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Speaker 1: I’m proud of the infrastructure that Unilever has built up

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Speaker 1: and their commitment to measurement. The saying that we like

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Speaker 1: to lean on is that we want to be the

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Speaker 1: most outcome-driven advertiser in the industry. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: that is not measurement theater. There’s far too many metrics

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Speaker 1: to track within the media space. You can get lost.

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Speaker 1: I find that there’s always a way to tell a

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Speaker 1: great story when it comes to your media deployment. But

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, the question that you

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Speaker 1: need to answer is whether or not there’s a true

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Speaker 1: commercial impact. And we need to hold our media accountable

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Speaker 1: for business delivery. And we need to use media, the

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Speaker 1: measurement of media, to make better business decisions.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Free of Commerce. I’m Sarah Hofstadter.

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Speaker 3: And I’m Rachel Tippegraff. And this is a show that

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Speaker 3: talks about what’s relevant in commerce for the world’s biggest brands.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Free of Commerce.

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Speaker 3: Sarah, we haven’t spent that much time talking about one

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Speaker 3: of your new ventures, 37 Arc.

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Speaker 2: Oh, am I getting a plug? This is so exciting.

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Speaker 3: You’re getting a plug. I’m giving you a plug.

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Speaker 2: Earn media, baby.

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Speaker 3: So remind everyone what 37 Arc is.

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Speaker 2: 37 Arc is workflow intelligence for marketing. So imagine all

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Speaker 2: of the things that gunk up your ability to get

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Speaker 2: things done as a marketer. You’re probably spending more time

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Speaker 2: on project management than you are on actually being a marketer.

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Speaker 2: You’re waiting for legal to come back to you with

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Speaker 2: rounds and rounds of reviews. The entire flow of how

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Speaker 2: marketing works is just made up of a bunch of

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Speaker 2: invisible workflows that gunk you up. This is AI that

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Speaker 2: helps understand.

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Speaker 4: Where you’re gunked up and helps rewire it so that

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Speaker 4: you’re moving better, faster, cheaper, relative to your competition and

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Speaker 4: driving business results and optimizations much, much, much faster.

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Speaker 2: But in short, we make it easier for marketers to

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Speaker 2: do marketing.

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Speaker 3: So in your first few months of getting this off

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Speaker 3: the ground, you’ve started to do projects with a bunch

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Speaker 3: of big companies. And what observations have you made in

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Speaker 3: terms of where do you think humans should still be

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Speaker 3: working within marketing?

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Speaker 2: Creative, full stop.

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Speaker 1: Anything else?

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Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. The number one thing that people talk about

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Speaker 2: when they’re like, oh, AI, AI, they’re going to take

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Speaker 2: my creative job or we’re going to AI a file

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Speaker 2: of our creative. And they talk about all of the

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Speaker 2: pilots that they have going on in the creative realm.

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Speaker 2: And I’m just like, man, so the part that like

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Speaker 2: has so much taste associated with it and so much

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Speaker 2: nuance associated with it, that’s the thing you’re going to

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Speaker 2: take away, whereas there are so many kind of root

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Speaker 2: components of the way you do work. And that’s the

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Speaker 2: thing you don’t want to give up. It was just

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Speaker 2: a surprising, it seemed antithetical to me that humans can

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Speaker 2: keep pushing projects along, but AI can fix our dynamic

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Speaker 2: creative problem. And the answer is, I think AI actually

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Speaker 2: can fix the process. But I don’t think we’re at

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Speaker 2: the point, at least not here in the first half

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Speaker 2: of 2026, ready to surrender our creativity to AI.

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Speaker 3: Any other big thing that you think humans should own?

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Speaker 2: I think humans should own strategy. The way you go

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Speaker 2: about your partnerships are so critical. Very rarely are you

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Speaker 2: only buying a piece of tech or tools. So often

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Speaker 2: you’re making choices about who you’re working with and their

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Speaker 2: ability and the trust factor between that. all different elements

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Speaker 2: of like credibility, reliability, self-orientation. I mean, we’re not just

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Speaker 2: buying spots and dots here. We’re trying to figure out

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Speaker 2: how to make the right choices and an algorithm will help.

