Colgate-Palmolive CDO Brigitte King on Creating a Test and Learn Culture and Being Courageous

Summary

Podcast Summary: Marketing Voices and Perspectives Episode: Colgate-Palmolive CDO Brigitte King on Creating a Test and Learn Culture and Being Courageous
Host: Joshua Espanier, Bethany Poole
Guest: Brigitte King, Global Chief Digital Officer at Colgate-Palmolive
Release Date: August 21, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of Marketing Voices and Perspectives, hosted by Joshua Espanier and co-hosted by Bethany Poole from Think with Google, listeners are introduced to Brigitte King, the Global Chief Digital Officer at Colgate-Palmolive. The conversation delves into Brigitte’s professional philosophies, her journey in the marketing realm, and her insights on fostering a dynamic and experimental culture within a major consumer goods company.

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Brigitte King's Five P's Maxim

[00:45 – 02:25]

Brigitte King opens the discussion by sharing a personal and professional maxim that guides her approach to work and life: “Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance,” which she refers to as her “five P's.” Originally inspired by the traditional marketing principles of product, price, promotion, and placement, Brigitte adapts them to emphasize the importance of preparation in achieving successful outcomes.

Brigitte King [02:20]: "Prior planning prevents poor performance. Did you study for the test? Have you done what you said you were gonna do before this event?"

This maxim not only helps her in preparing for high-stakes executive meetings but also serves as a motivational tool for her family, demonstrating its versatility beyond the workplace.

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Alternative Career Path: Law

[02:25 – 03:55]

When asked about an alternate career, Brigitte candidly reveals that she would have pursued law. She draws parallels between the skills required in law—such as discipline, focus, and the ability to articulate coherent arguments—and those essential in modern marketing.

Brigitte King [02:43]: "The idea of arguing your case is just as relevant to me in business as what I think attracted me to law."

Her brief stint as a paralegal provided her with a taste of the legal field, but her passion for marketing ultimately guided her career trajectory.

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Career Journey and Boomerang Moments

[04:18 – 05:59]

Brigitte recounts her career path, which began with Colgate-Palmolive’s global marketing trainee program. She gained substantial experience in traditional marketing before transitioning to digital, e-commerce, and data analytics roles at prominent companies like L'Oréal and PVH Corp. Her return to Colgate-Palmolive as the Chief Digital Officer is described as a "boomerang moment," highlighting the cyclical nature of her professional journey.

Brigitte King [04:18]: "Some people have talked about that as being a boomerang person. I also boomeranged at L'Oréal... I've had two boomerang moments, neither one of which were expected nor planned."

This return was pivotal as Colgate embarked on a digital transformation, allowing Brigitte to leverage her diverse expertise to drive significant change within the company.

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Embracing Gen AI and Continuous Learning

[06:03 – 08:55]

A significant part of the conversation centers on the integration of Generative AI (Gen AI) in marketing strategies. Brigitte discusses presenting Gen AI strategies to Colgate’s board, acknowledging the inherent nervousness due to the novelty and complexity of the technology.

Brigitte King [06:57]: "We had to talk about Gen AI... It's new, it's different, not everybody knows everything about it..."

To stay abreast of rapid developments, Brigitte maintains an "always be learning" mindset, consuming vast amounts of information through emails, blogs, and newsletters. Her team also plays a crucial role in disseminating relevant insights, fostering a collaborative learning environment.

Brigitte King [07:56]: "We have a bit of an always be learning mindset as a team."

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Innovation through Experimentation: A Case Study

[21:08 – 26:12]

Brigitte emphasizes the importance of a "test and learn" culture at Colgate-Palmolive. She shares an example where her e-commerce team experimented with various Gen AI tools to enhance product detail pages. Even when some tools were not approved, the experimentation process provided valuable lessons and demonstrated the team's proactive approach to innovation.

Brigitte King [23:44]: "They were doing exactly the right thing... experimenting... they were making sure they were experimenting."

This approach aligns with the company's value of being courageous, allowing teams to take calculated risks while maintaining necessary guardrails.

