Consumer Packaged Goods

Social media has been around for ages in marketing terms, but its current era feels like it started in the pandemic haze of 2020 with a TikTok video of a man sipping Ocean Spray while gliding along on a skateboard and listening to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams.” The blissful clip, later expanded into a TV campaign by the cranberry juice maker, led Ocean Spray to fly off of store shelves — and helped place “Dreams” back on the Billboard charts — while serving as an early indicator of TikTok’s distinct power in sparking viral product sensations.

In 2025, the “TikTokification” of media is mainstream and CPG brands are making a bigger pivot to the social-first model, with leading companies allocating up to half of their total ad budgets on the channel while dropping billions to acquire more nimble rivals. This escalation comes as the chase for Gen Z consumers intensifies and as marketers try to account for the further decline of linear TV, their lever for mass reach essentially since the living room screen’s inception. 

“It’s largely to do with capturing the next generation and FOMO,” said Nick Valenti, CEO of agency Mādin, over email. “Gen Z no longer goes looking for information. It finds them through the feeds they live in. Social is where they form taste, trust and identity.”

Such moves represent more than a budgetary change, with a growing number of marketers seeking marketing services providers with deep knowledge of social and influencers, including through dedicated agency of record appointments and the establishment of new in-house units. The moment additionally bears an existential aspect: Can legacy CPGs, rooted in rigidly defined brand values and sometimes literally squeaky clean images, relinquish a sense of control as they face a fleet of ankle-biter upstarts built on the socially native approach?   

“Every year, there’s more examples of success,” said Evan Horowitz, co-founder and CEO of the Movers+Shakers agency. “I think most brands can point to some indie competitors that are eating their lunch that really get social.”

Explaining CPG marketing's shift to social-first

Research emphasizes robust growth for social over time and, in recent years, a surge of interest in the algorithmically curated short-form video format popularized by TikTok. Total U.S. ad spending on social media was roughly $79.4 billion in 2024, according to WARC data, a more than 90% increase over 2020. That’s to say nothing of influencers, who have become top cultural tastemakers for Gen Z and, increasingly, brand entrepreneurs in their own right.

While social’s upward trajectory has been consistent, CPGs in 2025 are talking about the social-first mandate more publicly. Unilever, one of the largest players in the category, in March 2025 said it would shift half of its ad spend to social and multiply its work with influencers 20 fold in a bid to connect with global consumers at a more granular level. 

“There are 19,000 zip codes in India. There are 5,764 municipalities in Brazil. I want one influencer in each of them,” said Unilever CEO Fernando Fernandez at the time, adding he will drive the initiative “like hell” from his new post. 

The owner of Dove and Hellmann’s Mayonnaise increased its marketing investments in 2024 by roughly $1 billion, to its highest level in over a decade, providing a peek at what that type of spending hike could mean for social media and the creator economy at large. While other CPGs have not made announcements as dramatic as Unilever’s, the social-first trend is picking up steam elsewhere, in everything from “unhinged” meme pages to oddball product collaborations and flavor profiles that are designed to get people chattering online. 

Those with deep enough pockets are also upgrading their social know-how through the brute force of dealmaking. Look no further than PepsiCo’s nearly $2 billion acquisition of prebiotic soda challenger Poppi or Unilever snapping up direct-to-consumer soapmaker Dr. Squatch for an estimated $1.5 billion. Announcing the deal in June 2025, Unilever underscored Dr. Squatch’s “viral social-first marketing strategies, partnerships with influencers and celebrities and culturally-relevant collaborations.” 

“The dynamic between brand control and creator authenticity has been completely reshaped by the success of challenger brands,” said Jason Weber, senior vice president of partnerships and head of sales at Open Influence, over email. “The model has been validated by major acquisitions in the space.”

Social-first strategies are about more than just spend

Mastering social-first marketing requires more than just shuffling some dollars around on a spreadsheet or buying a smaller competitor. Unilever has made other moves that indicate where the broader category could be heading in the social-first evolution. 

In July 2025, the company unveiled Sketch Pro, an in-house graphic design unit that aims to help home care brands like Persil pump out content at a faster clip with the aid of cutting-edge generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology from the likes of Google and Adobe. Sketch Pro, which was developed in collaboration with IPG Studios, is positioned as a shift from the “traditional, linear TV-first production to a social-first storytelling model” and recognizes how emergent AI software could further accelerate an already rapid pipeline for social content.

