Build your brand,
find your voice
and do that from day one
This week we go Up-Close with Boukje Taphoorn, Chief Marketing and Sustainability Officer at bol.com.
Boukje is a pioneering marketeer with experience across the tech, commerce, and media sectors. During her career, she has held positions with Unilever, Wieden + Kennedy, Google and now bol.com. In this interview, Boukje discusses the importance of employee wellbeing during times of economic struggle as well as the changes she has seen in the role of marketing during her career.
What is your career highlight to date? How has this influenced you as a leader?
I get asked this question a lot and my honest answer is that there is not just one highlight, but rather the highlight is the fact that I have done such different things and always chosen my next step to be something where I thought I could both learn a lot and contribute a lot too. From brand marketing at Unilever, to more creative storytelling at Wieden+Kennedy, and then digital full funnel marketing at Google, all have set me up for my current CMO role with all its broad aspects because my prior experiences were all so varied.
“the highlight is the fact that I have done such different things and always chosen my next step to be something where I thought I could both learn a lot and contribute a lot too”
How do you think the role of a marketing leader has changed during your career?
I believe that marketing has simultaneously become easier and more complex. There are more channels, the attention span of consumers is shorter. Things really do change, and they are changing very fast, so these components have made it more complex to understand your customers. However, I also think it has become a lot easier, mostly because it is so much easier to measure nowadays. In my FMCG days, we would send out a crew of market researchers and you would have to wait for weeks, if not months, to get a report back.
Now, you get instant feedback from different channels that are very measurable. This is especially true online - the tangible impact online marketing has on driving business growth is more measurable and more transparent. As such, the role of marketing has become ever more important and visible as a commercial growth lever for a business. Traditionally, a company would have sales and marketing operating separately but in eCommerce, marketing is actually driving sales as the traffic comes from marketing activities.
What really cool trends have you see in your function in the last twelve months (new channels/ways of shopping; tools; measurements, etc)?
One that everyone is talking about now is Artificial Intelligence (AI). Whilst AI has been around for much longer, also within marketing, the arrival of ChatGPT (and every student doing their homework via ChatGPT) all of a sudden made AI and all it can do really tangible and real for everybody. If I open LinkedIn now, all I see are posts around how marketers can use ChatGPT to improve their efficiency, so I think it is going to have a huge impact. We can now automate all the manual work that is not making the big difference, leaving more time to be spent being creative and truly innovating.
Secondly, the focus of big brands and big companies on sustainability has become a huge agenda topic for every board, and rightfully so. It is making the role of a marketeer more interesting because on the one hand you need to clearly explain to your customers what you are doing to keep the world healthy, and on the other hand you are always two steps away from greenwashing. As such, you need to find a really good balance between explaining your effort and ambitions, and being transparent on what you haven’t achieved yet.
Firstly, AI is obviously accelerating through the arrival of ChatGPT. As a result, I believe a clearer distinction between automation and creative thinking can be established. Secondly, I am very curious to see the Web 3.0 promise develop and what its impact will be. However, I will steer clear from making any predictions about that because it is so complex. I am sure it will play a big role but in what shape or form that will be I think it is still too early to say.
What does the future of marketing look like in 2025 and beyond?
“I am very curious to see the Web 3.0 promise develop and what its impact will be”
The War-Time CMO – How has the current economic and market context impacted your strategy?
In a way it has not impacted our strategy that much as we are still aiming to win the hearts of our customers by offering the most convenient and reliable experience. To do that, we take time to really understand the needs of our customers and of our selling partners and those needs have really changed. So, it is not so much a change in strategy, but rather what we offer to achieve that strategy that has changed in line with the shift in our customers’ needs. For example, in eCommerce, you can categorise your assortment by traditional categories such as electronics, fashion, etc., but we made a new category called ‘smart saving’ in response to rising inflation and energy costs, and it included every product that will keep you warm at home with a range of items from blankets to energy saving radiators and energy saving thermostats. In addition, over the Christmas holiday we created a ‘buy only one’ category which consisted of products of exceptional quality that will last you over a lifetime and therefore save customers over the long term. We have pushed ourselves to think differently about what our customers need right now while still offering the most reliable and most convenient place for them to shop.