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Digital Maturity Assessment with BCG and Google

[12:48 – 15:59]

Brigitte details Colgate-Palmolive’s collaboration with Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Google on the BCG Digital Maturity Assessment. This partnership involved benchmarking Colgate’s digital transformation across 200 countries, assessing capabilities in areas such as ad buying, data-driven targeting, automation, and measurement attribution.

Brigitte King [13:05]: "We partnered right up front to do a rigorous solid benchmarking to try to understand where we were in our capabilities so we could really devise the path forward."

The assessment revealed that Colgate was in the "emerging" stage of digital maturity. By implementing a focused strategic plan and an extensive upskilling program, the company successfully advanced to the "tipping point," a testament to their swift and consistent progress across regions.

Brigitte King [15:50]: "We've never seen a company move so fast so consistently across regions."

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Harnessing First-Party Data and Retail Partnerships

[15:59 – 17:20]

When queried about managing first-party data, Brigitte emphasizes the importance of robust partnerships with retailers like Walmart, ensuring mutual business growth. While she maintains discretion about the exact volume of first-party data, she highlights its critical role in future targeting strategies.

Brigitte King [17:20]: "We recognize that the future of digital also involves having a data strategy and that also involves acknowledging that first-party data plays a role in how we're going to target more effectively."

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Modern Marketing: From Campaigns to 360-Degree Experiences

[17:20 – 21:08]

The discussion shifts to the evolution of marketing strategies from discrete campaigns to integrated, always-on brand experiences. Brigitte explains how media fragmentation and the need for relevant, authentic content necessitate a more scientific and multi-faceted approach to reach consumers effectively.

Brigitte King [19:39]: "With media fragmentation... there is a very distinct and somewhat scientific technique to define what your ideal mix needs to look like."

Colgate employs Integrated Brand Experience (IBE) leads who are tasked with creating cohesive consumer experiences across various media channels, ensuring that marketing efforts are data-driven, consumer-centric, collaborative, and result-oriented.

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Balancing Innovation with Accountability

[21:49 – 23:34]

Brigitte delves into the delicate balance between fostering innovation and maintaining accountability, particularly when integrating new technologies and approaches. She aligns with Google's 70/30 rule—70% accountability and 30% experimentation—emphasizing the need to protect space for testing and learning without compromising on business objectives.

Brigitte King [21:49]: "Any good leader also knows that they have to protect that 30% you're talking about."

At Colgate, this balance is cultivated by encouraging courageous leadership, where admitting failures and learning from them is integral to the company culture.

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Corporate Responsibility: Bright Smiles Bright Futures

[26:12 – 28:54]

Brigitte highlights Colgate-Palmolive’s longstanding initiative, Bright Smiles Bright Futures, which has positively impacted 1.7 billion children and their families since its inception in 1991. The program focuses on promoting good oral care, health, and hygiene habits through dental screenings, toothpaste samples, and educational resources globally.

Brigitte King [26:19]: "We've reached 1.7 billion children and their families to deliver dental screenings, toothpaste, cavity toothpaste samples..."

Bethany Poole connects this initiative to Google's philosophy of creating products that are useful and integrated into daily life, reinforcing the importance of utility and long-term impact in product development.

Bethany Poole [28:37]: "Is Google a toothbrush product?"

Brigitte appreciates the analogy, recognizing the importance of creating products that become indispensable in consumers’ lives.

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with reflections on the importance of courage, continuous learning, and strategic innovation in modern marketing. Brigitte King’s insights offer a blueprint for leaders aiming to navigate the complexities of digital transformation while maintaining accountability and fostering a culture of experimentation.

Brigitte King [28:54]: "Thank you for listening to Modern Marketers by Think with Google."

