In the shoes of a CMO
Caroline Baume (Ecotone): “We’re no longer doing 3D marketing, but 5D marketing”

After twenty years at Mondelez International, working on major categories like coffee and global brands like Oreo and Milka, and a stint heading marketing for the Benelux, Caroline Baume has, for the past few months, taken on a new playground: Ecotone, a mission-driven company and European leader in organic food. At the crossroads of plant-based, nutrition and sustainability, she is steering the marketing transformation of a group that openly claims a clear direction: “Food for Biodiversity”. She talks about this transition and the challenges of a role that, in her view, has become a five-dimensional exercise.

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How would you describe Ecotone and your scope as CMO?

CB: Ecotone is a solid mid-sized company: around 1,600 employees, approximately €700 million in revenue, factories, seven European countries and about thirty brands. We’re neither a giant nor a small structure. So we have to carefully balance ambition and resources, innovation and execution, mission and economic performance.

Historically, the group was called Distriborg. Its DNA was very “distribution-led”: identify the right products, rely on committed manufacturers and optimise go-to-market. Strategic marketing has strengthened more recently, especially since 2019, with a category-based organisation and more structured central teams.

My role is to accelerate this step-up, to strengthen the brand vision, while preserving the agility and entrepreneurial culture that are the group’s real strengths.

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What are your three main challenges today as a CMO?

CB: The first is digital transformation. Not in the sense of a blind race for tools, but in the sense of rigorous selection: how do we digitise what truly accelerates us, without scattering resources?

For example, we are developing an internal application, AI Cotone, to create internal marketing tools. If adoption is strong, we keep going; if it doesn’t create value, we move on. You have to know how to test, but also how to stop.

The second challenge is the relationship to work. Expectations have changed: many young people see themselves in very short cycles, sometimes of just one year. We need to give them meaning, early responsibility and tangible skill-building. And above all, avoid the artificial opposition between “young” and “senior” profiles, because ways of thinking are much more blended than people think.

The third challenge is the growing complexity of the job. The parameters are multiplying and evolving very fast: mission, environmental impact, resource constraints, business trade-offs… We’re no longer doing 3D marketing, but 5D marketing. That requires strong intellectual agility to navigate this environment and keep a clear direction.

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How do you anticipate changes in consumer behaviour in such a volatile context?

CB: Today, we have tools that have radically changed the game. Deep-search platforms allow us to spot signals in just a few hours. Marketplaces give immediate visibility on sales dynamics. And our insights team continuously tracks what’s happening in the United States or Asia, which are often ahead of the curve on organic and plant-based.

We’re also experimenting with more innovative formats, such as focus groups conducted with AI-generated personas. This obviously doesn’t replace fieldwork, but it lets us make faster trade-offs, understand reactions and test concepts at lower cost. The difficulty is no longer getting information, but filtering it and executing properly.

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AI is transforming marketing. How are you approaching it internally?

CB: Pragmatically. AI generates both huge expectations and significant concerns. The question for me is not “which technology?”, but “what for?”. We identify specific use cases, test, observe, and move forward when it works. Sometimes it’s wiser to wait.

I had a manager who used to say: “It’s urgent to do nothing.” That still holds true. I don’t recruit based on mastery of a specific tool, but on a mindset. Curiosity, agility, the desire to learn: those are the skills that will last, whatever direction technology takes.

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What do you expect from a marketer today?

CB: I always come back to the same foundations: curiosity, agility and a desire to learn. Without curiosity, you miss weak signals. Without agility, you freeze in a world that is moving very quickly. Without the desire to learn, AI or digital becomes a threat rather than an opportunity.

I also place a lot of value on diverse backgrounds. Experience in associations, entrepreneurship, side steps in other fields – these greatly enrich a marketer’s stance. In a complex environment, such profiles bring a different maturity.

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How do you choose your external partners in a context where every euro has to create value?

CB: You don’t choose an agency name, you choose real expertise and human fit. I work with freelancers on very specialised topics, with small highly creative agencies, and with long-standing partners who have almost become brand companions.

The relationship has to be fluid, demanding and joyful. If we don’t understand each other, if we can’t challenge one another, if we don’t take pleasure in creating together, it doesn’t work.

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How do you balance central and local teams in a pan-European group?

CB: I’ve experienced both sides: local frustrations and central constraints. That gives you a very concrete sense of the pitfalls of both models when they’re applied too rigidly.

I don’t believe in fully centralised or fully local models. In food, cultural specificities are strong and require solid local grounding, but some brands also need consistency to build and grow.

The most effective model is a clear, structuring and genuinely inspiring central team, bringing capabilities and tools, while giving countries enough autonomy to bring brands to life in their markets. When the central team positions itself as a partner that supports and creates value, local teams naturally come to seek its expertise. That’s when the dynamic truly works.

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If you were CEO, what would you ask of your CMO?

CB: Exactly what my CEO asks of me today: to raise marketing capabilities to the highest possible level, and to only run projects that create value. No decorative marketing, no unnecessary complexity. Clarity, impact and clear, accountable choices.

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