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Speaker 2: But first you got to understand where you are. You

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Speaker 2: got to look before you leap, you know?

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Speaker 3: Well, the reason why I’m giving Sarah this, moment of

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Speaker 3: publicity for 37 Arc is we’re about to break. We’re both,

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Speaker 3: by the way. Yeah, this is totally unpleasant.

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Speaker 2: When Rachel starts every episode, I have no idea what

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Speaker 2: questions she is going.

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Speaker 1: To ask me.

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Speaker 2: She starts and I am completely caught off guard. I

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Speaker 2: have no idea where she’s going to go with this.

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Speaker 2: And so I got to roll with it. So I

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Speaker 2: appreciate the plug, but I did not ask for it.

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Speaker 3: The intros and outros are completely raw, folks. The reason

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Speaker 3: why I teed it up this way is that we’re

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Speaker 3: about to bring on Brandon Goodman at Unilever, who is

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Speaker 3: playing a major role in their content and media supply chain.

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Speaker 3: And when you listen to him, he pretty much builds

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Speaker 3: a business case as to why humans are still needed

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Speaker 3: in the world of creative. So let’s hear Brandon’s take

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Speaker 3: on all things creative media and AI. Today, we are

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Speaker 3: very excited to have Brandon Goodman, the head of media

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Speaker 3: and marketing capabilities for beauty and wellbeing in the US

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Speaker 3: at Unilever. Hello, Brandon.

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Speaker 1: Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 5: I’m honored.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely. Well, you’re definitely at the center of Unilever’s growth.

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Speaker 3: There’s been so much talk around everything that they’re doing

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Speaker 3: around the beauty and wellbeing space, but also there’s been

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Speaker 3: a tremendous focus at Unilever, I think, for generations on

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Speaker 3: on media as a vehicle to help build brand and

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Speaker 3: drive growth. When we’ve been following Unilever over the past,

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Speaker 3: I would say two, maybe three years, Unilever has been

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Speaker 3: very public about being social first, which might mean different

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Speaker 3: things to different brands. So if you can, one, define

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Speaker 3: what does it mean for Unilever to be social first?

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Speaker 3: And two, why as a company are we giving that

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Speaker 3: phrase so much airtime publicly?

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Speaker 1: Yes, social first is definitely the buzzword of the generation

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Speaker 1: within the walls of Unilever. And I think it’s one

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Speaker 1: that I strongly believe in. It’s not a new phrase.

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Speaker 1: It’s not like we woke up one day and we’re like, hey,

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Speaker 1: what’s this social media thing? Should we be on it?

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Speaker 1: It’s actually an adoption of the recognition of this transition

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Speaker 1: from the follower graph to the interest graph and how

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Speaker 1: that interest graph has influenced what consumers’ expectations are on

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Speaker 1: how brands communicate with them. And what I mean by that,

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Speaker 1: you’ve got this old model, you’d open up social, the

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Speaker 1: content that you’d be exposed to is based off of

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Speaker 1: who you were following, to the new model influenced by TikTok,

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Speaker 1: where you’re subject to the interest graph, right? You are

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Speaker 1: subject to content. that you deem or the model assumes

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Speaker 1: is interesting to you. And that algorithmic shift has drastically

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Speaker 1: changed our marketing philosophy and our media philosophy. And at

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Speaker 1: the center of that marketing philosophy is a recognition on

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Speaker 1: how to feed that new algorithm and how to feed

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Speaker 1: it as content. Ultimately, we want to be interesting. We

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Speaker 1: want that algorithm to make sure that we find the

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Speaker 1: cohorts that find our communications interesting. And that’s ultimately what

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Speaker 1: we mean by social first. It’s appeasing this new algorithmic reality.

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Speaker 1: What it doesn’t mean is a unstrategic lean towards investing

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Speaker 1: in social, disproportionate attention to that channel. This creative reality

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Speaker 1: has shifted the creative norms of all of the other

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Speaker 1: channels across our comms. Think retail media, think display, think video.