Listeners are encouraged to subscribe for future episodes, ensuring they stay informed about cutting-edge marketing strategies and perspectives from industry leaders.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Brigitte King [02:25]: "Prior planning prevents poor performance."
• Brigitte King [04:18]: "I've had two boomerang moments, neither one of which were expected nor planned."
• Brigitte King [06:57]: "We had to talk about Gen AI... It's new, it's different, not everybody knows everything about it."
• Brigitte King [13:05]: "We partnered right up front to do a rigorous solid benchmarking..."
• Brigitte King [19:39]: "With media fragmentation... there is a very distinct and somewhat scientific technique to define what your ideal mix needs to look like."
• Brigitte King [21:49]: "Any good leader also knows that they have to protect that 30% you're talking about."
• Brigitte King [26:19]: "We've reached 1.7 billion children and their families to deliver dental screenings..."
• Brigitte King [28:54]: "Thank you for listening to Modern Marketers by Think with Google."

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This episode offers valuable insights into how large consumer brands like Colgate-Palmolive are navigating the digital landscape, balancing innovation with accountability, and maintaining a steadfast commitment to corporate social responsibility.

Transcript

[Joshua Espanier]

Hi everyone, this is Modern Marketers by Think with Google. I'm Joshua Espanier, VP of Media Lab within Google Marketing. I lead teams around the world who plan, invent execute and measure marketing programs on behalf of Google's brands. Each episode I talk to game changing marketers and founders who are delivering modern marketing. Today I'm here with Brigitte King, Global Chief Digital Officer at Colgate Palmolive. Also joining me today as co host is my colleague and global Senior Marketing Director at Google, Bethany Poole. Let's dive right in. I'm here today with Brigitte King. Hey Brigitte.

[Brigitte King]

Hey Josh, how are you?

[Joshua Espanier]

I am doing great. I'm also here with my colleague Bethany. Bethany, how are you this morning?

[Bethany Poole]

I'm good Josh. Enjoying the summer.

[Joshua Espanier]

Well I'm looking forward to this conversation and thanks for being on. And then let's get into it. Brigitte, I want to ask any maxims, mottos, something you use a lot at work or outside of work, but maybe we'll start with work first. Anything that, anything you sort of use a lot in your maxims and personal story talking points?

[Brigitte King]

I think actually there is one that I tend to come back to quite faithfully. I call it my five P's. I was born as a traditional marketer, right? So you know the five Ps of marketing, product price, promotion, placement, etc. So as I was growing up through marketing, I thought about the 5Ps a lot. And then I also thought about reflecting them more in terms of my work and life. And I coined them as my five Ps are prior planning prevents poor performance. So those became my faithful maxims. I go back to a lot when I'm preparing for a meeting, when I'm thinking about what I need to really accomplish for the year. It's a self motivator for myself. But I also really believe in it because if I'm taking an executive's time, I better be prior planned to make that time with them the most worth it possible for both of us. So I take it really seriously that way. And I always feel like we outperform together when I've done that pre work. And in my personal life I use it with my two teenage sons and I tell them all the time, you know, prior planning prevents poor performance. Did you study for the test? Have you done what you said you were gonna do before this event? That event. So they make a lot of fun of that maxim cause they hear about it too much from me, but they know I use it both in my work and my personal Life.

[Joshua Espanier]

I like it. The five Ps prior planning prevents poor performance, right?

[Brigitte King]

Yes.

[Joshua Espanier]

Okay, that's easy to remember. So cool. I love it. You're the chief Digital officer. You're a marketer at Colgate Palmolive. If you weren't in marketing, if you'd had another career, like for real, versus just like maybe becoming a space astronaut, but if you'd actually had a. What do you think your other career might have been if you hadn't been a marketer?

[Brigitte King]

I think I would have been a lawyer.

[Joshua Espanier]

A lawyer?

[Brigitte King]

Yes.

[Joshua Espanier]

Okay, you admit to that. That's great.

[Brigitte King]

For me, the idea of arguing your case is just as relevant to me in business as what I think attracted to me about it in the law. And I did do a stint as a paralegal to see if I actually liked the arena of law. I don't think I understood enough about it and it didn't come to pass that I went down that path. But I do think that's probably would have been another real path for me had I stayed interested enough there to stay and stick it out.

[Joshua Espanier]

I got it. So the discipline, focus, knowing every detail and then articulate that in sort of coherent, strong argument. It sounds like a good marketing skills to have as well as legal skills, I imagine.

