Dominique Touchaud exits P&G after 17 years: 'I don’t want to be another consultant'

Procter & Gamble’s associate brand director Dominique Touchaud has exited the FMCG after 17 years. He (pictured) first joined the campaign as an advertising development manager and worked his way up to overseeing the branding for fabric care segment. He was previously based in Switzerland, and had moved to Singapore in 2013.  In his 17 years with the company, he had led the design and delivery of brand communications from strategy to creative briefing and project management, while also leading the digitalisation of marketing across Asia Pacific. Touchaud brings with him over two decades of experience in marketing and building brand communications. Prior to P&G, he was working with Swatch as the head of advertising. In his role there, he oversaw the creative design and development of communications solutions for Swatch watches and jewels globally. In his early days, Touchaud also had stints in global agencies Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi. 

Stepping away from the corporate world, Touchaud launched his own firm SHOKUNIN that offers marketing as a service for Asia-based brand teams. The company aims to provide branding consulting and training in collaboration with boutique global consultancy THE IDEA BAKERY, as well as part-time CMO services and adtech/martech advisory.

In an exclusive interview with Marketing, Touchaud said marketers in general do not know how to handle adtech and martech. "Marketers and martech-ies speak different languages," he said, and SHOKUNIN aims to build the translation tools and help both worlds collaborate smoothly. There is potential in bringing adtech and martech back to marketing and angle it in such a way that marketers move away from thinking of it in tech terms, he added. According to Touchaud, a lot of companies are open to embracing innovative ways but are also timid. “Everybody wants to innovate but when it comes to evolving into new systems, they are not changing to it," he said. With SHOKUNIN, Touchaud will be targeting SMEs and startups, and will work with the companies as a long term advisor. He added:

I don’t want to be another consultant with no skin in the game.

Specifically eyeing coliving spaces, F&B, retail and fashion brands, he explained that his role will be to step in as a senior marketer and educate these companies about a CMO’s role and required skillsets, as well as the law and structure of marketing. “Startups are realising that they need someone to help with marketing – brand vision, training staff to embrace brand vision, and how to measure success. They all want a CMO or a senior markteter,” Touchaud said. Taking the existing marketing team, he aims to aid these startups in defining their marketing vision. Currently, SHOKUNIN will be set up in Singapore first, but Touchaud has plans to cover the Southeast Asia region. Touchaud spoke at Marketing's Content360 conference last year, sharing his views on getting ahead and cutting through the clutter. To Touchaud, artificial intelligence is becoming the new reality of content marketing.