Dr. Patrick Riedemann – BSH Hausgeräte

Fostering sustainable brand growth requires a blend of strategic insight, cultural awareness, and data-driven decision-making. At the forefront of this challenge at BSH is Patrick Riedemann, Head of Consumer and Market Intelligence within the Corporate Marketing division. From his corporate perspective, Patrick provides a holistic view of market and consumer intelligence, ensuring that BSH’s strategies align across regions and brands, adapting to local market nuances. In this interview, Patrick sheds light on BSH’s key growth drivers, its ‘eclectic’ marketing strategies, and the evolving role of AI, outlining a forward-thinking, adaptable path for BSH’s brand growth.

Defining Brand Growth At BSH

At BSH, brand growth is carefully defined and measured through two core insight sources: Market Share and Brand Health. The two key elements for sustainable growth are maintaining a strong, evolving product portfolio and ensuring brand communication is top of mind with consumers. Hence, Unaided Awareness and First Choice are indicators that guide the company’s strategy for achieving long-term sustainable growth by tracking market positioning and brand resonance among consumers. “These are essentially what drives growth. That’s why we mainly focus on Brand Health, analysing how the brand sticks in people’s minds over time,” Patrick says.

BSH’s approach to brand growth combines traditional and modern marketing philosophies, drawing on thinkers like Byron Sharp, with mental availability, and more classical marketing theorists like Philip Kotler, with market segmentation and positioning, and including short-term approaches like optimising the digital brand journey. As Patrick calls it, this ‘eclectic’ mix allows BSH to adapt its strategies, balancing proven fundamentals with innovative approaches to brand positioning. “I think it still makes sense to think about brand positioning in the traditional way, but of course, as a brand, you also need to look at how broadly you reach people rather than being overly narrow in focus.”

He highlights that in the end, it always comes down to validating the approach, showing that it works in practice and then scaling it further. “Once you reach that point, discussions about frameworks and approaches become less relevant; what matters is the outcome. You need solutions that lead to good outcomes and behaviours that drive success. That’s what counts. ”

‘’Market positioning and brand resonance is essentially what drives growth. That’s why we mainly focus on Brand Health, analysing what sticks in people’s minds over time.”

Navigating Data-Driven Marketing in a Global Organisation

BSH faces both opportunities and challenges in building a data-driven culture across its global organisation. Patrick realises that data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is still somewhat of a buzzword for some within BSH, and data is sometimes used more to confirm a viewpoint rather than to make genuinely data-driven decisions. “Ideally, it should be about learning from data to make better decisions by taking a different viewpoint based on empirical data,” Patrick shares.

Cultural differences also play a role for DDDM; while the company is structured by regions, changes often happen at the country level, with countries like the UK and the Netherlands showing a stronger focus on empirical approaches through their cultural tradition. Other cultures may rely more on intuition. “At local level, personal business decisions play a bigger role. Local leaders may decide to invest heavily in data-driven approaches if they see them as valuable,” Patrick says. This cultural diversity shapes how BSH customises its strategies, reflecting the unique dynamics of each market.

As of today, DDDM plays the most significant role in journey and touchpoint management, especially within digital journeys, where data ties things together. “Data is traditionally more entrenched in short-term, performance-based marketing, so that’s where it’s most heavily utilised and embedded.” However, BSH is working on making data-driven marketing more comprehensive, rather than applied only to specific areas. “Different teams have different data needs. Bringing all of this together in a way that’s accessible and makes sense, even for those who might not have a background in a particular data source, isn’t trivial.”

Therefore, integrating data from multiple sources remains a top priority, requiring collaboration across departments to achieve a unified view of insights. The company’s data lake acts as a central repository, however, but creating a shared understanding of data across teams and regions remains complex. “The real challenge is building a shared understanding of how to link and use data meaningfully in decision-making. It’s not easy, especially when people don’t understand the origin or purpose of a data set.”

“The real challenge is building a shared understanding of how to link and use the data meaningfully in decision-making.”

The Role of AI and Future Trends in Marketing Innovation

AI plays an increasingly central role in BSH’s marketing and data-driven strategies, helping streamline content production and enhance efficiency in campaign management. While AI offers numerous benefits, Patrick is mindful of the risks of over-reliance on technology without human oversight. “I think AI has huge potential to enhance data-driven decisions and make working with data much easier. However, there’s also a risk of over-reliance on AI, where one may end up trusting it without fully understanding or being able to verify or falsify  its outputs.”

Although Patrick shares that he feels a bit threatened by AI, he still believes that human creativity and insight will remain essential. “Striking a balance between AI-driven insights and human intuition will be essential to leveraging AI’s potential while ensuring thoughtful decision-making.” AI is already widely used within BSH for tasks like content production, where the company has achieved substantial gains in efficiency, with faster development, iteration, and cost-effectiveness.

Looking to the future, BSH envisions a marketing landscape that combines AI and data innovation with creativity and flexibility. As Patrick describes, BSH’s commitment to “eclectic curiosity” ensures they remain open to new trends while grounded in a practical approach to brand growth.

“Striking a balance between AI-driven insights and human intuition will be essential in leveraging AI’s potential while ensuring thoughtful decision-making.”