“YouTube is now the No. 1 TV viewing platform in the world at 12.5% share,” said Arthur Leopold, co-founder and CEO of Agentio. “What does that look like five years from now or even three years from now, especially when the cost to create content essentially goes to zero thanks to all these AI tools?”

Other brands are broadening their marketing services rosters to better specialize in the social arena. PepsiCo’s U.S. beverages division in June 2025 aligned its in-house agency closer to VaynerMedia to assist brands like Pepsi and Mountain Dew with staying “culturally fluent” across platforms. Pepsi’s share of the U.S. soda market has continued to slide, with Coke’s Sprite jumping to the No. 3 spot earlier in 2025, per Beverage Digest Data. 

PepsiCo noted that “big brand moments” — i.e. traditional media campaigns — would still be handled by existing agency partners while the VaynerMedia tie-up is intended to support the always-on mindset that social demands. 

Despite the top-level momentum, the journey to becoming social-first could be a long one for older CPGs, as agencies tend to bump up against the way they handle business in areas ranging from cost structure to creative production. Approvals can move at the glacial pace of traditional media, something that does not fly when the social trend machine moves on virtually overnight. 

“There’s so much friction that’s part of the process,” said Leopold, whose company takes a programmatic approach to advertising around creator content. “It can take many months of back-and-forth negotiation for a single integration or post to go live, and because of that, the paid media team historically is never going to touch that.”

Challenges remain in brand reputation, 'elasticity'  

Legacy CPG marketers also need to account for the gulf between the modernized image they think they’re projecting and the level of risk they’re actually willing to embrace, according to experts. Are they receptive to social-first marketing that rides the line of good taste or features innuendo? That riffs on gaffes by politicians or highly publicized hip-hop feuds? What about handing off the keys to content creators and influencers who court controversy? Those are questions that won’t be answered by simply dialing up ad spend. 

“Putting the money there does not solve your organizational problems that keep you from doing good work,” said Movers+Shakers’ Horowitz. “There are so many brands right now that are spending a lot of money on media buys with Meta and TikTok, etc., that you can just look at their creative and say, ‘Wow, that was a big waste of money.’” 

Some CPGs wield well-defined brand images that are adaptable to different channels. Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice has long leaned into absurdist humor that feels like a precursor to the current era of “brain rot” content while Unilever’s Dove has easily extended its “Real Beauty” platform to tackle the biases of social platforms that intensify unrealistic image standards for women. Dove earlier in 2025 launched its first entirely creator-led marketing campaign, another sign of Fernandez’s social-first pledge in action. 

Other brands have less “elasticity,” Horowitz said, referencing a phrase used by executives at his agency’s client, E.l.f. Cosmetics. Particularly in fast-moving consumer goods, marketing frequently underscores qualities like product characteristics, dependability and value. Those don’t necessarily make for prime algorithm fodder and may require a CMO to apply more outside-the-box thinking.  

“If you want your brand to show up differently, your brand has to show up differently. That is not easy for a legacy brand to swallow, and for good reason: They have a lot of equity, they have a diverse customer base, they want to protect that,” said Horowitz. 

That said, some brands may have a wider sandbox to play in than they initially realize. Consumer preferences for nostalgia and recognizable assets like mascots remain high and provide avenues for bigger swings into social content. 

Georgia-Pacific in May 2025 resurrected its Brawny Man paper towel mascot, outfitting him as a plaid shirt-wearing beefcake trying to acclimatize to the cultural context of TikTok get-ready-with-me videos and internet slang like “goblin mode.” The campaign carries perhaps an unintended meta aspect, as a brand established in the mid-70s tries to better ingrain itself in the smartphone age.

Pushing the envelope on humor can also pay off. VaynerMedia recently worked with MiraLax on a March Madness campaign that showed athlete ambassadors conquering pre-game gut problems. VaynerMedia has also generated attention for helping steer Clorox’s bolder social-first marketing tack. 

“The Pine-Sol business at Clorox is different than the Brita business. Identify what that box is and then have freedom inside that box,” said VaynerMedia Chief Client Officer Nick Miaritis. “Where our industry gets in trouble is thinking everything needs to turn into a meme account.”

Lower guardrails and embrace change

Social in some ways offers fewer guarantees than the linear TV landscape upon which CPGs established their names through capital-A commercial advertising. Walled gardens are rampant and there is not a standardized measurement currency used by swaths of the industry. Content moderation continues to be a moving target, with more platforms adopting community notes-based policing.