[Brigitte King]

Yeah. Listen, I was never a lawyer, so I can't say that I know all about it, but I definitely think that there's rigor in the command of information you need to have. And in marketing, especially today, the command you need to have of data analysis. The rigor behind that, there's so much more to it than just awesome creative and creative ideation.

[Joshua Espanier]

And we all enjoyed watching suits last year, so, you know, I can understand the lawyer appeal as well.

[Bethany Poole]

You started your career at Colgate Palmolive in marketing and now you're back. Was that something that you expected when you started there? Like, what was your ambition and then what. What has been your kind of career journey and what led you to come back to the company that you first started on?

[Brigitte King]

So the answer to the question is no, I absolutely didn't expect it. And you know, instead of going to law school, I actually joined Colgate Palmolive in our global marketing trainee program many years ago. And I was in that role, a traditional marketer. And that was absolutely the training that I got, which was fantastic at Colgate. And I really did get my first assignment in marketing post that I went to the beauty industry. I worked with l' Oreal for many years. I also worked with PVH Cow Brands and then the opportunity along my career really was pivoting from traditional marketing to digital e commerce data, etc. And as I made that transition, it just so happened along the path of my career that as Colgate started its digital transformation, I was lucky enough to be asked to recruit and join them to lead it here. So some people have talked about that as being a boomerang person. I also boomeranged at l' Oreal because I was there for many years. I left to do the Cal brand stint and then actually rejoined l' Oreal many years later. So I've had two boomerang moments, neither one of which were expected nor planned. So that should throw away my five Ps right? Because I didn't plan for those, but they happened that way and I couldn't be more grateful and also I think luckier to also understand that you have to take risks and open yourself up to opportunities. And it just so happened. Coming back to Colgate was a really awesome opportunity and I feel so glad to be able to bring back my knowledge of what I've learned throughout my career. And to the Colgate I started with.

[Joshua Espanier]

Is there anything at work that makes you nervous anymore or still?

[Brigitte King]

I think that I used to get more nervous than I do now, but it took a long time for me to be able to say that big, large executive level meetings would definitely get me nervous. But guess what? I used my five P's always for those meetings and that really helped a lot. I'm not the kind of person who wings it, so I really expect expect myself to be prepared and I'll do what it takes to be prepared. But you know, I think anybody still gets nervous. It's normal. I also consider it a bit of a fuel, right? If you're not nervous, then you might be getting complacent. So I'll give you an example. Recently we had to present to our board of directors and talk about Gen AI. Well, guess what? We should all be nervous. It's new, it's different, not everybody knows everything about it, but we had to go and talk about it and and be well researched and knowledgeable enough to have an informative conversation about it. So yeah, I got a little nervous with that.

[Joshua Espanier]

I can understand that. And yeah, at this point no one knows everything about Gen AI. One of the challenges I definitely see for myself is the breadth of knowledge, tools, processes, skills that a marketer needs today. It is almost overwhelming and there are many times I spend. I have to take extra time to research things because I don't understand what they are. So I do it on my spare time, as it were. But I in many occasions feel like I don't know what the hell is going on and so I need to try and learn more. And usually that's after the fact when I've been exposed. Whoops.

[Bethany Poole]

Well, Briji, you talked about planning. I'd love to like push back a little bit, like planning and being prepared, but like the Gen AI stuff is changing every day. How did you approach going to that meeting when like tomorrow there might be new Gen AI news? How do you prepare yourself and your team when something is constantly changing so that you represent a well researched point of view but also acknowledge that it could change tomorrow?

[Brigitte King]

It's a great question and there's no way to be always perfectly prepared. I think that is a fair question, especially on new things and things that are game changing for the industry that are still in development or in beta. Like you're still everyone's all learning at the same time. But I do expect of myself and my team that we're in an always be learning mode. And so I personally subscribe to tons of emails, blogs, newsletters on Gen AI. They overwhelm my inbox, but I make it a point to read as many of them as I can, whether it's on my commute home or in a break. So that I am constantly keeping myself in the know enough to to do the type of leadership job I need to do. And having a great team around you that's also sharing information and making sure you're seeing something that they found particularly revealing on the topic or insightful is great. So we have a bit of an always be learning mindset as a team.

