Georgia-Pacific CMO Laura Knebusch on staying nimble as a CPG behemoth

0:03Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast.

0:30When I got the email from you guys, I was like, oh, I know that company. It's very ubiquitous, which is exactly what I want to talk with Laura about, which is being a marketing leader at a company that is pretty ubiquitous, at least in American life, how you think about that, how you think about customer relationship, and just sort of when you're dealing with all of these brands that are unique but also serve similar needs, how she approaches that. But Laura, how are you doing? I am great, and I am excited to be here today. Yes, me too. So first, let's go into who you are, because you've been in CPG for a pretty long time, according to at least your LinkedIn.

1:05And you've been at Georgia Pacific for also a pretty long time. So talk to me just about your career trajectory up until now. Absolutely. Like you said, I've been in this business for a while, about 25 years. I started out as a marketing assistant, a marketing associate at a company called Russell Athletic, which is performance wear and active wear, and really enjoyed what I was doing. So I ended up going back to school and getting my MBA. And then coming out of that, I went to work for Procter & Gamble and really got my foundation in brand management and really learned about how to build a brand and about marketing.

1:38I joined GP, or Georgia Pacific, 15 years ago. And I have had a great opportunity here to work on our different businesses, whether it's Brawny or Dixie or Vanity Fair, as well as work in our marketing capability. So three years ago, I got the opportunity to take on my current role leading marketing and consumer experience for our consumer products brands. And it's been a very exciting few years. A lot of changes in the world, a lot of changes with consumers. And absolutely every day has been a challenge, but a lot of fun. Three years ago is when you took this role? Yes. Oh, wow. That is what one might call an inflection point for the world as well as marketing.

2:16Absolutely. Absolutely. It was a great opportunity, a pretty scary time to take on a new role like this with all the changes happening. It was April of 2020, so right as the pandemic was starting. But I wouldn't have wanted anything else because it really did create kind of the opportunity for how we wanted to operate as a business, as a marketing organization moving forward. So can you talk to me about or just explain to me how you describe your mandate for such a big company that has so many tendrils and so many different parts? What are you precisely overseeing and thinking about in your day to day?

2:52Yes. So I lead the marketing capability, the marketing and consumer experience capability for our retail brands. Those brands include Brawny, Sparkle, Angel Soft, Quilted Northern, Dixie, Vanity Fair. So those are the brands that you would see in your mass channels, your grocery channels, your club channels. So direct-to-consumer or consumer brands. And so I support our businesses, each of our brand teams and our categories, in helping to achieve their brand objectives through marketing. So as they're identifying their brand objectives each year, I'm working with my team on how to bring those to life most effectively and efficiently.

3:31What does the org chart exactly look like, especially in marketing? So you're at the top of the retail-facing, consumer-facing rung, and then are you dealing with marketing leaders for each of those specific brands? Yeah. So I work in partnership with our marketing leaders for each brand. And then within my organization, I have all the capabilities or SMEs. So I have brand strategy and content. I have integrated media, omnichannel shopper marketing, consumer affairs, social, marketing technology. So I have all the kind of capabilities that we believe are necessary to go to market today as a brand.

4:03This is a big question. And so, and I imagine it's shifted over the years, but what would you say is your guiding philosophy right now for marketing and branding, especially for these consumer-facing retail brands that some might call kind of ubiquitous? Like, you know, there are things that you've seen every day in the grocery store, but they're not, you know, somewhat, some might choose one because of the price or the other because of another thing, but they're not, they have a different kind of brand affinity than other brands might, you know? Sure. For us, it is, and it's why we transformed into consumer experience, is that we have to be thinking about how we are delighting consumers with the experience they have with our brands every time they are interacting with us.

4:44And that is different than traditional marketing, which was, we're going to tell people about why we're great, and then we tell them enough times that they remember it, and they go buy our products. And today, that's not the way it works. Consumers expect more from brands. They have more choices, more ways to purchase, and more ways that you can reach them. And so if you are not thinking holistically about that entire experience and making sure that experience is consistent, but not just consistent, but distinctive and how your brand comes to life so that it stands out in a memorable and meaningful way from your alternatives.

5:17So it's about thinking about that whole funnel, that whole experience they have, but making sure what your that experience is distinctive. And it's something that makes them understand why you are better than than their alternatives. How do you delight in a mass retail environment? It comes with a couple different ways. Understanding how value is created for a consumer. So for some of our brands, it might be by making sure we are as clear as possible about what our benefits were. For some people, it might be more around how we're offering them value and coupons and promotions. For some, it may be what we're offering them outside of the store.

