‘Desire at Scale’ with Unilever’s CMO Leandro Barreto

Chances are, one of the 400 household brands today’s guest oversees is sitting somewhere in your home right now. Maybe it’s Dove in the shower, Vaseline in the drawer, or Hellmann’s mayo in the fridge. Leandro Barreto is the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Unilever, a nearly 100-year-old company behind brands used by billions of people around the world. From the award-winning “Vaseline Verified” campaign to creator-led marketing strategies and partnerships with Arsenal Football Club, this episode of Frontier CMO unpacks what it’s like to be a CMO leading through an AI transformation aimed at building “desire at scale.” Want to know what the future of marketing actually looks like inside one of the biggest consumer brands in the world? This one’s for you. 00:00 Can AI Create Human Insight? 01:01 Meet Unilever’s Global CMO 03:00 The Power of Purpose-Led Brands 05:00 Why Creativity Is Still Human 07:00 The Vaseline Love Story 09:00 Marketing’s Evolution at Unilever 11:00 Dove and Cultural Relevance 13:00 How Unilever Tracks Culture 15:45 The Vaseline Verified Phenomenon 19:30 Social Commerce & New Growth 20:00 The Biggest Brand Mistake 22:00 AI and the Future of Marketing 26:00 Big Ideas + Content at Scale 27:45 Leading AI Transformation 29:00 Signal vs. Noise 31:30 Three Marketing Lessons to Remember