Unilevers second-most senior global marketer Marc Mathieu is leaving the company to join Samsung.
Former Coca-Cola and Danone marketer Mathieu joined Unilever in 2011, and was a key architect behind its Crafting brands for life strategy to build sustainable global brands.
Reporting to the FMCG firms chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed, senior vice president of global marketing Mathieu was also a driving force behind the Unilever Foundry, an initiative through which the company could identify marketing technology start-ups.
According to Ad Age, Mathieu is expected to join Samsung as chief marketing officer for its US mobile division, replacing Todd Pendleton, who left earlier this year.
A Unilever spokesperson told M&M Global: [Mathieu] will be leaving Unilever to join Samsung. We thank him for his achievements here and wish him all the best in his new role.
Speaking to M&M Global earlier this year, Mathieu said a new approach was needed to ensure brands retain relevance with consumers.
In a world where the medium is the message, and the message is the medium, we are creating a much closer relationship between creative teams and media, and bringing channel planning earlier into the process, he said.
The reality is that the marketing model we have built using pervasive media and a captive audience completely ready for advertising has fundamentally changed. We need to move to letting people pull our brands into their lives in a way that is on their terms.
