Vitaminwater marketer Rohan Oza was visiting his sister in Chicago late last summer when his BlackBerry buzzed. | Rohan Oza
Age: 36
Title: Senior vice president, marketing
Company: Glacéau
Education: B.S., operations management, Nottingham University; MBA, University of Michigan, 1997
Family: Single
Career: Manufacturing manager, M&M Mars, 1992-95; joined Coca-Cola as a brand manager in 1997; joined Glacéau in 2002 as senior vice president of marketing.
Last vacation: Zambia
Last book read: “The Twentieth Wife,” by Indu Sundaresan
Last movie seen: “There Will Be Blood”
What’s on your iPod? Bhangra, hip-hop and country
Pet peeves: Lack of passion and corporate bureaucracy
Greatest achievement: Building an amazing marketing team at Glacéau
Greatest disappointment: Not starting a family yet
Fantasy job: Safari guide in Livingstone, Zambia
Executive you most admire: Richard Branson
Business advice: Hire people who are better than you, inspire passion and live your brands. | Are we ready to blow up vitaminwater yet? I'm ready to direct my own commercial. Shaq The e-mail triggered a meeting a few months later with Shaquille O'Neal, Oza and Glacéau President Mike Repole. Over drinks in New York, Repole told O'Neal about his love for thoroughbreds and invited the basketball star out to see them. "That's a great ad idea," Oza said. Oza, Glacéau's senior vice president of marketing, went back to the office and sketched out a commercial that made O'Neal the biggest jockey to ever win a horse race. It debuted during the Super Bowl and became a quick favorite, giving Oza another marketing victory at one of the beverage industry's surging brands. In the same way brands like Coca-Cola have used properties like the Olympics to grow, Oza and his marketing team have used some of the nation's most well-known athletes and celebrities to extend Vitaminwater's market penetration. Oza, who is Indian and grew up in Zambia and England, has driven that effort. He came to Vitaminwater from Coke, where he led Sprite's urban marketing efforts. He then took over Powerade's marketing, reviving the brand. Powerade's turnaround made him one of Brandweek's "Marketers of the Next Generation" in 2002, and Glacéau founder and CEO Darius Bikoff came calling. Oza built a corporate marketing department that is now more than 250 strong. He created the Glacéau Tasting Vehicles, a fleet of 90 vans that sample Vitaminwater, Vitaminenergy and Smartwater nationwide. Finally, he cultivated and maintained relationships with top entertainers such as 50 Cent and athletes such as O'Neal, Allen Iverson, David Ortiz and Brian Urlacher. Collectively, those efforts helped the Queens beverage company explode since his arrival, generating 800 percent growth since 2002 and more than $350 million in revenue last year. |
