Strategic Alignment at the 2024 Sales & Marketing Summit

Manju Madhavan, Campbell Soup Company; Todd Hassenfelt, Colgate-Palmolive; Liz Dominguez, CGT

AI in Action: Transforming Consumer Goods Marketing 

Manju Madhavan, IT director, business partner, digital commerce and emerging technologies at Campbell Soup Company, and Todd Hassenfelt, global digital commerce senior director, strategy and execution at Colgate-Palmolive, continued the artificial intelligence conversations with a discussion about some of the ways their organizations are leveraging the technology, as well as the emerging learnings from the journey. 

Like Ahamed, both Hassenfelt and Madhavan discussed the immense benefits that AI can bring to product content creation and image optimization. In order to maximize these benefits, however, gaining stakeholder buy-in remains the most important piece of the puzzle. 

Madhavan noted that Campbell’s has been undergoing a digital transformation that has resulted in significant improvements to their data foundation platforms. This has enabled them to further activate more use cases, including surrounding recipe personalization within their meal segment to improve the consumer experience. 

For Colgate-Palmolive, bringing the designers who have created the content to work in tandem with the commerce teams has meant testing, testing, testing. 

“Find the group that has a stretch project, and get your test-and-learn process down. Then hopefully they’re advocates for you, and you get markets to build with,” he said. “You have to amplify results within the organization: ‘Here’s where we are. Here’s where we go. Here are the resources we need.’” 

Closing Keynote: Evolving to a Fit-for-Channel Culture

Surabhi Pokhriyal, chief digital growth officer at Church & Dwight, emphasized the importance of designing products and strategies tailored for specific sales channels, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. 

The company has shifted its thinking, moving away from simply pushing products on platforms like Amazon and hoping for success. One of the key opportunities is the rapid adoption of AI over the last 18-20 months. 

A fit-for-channel culture requires a mindset shift, particularly in understanding new retail metrics. Traditional measures like ROAS may not always apply in the context of retail media, making it necessary to adapt quickly and rethink how success is measured.

Also, with a lean team structure, employees wear many hats, and there’s intentional talent rotation — digital shelf experts can become omnichannel experts, for example. This agile, cross-functional approach ensures teams are always learning and unlearning, with a safe space to admit mistakes and grow from them.