Social platforms are liable to undergo other changes, internal and external, that can set off shocks to brands and creators. YouTube or Instagram may decide a certain genre of content or video format is more monetizable on short notice. TikTok, which originated the Ocean Spray moment, is still faced with the possibility of a ban in the U.S., though the likelihood of that occurring drifts further away with each update from the Trump administration.    

“Ultimately, it is still a risk for a classically trained CMO or CFO to move more money into marketing because the metrics, the creative guardrails, they are different and less developed than they have been,” said Horowitz of social. “This is a fundamental shift in how we think about creative as well as media.”

Making the leap to social-first now may still be the right move for CPGs, even with many of those guardrails a pipe dream. If category stalwarts like Unilever are racing to go all-in on social, the costs to stand out and degree of competitiveness are only sure to intensify down the road. 

“For legacy CPGs, the real risk is waiting,” said Mādin’s Valenti. “Tools for measurement and brand safety help, but the deeper truth is behavioral: if you’re not where the next generation discovers meaning, you don’t exist to them.”

Kellanova had a problem with Special K in the U.K. in 2024. The vitamin- and protein-rich cereal had seen volumes decline and stagnating market penetration. As its premium price went up, indexed at 145% higher compared to the rest of the category, other metrics went down. While awareness was not a problem for the 70-year-old brand, consideration rates began to mirror those of private label brands.

To address Special K’s flagging interest, Kellanova  — a group that markets snacks including Pringles and Cheez-It, along with international cereal brands following the Kellogg Company’s 2023 split into two companies — turned to LiveRamp for a clean room. The technology allows marketers to access and collaborate on various data sets while protecting privacy and has regained industry attention as the need for more customer insights creates friction with mounting data-privacy concerns.

“Clean rooms [for] improving our targeting is one of the big areas we identified as having a measurable impact in our work and our connection with the consumer,” said Louise Cotterill, Kellanova’s global senior director of insights and intelligence.

The traditional marketing approach for Special K had been demographic-based and used one set of marketing creative. But by unifying postcode-level Circana data with 20 million addressable records from Experian, Kellanova was able to better understand household compositions and interests.

“How do we segment and identify [consumers] and go beyond demographics into their purchase behavior, historical behaviors and competitor buying [behaviors]? Are there better predictors of who’s going to buy the cereal?” said Cotterill.

The revamped approach identified two distinct groups of Special K consumers: loyal buyers that the brand needed to encourage to buy one more time to grow the brand, and lovers of the brand who only bought discounted Special K and needed an extra push to purchase the product at full price. Kellanova tailored existing creative to match these cohorts, crafting stronger call-to-action messages for both groups, and deployed it across social channels including Meta and YouTube. 

Brand lift and behavior change

Traditionally, CPG marketers relied on inference to determine which campaigns drove which purchases. That changes when using a data clean room.

“With the clean room, we can do a partnership with a retailer, and we can see exactly who purchased,” Cotterill said. “We’re able to do as close as we can get to closed-loop [measurement], and see which groups are buying. That’s why we're so confident in this approach.”

Using the tactic, Special K saw a 9% sales lift with price-conscious consumers who hadn’t purchased the brand in 2024 but were brought back at a higher price point. Plus, these consumers tended to buy private label, demonstrating that marketing — not just price reduction — could bring them back to the brand. The marketer saw even stronger results with loyalists, who generated a 36% sales lift by buying more of the brand than usual at a premium price.

In addition, Kellanova ran a consideration impact study to see how long-term consumer behaviors changed. The demographic-based targeting showed no bump in consideration, but the use of the clean rooms showed a lift in consideration three-times higher than the industry average. All in all, the new approach took about three months of work.

“It was a really amazing opportunity to really put all of the pieces in terms of the strategy, the advanced analytics, the really advanced measurement into play, and see how it works for our brand,” Cotterill said.

In-house and beyond

The success of the Special K campaign demonstrates how Kellanova can use LiveRamp’s clean room technology to improve targeting and drive business results. Relying on a mix of in-house data scientists, external tech and data partners is helping to speed up the campaign process for the packaged foods giant. The first project under this method took months to do while similar initiatives now take three or four weeks. 

For the insights to drive outcomes, Kellanova relies on agency partners that know how to unlock data and apply it to decisions around creative and media. In the Special K example, the creative team needed to figure out how to change the call to action in the existing campaign, while the media team needed to change the buy from a platform well-suited for the demographic target (TikTok) to one that favored the clean room data (Pinterest).