[Joshua Espanier]

At Colgate, I've spent a lot of time trying to force myself because initially it was force myself to use Gen AI tools and actually think about things you could do. And it takes a little bit of mental training. But I was coming back from Cannes the week after Cannes. Both of us were at the Cannes Advertising Festival and someone shared with me a YouTube channel which has all 25 Grand Prix winners from Cannes, the award films on on YouTube and I got Gemini 1.5 and I asked Gemini 1.5 to watch all 24 films. And then I asked a whole lot of questions about what made them good films, what made them good entries, what can you tell me about the industry today and what they value? And up until the last sort of year or so, I just didn't think I could use AI to do that. Obviously Gemini's ability To be multimodal, hugely powerful, because it gave me answers incredibly instantaneously. It's so unbelievably useful. But it takes actually training yourself to actually go and use these tools, Google's or anyone's.

[Brigitte King]

It does. And I think what's daunting about that is you almost have to be willing to do it for the first time to then get comfortable with it. And my team at Colgate Palmolive, I have a global digital organization. They were the ones to get me comfortable. I have to be honest about that. I was a little intimidated by this. And then once they started showing me how they were using it, you just start. It kind of brings the walls down of that. What is this? How does it operate? Am I going to make a mistake? And you start to realize, in fact, how democratized these tools have become and available.

[Joshua Espanier]

While I was in Cannes, I was trying to. I was speaking with some CMOs about AI and we sort of, we had this thought that, you know, back in the day, we always used to wander around with, you know, clunky digital cameras from HP and from Kodak. Right. And. And then the, the cell phone camera came along. And we're at that moment where, if you think back to the transition to what the cell phone camera has unlocked all these businesses. Search through your phone, Instagram, hundreds of business use cases. Hundreds, actually tens of thousands of business use cases have been unlocked by having these cameras always in our pocket and in our hand. That's where AI is right now. We're just getting to that point where I think in 10 years time there's going to be this incredible explosion of creativity unlocked by AI that I'm really, really excited about. And that sort of transition from the old clunky cameras to actually the cell phone. And what that's unlocked is just, it's really exciting when people ask me or when we talk about, you know, is AI a threat to creativity? I look, there's always going to be some change, and change is challenging for certain moments, but the transition to the opportunity of what I can do is just so remarkable. When I think about the possibilities, I'm just super excited. And I realize that I have to push myself and my teams to keep learning because we don't actually imagine enough of what we could be doing and what the tools are going to be enabling. But AI for creativity is really, really exciting.

[Brigitte King]

Yeah. And if you think about technology curves, right. A lot of people think like, oh, it'll just happen so quickly. There's always been a bit of a Learning curve for new tech. Right. I mean all the phones gone through it, et cetera. There's a lot of new tech that actually takes a little while to become exceptional or to become ingrained in your consumer habit. So to your point now, you wouldn't even think about not having a camera cell phone, but it took a while for everyone to adopt it and then think about all the different uses that it could become for them. But be open minded to the fact that you possibly can't even imagine what it could become. So don't also resist it so much because it's not perfect.

[Bethany Poole]

It's like the use cases that you start with are not necessarily to your point, are not where you end up. It's like you have to experiment to find it.

[Brigitte King]

That's exactly right.

[Joshua Espanier]

You've been following or adopting this sort of BCG Digital Maturity Assessment, which is a super fascinating piece of research and a super passionate document. Can you just talk a little bit about what the BCG Digital Maturity Assessment did or what it's done and how that's been for you as you applied it at Colgate?

