JUDIE LANNON: From your standpoint as head of Unilever's hugely important home and personal care brands, how would you describe the main issues in managing these brands?

All diageo's marketers are put through the Diageo Way of Building Brands (DWBB).

Some 14 years ago, the agency I worked at – it laboured then under the unwieldy name of BMP DDB Needham Worldwide – was invited to pitch for the Barclaycard account.

If you are the kind of marketer who leads your business in its strategic thinking, owns the relationship with the customer, controls the brand(s) and manages the portfolio, then you are probably not working in a technology company.

It is an incontrovertible fact that people want and need famous people and brands. We have looked for role models who can help us achieve what we want since the beginning of time.

Marketing Expenditure is growing faster than ever before, fuelled by corporate growth objectives that seek to launch new products, reach new customers, penetrate new channels and expand into new geographies. Marketing is a $450 billion industry.

In large brand-led organisations there is typically significant tension between the finance and marketing departments.

JUDIE LANNON: There have been a number of wide-ranging changes in the payment business over the last few years. In your opinion, what have been the most important? JEREMY NICHOLDS:

Pressed for measures, it is sales and cost trends, numbers of qualified staff and so on that are usually the first to be wheeled in by the marketing function.

In marketing, the world is always 'new and improved'.