“We do the analysis, the business intelligence work and the audience building all in-house, but then we work really closely with the creative and the media partners,” Cotterill said. “It’s very much a partnership, but it’s been amazing having the data scientists in-house, because you just learn a lot more… The closer they are to the data, the closer they are to understanding how the future marketing is going to work.”

Kellanova is applying the clean room strategy to other brands in its portfolio and into different markets. But the work does not produce a one-size-fits-all model, especially as regions around the globe have varying levels of data available, not to mention privacy regulations. Paradoxically, the more rigorous the data rules, the more applicable the work is elsewhere.

“Can we do it in one of the more restrictive, still very important markets, and is that going to work? If so, then I know that I’ll be able to take that to … any other other key markets outside of that,” Cotterill explained. “We intentionally choose more challenging markets so that we know we can scale it.”

PepsiCo’s U.S. beverages division is deepening its ties to VaynerMedia in what is being billed as a future-facing model of creative partnership, according to news shared with Marketing Dive. The collaboration weds the brand-building and strategy capabilities of the CPG marketer’s in-house agency with VaynerMedia’s specialty in activating around social media. The idea is to help PepsiCo brands move faster and deliver output that is more “culturally fluent” across platforms, the companies said.

The fully integrated team will initially focus on five brands under the PepsiCo beverages banner: Starry, Mug, Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Bubly. The deal is not meant to replace long-standing relationships with other agencies, which will continue to execute “big brand moments,” a potential reference to more traditional paid media campaigns and sponsorships. Instead, PepsiCo and VaynerMedia will tackle “always-on” social and creative strategy to shore up cultural relevance, per the announcement. Ad Age previously reported on PepsiCo’s plans to shift more content over to VaynerMedia.

Social media apps like TikTok have pushed marketers to manage a constant online presence, and one that can quickly produce content responding to water cooler conversations, whether they be around buzzy TV shows and movies or gaffes from public officials. Mastering these tactics is seen as an important way to cut through the advertising aversion prevalent in important consumer groups like Gen Z. 

PepsiCo and VaynerMedia have worked together for several years, but the news underscores how some large marketers are changing their approach to in-house agency arrangements as they try to juggle modern marketing demands. Keurig Dr Pepper, a rival, shut down its internal creative agency Liquid Sunshine in May 2025 in favor of external marketing services partnerships. 

PepsiCo has also undergone internal changes that could influence its approach to agencies. The company appointed Mark Kirkham as CMO of U.S. beverages in March 2025. Kirkham, a PepsiCo veteran, replaced the unit’s longtime marketing chief Greg Lyons.

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) remains at the top of the 2025 agenda for marketers as they work to determine how the technology will evolve and affect various functions in their organizations. 

Among brand marketers, Coca-Cola has led the way in a space that saw a surge in attention and investment following OpenAI’s debut of ChatGPT in late 2022. But the beverage giant’s early moves actually pre-date the launch of ChatGPT, giving the company a strong base from which to experiment.

The results of those experiments, at least in the marketing media bubble, have been mixed, from the successes of its “Create Real Magic” platform to the contentious response to 2024’s Christmas campaign. During it all, Pratik Thakar has been leading the way as the global vice president and head of generative AI for The Coca-Cola Company.

The following Q&A draws from a larger conversation that occurred during a virtual event hosted by Marketing Dive and has been edited for clarity and brevity. You can register here to watch a replay of the full event.

MARKETING DIVE: Coca-Cola was an early mover and has been a leader in the generative AI space the last few years. Where did that journey start?

PRATIK THAKAR: Pre-GPT launch, pre-hype cycle of generative AI, we actually started working with gen AI and we were working on a campaign called “Masterpiece.” That's where we connected with [text-to-video AI model] Stability AI in London, the makers of Stable Diffusion. That’s when we understood the importance and the utility of gen AI. One of the things was the perfection we were getting, especially when you are working on a very specific project with specific timelines. 

That’s when we started our gen AI creative incubator, in late ‘22, and that's when GPT got launched and the whole hype cycle started. Bain is our consulting partner, and they came up with this proposal of collaborating with OpenAI, and we were the first one to raise our hand and said, “Yes, we want to be part of it.”

We announced that partnership two years ago, and everyone was so skeptical about AI, gen AI, OpenAI. It was with a relatively unknown company [but] we believed in that technology and we knew that it was going to be big. We put together a team of six people — including legal, public affairs and communications and tech people — and we created a sandbox. 

