Ahead of Marketer of the Future, Unilever’s Duygu Ersoy and fellow speakers on how marketing stops defending its spend and starts shaping growth.
Duygu Ersoy started her career in finance and is now General Manager Homecare at Unilever, a move she says has raised her expectations of marketing. Her advice to marketers walking into a room with the CEO and CFO is blunt: “If marketing comes to the table asking for budget, it is already positioning itself as a cost.”
It’s a challenge that runs through the conversations ahead of this year’s Marketer of the Future forum, where speakers from brands, research and media were asked a question every CMO in the region knows well: how does marketing get treated as a growth engine rather than a line item?
Come with a thesis, not a request
For Ersoy, the shift starts before the meeting. Instead of a budget ask, marketers should bring a growth thesis: where the next growth will come from, which consumer opportunity the business is missing and what value capturing it would create. Moving into a GM role has raised her expectations. “I don’t just want marketers who understand and execute the business strategy. I want marketers who challenge and shape it.”
She also wants the region to stop treating short-term sales and long-term brand building as a choice. Marketing here, she argues, has drifted towards promotions and immediate performance, and AI will only strengthen that pull. “AI will make us much better at optimizing what works today. But will we be equally ambitious about building what will matter tomorrow?”
The numbers finance believes
A growth thesis still needs proof, and Leela Nair, Managing Director, EMEA-APAC at Ebiquity, says marketing’s evidence often falls short. Only 15% of senior leaders say effectiveness is the primary driver of how their media budgets are set, according to a WFA and Ebiquity survey, though leading organizations expect that to reverse within three years.
Part of the problem is what gets counted. “Low cost per click or per thousand impressions says little about commercial contribution,” Nair says. Her answer is a measurement system with agreed metrics, a named owner for every decision and findings translated into the language of finance. “The test is simple: your measurement system works when the CFO quotes your numbers back to you in the budget review.”
Growth in the people others miss
Ali Hanan, Founder and Global Executive Director at Creative Equals, says one of the most overlooked growth levers is who marketers are actually designing for. Her advice is succinct: “Drop the idea of the ‘average consumer’.” In a market as varied as the UAE, she says, “averages can hide enormous differences in needs, aspirations and behaviors.”
The commercial case is hard to ignore. A study of 392 brands in 58 countries by the Unstereotype Alliance and Oxford’s Said Business School found progressive advertising delivered 16% higher long-term sales, 1.52 times the pricing power and 1.29 times the loyalty. “Inclusion is a growth strategy,” Hanan says.
Athanas Jamo, Chief Client Director at Ipsos, sees regional consumers raising the bar too. “Consumers across MENA are increasingly connected, informed and demanding,” he says. They expect brands to understand their needs and respect their culture, and keeping pace alone won’t cut it. “Being fast is important, but being relevant matters more.”
Brand building still pays
Sholto Douglas-Home, Chief Sales, Marketing annd Communications Officer at Expo City Dubai, offers a reminder of what long-term thinking looks like. Destination marketing, he says, “is about building a long-term narrative that evokes human connection and a sense of community,” while product marketing tends to lead with features and performance.
Ersoy argues the same holds in the most functional categories. Laundry detergent removes stains, but “behind those stains are deeply human experiences — children exploring, families caring, people living their lives.” That thinking became Dirt Is Good. “We turned a functional problem into a powerful human belief,” she says.
Earning the seat
The marketers who win the budget conversation bring three things: a clear view of where growth will come from, numbers finance trusts and a sharper eye for the customers competitors overlook. As Ersoy puts it: “Marketing earns its seat at the leadership table not by defending its budget, but by shaping the business’s growth agenda.”
(These ideas will be explored further at Marketer of the Future, taking place on October 29th. Communicate is media partner for Marketer of the Future, because when the industry gets together to figure out what’s next, we like to have a front-row seat and a notebook. Here is why we are part of the discussion HERE.)
