In June 2020, Zena Arnold became the Global Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at Kimberly-Clark — the CPG giant famous for its paper goods such as Cottonelle, Kleenex and Huggies. Its products are used by more than a quarter of the world’s population in 175 countries. Facing the challenge of joining the company amid a global pandemic, Arnold brought lessons from her years as a Google executive into a classic CPG environment. In this debut episode of The Current podcast, we sit down with Arnold — who is remarkably candid — to find out how she helped Kimberly-Clark embark on a global digital transformation during a year when everything changed.
Damian Fowler (00:00):
I'm Damian Fowler.
George Slefo (00:01):
And I'm George Slefo.
Damian Fowler (00:03):
We're both editors here at The Trade Desk, where we mostly write about digital advertising, the future of TV, and data privacy.
George Slefo (00:10):
But in plain English.
Damian Fowler (00:11):
That's right, George. No jargon here if we can help it.
George Slefo (00:15):
Together, we decided to bring the insights we usually write about and bring it into the world of audio.
Damian Fowler (00:20):
And we call this podcast The Current.
George Slefo (00:25):
On The Current, you'll hear from the biggest names in digital marketing. Folks like Jay Richman of Spotify and Josh Brandau of the Los Angeles Times. We're really curious about how the leaders of these companies navigated the tough year that was 2020 and pivoted their business toward success.
Damian Fowler (00:42):
And today, we'll hear from our first guest, Zena Arnold, the Global Chief Digital and Marketing Officer at Kimberly-Clark. Maybe you've heard of Kimberly-Clark. Just open up your cabinet and you'll probably find at least two or three familiar brands.
George Slefo (00:55):
Kimberly-Clark is most known for their paper goods, such as Cottonelle, Kleenex, and Huggies, but the company is going all-in on digital. It's right there in Zena's title. I had to get our thoughts on why the company felt the need to make digital front-and-center.
Zena Arnold (01:13):
We're in a time of unprecedented change in our industry. The first era of product sales for consumer packaged goods, this was maybe up until '50s or so in the US, was mostly driven by distribution. So your product sold because it was on the shelf at a store, and there weren't that many choices available. Then in the '50s or so, supermarkets started exploding across the country. Products had to stand out in a sea of competition, and the era of branding began, mass advertising. Now, we're building upon that foundation again in this era of data and technology, and it's really allowing us to get to personalized messaging, one-to-one relationships.
Zena Arnold (01:53):
So just having distribution, just having a great brand isn't isn't enough. Consumers expect more of a value exchange from their products aside from just the physical product itself. So we really need to figure out how to bring that to them, and digital is the unlock to do it at scale. So as a company, we at Kimberly-Clark are leaning into that change in all of our marketing, and want to call it what it is to send a message about our focus.
Damian Fowler (02:22):
I mean, people to talk a lot about the digital-first mindset. Can you sort of talk us through, what's a digital-first mindset?
Zena Arnold (02:30):
A digital-first mindset in marketing means you think about digital not just as a channel for your message, but in the message itself. Ensuring that it's reflective of the consumer mindset that you're talking to and the places that they'll see and really react to that message.
George Slefo (02:51):
Hey, Zena, I wanted to ask you this. You have a really awesome background. You were at Kellogg, but most recently you were also with Google for nearly seven years, where your focus was primarily on the Chromebooks. And now you're at Kimberly-Clark, a CPG brand. What lessons did you learn at Google that you've taken with you perhaps to Kimberly-Clark that you're applying today? Because that's kind of a unique transition, but it's not unusual in this industry.
Zena Arnold (03:23):
Yeah. I made the transition both ways. So having started my career and spending the formative years in CPG, I really have a strong appreciation for those fundamentals of brand-building and business-building. I learned so much in what marketing and general management mean. And I'd say in CPG companies, and even most traditional companies, the focus is really on efficiency, and we are very strategic in that. I mean, making carefully-considered choices.
