Reckitt’s Marketing Chief Believes AI Will Improve Creativity and Lower Carbon Footprint

Reckitt is betting that generative AI tools will not only unleash creativity at the multinational CPG, but help reduce its carbon footprint as well.

That’s according to Fabrice Beaulieu, who has worked across various roles within the business since 1999. In April 2022, he was appointed to Reckitt’s Group Executive Committee, overseeing marketing and sustainability functions across Reckitt’s 68 markets.

The company that produces household brands including Lysol, Air Wick, Durex and Finish, has just revealed 6% revenue growth for the first half of the year.

For CPG companies, which produce an enormous amount of plastic waste, cutting their carbon output has become an ever-daunting task. “My job is to create value for our brands and to make sure that we look at sustainability as an opportunity as much as risk management,” Beaulieu told Adweek.

Even before GenAI tools became more widely available, Beaulieu’s team used a virtual production model to produce spots for brands including Delsym, Air Wick, Veet and Lysol.

Life has never been more exciting for a marketer. Never.

Fabrice Beaulieu, Reckitt

GenAI will both speed up the production process and find more sustainable ways to get there.

“Over time, you’ll realize that you’ve liberated the creativity of your team, because in a virtual studio you can be on the moon, you can be in the ocean, you can be anywhere,” he continued. “We always said we want 80% of our productions to be shot like that.”

Reckitt brought along 40 marketers to Cannes Lions to learn what they could about the potential of GenAI, and then to report back as part of internal training on the tech to the rest of its global marketing team—from Tokyo to Sydney to Parsippany, New Jersey.

“It opens a new space of creativity, putting creativity on steroids and scaling it,” Beaulieu said. “Shooting virtually removes the shackles of the creative team—that’s been our journey of the past few years. Imagine what AI can do to your brand assets if, by design, you can digitize them. You can really supercharge the whole model.”

Beaulieu said virtual production gets the job done in less time and with a lower carbon footprint.

To discover the impact, Reckitt marketers compared two productions and found that the virtual studio saved 75% in carbon emissions as well as a fifth of the time on the shoot. “We had to train our creative teams in advance—and in my counsel—that when they write the story, they put no limit to what they can imagine.”

Communicating sustainably

With regulations looming internationally around how marketers can communicate their sustainability credentials, more scrutiny is being applied to brands in an attempt to stamp out greenwashing, an issue that Reckitt will face to various degrees as it outlines its carbon-reduction pledge.

It opens a new space of creativity, putting creativity on steroids.

Fabrice Beaulieu, Reckitt

As a company that has operated in the world of healthcare for more than a century, however, Reckitt is no stranger to regulation.

Beaulieu’s own role has a policy aspect to it. He sees a difference in expectations between European and U.S. consumers, but the demand for a sustainable way of business is universal.

This starts with applying the U.N.’s Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) under the single parent brand of Reckitt rather than across the brand portfolio. This allows for the execution and messaging to remain authentic. Embed Sustainability is one of six SDG imperatives within the company’s growth strategy.

He cited the detergent brand Vanish and its ongoing campaign against fast fashion as one example of how a single brand is contributing to the overall Reckitt target.

In 2021, a campaign to promote Vanish Oxi Advance featured piles of discarded clothes lying around in urban areas, with messaging about how, on average, a piece of clothing is worn just 10 times before being thrown away.

That campaign continued in February with the #ReSkinChallenge, using some of Europe’s best-known gamers and streamers to encourage consumers to re-wear their clothes while raising awareness about textile waste.

Created by Havas London and Havas Play, the campaign also saw gamers set their communities a challenge to play wearing their avatar’s very first, or default, outfit (known in gaming circles as “skin”)—with the brand donating £20 to Oxfam for each stream shared.

“If you choose the right space for your brand, you increase your chances to bring real value and, therefore, stay authentic,” added Beaulieu.

The company also has guidelines for substantiating its green claims, which Beaulieu believes keeps Reckitt “compliant and relevant.” Agency partners are expected to work within its set frameworks. Reckitt also works toward the World Federation of Advertisers’ Planet Pledge.

“Life has never been more exciting for a marketer. Never,” he said. “If you embrace sustainability, you get on a growth journey.”

Post-pandemic brand building

Reckitt brand Dettol, a disinfectant that saw sales growth of 12% during the first year of the pandemic, continues its global mission to educate and promote daily hygiene habits.

One element of this is “Hygiene Quest,” an online content series launched at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. It aims to reach 100 million children globally by the end of 2026. And it applies media to get the word out, especially in Asian and African countries, he added.

“We amplify that message for social in all the right mediums,” said Beaulieu. “So, we do it in places where it matters.”