Since Richard Davies became Newell’s chief marketing officer, he’s instituted big changes for the company that markets such brands as Paper Mate pens, Graco baby products, Rubbermaid storage products, Calphalon cookware, and much more. He’s consolidated marketing staff and agencies and given unprecedented authority to an expanded and independent research group.

Despite reducing staff, the company opened a 130-person marketing floor at its corporate headquarters in Atlanta, along with growing outposts in Shanghai and Sao Paulo and a center for writing instruments in London. And Newell has roughly doubled its market research staff to more than 20 and seen a similar rise in its overall spending on research. It’s also preparing to ramp up spending on media.

Now comes the hard part: proving it all works, especially since the approach is, in many ways, at odds with standard practice at big multibrand behemoths like Procter & Gamble Co. and Unilever. When Mr. Davies was lured to Newell by CEO Mike Polk in late 2012, he quickly saw the need for change. The CMO was in charge of developing capabilities, processes, and training, but the marketing organization had no central authority. Instead, it was divided up among business units that controlled their own marketing budgets and decisions.

One consequence, Mr. Davies said, was “a lack of investment in consumer understanding,” with some brands relying on consumer-habit studies that were 10 years old. Marketing people and spending also weren’t aligned with company priorities such as growing in Asia and Latin America, and expanding writing instruments. By consolidating into a single marketing department, Mr. Davies said he could increase “consumer insights” spending while reducing spending overall.

The consolidation also made it possible to trim agencies and attract the likes of BBH and PHD, which never would have considered a $250 million account divided among so many category and country fiefdoms as the old Newell had, Mr. Davies said.

To find those agencies, named in October following reviews, Mr. Davies rejected the conventional pitch process he finds “a complete waste of time and agency resources.” Instead, he talked with agency leaders about such things as “what makes great advertising and what work they’ve done it the past they’re proud of, and what could be improved.”

Questions

1. How did Newell Rubbermaid change the way marketing research fit into its organization and into its decisionmaking process?

2. What are the early indicators of how well or poorly these changes have worked?