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Speaker 1: There’s a lot of creative learnings, that we get from

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Speaker 1: how we activate within this new interest graph reality. And

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Speaker 1: it absolutely is influencing the way that we’re thinking about

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Speaker 1: communicating across all the channels.

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Speaker 2: Or big supporters makes a ton of sense, especially in

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Speaker 2: the spaces that you play. It’s a very different approach

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Speaker 2: to classic. And when I say classic, I am just

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Speaker 2: going to not even try to be nice about it.

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Speaker 2: Old school, CPG marketing, this whole working, non-working. In order

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Speaker 2: for this social thing to work, you actually have to

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Speaker 2: create a whole bunch of dynamic, personalized content at scale.

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Speaker 2: So you go from having these big campaigns with like

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Speaker 2: matching luggage to a very different kind of way of

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Speaker 2: doing that. So in your role in particular, what do

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Speaker 2: you stop doing in order to start making space for that?

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Speaker 2: And how do you think even about how the work

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Speaker 2: flows versus the way it used to?

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Speaker 5: Yes.

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Speaker 1: I think there’s this firm commitment that we need to

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Speaker 1: be less all in on a big creative idea, or

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Speaker 1: at least the creative expression of a big idea. Less

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Speaker 1: of that high risk, high reward, old school model, as

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Speaker 1: you put it, where the idea translates to a big

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Speaker 1: super shoot, a big commitment to some sort of studio

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Speaker 1: shoot where we take a high fidelity creative and distribute

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Speaker 1: it across all the channels and hope that it sticks.

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Speaker 1: to one where we need to commit to higher volume

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Speaker 1: as well as variety of creatives that still express the

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Speaker 1: underlying idea behind the brand’s campaign thinking so that we

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Speaker 1: can find the right expression of it. And I think

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Speaker 1: the underlying idea of your question is like operationally, how

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Speaker 1: do you do this? Because we have been set up

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Speaker 1: in past to work with our agency partners and the

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Speaker 1: studios that we work with to get that really polished

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Speaker 1: creative out the door. And so this idea of content

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Speaker 1: supply chain i.e. the routes that we can tap into

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Speaker 1: to create higher volume and higher variety of creative is

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Speaker 1: an important component, as well as the operational infrastructure, just

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Speaker 1: from a behavioral standpoint of how do you deploy a

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Speaker 1: lot of creative, measure it, ask the basic question on

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Speaker 1: what’s working, why, why not, and be able to be

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Speaker 1: agile in going back to the drawing board and deploy

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Speaker 1: more of that creative. And so I’m pretty proud of

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Speaker 1: Unilever over the last few years as we’ve committed to

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Speaker 1: this idea of social first marketing is We’ve committed to

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Speaker 1: shifting those two things, standing up the appropriate content supply

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Speaker 1: chain to unlock agility for our marketers, but also standing

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Speaker 1: up the marketing practice of having those cycles and the

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Speaker 1: measurement infrastructure to get creative at the door and ask

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Speaker 1: what’s working and what’s not and why. so that we

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Speaker 1: can continuously tap back into that content supply chain to

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Speaker 1: once again appease that algorithmic reality that is hungry for

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Speaker 1: more content volume and content variety.

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Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit more about this

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Speaker 3: supply chain? Without giving away the secret sauce, but what

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Speaker 3: is automated? Where are you working with humans?

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Speaker 1: All that jazz. Yeah, it’s a mix, right? I think

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Speaker 1: there’s no perfect balance. route for any piece of creative.

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Speaker 1: It really takes some human thinking around, okay, if this

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Speaker 1: is what’s working and we need to make more of that,

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Speaker 1: which route is the appropriate one? And there are many.