[Brigitte King]

Sure, absolutely. And this is an industry benchmarking that actually was a partnership between Google and bcg and it's a very sophisticated benchmark that I think about now 70 or so CPG companies have participated in. The whole premise is to try to define where you are at in terms of your maturity along the digital transformation journey. So what it really is about is being able to ask questions to your different functional employees in the company to understand on a scale of what your capabilities are relative to ad buying, relative to data driven targeting, relative to your ability to automate procedures, your ability to do measurement attribution. There's a whole series of questions in these strategic buckets that help you almost self assess where you're at. And you can also have your agency do this. And at Colgate, Pamaolev, we partnered right up front to do what I call a rigorous solid benchmarking to try to understand where we were in our capabilities so we could really devise the path forward. So this is a rigorous study. BCG was a great partner in helping us deploy and define and get the findings from this. And it really goes on a four point scale. Are you nascent, emerging, doing connected marketing or multi moment marketing? That's the four point scale if you will. Right. The four kind of stages of where you're at. And as we did this globally across Colgate, Palm oil is in 200 countries. We're a 200 year old company this is a big deal for us to set the stage for transformation in the future. What we found was we were definitely emerging in our capabilities, but we weren't quite at that tipping point yet. But that's all we needed to know because what that allowed was a very clear, focused strategic plan coming from the organization to say these are the kinds of things we're going to need to know, do and change. We developed an incredible upskilling program which if you read about in the news, was really covered because it was one of the things that set us apart in terms of upscaling our entire organization to be digitally coherent, capable and fluent and then really working with practitioners who are able to actually step change our capabilities. So I'm pleased to say we did the survey again two years later and we absolutely made the tipping point. The compliment we were given from the survey and our consultants was we've never seen a company move so fast so consistently across regions.

[Joshua Espanier]

Nice.

[Brigitte King]

So it was great and we've learned a lot doing it. But I think a good benchmark is a great place to start when you're driving a transformation.

[Joshua Espanier]

Can I ask a question? Because CPGs, are you often being sold by other people in Walmart or Target or Boots or Carrefour wherever you are around the world, which has classically led to not having clear purchase data or sort of first party data signals? Have you offset that or is that just a complete myth? And actually you're sitting on mounds and mounds and mounds of first party data which is brilliant for you.

[Brigitte King]

So I'm definitely not going to tell you how much first party data we're sitting on.

[Joshua Espanier]

Okay, good answer.

[Brigitte King]

I will say this. We absolutely partner with our retailers. They're core to our business. So whether It's Walmart or Walmart.com, our job is to partner with our retailers and in service of advancing mutual business goals. Right. Increasing their traffic, increasing the exposure of our brands. Again to convert offline or online. That is the goal. And our, our retailers and our E retail business is quite significant and we're very focused on partnering with retailers for that. But we recognize that the future of digital also involves having a data strategy and that also involves acknowledging that first party data plays a role in how we're going to target more effectively and we need a data strategy that will get us there.

[Joshua Espanier]

Makes sense. Colgate and CPGs and a lot of brands built their brand through the relatively easy, it turns out, ability that people were forced to watch, not forced to watch television. It was very easy to reach people with television cost effectively in 32nd and 60 second increments, that is clearly far less so today. And some of the modern marketing principles I'm speaking about on this podcast and with other CMOs is this notion of stopping thinking about campaigns with a start and a finish, stopping thinking about the moment where we want to tell the world, oh, we have something to say and you should pay attention. And more a sort of 360 degree and 365 day mentality that marketing now is every day sort of in the trenches, as it were. But also this continuous always on messaging approach which requires you to be, in your words, relevant and more authentic and participatory through the year. And that's where influencer marketing really seems to play a role. Because you can cultivate and grow that sort of community of fans and evangelists sort of ongoing as part of a continuous drip of positive sentiment towards the products and the products we're trying to move as a business.

[Brigitte King]

Absolutely. And that's what I think we were talking about earlier, right? This is why marketing can feel so overwhelming today. The days of one way to reach a consumer are not applicable. There are many ways to reach a consumer and there is a very distinct and somewhat scientific technique for you to define what your ideal mix needs to look like to create the right reach, frequency and relevancy in content to reach consumers today. And so it's exponentially more complex. Right. With media fragmentation, duplication of reach, understanding what content actually moves the needle to your point very different than here's my 30 second TV spot, here's my news, let's hope it gets through. And so I think your point around always on is very relevant. You need to be creating integrated brand experiences. And we actually have teams at Colgate called IBE leads, integrated brand experience leads whose job is to create consumer experiences at scale with the right media mix with the right content, with the right targeting. That's a very modern way of driving marketing today.