5:51But for each target, for each brand and their consumer target, we have to know what value looks like for them, how we can create value for them, and then try and bring that as possible, bring that to life as much as possible. Now that might look different in how we reach them in a more mass awareness way. We're still are doing kind of TV and other mass awareness tactics, but with data and technology today, we can also have a lot more personalized experience with them as we interact in different touch points. Yeah, I'm gonna wanna talk about that personalization because that's a big buzzword that I'm hearing a lot now.

6:24And I'm always fascinated to see how that like actually manifests, especially with a company like you that has probably tens of millions of customers. But I wanted to ask, because you mentioned that this is a strategic shift, like both for GP, but also I imagine for CMOs everywhere, which is trying to connect more, trying to focus more on surprise and delight, et cetera. When do you think this happened or when did it actually happen for you specifically? And what brought it here? I feel like we were talking about this before the pandemic, and we were looking at ways to do this. And I think data and technology brought us to – actually, I should say two things.

7:04Data and technology gave us the ability to be more personalized, to better understand, and to have more of that direct feedback about what was working and not working with your brands. But the other was the consumer. The consumer themselves was changing. And their – again, their expectations of how a brand experience should be was higher than they've ever been. And they are making choices about that. They're making choices on if brands are aligned with their values or brands are offering them value because there are a lot of alternatives out there. So those two trends have been happening, you know, for 10 years, if not more.

7:39But I believe the pandemic accelerated them in such a way that it didn't just become a competitive advantage. If you did it, it became a table stakes. If you weren't doing this and you definitely were not going to win with your businesses. And how do you talk about values or how do you message values? I guess that's my question. I imagine there's top of funnel marketing you can do. You can do commercials. You can do things like that. If I were talking to a smaller brand, they would likely be sending emails. But are you sending emails? How does that go from top to bottom of the funnel? Ideally, it should be all of those.

8:14Kind of going back to the experience, there should be each of our brands has a promise. They have an essence. They have a purpose, what that brand stands for. And that should be coming across. May not always be the same way across touch points, but that should be coming across and living up to that in every single touch point. You're right. It looks differently in what you can say in a 15 - or 30-second TV commercial versus how you might engage with them on social or in the in-store environment or even through email. And we do all of those and really think through, again, for each consumer, where can we drive that value for them?

8:51And where are they most engaged with us? Where do they want to hear about not just our products but our brands and how else we can kind of bring value to their lives? But it has to happen through all of those touch points. We have to be really strategic in thinking about which ones are going to be most relevant and impactful for the consumer and then consistent in how it comes to life. I wanted to ask you about digital specifically because it's something that we write about at Modern Retail. But it's also something that I think every major CPG brand I talk to mentions that they're really interested in digital.

9:23They have an e-commerce strategy. But I always try to understand exactly how that manifests. And so can you talk, you know, is that something you're thinking about? Is there a quote-unquote direct-to-consumer strategy that GP has? And if so, what does it look like? We are focused on an omni-channel strategy, which is making sure that when our consumers are ready to purchase our products, they can find us when and where and how they want to buy us. And that means we have to think about it, again, across all the different channels that they could be buying us, brick and mortar, online grocery pickup, direct-to-consumer.

9:58So we need to be thinking about all of those channels and then make sure that we've got the right capabilities behind it to help reach the consumer during those times with our message about our brands and help make sure she understands the role our brands can play as she purchases us. So there is a strategy in thinking about that and making sure that we are in those right places at the right times. And that was, I mean, in 2020 when you joined, that was when we saw a huge acceleration in terms of online platforms, you know, Instacart, etc. What are you seeing now in terms of demand? Is grocery, you know, in-store retail and groceries now more your number one than it was, say, two years ago?

10:38We haven't seen that. I believe that shifts happened have created an inflection point, particularly for categories like ours, which were not the first to kind of see the acceleration from an e-commerce standpoint. What we're seeing more than anything is consumers want the ability to choose. So they're not only doing one or only doing the other. they want to choose what's working for them on that day, on that week, wherever they are, whatever location, and that we have to be prepared to meet those needs however they choose during that time. So we still believe it's an omni-channel world. That's not going to change.

11:14The growth may not be as accelerated it has the last couple of years, but those shifts we believe are here to stay. Got it. Got it. I wanted to ask about the specific marketing and advertising front on those digital platforms because you see Instacart, you see, I don't know, you see like DoorDash going into grocery and they're all building out their advertising platforms specifically to reach people like you. A, what are you seeing in terms of the types of capabilities that are available? B, are they resonating? Are they as robust as other retail media platforms that you might see at, say, Walmart or Target?