We brought DALL-E, their image creation tool, and GPT together, and we launched “Create Real Magic.” It worked out very well. 

How has that team grown and where does it live within the Coca-Cola organization?

There is no specific department of AI. Globally, we have a team of two: One is myself and another is a colleague looking after internal governance within the company. I focus on more consumer-facing ideas and experience development. 

Other team members are all living in different geographies. They're part of different units and different functions, but they are early adopters and enthusiasts that wanted to be part of this. They have specific projects which I'm leading, so they work with me very closely. They give their 50% to 40% of time every day, and they have a commitment for long-term project involvement. 

It builds their career, their capability, their skill set, and at the same time, it also builds the company’s ecosystem and capability overall, rather than creating a separate unit. The ideal scenario for everyone is basically that we don't need a person like me. Everything will be gen AI, like the way we use the internet and we use mobile; we don't really need the director or VP of internet and mobile nowadays.

How are you balancing the needs of both consuming-facing and internal uses with generative AI?

So let me give you an example. Gen AI is already distributed, it's democratized. Everyone has access to it, and people can come up with ideas. We have created an internal mechanism where everyone who wants to use gen AI fills out a very simple form and our small team looks at it and maybe we say, “That’s a perfect use of AI” — maybe just not that particular tool. We can recommend something else which is legally inline with the company's guideline prospective. Also, if we have done something similar, then they don't need to reinvent the wheel: They can learn from that or learn from some of the partnerships I'm doing.

Another part of my role, apart from creating experiences, is also reaching out to other AI innovators and tapping into their alpha and beta model products so we have early access to their products before anyone else and so we understand what innovation is coming in. We start building our products and our consumer-facing experiences with them while it's a hidden secret for the rest of the world. When they launch, we are ready with our products.

Can you walk us through a campaign that utilized generative AI?

Coca-Cola and Christmas was a global activation. It’s very ingrained with the Coca-Cola brand. We wanted to scale our journey and stress test all the things we and our partners can do.

We looked through two different lenses. One, we took one of our 1990s commercials, “Holidays are Coming,” and we recreated that using gen AI. That film required a lot of super realistic but fantastical imagery and storytelling, and that's what gen AI does very well. We ended up creating three versions of that film, and we put it out in front of consumers. All three of them worked very well with consumers. 

We also created this platform called “Create Real Magic” and we took our Santa from 1931 and put together a video about how you can converse with Santa. The insight was that everyone has shaken hands with Santa, taken a picture with Santa or gotten a gift from Santa, but no one had that opportunity or time to sit down with Santa and have a conversation and ask questions.

We worked with OpenAI, Microsoft Azure and Mimic and we created a 3D digital twin of our historic 1931 Santa and then put a conversational AI into that with OpenAI's help. You can actually talk to Santa in 26 different languages across the world. It's a real time, unique conversation, and then, based on your conversation, it will create a snow globe for you for social media. That kind of stuff, which only gen AI can do, is very true to the Coca-Cola brand. We feel that's where the technology does justice to our ambition.

The TV commercial drew a lot of attention and became a lightning rod for some of the controversy over the use of gen AI. How are people getting gen AI wrong, and what did you learn from that experience?

First, it's not like you input one prompt saying “create an ad” and it pops out an ad. A lot of creative decisions are all made by humans. We worked with three different studios, one in L.A., one in San Francisco and one in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. All three studios have creative technologists. They are engineers, early adopters and storytellers, and we gave them as a brief our 1990s film because we knew that we had rights to use that as the prompt. That film was shot in Europe, in one village. I needed to take it to the next level. Gen AI opens up possibilities: you can show different parts of the world, it becomes international.

We also used multiple tools, and we had certain dos and don'ts in terms of what tools to use where we have our partnerships. We have a legal understanding of how those tools are built. We had our own guideline and we told our team to use those tools. There was also the music; we composed that with humans. 

Once we had all three films ready, we researched it extensively with consumers in North America, Europe and Latin America, with at least three different research agencies and different sets of consumers, and it worked very well. It was not just an average success rate in terms of its acceptability, understanding and entertainment value, but it passed our own and competitions’ Christmas ad benchmarks.

Then, in North America, our team deployed with programmatic media. We had selected 12 different locations, and that's where you can solve content with geotagging. It's hyper personalization and a way of distributing content to different regions.

Some consumers loved it, a lot of people didn't like it. They had a different perspective. Journalists reached out to ask for our side of the story. Three or four different research agencies, independently, without even checking with us, they conducted studies and they published those results. Maybe some sectors of people didn’t like it. That's okay. We need to respect everyone's point of view. Not everyone will agree with everything we do; that's nature.