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Speaker 1: There are creator networks that you could tap into for

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Speaker 1: brand say creative. There’s still going back to the studio,

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Speaker 1: which is still an important component of a mass brands

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Speaker 1: content supply chain. There’s working with influencers. And there’s having

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Speaker 1: direct relationships with creatives that might be closer to your

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Speaker 1: day-to-day operations or even in-house. And every single scenario stresses

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Speaker 1: the system to ask which one makes most sense. Automation

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Speaker 1: is a unique word in the world of creative because,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think everyone’s really hungry to understand automation

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Speaker 1: and its role in the content supply chain. What I

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Speaker 1: would say is automation is far more useful in as

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Speaker 1: what I’ve seen so far, and I’m not making this

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Speaker 1: definitive statement that it’s always going to be the case

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Speaker 1: moving forward, but less so useful in content origination and

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Speaker 1: more so around the adaptation and remixing and the help

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Speaker 1: to disperse all of this wonderful creative to the copious

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Speaker 1: amounts of channels that we operate within. People don’t realize it,

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Speaker 1: but even just having one creative asset transforms into hundreds

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Speaker 1: of permutations of that creative being dispersed for, be that

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Speaker 1: the retail media placements or the national or social placements.

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Speaker 1: And that exercise of, fitting a creative unit into all

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Speaker 1: of those different placements is a very demanding one. And

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Speaker 1: there’s awesome ways to automate that process and alleviate some

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Speaker 1: of the resource attention to the wonderful process of just

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Speaker 1: being creative and thinking of that baseline creative that’s working, right?

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Speaker 1: The creative remixing part that automation helps quite a bit within.

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Speaker 1: But then I would say the measurement ecosystem is one

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Speaker 1: that benefits from automation. Measuring creative is this ambiguous space

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Speaker 1: and it’s not perfect yet. But there’s a lot of

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Speaker 1: signals out there that we have that we like to

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Speaker 1: use automation to help us surface quickly. So it might

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Speaker 1: not directly answer why a creative is working or not,

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Speaker 1: but it at least points your eyes in the direction

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Speaker 1: to say something is working over here. Now you can

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Speaker 1: bring the human element into it and discuss what you’re seeing,

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Speaker 1: what you’re observing.

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Speaker 3: So on the measurement front, because I know that definitely

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Speaker 3: falls under your purview and Unilever has spent a lot

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Speaker 3: of time doing some really interesting things, especially in-house. How

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Speaker 3: are you measuring the ROI of the thousands of pieces

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Speaker 3: of content that Unilever is putting out into the world

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Speaker 3: every day? And the same goes for media.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is an exciting one. And the measurement of

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Speaker 1: media is definitely one that’s brought up a lot internally.

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Speaker 1: We spend a lot of money on media and the

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Speaker 1: powers that be really want to make sure that it’s

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Speaker 1: worth it from a commercial lens. I’m proud of the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure that Unilever has built up and their commitment to measurement.

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Speaker 1: The saying that we like to lean on is that

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Speaker 1: we want to be the most outcome-driven advertiser in the industry.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of that is not measurement theater. There’s

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Speaker 1: far too many metrics to track within the media space.

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Speaker 1: You can get lost. I find that there’s always a

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Speaker 1: way to tell a great story when it comes to

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Speaker 1: your media deployment. But at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: the question that you need to answer is whether or

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Speaker 1: not there’s a true commercial impact. And we need to

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Speaker 1: hold our media accountable for business delivery. And we need

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Speaker 1: to use media, the measurement of media, to make better

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Speaker 1: business decisions. An MMM is critical for that. And we

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Speaker 1: rely on it heavily. By nature, an MMM is the

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Speaker 1: correlation of your investments to the actual consumption, right? Consumers

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Speaker 1: purchasing your product at the end of the day because

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Speaker 1: they felt compelled to. And that’s an incremental purchase they

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Speaker 1: felt compelled to because of the exposure to your media.

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Speaker 1: And that’s a really… important part of our measurement ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: But the issue with MMMs is that they’re backwards looking.

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Speaker 1: And part of your question was, how do you measure

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Speaker 1: all these individual units of creative? If you’re familiar with MMMs,

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Speaker 1: the math requires a lot of data to be able

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Speaker 1: to pick up the correlations and the impact of those investments.

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Speaker 1: And oftentimes, you’re not going to hit those sparsity thresholds

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Speaker 1: at an individual asset level. And so MMMs are one

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Speaker 1: piece of that measurement ecosystem. At Unilever, we’ve kind of

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Speaker 1: built up this secret recipe that ends up kind of

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Speaker 1: spanning a spectrum. On the left hand of this spectrum

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Speaker 1: would be the distance in which you’re measuring after you’ve

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Speaker 1: actually deployed some sort of activity system, right? And so

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Speaker 1: on the left hand side, that would be the MMM.