11:50What are you seeing in terms of these more nascent but still growing digital grocery advertising platforms? I think they're evolving. And for many of them, I don't think it's a if, it's a when. But this space is moving so quickly. Again, think about things that we're not, you know, we talk about retail media all the time now. This was not the case kind of five, six, seven years ago. But we are seeing that there is a wide variation out there among retailers and these platforms around how advanced they are. But the things we're looking for are, do they have the capabilities to help us reach the consumer?

12:26Do they have the data that's going to help us better target and be more effective with that investment? Can they help us measure? I think measurement is still a really big opportunity in this area. And then how do they stack up versus the alternatives? They're not all created equal. And so it's an area where we are testing and learning and experimenting because it's changing so much and we are seeing capabilities develop really quickly. So it has to be kind of an experimental mindset and where we think there's value, we're scaling. And where there's not, we're waiting to see kind of how that continues to evolve and then deciding if we want to test and learn again.

12:58So I think, you know, companies like Instacart are putting a lot of focus in this area and evolving. But there's still opportunities when you think about, particularly in the area of kind of measurement, making sure that you can return the value for those investments that you're making in them. Who do you think is the most exciting platform when it comes to measurement? Because I think that we see Amazon growing, but also they're keeping a lot of their data close to their chests and probably not sharing it as much with you, right? Yes. That is a good question. I don't know that anyone has joined it in a way that I say lives up to my expectations.

13:37Particularly when you think about our ability to the alternatives in digital media. We have an in-house programmatic team. So we are purchasing a lot of our digital media in-house, which means we have a lot of transparency and cost and effectiveness and ability to be agile. And so when you stack these things against each other, that's, you know, it's not just alternatives within retail media. alternatives versus should I spend in this versus other options within digital media. And so I think that's a challenge for all the retail media kind of organizations right now is their ability to provide that measurement and that value at the same level that we can get in other areas of digital.

14:13So I'm getting a huge amount of press releases from like Walmart, from Target, et cetera, about digital capabilities, but like digital signages, smart carts, things like that, that are about retail media, but also about reaching the shopper in a, I guess, in a more connected way. Do those excite you? Or do you, like, are those important to you? Or what are you seeing in terms of those types of updates? It is very interesting. We have shifted so much in the retail space to digital, and so much of the purchase still does take place in the store. And decisions, we know decisions are being made in store.

14:50And so the shift almost went so fast that I think there was a disconnect of how do we make sure that we're delivering that message in the moments when the consumer is making that decision? And the majority of purchases still brick and mortar. So I'm very interested. A lot to learn, I think. And again, this would be an area that we would want to experiment just because this is very different than maybe some of the traditional in-store signage and other tactics that we're used to. But I think it's the right move. And I think it's the right strategy. How effective it is and cost-wise and measurement, those are the things we're going to have to go learn.

15:23Can you talk about how you approach experimental digital strategies? And if you want to give an example, I'd love to hear one. Just when there's something new to try or there's a new way of reaching customers that a platform is trying to talk with you, what's the cost-benefit analysis and when do you decide to go all in? Sure. Great question. So it starts with, we do have a focus on experimentation. So it's not a set, we're going to do this many, but each year we want to make sure that we are carving out a certain amount of our investment so that we can experiment and learn and not just invest in the things that are tried and true.

15:55With the world changing so much, that's absolutely critical. So as we're looking at those experiments, we're usually considering where's the audience and is this an audience first experiment? Where is the capability? Is this something that if we did, if it was successful, we could scale quickly? Or is it something that it might still take a little bit of time and we might want to wait before we invest? We consider which brand makes most sense based on the audience and that brand's objective. And then we'll set it up in a way that we can get enough of a read that we feel confident in how we scale it.

16:26How we scale it can completely depend on the confidence in the results. It could mean we expand from one brand to two, or it could mean we go to all of them. And it really, really depends on the brand and kind of the tactic. But we are trying to be very deliberate in making sure we're experimenting, doing it broad enough that we are getting learnings in a number of different areas and in a way that we think the learnings are going to be actionable for us, whether we choose to move forward or not. Moving away from retail media, but still in digital, when you're thinking about branding and marketing, how important are the other advertising platforms?

17:03I know that you're definitely on Facebook and Google and things like that, but is GP on TikTok? And what does that mean, especially when you're thinking about top of funnel branding? Does that matter to you? Sure, absolutely. I mean, we are very disciplined in how we measure to make sure that our investments are going against the places that we think we can be most effective with our consumer. But we also need to be forward thinking and understanding where the consumer is going and where the eyeballs are going to make sure that we are not missing out on an opportunity, too. So I would say our strategies are audience first.