[Joshua Espanier]

So you just described this integrated brand experience team. What are the skills that you look for? What are the people who are really on your team being successful? What are they bringing to the table that is new from previous ways of working?

[Brigitte King]

Look, I wouldn't say that there's one cookie cutter mode for this, but I will tell you there are certain skill sets that become foundational to be successful in that role. You have to be data led, you have to be consumer centric, you have to be collaborative and you have to be passionate about getting the business result. And those are maybe some top line ways I would describe the most successful IBE leaders. The job is not an easy job, but I think that when you can command the data and the insights from that data to inform better decision making, when you can take a look at consumer insights and how you focus on people, how they use the products and therefore what's relevant to them, and how you think about that, inspiring the big brand ideas or the job you're trying to do, how you make sure you're still very business centric. To your point, right about it's not enough to just have the creative idea, it's it's about executing that idea in a multi channel environment to make sure the brand experience is right and you deliver results. Whether it's a better ROI or an efficacy piece in a piece of work that you can actually show move the business. The job of advertising today is harder than ever before because you're expected to be able to create it, execute it and measure its impact.

[Joshua Espanier]

The measurement piece is clearly incredibly important. Within Google, we have various rules of thumb, but we basically say we want to be able to make, make absolutely, unequivocally accountable at least 70% of everything we're doing and leave 30% to be on a path to measurement, but actually allow us to, you know, experiment so we don't just paint ourselves into a single corner. We can only measure this one way. So that's it. We're not doing anything experimental. Just talk a little bit about your sort of approach to innovation, to measurement, to new metrics, I mean influencers, these are all things which didn't exist five years ago or 10 years ago. So how do you adjust and how you sort of kept pushing for innovation in the world where you also need accountability for your cfo.

[Brigitte King]

So it's so great what you talked about, right, your 70, 30 kind of approach, which is you want to allow room to experiment and room quite frankly to test and learn and fail. And I think it's the job of any good leader today to make sure they understand how to strike that right balance. Of course you're accountable to your CFO and your CEO and as we all are accountable to your business stakeholders to show results on the investments or the spends or the resources we're applying to things. But any good leader also knows that they have to protect that 30% you were talking about, Josh. They have to allow for experimentation and room for failure. That's a really uncomfortable leadership principle, especially when you're the one in the accountable job. So one thing that I think we have instilled at Colgate, which has been really important for us, is one of our values is being courageous. And being courageous at Colgate also means the ability to admit when you might have failed, the ability to share that you've learned something through failure and that you need to move on and through it. And that's an incredibly difficult leadership principle when the stakes are high, when everyone's looking for bottom line results. But it is part of the culture that the company has created to enable and I would say protect that 30% you're talking about. So we have test and learn budgets. The team valiantly works on their budgets to make sure they have room to experiment and room to try things that may not always work out. And as a leader, I have to respect that and I have to make sure that they're okay and we're okay with that as a group and I will have their back.

[Joshua Espanier]

Are there any examples you can give us of where you learned something new, some innovation proved out, something that your team did that you're really proud of in terms of pushing the business forward that you can speak to?

[Brigitte King]

