20 minutes with

Soraya Cottin Chief Marketing Officer, Whittaker’s

Whittaker’s new chief marketing officer, Soraya Cottin, has always been passionate about marketing and how short stories and pieces of entertainment can deliver value for a brand.

After graduating with her Master’s in Business and Marketing at HEC Paris, Cottin started her career at a creative agency, the first of which was based in London, where she worked for Oreo and TUC (Mondelez) before moving back to France after a couple of years.

Cottin has always had an interest in international brands and the food industry, working with varying clients in numerous markets over the last 14 years, including McDonald’s France and Latin America, Nespresso France, and more recently, DDB Paris, Volkswagen France, and international accounts like Royal Canin (Mars Group) and TAG Heuer (LVMH) to name a few.

“When my partner got the opportunity to return to his hometown, Wellington, and I was given the chance to join Whittaker’s as their new CMO, I thought it was a dream come true.”

With so many years on the agency side, she thought being client-side would be fascinating, with Whittaker’s being an excellent option as a Kiwi-loved, iconic brand.

Cottin said that she loved Whittaker’s focus on quality in the chocolate produced and throughout everything the brand does. With Whittaker’s being voted by consumers as one of New Zealand’s most trusted brands for over a decade, Cottin added that there was much she could learn from Whittaker’s team, and in return, she hoped to bring fresh ideas and an international perspective as Whittaker’s continues to build its brand in export markets, while also continuing to meet the expectations of its loyal Whittaker's chocolate lovers in New Zealand.

Whittaker’s has gained this consumer trust through its passion for being an ethical beans-to-bar company, which manages every step of the chocolate-making process with the finest quality ingredients sourced from New Zealand and globally. Cottin said that this makes Whittaker’s unique as a brand, including that it is also a family-owned business where the family has a shared and collective passion for what they do.

“I have the privilege of working dayto-day alongside siblings Holly and Matt Whittaker, who are Whittaker's co-Chief Operating Officers, and it’s not uncommon to find Andrew and Brian Whittaker out on the factory floor, getting hands-on with the chocolate-making process.”

The most important lesson that Cottin has learned that she would pass on to those looking to enter the marketing world was to listen to, understand, and surprise their customers.

“We need to love them first before they love us back, which requires responsiveness.”

She believes Whittaker’s executes this advice and leads well, reflected in the broad community engagement the brand receives.

The most recent innovation by the brand, the Honey Nougat and Almond block, which arrived on shelves in May, is one of many product innovations the brand has made. Cottin said that this innovation was a continuous process, with more flavours bound for the future, and the brand continued its efforts to improve its sustainability journey, including its ongoing investigative programme to trial new sustainable packaging options.

Whittaker’s takes sustainability seriously, and its values align with Cottin's own, from using Rainforest Alliance-certified cocoa beans for all of its chocolate made with Ghanaian cocoa beans to refusing to use palm oil. Cottin said that the brand tries to source its ingredients locally from New Zealand wherever possible and its revitalisation of the Samoan cocoa industry through its Cocoa Improvement Programme set up nearly a decade ago.

Currently, 76.9 percent of Whitter’s packaging materials can be recycled, and Whittaker’s has already completed over 100 sustainable packaging trials as part of its programme to get to 100 percent.

When discussing consumer behaviour, Cottin said that she thought more people were becoming aware of the consequences of their purchasing decisions, understanding that they aren’t just buying the product, they are also buying what makes the product, how it is made, by who, and beyond.

Moving forward in the industry, sustainable packaging is one of the industry’s most significant challenges; with the appearance of numerous obvious solutions available in this space, Cottin explained that delving deeper into the issue revealed that the proper infrastructure wasn’t in place in New Zealand to process certain materials, with a second consideration being that packaging also needs to perform in the factory and on the shelf without compromising food safety and quality. This is why Whittaker’s has continued its investigation into and testing a wide range of options for packaging, as it’s essential to the brand that the packaging both looks good and will be good in reality, long-term.

Cottins favourite flavour is Whittaker’s Ghana Peppermint, with herbal tea at night. However, her favourite is often mood dependent, with Almond Gold being another that she enjoys for its feel-good factor. n