Speaking on the sort of grim winter day that obliges you to apologise to recently arrived foreign nationals, Babs Rangaiah, Unilever's global communications planning director, concisely explains his role at the FMCG giant.
Just as Unilever's stated mission is 'to add vitality to life', Rangaiah's is, since his arrival at Unilever's Blackfriars head office this summer, to add vitality to the group's media strategies in a changing market.
"The point of this job is to infuse media sensibilities into the creative development process," he says, quickly settling into his stride. "Most of the global brands here create their campaigns centrally, and historically that has meant a 30-second ad. However, we need to find more engaging ways to think about the channels."
The accepted wisdom has it that FMCG giants don't spend much money on digital and it is, to a certain degree, true. But the example of Unilever, and particularly its US work under Rangaiah, shows that the picture is no longer quite such a straightforward one.
Award-winner
Arguably Unilever's best-known digital campaign, and one that won a Cyber Lion at Cannes in 2007, is Dove Evolution, a $50,000 (£31,700) ad that left a big footprint.
"It was cheap," says Rangaiah. "But with the combination of the PR, its value was estimated at $200 million (£127.2m)."
In spite of such economical projects, recent years have seen Unilever's US digital spend rise from between 2 and 3 per cent of its overall marketing budget to around 15 per cent, and Rangaiah has taken his global role to spearhead a similar process worldwide.
"It doesn't happen overnight," he says. "It took a few years in the US to drive that cultural shift, but the management is really pushing it, which helps, and I think the company is going to make progress in this area over the next three to five years."
Rangaiah is not quite a digital zealot, having moved into online in late 1990s New York, with the aim of bringing traditional skills to an evolving channel. He previously spent seven years in above-the-line planning at DMB&B.
During a career that has taken him from traditional to evolving media channels, and latterly from the US to the UK, the main area of focus for Rangaiah has been FMCG. At DMB&B, he worked largely on the Procter & Gamble business and spent three years at Agency.com US before heading to Unilever in 2002.
His current title, he points out, refers to communications, not digital, and he is convincingly media-neutral in his outlook.
"The real shift is about moving away from interruption and towards engagement," he says. "We are all about the masses and scale, and interruption is becoming a much tougher proposition. So we have this term: 'penetrate the culture'. It's about getting into what people are interested in, what they are engaged in."
In the US, the variety of innovative campaigns during Rangaiah's tenure as director of media and entertainment was striking. These included a series of webisodes for beauty brand Suave, based on housewives' own stories, and a user-generated content competition for Dove, the winner of which was broadcast during the Academy Awards.
In both cases, while digital was a key element, a more important factor was the clever combination of digital interactivity and the popularity of TV.
"Create a website and tell people to make up their own ad - now who is going to do that? But say 'create this ad and we'll put it on the Academy Awards' and it's no longer an ad, it's content."
In any given territory, the right answer for any particular Unilever brand, from Persil to PG Tips, might not be digital, Rangaiah says. It could be placement in a film or on TV, or some form of content creation, a campaign site or a wiki.
"It so happens that so much of what consumers are doing now is in the digital space," he says. "At the moment, it is still PC-based, but it might be interactive TV or it might be a mobile device."
Choosing the moment
Rangaiah suggests that the long-awaited arrival of mobile in the mainstream marketing arsenal may prove to be the moment large-scale FMCG advertisers have been waiting for. At any rate, he has a ready analogy which points to his belief in the potential of the channel.
"In the 1920s, David Sarnoff at RCA (Radio Corporation of America) had a big problem getting radios to sell," he says. "In those days, it was just this big box that broadcast the news, but he had the idea that they should broadcast a Jack Dempsey fight. His bosses' response was 'no-one is going to want to listen to this', but they finally relented. The week before, radio sales started trickling up, and after that it changed radio."
Mobile, Rangaiah argues, needs that injection of insight to transform it into something more than consumers can already see. "We are in that situation with social media, too, where we can see what it is, but we can't necessarily see how to market within it," he says.
You sense that Rangaiah has it in mind to try to change the face of mass consumer marketing, and before you can suggest it, he says as much.
"Somebody - and hopefully it is going to be us - is going to be creative enough to think about these channels in a way that is going to break through," he says. "And hopefully, we will make history the way they did with radio."
Reality
2008 to date: Global communications planning director, Unilever
2008: Director of media and entertainment, Unilever US
2002: Vice-president, media director, Agency.com US
1998-1999: Executive at DMB&B's interactive arm, Blue Marble
1991-1998: Junior media planner to vice-president of media, DMB&B, New
York
Virtual reality
- How do you relax?
"I'm very involved in coaching my children's sports. In the US, I was their Little League coach. I did a newsletter with video and photos - very multimedia."
- What are you listening to?
"These days, I'm listening to my kids' pop stuff. I spent the whole of yesterday listening to High School Musical. That's become my life."