It takes timeless vision, strong ambition to build long-lasting brands — Cadbury Marketing Lead

Morolake Emokpaire is the Marketing Lead of Cadbury Nigeria Plc. Morolake, who assumed office in 2021 and loves, lives, and breathes marketing, is taking the 60-year-old resilient Cadbury Nigeria to greater heights. In this interview, Morolake, whose principle is to grow the next generation of marketing leaders, said her purpose is to create brands that are timeless and bigger. Daniel Obi brings the excerpts.

Cadbury Nigeria recently clocked 60 years; kindly take us through this milestone from a brand perspective.

Hearing the word ’60’ literally gives me joy because it speaks to so many things. It speaks to stability and resilience. A 60-year-old man or woman in our culture has entered the League of Elders. They are also the custodian of culture and a custodian of wisdom and tradition.

For us at Cadbury Nigeria Plc, it is beyond just the group of brands. We have been a part of Nigerian families across generations. Our brands hold stories. I have heard consumers tell me that the first time they encountered a TomTom brand was from their grandmother’s handbag.

Just last month, I met a lady who mentioned to me that Cadbury Nigeria actually supported her through school, through a corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme in the 80s, when students of indigent parents were supported with our products’ lunch packs.

“Your SWOT analysis helps you identify key things to do over the next three to five years. You then build strong plans that you constantly review or track to see where you have shifted. You execute and you track, and then you put control measures in place to check.”

Today, those students are mums, and they hold those memories about our brands.

Another thing that is very critical to point out is the fact that our journey is also synonymous with trust. Wherever you see the Cadbury logo, you know you can trust the brand. When you also hear the word ‘Cadbury’, the first word that comes to mind is ‘legacy’. The legacy of snacks that are here to delight you and beverages that sustain you during the morning – and we have seen this across products, across brands and across people.

I hear some people say that Cadbury Nigeria, and especially its Bournvita brand, are considered elitist brands. Do you agree?
In brand-building, we tend to be aspirational. Aspirational in the sense that we give consumers something to look up to, but we are also quite accessible. This year, we were in the Southeastern states for the August Women’s Forum, going into the grassroots to give the women a taste of the product, rejoicing with them, and sitting as they deliberated on the future of their communities. So, I don’t agree with the word ‘elitist’. We reflect what we aspire to be. Maintaining accessibility is critical through our consumer engagements. During holidays, we partner with mums to keep their children active through Bournvita Tech Boot Camp. Also, there is a size of Bournvita for every pocket.

Do you worry about competition in the Nigerian market?

It is not about worrying about competition, but if you do not get competition, you will fall into the trap of complacency. I wouldn’t use the word ‘worry’ as much as our competition reminds us of the challenges that we still need to surmount or overcome. But we are quite confident in our strengths across the brands. We are confident in the support we have from our investors and our parent company, which is Mondelez International.

We are also quite confident in the legacies that our brands have left and the handholding that is going across one generation to another. As we are relevant to the Baby Boomers, we have solid programmes and initiatives with the Millennials.

You would see some of our brands reaching out to the Gen Zers. We have products that are also reaching out to the Alphas. That is where our strength lies—the ability to stay relevant to whatever generation of Nigerians, and even West Africans—and that is where we draw a lot of our confidence from as well.

What has kept TomTom so enduring and lasting for over 50 years in the Nigerian market?
It is basically an inspirational essence. TomTom leverages its ability to inspire Nigerians to breathe better. For instance, if you had to sing, you would need TomTom to clear your throat and to refresh your breath. It does not stop there; the functionality of breathing is rational.

When you tell people to breathe, it is asking them to push through their challenges. We are asking them to take a pause and take a deep breath. When you are faced with challenges, when you are faced with tension, you need to breathe, have confidence, refocus and then go ahead to take on that challenge again. We have partnered with you to breathe and to inspire you.

As CMO of a multinational organisation, what does it take to build a lasting brand?

It starts with a timeless vision. A strong ambition that is even larger than the brand itself. For instance, TomTom’s purpose is to inspire Nigerians to breathe better. It looks like just simple words, but it literally guides everything we do on the brand. Brand-building has critical touch points—analysing the market, the competition, and your SWOT analysis. Your SWOT analysis helps you identify key things to do over the next three to five years. You then build strong plans that you constantly review or track to see where you have shifted. You execute and you track, and then you put control measures in place to check.

The brand vision itself has to be timeless. It guides the pillars of building an ideal product mix, from your product formulation to your pricing, to the distribution, to communication, and across the critical parts of building strategy up until execution. But you must start with a compelling vision.

Read also: Cadbury Nigeria records 205% growth in H1 2025 profit

Government agencies are coming up with policies that affect marketing. To what extent have some policies influenced the market-based strategy of companies?

We appreciate our regulators. They help ensure sanity within the system, but not without some discomforts. For instance, taxation directly affects a lot of our strategies and our budgets.

You would see that over the past couple of years, the price of packaged goods has been on the rise because organisations are in business to make profits. A lot of pressures eventually get passed down to the consumers. You have seen some multinationals exit the country in the last five years. For those of us who remain committed, we are under pressure to continue to do it sustainably. High taxation also limits the amount we can spend to excite and delight the consumers.

There is increasing scrutiny on nutrition communication as well, involving sugar content and other ingredients. With that, it forces us to be more discriminatory in how we build our products.

A lot of our ingredients are quite expensive. Sometimes, we have to take the hits on our margins, which then affects what we are also able to do. We are looking forward to continued collaboration with our regulatory bodies and partners to see how many of these initiatives could be done in transition, or if there could also be relief.

There is a policy against foreign models in Nigerian brand communication. Do you see that as punitive?

I am very passionate about Africa. I think that a united Africa and an empowered Africa position us to be a global force. I am passionate about using our brands to showcase our culture, using our brands to showcase our people, and using our brands to tell the story of Nigeria and Africa to the world. We use local models to drive our brand communication.

Many brands are adopting influencers in marketing. What role does influencer marketing play in shifting perception about brands and driving sales?

They do create a halo effect or positive association with the brands. But I must also call out the need to exercise caution in the identification and the deployment of influencers because a couple of them have gone awry. When choosing influencers for us in Mondelēz, the first thing that we look for is the brand fit. The ability of that influencer to embody the ambition of the brand and to humanise the brand.

When we are looking for an influencer, we ask ourselves: if TomTom were a human being, would this individual fit? Is this individual able to humanise the brand? The second question is also looking at the ethical considerations or the ethical influence of that influencer.
For each of our brands, when we break out our brand story, we look for individuals who can help us tell that story vividly and reach their own follower base.

Would you consider AI adoption in marketing as a disruption or an opportunity?

It is an opportunity because most successful brands today will need to understand how to leverage AI and traditional marketing to have the ability to blend. AI enables us to deliver hyper-personalisation. We can deliver tailored content to scale. The algorithm helps us to learn user behaviour and understand preferences at a rapid rate. What traditional marketing helps do is to deliver that warmth and the understanding and the context of culture that AI cannot replicate.

The government has come up with a ‘Nigeria First policy’. How would that help in driving local consumption and help Cadbury Nigeria?

One of the things Mondelez is committed to is that we say ‘local first’ but not ‘local only’. In terms of our strategy and product direction and innovation, it is always local first. In terms of content, a lot of flexibility has been given to generate campaigns of content based on local insight. So, localisation is a big deal for Cadbury Nigeria.