadol, and our team in Australia realized that new mums aren’t hands-free; you're holding a child, you're trying to use a syringe to measure a dose of Panadol, and so they realized, that a voice search would be amazing. We recorded answers for the most pressing questions like teething issues, and the team worked on how that voice should show up. It’s a great example of conveying trust in voice.

Reese: What thoughts would you leave us with regarding the future of sonic?

Tamara:

As marketers, we're often at the forefront of change, whether it's driving change within our organizations or embracing the new and the different externally.

We're still going through how we can influence things like safety and security in a digital world. It’s another example of where brands are trailblazing and need to help set the guidelines and rules in this space. As brands head into the unknown, it’s important that we help each other out by sharing best practices. We need to find ways of creating protection for things that are original and innovative.

Note: The interview took place in London, UK on the 9th June 2022.

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