In this edition of Marketer of the Week, Ignite Visibility spotlights Carolyn Dawkins, Global Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President of Clinique.
Ignite Visibility applauds Carolyn Dawkins for her long and successful career in the world of marketing for high-end brands known around the world.
Meet Carolyn Dawkins
Every once in a while, a digital marketer will shake up the industry. Carolyn Dawkins is one of those great minds.
Dawkins entered the marketing world after earning her Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing and Information Technology from the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia in 2001.
Immediately after graduation, she accepted a position as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble. This company would be one of the many that would benefit from her knowledge and out-of-the-box thinking.
Dawkins’ Impressive Resume
Following her over three-year run with Procter & Gamble, Dawkins moved on to the Kellogg Company. Here she worked in Marketing Innovation for Nutritious Snacks and Kid’s Cereal.
It wasn’t long before Dawkins received an opportunity to move from Australia to New York to work as a Senior Manager of Marketing for Coty, a popular fragrance and cosmetics company.
After almost a year, she decided it was time to move on to L’Oreal. In her 6 years here, she climbed the corporate ladder quickly. Starting in October of 2008 as a Senior Marketing Manager for Global Marketing, Dawkins worked her way through Assistant Vice President positions for Essie and Maybelline New York. When she said goodbye to L’Oreal in October of 2014, she was the Vice President of Marketing for Maybelline New York.
After working for the tech giant, Google, and a pharmaceutical company, GSK, she found herself back where she truly wanted to be: at a beauty company. This time, it was the luxury brand Clinique.
Dawkins’ Achievement at Clinique
Dawkins started her tenure at Clinique as a Senior Vice President of Consumer Engagement, Data Analytics, and Online.
One of her biggest projects in this role was a partnership between Clinique and Meta, the social media giant formerly known as Facebook. In the case study, it states that Dawkins and her team changed their marketing from product-inspired campaigns to people-inspired ones.
Using dynamic ads on Facebook, Dawkins and her marketing team facilitated a 5.2-point lift in action intent with its desired demographic. Even though Estée Lauder and Clinique are both household names associated with luxury, Dawkins wanted to put a new face to their name by making them more people-centered brands.
Through this partnership and adjustments to their content marketing strategy, Clinique could reach a whole new audience and learn how to better serve their existing ones.
It wasn’t long after this successful case study that Dawkins was promoted to Global Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President at Clinique.
With New Roles Come New Responsibilities
It should come as no surprise that Dawkins is absolutely crushing it in her new role as GCMO/SVP at Clinique.
She was recently interviewed by Adweek for their CMO Moves Podcast. She was quoted as saying, “The world is in perpetual motion and we must invent the things of tomorrow. So I think about that every day as an SVP. Am I being brave enough to see what’s on the horizon, and am I instilling a team to act with audacity?”
Dawkins strives to position Clinique as a brand rooted in tradition and legacy while also being at the forefront of industry innovation. With her behind the wheel, the cosmetic brand was one of the first to launch an NFT or leverage groundbreaking social media platforms like TikTok for their marketing. Under Dawkins’ direction, they are also one of the few beauty brands to react to rapid shifts in consumer behaviors with social-first responses.
Metaverse Like Us
A large majority of Dawkins’ success can be attributed to her hunger to be the best while improving the world in the process. Her new ad campaign for Clinique accomplishes just that.
In ‘Metaverse Like Us’, Dawkins and her team were struck by this fact: only 20% of Metaverse users and creators are women. They also found out that avatars of color and special needs are even less valued.
Dawkins set out to change this. Her team was able to create a campaign that showcased women of all shapes, sizes, races, and abilities. The campaign was successful, grabbing the attention of both the Metaverse’s users and popular publications, such as Vogue Business. With Dawkins’ help and understanding that representation matters, the Metaverse is now more diverse and inclusive.
Carolyn Dawkins Will Continue to Make Waves
Vogue Business and AdWeek weren’t the only popular publications to take notice of Dawkins’ genius. Forbes did, too.
Just this year, Dawkins was named to the 2022 Entrepreneurial CMO List. This list contains the best and brightest in the marketing world. Because of her dedication to protecting an iconic brand while creating the shifts and changes necessary to keep up with the current trends, Dawkins has cemented herself as one of the brightest marketing minds in the industry.
If there is any sure-fire thing about Dawkins, it’s that she will continue to make a splash wherever she goes. She has successfully changed the beauty industry’s view on marketing and will continue to bring in new and exciting ideas. With her in the game, the beauty industry will become less product-focused and more people-focused.
Carolyn Dawkins is truly one of a kind. Her ability to think first and accelerate innovations will keep her and Clinique at the forefront of the beauty marketing industry. We are excited to see what Dawkins does next.