17:37They start with where do we think the audience is spending, that consumer target spending their time, and where we can be most relevant in our message. And then we try and prioritize based on where we think we can be most effective and most efficient. So we are in linear TV and streaming and many of the digital channels, audio, social, display, online video. But we are, as part of our experimentation, as things evolve, like TikTok, we are going to be there too. So every brand does not have a presence or is not advertising. But right now we do have some of our brands that are learning in this space because it's another pretty new and interesting and evolving space.

18:14Are you finding that any of these, you know, emerging channels like, you know, or not even emerging, but like digital channels, we can say, you know, like connected TV, etc. Are they performing better than you expected? Or like, what are you finding is resonating especially well in these experimentations you do? I think it depends. I can say that we've made a pretty big shift out of, I would call it more traditional linear TV into a variety of digital channels over the last few years. And again, that's audience first, absolutely where they are, but also where we found we can deliver our message in a really effective and engaging way.

18:49You know, areas that we are, you know, continue to focus on social audio are some of the newer areas that we believe can be really effective with our brands as we shift kind of out of that traditional TV. So audio, do you mean like pot? Like, can you go into what that means and how you do that? That'd be more like streaming audio. Okay. Interesting. And so how do you measure that? I guess it's how do you measure that, especially since it's so top of funnel and so about brand awareness? Sure. So I would say our measurement comes in a number of different buckets. For our brand awareness, and these are longer-term metrics, so they're not going to move just because of an audio campaign or a TV campaign or digital campaign.

19:27Those are like brand equity, brand awareness. These are things we're tracking all the time and that we are looking for trends to make sure that we believe our brands are moving in the right direction based on the strategy and the investments we're making. On a more frequent basis, we do things like marketing mix modeling. And we have brought that in-house as well. so that we can have greater transparency and greater flexibility and agility with being able to do that and measure, because that is one of our best ways to measure holistically kind of the short-term impact of our different investments.

19:58Let's talk about data and first-party data, because I imagine that's something that you think about a lot, and it's something that you have a lot of. And so can you just give me a top level of, A, I guess what your strategy with collecting and deploying data is, and then like what are you finding is the most helpful? Like I guess it keeps changing, like A, how you collect it, what you do with it. But given that you have so many brands and you're reaching so many customers, how do you synthesize all that? So two probably parts to that answer. So I'll start with first-party data and it is important.

20:33And it is gonna, I think for any brand, for any retailer, first-party data is gonna be the most beneficial data that you can have. But you also have to – it's a privilege as well because once a consumer gives you that data, you have to make sure you are giving them the value for that exchange. So you need to have a very deliberate strategy around your first-party data and how you use it. We do have a first-party database of consumers who have kind of exchanged their information for us, and we reach them in a variety of different ways to help kind of provide them value back as well and continue to kind of engage and build that relationship.

21:11Now, with the deprecation of the cookie and all the changes in targeting moving forward, that becomes, you know, it goes beyond just the one-on-one relationship you can create with those consumers, but it does become a big enabler to continuing kind of ongoing, you know, effective targeting strategies. So that's, you know, I think it's really important in both ways. I would say data overall has been an underpinning of, you know, my strategy since I took on this role. You know, I've always said we never lacked data. We had data come in from so many different places. It was the fact that the data was in silos and not every, but not always, we didn't always have the right people have the access to the data.

21:50And so I've been focused on bringing together that data, connecting it, and then making it more accessible. And so it can be more actionable to consumers. So now we can look across multiple disparate pieces of marketing data that's coming in and better make insights and better understand where we should take action or make changes. And I think that alone has been the other big part of data is just making it accessible and actionable so we can use it to make better decisions, to better target our consumers, to see how things are connecting across multiple touchpoints. Is that a question of talent?

22:25Is that a question of technology? So when you thought about data and realized it was siloed, was it that you needed to build a platform that ported it all into one place so that you could easily access it? Or was it just you needed to get two people with the know-how and machine learning who would then tell you how to do that? All of the above. I mean, it's a culture shift. I think to truly be a data-driven organization is a culture shift. It started – so you had to have the technology and you had to have the connections and that data foundation first. And so we've been very focused on doing that work and having the right people work on that.

22:59But now that it is accessible and ready to use, it's about engaging the talent and the broader organization, both expectations around how they can use it, training them on how to use it, but then continuing to monitor and track, are we getting the value out of the data that we expected? So it has to be – I mean, it's a change management opportunity because it is different, I think, than how we've operated traditionally. We've had people who might have been data experts who were focused on this. And this is now, you know, we're trying to democratize data so that everybody has the power to make those decisions.