Ciara Dilley: ‘We Irish are good negotiators, we’re good at collaborative work, and at influencing’

Marketing expert Ciara Dilley is vice president of transform brands at Frito-Lay North America, a $13 billion convenience foods business unit which is part of PepsiCo.

It’s a huge job and not one she could have predicted when starting out in her career, not least because she studied law.

The Dundalk native studied at Trinity but pretty quickly after graduation decided a legal career wasn’t for her, so she applied to get on a marketing programme for graduates at drinks giant Diageo instead.

Despite one enormous obstacle – “I had no idea what marketing was” – she aced the interview.

“I was friends with two of Diageo’s student reps in college and they coached me for it,” she explains.

She spent six years with the company, a marketing training ground that stands to her still. “I think it’s the best brand marketing company in the world. I still use tools I learned there today.”

After working on brands such as Guinness, Smithwick’s and Smirnoff, she left for Campbell’s Soup at a pivotal moment in its history, just prior to its acquisition by Premier Foods UK, whose board she joined.

Her experience in business acquisitions and integrations made her a great fit for Kellogg’s, which was setting up a European HQ in Dublin. She was charged with setting up its innovation centre.

“It was lots of work with R&D teams and I loved it,” she says.

I think Irish people work in a collaborative, informal, and hugely supportive way

The job required extensive international travel, working with local teams to develop global brands while at the same time being open to local culture and nuances. She credits her Irishness for those skills.

“We Irish are good negotiators, we’re good at collaborative work, and at influencing,” she says.

Her work today reflects that. At meetings where there are competing creative interests at play, “I’ll always say we are more alike than we are different, so let’s start with that. Again I think that’s my Irishness coming through. We come from a small country, with limited resources, which was fortunate to receive support from the EU. We appreciate that coming together is better for everybody. The joke around here is that I’m like the UN,” she laughs.

The wrong approach can stymie creativity.

“With creatives it’s not a ‘them and us’ situation. It’s about working together to create something magical. I think Irish people work in a collaborative, informal, and hugely supportive way. We are much more about building people up than about critiquing people down,” she says.

Dilley joined PepsiCo in 2015, moving first to New York five and half years ago, and then to Dallas, where she lives now. She is responsible for brands such as Stacy’s Pita Chips, Red Rock Deli and Off the Eaten Path.

“I look after the ‘better choice’ snacks, to help Americans to snack a little smarter. We have some beautiful products in the range that I’m very proud of,” says Dilley, whose brands generate annual sales of around $1.5 billion.

Her early ability to forge a career in marketing with some of the best-known brands in the world from Dublin reflects a particular facet of the creative industries here.

Ireland’s influence

“We’re very fortunate to have all these major companies with global brands who are based in Ireland. It means we get massive experience working at that level without having to leave the country,” she explains.

PepsiCo, which established its global beverage team in Dublin two years ago, is a case in point.

Dilley chose to move to America because, while she had extensive experience working in global markets, she hadn’t had direct US market experience, and wanted it.

Her role today gives her scope to be innovative, and her portfolio has seen tremendous growth as a result of a variety of marketing tools, from creative campaigns to packaging innovation and new product development.

She keeps a close eye on the advertising activities of brands she admires, such as Guinness. Her favourite is the campaign featuring the Congolese Society of Ambianceurs and Elegant Persons (SAPE), or sapeurs. “I have a really soft spot for all the work Guinness does globally, especially that one, where the men work hard by day and dress up to be free and flamboyant at night,” she explains.

For brands in the new world that emerges from this, it is all about how can our offering be angled to the new context

“I also love the work An Post does seasonally, and what Fáilte Ireland’s campaigns are doing at the moment to entice people to come back and experience our country again. I think Irish creatives do a wonderful job, particularly in relation to emotive territory. The emotional connection Irish creatives can build with consumers is second to none. I was watching some of Aer Lingus’ old work recently and actually had tears in my eyes,” she laughs.

Now, as the world tries to pull through the crisis of Covid, the kind of emotionally charged connections that Irish creatives excel in are more valuable to brands than ever, she reckons.

The fact that remote working has moved mainstream provides brands the world over with greater ability than ever to tap into Ireland’s creative strengths.

“The opportunities are huge,” says Dilley.

“For brands in the new world that emerges from this, it is all about how can our offering be angled to the new context. It’s about our ability to tap into people’s emotional side, to unite, to touch hearts, to forge the kind of connections we’ve missed,” she adds. “That’s what Irish creativity is known for.”

Ireland: where Creative is Native is an IAPI initiative to promote Ireland as a Centre of Excellence for the commercial creativity industry.

Ireland is a country where being creative is second nature; world-renowned for its writers, artists, poets, musicians and all-round change-makers. These talents spill into the commercial creative world of advertising, design and communications.

IAPI believe that the time has never been more opportune for the sector to grow their international reach.  For brand owners looking to launch into the European market, Ireland is now a viable and agile alternative, aside from being the only English-speaking country left in the EU.

No longer do brand marketers seek creative expertise abroad as they know they can work with the global best, right here in Ireland.  Domestic and International brands such as An Post, AIB, Vodafone, SuperValu, Allianz, Nissan, Lidl, Jameson, Diageo and Toyota and many others are creating world beating communications using Irish creative and media agencies.

Discover IAPI’s Creative is Native initiative - www.creativeisnative.com