Welch’s marketing has seen a gear shift in recent years, with the packaged foods marketer once known for TV spots featuring precocious tots embracing experiential activations like a rosé truck and a pop-up speakeasy hidden inside a New York City bodega. 

The millennial-friendly pivot has been driven by a desire to be associated with more than just grapes, with Welch’s undergoing a rebrand and widening its product assortment to include offerings such as canned cocktails and a line of zero-sugar juices that debuted in August 2024. Concord, Massachusetts-based Welch’s, which is over 150 years old, is still owned by an agricultural cooperative of grape growers, but that doesn’t mean its marketing needs to feel fusty. 

Spearheading the marketing charge is CMO Scott Utke, who joined Welch’s nearly four years ago after prior stints at CPG giants like Campbell’s and Kraft. Marketing Dive caught up with Utke at Welch’s Zero Bodega speakeasy in January 2025 to discuss the executive’s bigger brand-building mandate, along with his evolving perspective on agencies and retail media. Following the interview, Welch’s confirmed that it is putting the creative roster for its sparkling juices portfolio under review and enacting a larger shift away from an agency-of-record model after those duties — including the rebrand — were previously handled by Fitzco. 

“Our various platforms — juices, spreads and sparkling — all have different creative needs so we are making this strategic shift away from working with a single creative AOR to ensure we’re catering to the diverse needs of each,” Utke said in a follow-up email. “We are excited for the opportunity to find the right partner for our Sparkling business specifically, bringing fresh ideas and creativity to this important part of our portfolio.” 

The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

MARKETING DIVE: It’s been a little over a year since Welch’s rebranded. What were the strategic goals you had and what’s the progress on realizing those goals?

SCOTT UTKE: It had been a long time since we had changed anything. When we talked to consumers, they had a lot of passion for the brand, but they were rooting for it to do something different. It felt a little staid. We knew we had an opportunity in terms of repositioning but how do you bring that together visually? It hadn’t been done in the past.

The packaging work was the inception. Across all of our packs, we added the real fruit imagery, we changed the logo and we wanted to get our message about the growers on the side of the pack. That took about a year and a half. In addition, we had a new ad campaign, “Let’s Fruit Stuff Up.” The goal was to get people to think differently about Welch’s and move beyond grape. Then, we wanted to fire up the innovation engine. We did that first through new flavors, including the new passion fruit sparkling [juice].

Our biggest launch was gearing up for Welch’s Zero Sugar. This is now the biggest launch that I could find in Welch’s history in terms of investment.

What are the different levers you pull now when you think about a large media investment versus 10 or even 15 years ago?

It’s still about getting awareness and getting trial out. We do it differently than we have in the past because most of our media buy is going to be digital. The other piece of it is: How do we get consumers more engaged in the product? We did TV, but we did it through a partnership with Kelly Clarkson with some sponsored spots and product on air. We also dabbled in podcasts. We worked with Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” where he did some voice-overs and ads around Zero Sugar.

There’s the Zero Bodega experience that we’re sitting in today, which is getting consumers to experience the brand first hand. It’s always been a quirky brand. We’re still leveraging that and trying to bring that to life.

I've read reports about CMO budgets declining. When you talk about your biggest campaign launch ever, do you feel like you have more resources or do you have to be thrifty? 

When I came to Welch’s, we were underspending as a brand. I had to make the case to the board about what our fair share of spending should be. We agreed to what that number looked like and what that cadence would be over time. We’ve had a couple years under our belt to be able to build up what our investment is against the brand and then we’ve had to make a decision: If we’re going to have a big launch, we pull the dollars and do one thing really well instead of spreading it out into a lot of little things. 

We have a pipeline of other innovation ideas that we have coming down the pike, but we have a commitment from the growers and the board that we’re going to continue to invest behind this business so that we can get the spending to a healthy level. 

The doing “a lot of little things” approach seems to be more common.

There’s bifurcation from a media perspective. There’s a lot more options and a lot more ways to reach consumers, which I think actually is a good thing. It allows you to get closer to consumers and more targeted. But you’re right, when it comes to dollars, we have to be really choiceful in terms of where we’re going to place that bet and how we’re going to drive growth over time.

How much experiential marketing did the brand do in the past?