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Speaker 1: And MMMs are evolving at the speed at which you

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Speaker 1: can read it and the depth and granularity. And we

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Speaker 1: look at that in detail. And that is ultimately what

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Speaker 1: helps us drive a lot of those commercial shifts and

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Speaker 1: optimizations that we make. If you move along that spectrum

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Speaker 1: in the middle, that’s where you start to get into

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Speaker 1: a bit more of the ambiguous measurements that sit within

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Speaker 1: the cultural resonance space and the social measurement space. And

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Speaker 1: the specific metrics are a mix of ones that we

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Speaker 1: all talk about quite a bit. But we’ve found that

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Speaker 1: if we focus on them, ultimately they end up paying

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Speaker 1: dividends in the form of better traction that probably will

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Speaker 1: influence what you ultimately read in the MMM. And then

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Speaker 1: all the way on the right-hand side of the spectrum,

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Speaker 1: which would be like today when we’re deploying something today

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Speaker 1: and or this week, there’s a mix of kind of

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Speaker 1: faster signals or correlative metrics that we have found to

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Speaker 1: be the most correlative to our ability to deliver on ROI.

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Speaker 1: And they’re a mix of a bunch of signals that

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Speaker 1: are available to us on a daily basis. You know,

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Speaker 1: think about what we deploy within the retail media environment.

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Speaker 1: And then there’s this wonderful ad tech called MicMac that

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Speaker 1: definitely helps with some of those signals.

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Speaker 3: Folks, I did not pay Brandon to say that. I’m sorry.

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Speaker 4: I’m sorry.

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Speaker 2: I didn’t quite get that. Can you just say that

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Speaker 2: a little louder?

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Speaker 1: I think it’s called MicMac. And that helps us understand

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Speaker 1: how some of those more creative decisions that we’re making

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Speaker 1: on a day-to-day basis are ultimately driving engagement and our

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Speaker 1: ability to tap into that algorithmic reality that I was

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Speaker 1: talking about before, right? And so it’s nebulous in that

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Speaker 1: there’s all of these metrics that you’re kind of looking

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Speaker 1: at across this spectrum. And there’s no perfect science to

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Speaker 1: being able to make a truly informed decision at 100% accuracy.

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Speaker 1: But we have found this nice balance across this measurement

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Speaker 1: ecosystem that ultimately we’re seeing our RYs increase. We’re seeing

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Speaker 1: our ability to tap into cultural buzz more. I might

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Speaker 1: be biased, but I believe it’s because of the way

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Speaker 1: that we’re being scientific about that approach.

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Speaker 2: I appreciate everything that you’re saying. And also, I like

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Speaker 2: a good linear way of looking at things left to right.

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Speaker 2: So thank you. Despite my being bilingual and also reading

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Speaker 2: right to left in Hebrew, but let’s just put that aside.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Okay, nice.

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Speaker 2: The way you’re talking about it makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 2: The challenge of MMMs is look backs. I mean, I’m

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Speaker 2: sure you’re preaching to the converted of most of our listenership,

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Speaker 2: and yet we still can’t shake them. But in the beginning,

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Speaker 2: you talked a lot about the dynamic content and the

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Speaker 2: automation that you do for the dynamic content and where

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Speaker 2: automation makes sense, where automation doesn’t make sense, how you

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Speaker 2: go from big campaign to really just dynamically changing for

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Speaker 2: different audiences, for different platforms, for different needs. And then

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Speaker 2: on the other hand, we talked about media and the

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Speaker 2: MMMs associated with media. So when you’re just talking about

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Speaker 2: the organic content, but the automation of the matching of

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Speaker 2: the creative has to also impact the media itself. How

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Speaker 2: do you balance those two that theoretically should be, you know,

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Speaker 2: two great tastes that taste great together, but sometimes could

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Speaker 2: not necessarily meld the right way. Like, how do you

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Speaker 2: think about that in terms of like your sequencing and

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Speaker 2: how you avoid, how you avoid error? I mean, it

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Speaker 2: just seems like there’s a lot going on.

