Alessandra Cama – Zertus

Alessandra Cama is the Group CEO for Zertus GmbH. The Zertus Group is an international group of companies operating in the food sector with seven independently operating subsidiaries that produce and market high-quality foods.

Main ingredients for growth

According to Alessandra, Zertus’ main KPIs for brand growth are innovation, communication, branding, and distinctive high-quality products. “Our main KPIs are brand preference, innovation rate and penetration. Innovation is our number 1 driver for growth. Up until now, we have mainly focused on the innovation of products, but we are now also looking towards packaging.”

“Consistent communication is more important than continuous creativity.”

The role of creative

Alessandra shares that creation is very broad. “I connect creativity with a unique business idea. Someone with a crazy idea and business concept that works. In advertising, a consistent communication theme is more important than continuous communication creativity. The most important thing is to engage the people showing the role and purpose of the brand in their daily lives. The creative interpretation is the icing on the cake, but the key thing is to ensure that the brand core has a long-term perspective. The brand creativity does not come alone from communication. Unique product innovation has a very important role in a continuous renewal of the brand world.”

The creative process

Zertus looks towards a couple of different sources when it comes to finding inspiration for creatives. Alessandra: “First, I think of where my growth opportunities lie. What sort of problem do I have? From that, the first idea is born. I talk to a lot of different people, go on social media such as Instagram and look at everything revolving around the theme, and whether the idea has a chance of survival. Then I share it with people within the organisation and with consumers. Next to that, we work with external consultants to gather inspiration and ideas. We prefer to work with new consultancy start-ups that have fresh and new ideas. Trend-scouting and strategic consultancy are needed more than market research.”

Alessandra explains that Zertus uses research in a few stages of their development process. “In the idea generation phase, we gather inspiration through an external network of experts, use consumer focus groups to test the first idea and use storytelling. When the concept is ready, we also put it through the test. When it comes to testing creatives, the most important criteria for us are customer perception and sales success. In the future we’ll also be introducing research when testing ideas and the evaluation of campaigns.”

“The partnership you have with a creative agency should resemble the same as that of a marriage.”

The rise and fall of creatives

Alessandra: “For a creative to be successful it’s essential to have a high-quality briefing. Specified with lots of insights inspiring the creative people within the company. It’s also important to build persona’s and define your targets in order to inspire them to create the best creative possible. Afterwards, it’s of course important to measure the right KPIs. An example of a company that creates successful creations in my eyes is Nike. The social role they play as a brand and the way they bring their message across in a natural and touching, yet incredibly cool way is really inspiring.”

“The biggest pitfall in creative development is an inadequate briefing. But the partnership you have with an agency is just as important. When the partnership isn’t working, the agency isn’t functioning properly, it can have a huge impact on the outcome. The harmony you have with an agency, that partnership, should resemble the same as that of a marriage.”