Zena Arnold (04:00):
Most tech companies, at least those that are growing really rapidly, are focused much more on growth and aren't afraid to try things. Coming to such a Wild West environment from such a controlled one when I first made the leap to Google was really different, and I had to figure out how to bring all of the process and the skill that I had learned, but just pick the absolute most relevant things to bring in to focus our work and improve our results. If I tried to bring the entire process of what we had done in P&G or Kellogg to a Google, I would've been laughed out of the room. Yet finding just those few relevant things, I think, was very much appreciated for us to do, because it would help us focus and get more out of all of the effort that we're putting out there.
Zena Arnold (04:54):
Now that I'm back in CPG, the things that I want to bring back from Google are in that space of agility, that sense of experimentation. Really focusing on how we can take many more lower-resource risks versus fewer intensive risks, which is more of how we had been structured in the past. Again, it comes back to the point of digital is really enabling those lower-resource, faster risk-taking that we can do more of, and then figure out what to scale to win.
George Slefo (05:28):
Very cool. You just mentioned your experimentation and taking these lower-resource risks. Can you give me an example of that?
Zena Arnold (05:35):
Sure. We try, for example, to do a lot more detailed targeting of our consumers to test out dynamic messaging. So here's something where, in the past, very difficult to create custom messaging. Very difficult to deliver that, especially in traditional mediums like television. In the digital world, we can very rapidly iterate on what creative looks like, what messaging options are, serve them out to a targeted group of people, see if it works. Then we can double down and try to scale it, and do it in a bigger way. If it doesn't, great. Toss it to the side and let's try something else.
George Slefo (06:19):
No, that's very cool. I've spoken to CMOs in the past of major brands, and they're certainly not as tech-savvy as you are, which must be refreshing for Kimberly-Clark and your team. But let me ask you this. From a programmatic spend point-of-view, you guys are in 175 countries, serve a quarter of the world's population, which is just nuts, but most of your programmatic spend is in the US. Why is that?
Zena Arnold (06:46):
Actually, we spend programmatically everywhere in the world. As for how much, it really depends upon the habits of our consumers, the data and channels that are available to us. Our ultimate goal is to try to reach the right consumer with the right message at the right time and right cost. So dynamics of that really vary across each of those levers depending upon the category, the country, the consumer. So, we do a lot of things programmatically, and I'd say even more what used to be traditional channels are being structured with the data, which is helping more and more marketing channels have the ability to go programmatic.
Damian Fowler (07:27):
Zena, if I could jump in here. We're talking about a global perspective here, and your brief is a global one. What does that mean, first off, I mean, to have a global perspective? And what kind of worldwide trends from this position have you noticed, especially over the last 12 months?
Zena Arnold (07:46):
In the business, we've seen a tremendous acceleration of e-commerce globally, even in places I might not have expected it to move as quickly. As a result, we're noticing a lot more of our retail partners embracing data, and how it can drive their business, and help them better connect with their shoppers, which are our consumers. We're always trying to learn and scale from one market to another, and as we are becoming more globally interconnected, there's more and to share and reapply across markets.
Zena Arnold (08:23):
I'm really inspired by what our teams have been able to do in China, for example. The top e-tailers there, they make up the majority of the market, and they share all data through to transaction and basket details with their product manufacturers. So we've built up a really sophisticated model of marketing math to get the right message to the right consumer. So, that's one example. We've also leaned into e-commerce in other ways, in other markets. One other place we've seen a lot of success in the direct-to-consumer space is in Korea. There, we not only sell our own baby-care products direct to consumers, but also have a marketplace for other third-party products. And it's a really great consumer experience.
George Slefo (09:13):
Can I ask, and this is because I'm not very sophisticated, but when you have data and you can send that right message to the right consumer, what does that exactly do for a CPG brand? How does sending me the right message about something like Scott's toilet paper, for example, what's the return for you, the brand?
Zena Arnold (09:31):
Yeah. It's basically to telling you, again, at that right moment. If we know, for example, that someone just bought a 24-pack of Scott toilet paper, sending them an ad about it the next day isn't going to have that much of an effect. They're not thinking about it. They don't need it at that moment. Their needs are met. However, if we know that they haven't bought some in quite some time, if we know they've been searching about deals on toilet paper and we can tell them, "Hey, here's our product," where you can buy it, and that it's on sale, that has much more of an effect when it's top-of-mind for them.