We haven’t found any good examples that have been done in the past. [June 2024] was the first time we put our toe in the water. We did a rosé truck for Rosé Day. We started small in Boston and it did a couple things for us: One, it made us realize how much brand love we have in that area. We said, “Man, if we could just do this on a bigger scale, that would be great.” It also got people talking about not only the products we sell, but also what you can do with them. It created all of these new usage occasions.  

With the Zero launch, as we were talking about what makes the most sense, a pop-up like this has a consumer angle to it but it’s also about getting closer to the media, getting closer to influencers. Since New York is a hub, this location made a ton of sense. 

Our agency Superdigital and my marketing team had a lot of fun with the speakeasy. You have the traditional store on the other side that and then, on this side, we wanted a reveal, almost like “The Wizard of Oz” going to color from black and white. This brand is over 150 years old, it’s got a rich history. While we’re moving in new directions, we still want to hearken back to what people know us for.

Is there a target audience for the experiences? Is it a market that was previously underserved? 

If you look at Welch’s overall, we were a little bit of an older brand. We had a bit of an older consumer. We’re looking at those next generations, whether it be millennials or Gen Z in terms of the total brand. When it comes to Zero, what we found is it’s more of a segmentation of people who are looking for no sugar. We appeal to anybody that’s looking for no sugar and wants full-flavor taste. 

You mentioned Superdigital handles experiential stuff and Fitzco does creative. That’s an agency of record appointment? 

It is. We use multiple agencies, but Fitzco did “Let’s Fruit Stuff Up” in terms of the big relaunch. Generally, they’re our agency of record, but we’re flexible. 

The way a legacy marketer like Welch’s approaches agency relationships is pretty different today. AOR can mean a different thing.

One-hundred percent. I think in the traditional sense, AOR would be you have an agency that works on all your business and you would work with them for many years. The way we look at it now, it’s fit for purpose. Fitzco was fit for purpose as we were looking for how to relaunch the brand. What we liked about them is they understood the task and they had passion for our brand. Our next innovation, we may go in a different direction.

It might be a little selfish on our part, but we want to find the best work for the brand. We have to use our dollars very efficiently. We’re looking at the touchpoints that make the most sense. Some of those things may be through an agency and retail media networks and national media so that we can get the right reach, but then there are areas where we want to be specific. We want the flexibility to not be held to an old standard of staying with the same agencies over time but making sure to bring in the best and brightest for the job to be done. 

Retail media is evolving fast and CPGs are wondering if the sophistication can keep pace with the level of investment. What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities?

The biggest opportunity is that a lot of the retail media networks have a direct connection with the consumer and the path to purchase is well-defined. Someone like Walmart, for example, they have a lot of reach, they’re very efficient in understanding who their consumer is and they can give us a fair amount of data to understand return on ad spend and how much is being converted to purchase. 

Over time, we’re constantly trying to balance brand building opportunities with converting and creating sales. Figuring that balance out is what tends to be the challenge when it comes to retail media because it feels so conversion based. That and the incrementality.  

Are you active on TikTok at all and what do you make of all this ban back-and-forth?

TikTok is not one of our biggest channels, but it’s an area — especially as we talk about showing up with the right generation — where we need to be, 100%. At the end of the day, the consumer will find a solution that either is a different version of TikTok, meaning another owner, or they’ll find another medium to enjoy the same benefits that TikTok provides today. To me, it’s more of a place in time hiccup. I don’t see it as a long-term concern. 

How do you approach artificial intelligence? 

We always try to carve out 10% of our budget to try things we’ve never done before. There’s already some efficiencies that we’re seeing now with AI and that’s going to continue to grow. The strategic thinking that’s required and the level of understanding of our consumer, it’s going to take some time for AI to learn the intricacies.

Unilever wants to accelerate the speed of production for its home care business through an in-house graphic design center that leans into generative artificial intelligence (AI), per news shared with Marketing Dive.  The CPG giant developed the unit, called Sketch Pro, in partnership with IPG Studios, with the goal of delivering content three times faster for its brands. Sketch Pro leverages multiple AI platforms, including Adobe Firefly and Google Veo 3, and boasts the ability to turn a concept into material ready for consumer testing within two hours.

Sketch Pro, which is already available in several markets, is positioned as helping Unilever navigate the transition from a marketing production model focused on linear TV to one centered on social-first storytelling. Unilever broadly is increasing its spending on social media and influencers to keep its brands tapped into culture.

The new unit offers another indication that legacy CPGs are undergoing a shift in their marketing strategy as social media becomes a more important channel and AI enables the level of speed needed to keep pace with fast-scrolling content feeds. 

