Procter & Gamble is emphasizing its strengths in data and artificial intelligence as the packaged goods giant contends with a fragmented “new media reality,” executives said on a call discussing earnings earlier this week. The owner of brands like Tide and Downy is working to redefine its brand-building framework to deliver more relevant marketing and better capitalize on emergent channels like retail media that are rewriting the CPG advertising playbook.
“Retailers are becoming media platforms and media platforms are becoming retailers. In summary, the consumer path to purchase is changing every day, is nonlinear and littered with millions of possible distractions,” said P&G President and CEO Shailesh Jejurikar on the call with financial analysts. “We expect an even more intense pace of change in the next three to five years. We will adjust to and leap ahead of these disruptions to invent the CPG company of the future.”
The executive, who took over the top spot from Jon Moeller at the start of the year, underlined P&G’s “enormous wealth of consumer data” as a competitive advantage. P&G’s data touchpoints include some traditional methods, including product and shopper research, but also sources like social media posts and fan websites for particular brands.
The CPG is mining those areas to inform product innovation and marketing campaigns, among other functions, according to Jejurikar. In addition, P&G is turning to AI to get a better understanding of what consumers are looking for and to leverage those insights to make its brands more memorable.
“AI and [generative] AI capability help our teams discover consumer-relevant insights at every step of the consumer path to purchase, grounded in a unifying brand idea,” said Jejurikar. “These ideas are activated in claims, demonstrations [and] visuals that communicate the performance and value of the brand across connected and broadcast TV, online video, social media, e-commerce sites and in stores.”
Jejurikar’s comments were delivered around P&G’s earnings for its fiscal Q2 2026, a period that saw net sales inch up 1% compared to the year-ago period to $22.2 billion, with sluggishness in the key U.S. market. P&G upheld guidance that sales growth should land between 1% to 5% for its full fiscal 2026 year, which ends in June. Jejurikar also said he would expand further on how he is preparing P&G to be a CPG company of the future at the CAGNY conference in mid-February.
