Church & Dwight Looks to AI to Capture Consumer Attention in Vast Online Landscape
The world of e-commerce is much different today than just a few years ago. According to Surabhi Pokhriyal, EVP and chief digital growth officer for Church & Dwight, the "e" has become silent.
This is because lines between traditional online commerce channels such as DTC sites or marketplaces and other avenues like influencer-heavy social platforms and retail media have blurred. Platforms such as TikTok Shop, Meta's Shops and YouTube Shopping are increasingly driving product discovery and impulse purchases, per Research and Markets. The research company also stated U.S. consumers are shifting their content consumption toward short-form video.
In response, Church & Dwight has been leaning toward a data- and AI-enabled approach that allows it to tap into the consumer journey in a variety of ways and right from the beginning, no matter the channel.
"We want to be there engaging with the consumer at the zero moment of truth," Pokhriyal said during a recent call with investors.
Also: Church & Dwight tackles phantom inventory with AI-enabled merchandising
For those who cannot keep their cell phones more than a foot away from their hands, said Pokhriyal — counting herself among the crowd — TikTok helps get them inspired in their discovery journey, driving them to go in-store to find products.
"Now the platform is compressing that journey. You can see it, want it, click it and have it right within the platform," she added.
Because the doom scroll just keeps going, it's a deep pool of engagement possibilities. As such, Church & Dwight has been focused on creating disposable, bite-sized, snacky content that engages the consumer in a meaningful way and inspires them to purchase from its brands.
"The next leg is we want to make sure there is productivity by making content that can translate and go across markets," said Pokhriyal.
Data and AI at the Core
To shape new product innovations and messaging, Church & Dwight uses data and AI for social listening, gathering insights from consumer search trends on Google and Amazon and tapping into "organic chatter" on sites like Reddit and TikTok.
"Because these things give us the leading surface of emotions and their intent, that helps us define not just how to talk to [consumers] in a marketing world, but also tells us how to innovate and build products that they are searching for," she said.
The company also uses AI to optimize its test and learns within creative development and to improve discoverability during the initial stages of the consumer journey, fine-tuning product detail pages and reviews for AI search tools like Sparky and Rufus for those who shop on Walmart and Amazon.
And within retail media, AI helps Church & Dwight publish ads to the right consumers at the right time and on the right channels.
"We are leaning into AI in a meaningful way," said Pokhriyal. "The good news is that because there's no dearth of tools to be used there, be it on retailer platforms or from the large media platforms, you can make all things from cute cat videos, which are really thumb-stopping, to making sure our product lifestyle shots show up really, really well."
