Church & Dwight Maps Out AI-Fueled Marketing Strategy
Church & Dwight is doubling down on its digital-first strategy while strategically weaving in AI to complement its marketing efforts.
During its recent earnings call, executives revealed 82% of Church & Dwight’s marketing dollars now go toward digital media, up from 70% in 2023 and just 35% in 2017.
The company’s chairman and CEO Mark Farrell also shared that Church & Dwight’s online sales now represent 21.4% of total revenue — roughly $1.3 billion of its $6 billion in sales. The company’s seven “power brands” — Arm & Hammer, Oxyclean, Therabreath, Vitafusion, Hero, Waterpik, and Batiste — continue to account for 70% of revenue.
While Church & Dwight has been experimenting with AI for years, Surabhi Pokhriyal, chief digital officer, explained that the company views artificial intelligence less as “a hammer looking for a nail” and more as a strategic tool tailored to the problems and context they’re working within.
Pokhriyal shared a similar message in the closing keynote session of CGT’s 2024 Consumer Goods Sales and Marketing Summit, during which she emphasized the importance of designing products and strategies tailored for specific sales channels, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach.
“We are not in the business of calculating how much of our business is from e-commerce. We just are present wherever our consumer is present,” Pokhriyal shared on the call.
AI Helps Ads Get ‘Sticky’
AI is helping the company make strong first impressions in “low-consideration categories” like household products, Pokhriyal said.
AI is being used to track consumer attention and optimize creative content on retailer product detail pages. By analyzing lookalike audiences, Church & Dwight’s team is better able to strategically place the creative and capture the maximum number of views in the crucial, split-second window consumers spend on these pages.
This AI targeting and creative optimization has led to improved interactions and conversion rates.
“If you land on an Amazon or a Walmart.com page, we have to make sure that the five seconds you spend looking for Arm & Hammer or laundry sheets ... make the right first impression ... that you are inspired to add us to the cart,” Pokhriyal shared. “This has done wonders for us because the more the creative is sticky, the higher chances are that the consumer converts and buys the product.”
Also read: CEO Shakeup: Church & Dwight, Gets New Top Leadership
AI for Aspect Ratios
Pokhriyal added that once a consumer is engaged by an ad — whether on TV or TikTok — the company has put systems in place to allow for an easier path to purchase.
“We are making sure that over 90% of every media that you see, be it YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or anywhere else, will lead you to a cart in one to two clicks if you have the desire to shop our products.”
AI can also play an interesting role here — optimizing different content for different screen sizes, from mobile phones to televisions.
“AI is helping us make sure that creative is conducted in a way that there is less human touch involved, ensuring it is valid for both the six-inch screen and the 60-inch screen,” she added.
The ‘Third Shelf’ of Social Commerce
Pokhriyal also touched on the growing importance of social channels to consumer discovery, referring to social as the “third shelf” of shopping. In addition to physical and digital shelves, social platforms now serve as a space where consumers can engage in spontaneous, late-night shopping — what Pokhriyal described as “serendipity 2 a.m. shopping.”
The company has positioned itself to meet consumers at the moment of discovery, making sure its products are visible during “the endless scroll.”
Over 10 of the company's brands have received the highest number of video views on TikTok across all categories in which they operate, she said, but engagement over time remains the goal.
“A lot of our content has industry-leading engagement rates … the consumers are not just liking and following our brands, they're commenting on our posts, they're sharing our posts, they're interacting and building community with us,” Pokhriyal added.