Sketch Pro was designed to support home care brands like Persil/Omo, Comfort, Cif and Domestos that have long relied on TV for mass reach but are contending with younger generations of consumers who don’t frequently tune in to broadcast or cable. TV production also tends to require a long lead time while brands today are expected to have lightning-quick reactions to moments and micro-trends bubbling up in culture, such as a gaffe from a public official that can be flipped into a marketing win.

While Sketch Pro is billed as an internal “centre of excellence,” Unilever developed the concept with IPG Studios, Interpublic Group’s creative production agency. Sketch Pro emphasizes that it is not wed to a single AI platform, but instead promotes a flexible approach, with the goal of pushing creative boundaries. Among the group’s tools is Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator, which has garnered media attention for its ability to produce shockingly realistic content.  

“Our partnership with IPG supercharges our ability to ideate, iterate and deliver high-quality design assets with speed and cultural relevance, reflecting how consumers now engage with the home care category,” said Mario Dughi, global marketing director at Unilever, in a press statement.

Sketch Pro is live in London, São Paulo, Mumbai and Jakarta, while Unilever plans to expand the offering to 21 markets by next 2026. Around Ramadan, the Jakarta Sketch Pro Team was able to capitalize on holiday-related social trends to increase the visibility of brands including Rinso and Sunlight on TikTok by 22.5%, the announcement said.

Unilever has made generative AI a focus as it tries to improve efficiency while cutting down on costs. Chief Growth and Marketing Officer Esi Eggleston Bracey in March detailed how the company is using AI solutions to create “digital twins” of products for brands like Dove that can be easily adapted across channels and formats. At the same time, Unilever is adjusting where it invests media dollars, with plans to allocate half of its marketing spend to social while significantly broadening its work with influencers.  

Heineken has named WPP as global agency partner for shopper marketing and commerce across its beer portfolio, according to a March 2025 press release. VML Amsterdam, based near the Dutch brewer’s headquarters, will lead the account team. The work encompasses below-the-line marketing, including in-bar, retail and e-commerce activities, as well as shopping integrations around Heineken sponsorships such as Formula 1 and the UEFA Champions League. 

WPP Open, the ad-holding group’s artificial intelligence-powered operating system, will play a key role in supporting those functions. The appointment expands the brand’s existing relationship with WPP, which is pushing for a return to growth. 

WPP is deepening its ties to Heineken, with a focus on leveraging its AI muscle to enhance shopper marketing and e-commerce activities for the global brewer. The account, based out of WPP’s Amsterdam Campus, covers products including the core Heineken line, nonalcoholic Heineken 0.0 and light lager Heineken Silver.

The relationship will lean heavily on WPP Open, which has received a hefty amount of investment from the agency network as it looks to keep pace in an emerging tech arms race among marketing services providers. WPP Open has integrated technology from leading generative AI developers, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google Gemini. Other CPGs have recently touted scalable use cases for AI, such as creating “digital twins” of products that can cut down production time and costs and simplify cross-channel marketing.

Heineken already works with WPP shops like Ogilvy and Design Bridge and Partners, the latter of which assisted with the brand’s 150-year anniversary campaign in 2023.  

“We were impressed by WPP’s deep capabilities in shopper marketing, including their ability to drive higher efficiencies through WPP Open, underpinned by advanced AI,” said Rutger van der Stegen, global head of below-the-line marketing at the Heineken brand, in a statement around the news. 

The expanded WPP work comes at a time of fast change for the beer industry. Consumers increasingly are flocking to zero-alcohol or better-for-you options, when they’re opting for beer at all. Delivery platforms have made e-commerce a more viable sales channel, but one where alcohol brands face tighter restrictions than other CPGs on the advertising front. WPP will also get to assist Heineken as it strategizes around leading sponsorships, including deals with red-hot F1, the Champions League and live music events. 

At the same time, beer is subject to fierce headwinds amid a mounting trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to impose steep tariffs on European alcohol could roil the category, which is also contending with higher duties on crucial manufacturing materials like aluminum.  

Still, the news marks a win for WPP amid a challenging period. The group earlier in March 2025 lost the North American media and data business for The Coca-Cola Company to rival Publicis Groupe, a major blow. WPP reported that like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs, its main measure of organic growth, slid 2.3% in Q4 2024 while declining 1% on the full year. The firm expects 2025 revenue to land somewhere in the range of being flat to down 2% as macroeconomic uncertainty intensifies.