Yeah, there is an example certainly in E Commerce, where the team has been working to really improve the content on our product detail pages all around the world, across all markets. I mean, can you imagine the number of SKUs and content slots we're talking about here? That's huge. But they know that there's room to improve and they've been trying really hard to figure out how to crack that. And actually the team proactively came to me and said we want to experiment with some gen AI tools that aren't approved by the company yet for us to be able to see if we can crack this issue using that. Right, because you're talking about tools that create, that can create imagery and copy really quickly and we can maybe speed up this whole process. So the risk for me was, okay, experiment, but I don't even have approval yet on all these tools and what we're willing to use or not. This is the point we talked earlier about where things are new and still evolving every day and very dynamic in Genai. But I had to say, you know what, go, I have your back now. Of course you talk with your team and you try to make sure you're setting parameters to keep it safe. But what they were asking about was not a risk proposition. Right? It wasn't sharing anything outside the company that would put us at risk in any way. So you have to, as a leader, make sure the guardrails are there with some rationale to Help your team not go off the rails. But what was fantastic was the, they kind of pushed the envelope. They were like, this may not work was the going in thing. And we may be using something that we don't even know if we can use yet. But the answer was yes and yes. And then guess what the most incredible thing was. Some of those tools that we actually did all the work on did not get approved. So we had to replicate the work with an approved tool. So it's a lot of work. Right? But guess what? They were doing exactly the right thing and they were pushing the envelope and they were making sure they were experimenting. And yes, that tool didn't work. So you call that a failure if you want. Right? Or a waste of time. But it wasn't. That's the point. They took all that experimentation, then applied it and learned so much and how to do it well. Right. And faster. So kudos to them. And that is not something that a leader honestly knows how to do. It's where you have great teams, where they show up. And your job as a leader is to make it a safe space for them to experiment with the guardrails.

[Joshua Espanier]

I love that. Brigitte, I was reading about your Bright Smiles Bright Futures initiative within Colgate. Tell us about it.

[Brigitte King]

Bright Smiles and Bright Futures is a program that we've had at Colgate since the early 1990s. I think it started in 1991. And it's an amazing program. So you remember I talked to you a bit about Colgate. Palmolive isn't just about selling the products that we sell, but it's also about reimagining a healthier future for people, our pets and the planet. Well, guess what? For people, it means making sure that we are delivering around the world opportunities for especially kids to have good oral care, health and hygiene habits. Because we know that root caries and cavities are a big problem around the world in many different societal environments and countries. So Bright Smiles Bright Futures was conceived as a program and it's about. It's in hundreds of countries now, but we've quantified that we have reached 1.7 billion children and their families to deliver dental screenings, toothpaste, cavity toothpaste samples, educational resources that allow parents and kids to learn what good oral care help health habits look like. Because it starts young, you all remember brushing your teeth, right? Or being taught to brush your teeth. Well, imagine not having a lot of those resources around you. And Colgate Palmolive takes it really seriously. And Colgate, the worldwide brand for toothpaste. It's a really important give back moment where we feel very strongly that we have to reach communities that need support and resources and education to learn what good oral care health is. Is because that's so important for your lifestyle, it's so important for your health long term. There's so many studies that show good oral care health is good for your health. And so it's an amazing program. It actually makes us all smile. At Colgate, we celebrate it a lot. We take it very seriously. It's part of all our budget reviews, it's part of our plans and it makes us feel really proud that we're doing good, not just selling toothpaste.

[Bethany Poole]

Brigitte One of the early things that like the founders used to say at Google was like, is this a toothbrush product? Is it something that you would use every day? I remember early days that that was definitely like the test. Is it something that is so useful to people that they would incorporate it into their lives like a toothbrush?

[Brigitte King]

So I love that. I never heard that before. I'll share that with my team. I love that. Is Google a toothbrush product? Yeah.

[Bethany Poole]

Is that new product a toothbrush product? Like, will it be that useful to people or not?

[Brigitte King]

Exactly. Exactly. Oh, that's great. Thanks for sharing that. I love that inspiration.

[Joshua Espanier]

Brigitte, thank you so much for the time today. It's been great having this conversation and thank you, Bethany as well.

[Brigitte King]

Thank you. Pleasure.

[Joshua Espanier]

A huge thank you to my guest this week, Brigitte King, Global Chief Digital Officer at Colgate Palmolive. If you like this episode, please subscribe to get the latest updates and the next recording as soon as it's ready. We'll see you next time. For Modern Marketers by Think with Google.

[Brigitte King]

Thank you for listening to Modern Marketers by Think with Google. Our host is Joshua Spanier. Modern Marketers is brought to you by Google and attention. The podcast is produced by the Google Ads marketing team and Frankie Guadagnino Nagina Niazmatova and Emily Behrens for attention. Our technical producer is Kevin Fisher. Modern Marketers is edited by Sean Colello and this podcast is mixed and mastered by Andy Inglot. Our theme music is by Jerry Matei. Thanks for listening.