George Slefo (10:11):
Very cool.
Damian Fowler (10:13):
We're going to sort of shift gear a little bit and look back now over the last year. It's been obviously a very difficult time for many communities around the world, and consumer habits obviously changed in that time. So, how's Kimberly Clark adjusting to these shifting consumer habits? Now we're here in 2021, over a year after the pandemic really hit.
Zena Arnold (10:38):
Well, as you know, demand in many of our categories, especially toilet paper, was really affected during the pandemic. And for us, our top priorities in these still turbulent times are to keep our people safe and then deliver these essential products that people depend upon all across the globe. This was before I even arrived here. I'm so proud of the marketing that the team did for Cottonelle during this time. You might have seen the Share a Square Campaign. It's not often as a brand that you tell people not to buy your products, but that was really what was needed at the time to discourage hoarding behavior so that everyone could get what they needed. So while we're not putting that message out there any longer, as our supplies have stabilized, I'd say that thinking on how to move fast with relevant messaging is a new muscle that was built then. And we're using that now in many, many other ways.
Zena Arnold (11:37):
As for the underlying consumer habits, actually, those haven't changed that much. The need for essential products is constant. Habits when it comes to changing your baby, or having your period, or using toilet paper haven't really changed that much, thank goodness. But what's changed are some new products that can meet these needs, but even more so the channels and the methods that consumers are using to get these products. So we talked about e-commerce surging, and we're adapting to meet our consumers when and where they're seeking us out.
Damian Fowler (12:13):
Last year, of course, we also saw a lot of social and political upheaval around the world. It's drawn attention, especially for businesses, to be more aware, culturally aware, especially when it comes to cultivating a more diverse workforce. How's Kimberly-Clark responded to that?
Zena Arnold (12:32):
This is such an important area. So many things that have happened in the world over the last year have brought it into sharp focus. So this past June, we hosted our second annual Global Inclusion Week. It featured over 9,000 of our employees from almost 60 different countries, and workshops, small-group discussions, keynote addresses, and most importantly, brainstorming sessions. It was wonderful to see, because it was all centered on inspiring Kimberly-Clark's people to better understand and activate that culture of inclusion.
Zena Arnold (13:10):
One thing that our team put together for all of our marketers that's really helped rally is activities is the development of company-wide brand responsibility principles. So we've always had brand safety guidelines. These are the things to prevent our brands from showing up around hate speech and discriminatory content. But that's the minimum that brands can do, especially these days. We wanted to elevate the conversation to what we should do. We have a significant amount of spend and share a voice. How can we use that to help uplift and represent our wide consumer base? So whether that's depicting consumers of different backgrounds in our ads, or ensuring our media dollars are supporting underrepresented voices, or even ensuring we have the right people at the tables in our internal marketing teams, in our marketing ecosystem.
Zena Arnold (13:59):
I've been really encouraged by seeing what our brands have been able to do in so many places in this area. We had a great one here in the US recently, a campaign with Cottonelle and Black Health. This is a group that we worked with to use our voice to bring attention to colorectal cancer, which disproportionately affects black people. And doing it in a fun and compelling way, because this isn't an easy thing to talk about. Most people don't want to talk about it, but our brand has the equity to support that. So a lot more to do here, but really pleased with the progress and the mindsets that I'm seeing changing in our teams to embrace this thinking.
George Slefo (14:40):
I wanted to ask you about how the pandemic changed your linear and CTV strategy moving forward. Do you have any insight on that?
Zena Arnold (14:51):
Yes. CTV is a really exciting space. We've seen a lot of success in reaching our consumers effectively with it. Now, linear TV is still the key part of our overall reach plans. But considering that viewership is down, I think, over 20% for adults 18 to 34 and key markets like in the US, it can't be the only thing that we do. So complimenting our total video plan reach with CTV is really giving us effective scale, especially with these light-TV households. We've seen a lot of great results not just from the targeting, and that being really compelling with CTV, but really have been enjoying and seeing good results from the expanded creative opportunity that CTV's offered us too. There's shorter formats, bumpers, pause ads, and the ability to do more sophisticated sequential messaging and retargeting that's just not possible with linear TV.
