The Pioneer interview with...Michael Inpong

Michael started his career at P&G and L’Oreal before moving to the C-suite of Nestle and Müller. Most recently as the former CMO and strategy director for Müller, Michael led ground-breaking partnerships in sport with organisations such as Team GB, the NBA and British Athletics and talents including Dina Asher-Smith, Katarina Johnson-Thompson and Hannah Cockroft. In recognition of this he recently picked up the Marketing Week Masters award in consumer goods.

Michael is now the managing director of Sport&Brands a brand strategy consultancy in sport, a company he co-founded. Sport is a big professional and personal passion for Michael - who got offered a football contract at 17, became national karate champion in his 30’s and is now a recently qualified athletics coach.

What does being a ‘Customer Pioneer’ mean to you?

Being a Customer Pioneer is knowing the customer so well that you can lead the way for him or her. You fulfil needs they have but couldn’t fully express. You happily fight for their cause, even when others don’t see what you’re seeing. You accept to sometimes be lonely and attacked on behalf of the cause you lead for your consumers.

When we started the relationship between Muller and British Athletics in 2015 and then put on TV strong female athlete role models (KJT, Dina Asher-Smith, Hannah Cockroft), it was customer pioneering. Pioneering female empowerment and diversity in a very traditional yogurt market.

When did you first realise that pioneering on behalf of customers was the route to success?

I vividly recall, as a graduate, watching a focus group where a few colleagues of mine started laughing at an unusual habit a consumer expressed about the product. It shocked me. I think that was when I first realised how important respecting consumers was to me. What they do, think about our products and brands is the reality - not what marketers write in slides. In the end the consumers are the only ones we serve.

How do you know when you’re on to ‘a pioneering’ idea’?

You can see it in the consumers eyes, they’re smiling. They don’t have to say anything at all, you just know you’ve made them happy in some way. It’s also likely that some people won’t like it, pioneering ideas are initially polarising - they create a pole of traditionalist and a pole early adopters. It is ok - it is probably a good sign.

What does it take to be a successful ‘Customer Pioneer’?

It’s about being an expert in the consumer and the company. You need to have one half of you rooted in the interest of the company and the other in the interests of the consumer. It’s not about one against the other, it’s about looking at and deeply understanding the overlap between the two – that’s where the lasting success comes from.

How to do you tackle individuals who are less convinced by a ‘customer-led’ approach?

I’ve seen it time and time again: the tension between “Product is king" and “Consumer is boss”. It’s a tried and tested battle in the FMCG world. The winning companies in the long term are those who believe the consumer is the boss. To convince people that “consumer is boss”, it often comes down to human stories that you can at least imagine, ideally feel. Bringing to life data, facts into real stories of real people and their needs in their life is a very convincing way to make the point for being customer-led

Which organisation do you think is leading the way for customer pioneers at the moment?

I’m really impressed with the NBA – they’ve been pioneers in the world of sport for decades. They profoundly understood their consumers and went against the status quo for them. When they first started offering direct to consumer content everyone said they were mad, said they’d lose their TV rights but now everyone is doing it. If you’re a pioneer, later in the journey you should expect to be copied - which is the signal to look for the next pioneering idea.

What one piece of advice would you give to anyone starting out or struggling on the customer pioneer path?

Truly, deeply, and frequently immerse yourselves in consumers lives. I have vivid and career-changing memories of all of the deep-consumer immersions I have done in my career. From the spending the day with a mum in croydon, to cleaning the kitchen of a pub, to getting people active in the athletics activation zone, to running a shop for a day or to learning how to style hair in a salon, all those experiences have exponentially shaped my career.