Reckitt's Becky Verano Reveals her Pride for the brand's Marketing

When Becky Verano began her career in marketing, the now global VP of creativity and capabilities at Reckitt Benckiser (RB) admits she didn’t even know what the discipline was. 28 years later, she’s one of the marketing chiefs of a world-leading consumer goods company.

The business, which produces Durex, Vanish and Dettol among many others, has recently announced its plans to sell off non-core brands in its homecare and infant-formula businesses as it scales back to focus on its power brands, likely resulting in a new marketing strategy being initiated.

An eclectic beginning

Verano's entry into the world of business began with Mars' fast-track graduate scheme, where she gained diverse experience across several roles - from working as a factory engineer in the pet food division to handling procurement as a cardboard buyer. She explored various facets of the business before eventually trying her hand at marketing with the team in Switzerland. Reflecting on her journey, Verano admits that that role in marketing captured her interest and set her on her current path.

Her subsequent marketing experience within Mars would include running Pedigree’s presence at the revered dog show Crufts, an experience she describes as “a world of its own”, and leading cat food brand Whiskers across Europe, which made her more passionate about consumer-facing work.

“It was an interesting start, but that got me passionate about marketing and the impact that you can have. It's probably the heart of most organisations as well, and so the most exciting part of our business,” she believes, laughing as she reminisces.

And while it was tough working shifts in the pet food factory, it's where she learned how products worked and about the constraints and changes there. It also gave her a good insight into procurement and an understanding of supply chain demand.

It also sharpened her business acumen, Verano claims, making her a better marketer who could come up with creative ideas while also responding to consumer insights.

“If you can't land it practically in store, especially in the FMCG world, you really are not going to be successful as a marketeer, as far as I'm concerned,” she adds.

Having joined RB in 2007, that wide range of experience would help her when eventually she stepped up to become the general manager of the business in Spain 10 years later. She would then become the global VP of marketing for disinfectant Dettol when moving back to the UK in 2019, just before the global pandemic made it a lifesaving brand that would see record demand in protecting consumers against infections.

Working on a life-saving brand

Verano sees the work produced during the pandemic for Dettol as being the highlight of her career to date, describing it as “a humbling time” considering how important her job became during that period.

That work began almost immediately when the virus began to appear across British shores in March of 2020, with the release of a public health information campaign by Dettol and Lysol which assessed and evaluated claims related to Covid 19. It aimed to relay World Health Organisation (WHO) messaging while also attempting to correct misinformation, challenge misperceptions and debunk common myths around how the virus spread, with communications centred on a specially developed website.

The sanitiser saw sales surge around the world with RB admitting at one stage that it was struggling to keep shelves stocked in parts of the UK and US. It was, Verano says, “intense”.

The brand and its retained agency McCann World Group and Wunderman Thompson (now VML) produced local information campaigns for regions around the world.

“It wasn't necessarily about marketing, because we had so much trust in the brand. It was about getting products into people's hands to save lives. It literally was that. And I think the agility that we as a business had to show it to get the products out there and to deal with the various challenges that everyone was facing was the most difficult year of my career… I am really proud, really, really proud of, of what the brand did and what it stood for.”

Verano’s role now is to oversee the creative agencies and setting the creative agenda for RB, she explains.

Katie Edwards, global business lead for McCann London, says that Verano's work has been "integral" in transforming Reckitt's approach to creativity.

"She’s helped upskill hundreds of impressive marketers across the world who lead the charge on Reckitt’s health, hygiene and nutrition brands, and in the spirit of innovation, Becky is continuing to pioneer the use of data and technology across marketing as well as developing new agile ways of working," adds Edwards. "She’s helped to create a global culture of impactful creativity that’ has inclusion and diversity at its core. She supports the agencies to create bold creativity that makes a tangible impact to the business and in culture."

Driving societal change

Another piece of work she is proud to see produced by the UK team in recent years has been the Channel 4 Diversity in Advertising award-winning campaign for Vanish which aimed to help audiences better understand autism.

'Me, My Autism and I' was released in 2023 to huge acclaim, focusing on the everyday life of a teenage girl and the highs and lows she experiences at home and in school and her visceral relationship with her favourite hoodie.

“I saw the storyboard for this and I started crying in the office. I never do that, but it just really hit home, I think, on so many levels,” she reveals. “As a parent, in particular, as a consumer, it was a creative that I just thought 'everyone knows someone who either has autism, or some element of neurodiversity…'. The subtle way in which we managed to position a stain removal brand in such an important conversation, and it was done so delicately, which was really important, that then garnered those business results, it was just pretty stunning.”

As well as the success from a sales perspective, category growth and brand awareness, Verano underlines that societal and behavioural change and impact were also considered as part of the business success evaluation.

“That's what the role of this advertising was, to create a conversation around a category that's under-penetrated versus laundry as a whole.”