Damian Fowler (15:49):
I want to touch back on this idea of social responsibility again. Kimberly-Clark has pledged to dramatically reduce its carbon footprint by 2030. As a global executive at the company, how do you begin to kind of market that message, and why is it an important part of your strategy?
Zena Arnold (16:05):
Yes, we've got ambitions for 2030 that's included commitment to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations and supply chain for our brands by 50% for certain types of emissions, which is a big, big shift and change. I think it's really exciting. As you can probably imagine, it's not an easy thing to do and requires a lot of work from a lot of different sides and angles, but it's so very important for us to do. We're thinking about, how does this come to life as communications to our consumers? Just a few years ago, I think, it was mainly fringe groups that were really advocating for brands and products to make these types of commitments. But now, it's really widespread among a lot of consumers. This care for the environment, and asking brands and companies to step up and help. I know my own awareness of it and the things that I can do in this space has grown a lot lately. So we're trying to take that into account with each of our brands' unique equities to determine the most impactful way of sharing the progress and the goals.
George Slefo (17:15):
So just to shift gears here and talk a little bit about Chicago for a second. That's where you're based, and we heard that Kimberly-Clark is creating a new North American Commercial Center for its business in Chicago. Can you tell us what that is? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Zena Arnold (17:30):
Yes. We announced recently that we are creating a new North America Commercial Center for our Kimberly-Clark North America business, and that will be in Chicago. So we're transitioning a number of roles and people from our Neenah, Wisconsin campus down to Chicago. So, we're excited about this. These moves are to position our North America team for continued long-term, sustainable growth. We want to be closer to our commercial partners, especially in marketing. Many of our agencies and key partners are based in the city, as well as a lot of great potential talent being here.
George Slefo (18:14):
Just a quick-fire question on my end, but how do you feel about deep-dish pizza?
Zena Arnold (18:18):
Oh, love it. There's so many good options here. It's one of my favorite things that I've been enjoying about Chicago since moving here.
George Slefo (18:27):
So is one of the ways you're luring back employees to the office by enticing them with some deep-dish pizza from Lou Malnati's, or ... Tell us about that, because you started in April of 2020. What was that like?
Zena Arnold (18:42):
Yeah. It hasn't been easy. There's a lot of change obviously happening really, really fast in the world right now. Starting here in the pandemic, I haven't actually met my team in-person. I haven't been into the office, but I'd say I feel fortunate to have come from the tech industry, where a lot of change is wholesale expected, and I think that helped me bring a bit of that mindset of agility to everything we do. What I've loved so much about Kimberly-Clark and starting here is that there's this really strong culture of caring that underlies all of our work. Caring for our consumers, caring for each other, and that's helped us a lot to kind of manage through this time of uncertainty. We're all together in working through it, and has helped the team, I think, acclimate to me and vice versa.
Damian Fowler (19:50):
That's it for The Current. Stay tuned because next week we'll have Doug Milliken, VP of Marketing and Transformation at Clorox.
Doug Milliken (19:57):
If you can't keep up with what is the evolution of the consumer in the outside world, you're going to cease to exist.
George Slefo (20:08):
The Current is produced by James C. Green and Kierra Powell. Gretta Cohn is our executive producer. Rick Wan is our mix engineer. Our theme is by Loving Caliber. The Trade Desk team includes Cassie Crosby, Yvonne Sikich, and Kat Vesce. The Current is a production of Transmitter Media. And remember ...
Zena Arnold (20:27):
Just having distribution, just having a great brand isn't enough. Consumers expect more of a value exchange from their products aside from just the physical product itself. So we really need to figure out how to bring that to them, and digital is the unlock to do it at scale.
Damian Fowler (20:45):
I'm Damian.
George Slefo (20:46):
And I'm George.
Damian Fowler (20:47):
And we'll see you next week.