“the role of marketing has become ever more important as a commercial growth lever for a business.”
What would be your advice for CMOs leading through economic challenges for the first time?
Expanding on my previous answer, I think you really need to focus on your customer needs and pivot your offering or your proposition according to their evolving needs. Secondly – and I think this often gets overlooked – it is vital to really think about the wellbeing of the people that you work with because they are also in an economic crisis. That sort of situation can put a lot of strain on people’s lives and their families, and I think you must look out for people and make sure that everyone is healthy and happy and do your utmost to help them in that respect.
“it is vital to really think about the wellbeing of the people that you work with because they are also in an economic crisis ”
“I find it a wasted opportunity when big online players only invest in performance marketing”
At what stage do you believe a business needs to switch from acquisition-focused activity to heavier investment in brand?
I am a bit biased because of my background, but I would say there is no ‘switch’, instead you must start with both. You must build your brand, find your voice, and explain what your role is in your customers’ lives, and you have to do that from day one. You need to focus on telling your story and making sure that new customers are coming in and understand your proposition in parallel to the performance marketing activity that drives the daily trading and traffic of those customers.
I find it a wasted opportunity when big online players only invest in performance marketing. Only recently I read an article on Airbnb about how they discovered the value of brand building through the pandemic, and how they have rebalanced their spend between brand and performance marketing; I believe that to be a very smart move. Of course, you can rely on only buying traffic, but you will make your brand very vulnerable to a new player in the market if you are not able to build through a brand story, or relationship or have an impact on your consumer.
How do you strike the right balance between acquisition activity and brand building on an ongoing basis?
Technically speaking, we do that through a lot of measurement. We use media mixed modelling, so we have a good view on the ROIs of all the different channels and we also measure the more traditional brand metrics. For example, if we see consideration going up, then we can choose to balance a bit more towards performance; it is a daily optimisation game. To do that successfully, we have put brand and performance marketing in the same team. There is one Director in my team who is responsible for brand and performance marketing and that has really helped because this silo has immediately been broken down, thus reducing internal debates around conflicting priorities. So, through all the measuring that we do, we try to make an ongoing assessment of where we get the best results for our daily marketing investments.
Do you believe both can be measured in similar ways?
I think they are different goals, and they can both be measured to see how successful you are in reaching those goals, but you really have to think about the goals in themselves. As just one example, take display advertising. If you look at the conversion alone for display you typically get quite poor results. However, perhaps you need to look at display differently - as the outdoor poster on the worldwide web - and once you look at it differently, you measure it differently and then perhaps see that you actually get good results. So, you have to think about ‘what is the role of each channel and each investment that I do’, and then you measure that activity according to that goal. From there, you can have very firm measurements on all of your marketing activity, whether brand or performance.
“perhaps you need to look at display differently - as the outdoor poster on the worldwide web - and once you look at it differently, you measure it differently and then perhaps see that you actually get good results”
How do you keep up to date on the latest marketing practices, tools, tech, channels?
For me, there are a couple of go-to places I refer to:
All the newsletters, LinkedIn posts and other snippets of short-hand information that come and go and get you thinking about certain subjects, which in turn prompts you to read deeper about certain topics of interest.
At a more organised level, our partners like Google, Meta and Dept (our agency) do a really good job on keeping me and the team up to date on the latest technology developments.
However, what helps me most is having two sons aged seventeen and nineteen. I always joke that I am so much more in touch with what is happening with the younger generation than perhaps my colleagues who have a three-year-old, because of my teenage kids. This really helps me because this generation is a very important target audience, and they are always five steps ahead of us when it comes to discovering new technologies and new media platforms. Additionally, I think it is fun to have these conversations at home, so most credit goes to my boys!
