Unilever

M. Scott Whitson

Ryu Yokoi

Associate Brand Manager for Hellmann's Mayonnaise, North America

As an associate brand manager for Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, Ryu Yokoi is trying to make mayonnaise “less vanilla and more real” in consumers’ minds. Yokoi says he tracks ads like others watch sports, and is constantly trying to learn how to make Unilever’s products better in the minds of consumers—which often involves relating to and understanding their diverse backgrounds.

How did you first become interested in Unilever?
I had been doing marketing for bulldozers before I got my MBA, and the work I was doing was interesting, but business to business, and I wanted to do more consumer-facing work. I could make the best ad for bulldozers ever, but I wasn’t going to change the way they market bulldozers. I did research to see where the kind of work I wanted to do could make a difference, and I found that Unilever’s marketing approach was different from what competitors were doing.

What was a fun project you’ve done with a brand?
When I first joined Unilever, I got to lead a campaign called “Sprays in the City,” an animated cartoon soap opera about spray margarine for I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! In our soap opera, everything in the fridge was vying for the attention of the spray margarine. I was involved in everything from writing scripts and producing the films, to coming up with TV and print ads and deciding what channels and magazines they’d run on. Perez Hilton played a gossip blogging pear called “Pearz,” and we had voices from Tim Gunn, Fabio, and Mark McGrath. It was amazing—and it worked: The campaign was one of the most profitable I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! ever ran. It was my first project out of business school and I had a blast.

What role do you play in making your company diverse?
I’m half Colombian and half Japanese and my cultural background has come in handy. I do a lot of work on our advertising for Hellmann’s, and this year I was able to step up and lead development of Hellmann’s Hispanic campaign. My background was helpful in terms of understanding the culture, needs of the consumer, and the language. We sell to all kinds of people, so we need to understand who they are.

Can you share an experience when diversity had an impact on your day-to-day work?
I took my boss, who’s Jewish, to the Asian Business Unit’s Chinese New Year party, but I didn’t tell her what it was. At first, she was shocked, but ended up having the best time. We all had to go around and answer the question, “What does the Chinese New Year mean to you?” and I could tell she was uncomfortable answering.

How did it turn out?
She gave the most meaningful answer in the room! She told us how for her it meant learning about the culture through her son’s eyes. Her son was learning about Chinese New Year in pre-school that week and knew more about it than she did. She was really proud of her son’s outlook because he was so open-minded and interested in other cultures. People were so moved because it put what we were doing in a broader context and that’s the point of diversity—everyone should be open to learning about and sharing experiences.