J&J Taps Coca-Cola Veteran Alison Lewis as Consumer CMO

Alison Lewis, Coca-Cola's head marketer in North America, is heading to Johnson & Johnson as the first-ever global chief marketing officer of its consumer companies, reporting to Worldwide Chairman Lynn Pendergrass, another outsider who recently came to a unit long headed by J&J veterans.

At J&J, Lewis takes on a global role in which the consumer unit accounted for more than $750 million of the company's $887 million in measured media in the U.S. alone last year, per Kantar Media.

Lewis doesn't replace J&J's top global corporate marketers -VP Global Corporate Affairs Michael Sneed and Worldwide VP Global Marketing Group Kim Kadlec. They continue in their roles overseeing corporate marketing efforts, which include J&J's pharmaceutical and medical device businesses, which are much bigger than the consumer group but also spend far less on advertising. Globally, J&J spent $2.3 billion in advertising across its divisions last year.

The hiring of Lewis is the latest in a series of moves that has brought three new female executives from outside to oversee the consumer companies. Ms. Pendergrass, a former Hewlett-Packard executive, was named worldwide chairman of J&J's consumer segment in August, replacing Jesse Wu, a longtime J&J executive who became chairman of J&J China. She in turn reports to Sandra Peterson, group worldwide chairman, who came to J&J in December from Bayer.

"We're looking to catalyze our global growth strategy for our consumer business and the CMO role, and Alison in that role, will allow us to better anticipate our consumers' needs and look for solutions," said J&J spokeswoman Sandra Pound.

Lewis's developed a reputation as a champion of bringing digital and social media into the mix, addressing those issues at a digital marketing event last year at Procter & Gamble Co., now a rival, and in a presentation at last year's Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing event. On her watch, Coke has had such Super Bowl campaigns as last year's Polar Bowl and this year's choose-your-own adventure series of ads.

"All marketers are dealing with the reality of digital marketing being an important part of their overall marketing mix," Lewis said. "It's obviously a significant time of change, with your smart phone or tablet starting to become that first screen."

But she said it's become the age of "and," where it's "television and social and how do you make those things work together, where it's consumer and shopper marketing, driving brand health and taking that all the way down to the shelf for purchase, investing in your brand and delivering return on investment at the same time."

She's been with Coca-Cola more than 18 years, formerly heading the Odwalla unit, where she managed around 800 employees. She's also been senior VP-commercial and franchise operations, head of integrated marketing, VP-marketing of Canada and senior brand manager for Diet Coke. She began her career with six years in brand management roles at Kraft Foods in Canada.

"Opportunities like this don't come around very often," Lewis said of her decision to move from Coca-Cola to J&J, which she said "has amazing iconic brands, a commitment to innovation and growth and openness to change."

Source: AdAge