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Speaker 1: There’s a role for organic. There’s a role for paid.

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Speaker 1: And there’s a role for boosting organic, right? So I

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Speaker 1: would take those three distinct approaches. Organic is a wonderful

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Speaker 1: environment to acquire reach. It’s surprising how much reach you

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Speaker 1: can get without putting a dollar behind some creative. And

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Speaker 1: you really need to be culturally relevant in the moment,

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Speaker 1: participating in culture in an authentic way for consumers to,

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Speaker 1: or browsers on these social platforms to really want to

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Speaker 1: engage with your content. We see brands out there actually

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Speaker 1: deploy a really strong commercial profile, even just with leaning

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Speaker 1: into the organic space. And there are times where we’ll

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Speaker 1: see organic content, be that brand say, right? So expressions

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Speaker 1: coming through our brand handle or influencers that, end up

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Speaker 1: delivering such engagement that’s appropriate for us to put the

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Speaker 1: boosting behind. And that becomes this kind of hybrid environment

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Speaker 1: of paid and boosted. And in those moments, we tend

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Speaker 1: to get really efficient returns on what’s boosted because we

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Speaker 1: already have the foresight that this is getting you know,

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Speaker 1: traction and is relevant. And again, I’m speaking just in

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Speaker 1: the context of social, but like, of course, that content

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Speaker 1: can end up carrying over into other channels that we

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Speaker 1: can do that with confidence that it’ll work as well.

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Speaker 1: And then there’s the paid track, right? There’s a different

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Speaker 1: form of messaging. There’s a different objective often in that.

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Speaker 1: And the content ends up being a different expression of

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Speaker 1: what we’re saying. And that is where you see a

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Speaker 1: lot more of that agility of diversifying the messaging until

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Speaker 1: we find the message that sticks. And what we mean

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Speaker 1: by sticks is you’re rewarded very quickly from the platforms

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Speaker 1: in the form of favorable CPMs, right? They know when

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Speaker 1: something is attention grabbing, is interesting, and They reward you

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Speaker 1: and say, hey, thanks for advertising. People aren’t shutting off

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Speaker 1: their phones because of what you’re talking about. And so

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Speaker 1: we want you to be a loyal advertiser and we’ll

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Speaker 1: give you a discount.

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Speaker 3: You’re making the case for great creative that’s human-led with

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Speaker 3: automated variations. Brandon, we have to ask you our famous

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Speaker 3: last question, which is what’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?

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Speaker 1: Yes, I was thinking about this. I think I’m going

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Speaker 1: to lean personal. The bravest thing I’ve ever done might

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Speaker 1: seem small. It definitely changed my life. And that was

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Speaker 1: taking a shot with my wife. We were in microeconomics

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Speaker 1: class together in university. I only ever saw her during

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Speaker 1: tests or midterms. She seems to skip all other classes.

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Speaker 1: And so when I saw her at the final, I

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Speaker 1: knew this moment was an important one. And I was

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Speaker 1: quite nervous, but I stepped up. I said something and

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Speaker 1: that small moment definitely led to a wonderful partnership, one

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Speaker 1: that is supporting and loving. We have two beautiful young

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Speaker 1: daughters now. And I got to say the ROI on

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Speaker 1: that brave moment for me was a big one. I

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Speaker 1: love that.

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Speaker 3: You know, most people go to finals worrying about the test,

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Speaker 3: but you were worrying about the girl.

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Speaker 1: I was. I was. And I’m grateful for it. I

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Speaker 1: didn’t do too well in the class, but whatever.

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Speaker 3: Well, Brandon, we appreciate all your insights. This world that

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Speaker 3: you’re playing in is changing at light speed and we

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Speaker 3: will be watching to learn from you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the time. Appreciate it.

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Speaker 3: If you like what you heard and you want to

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Speaker 3: keep listening about Unilever, we certainly have had various Unilever

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Speaker 3: guests over the years. But go check out an episode

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Speaker 3: we did in 2024 with Ryu, the chief digital officer

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Speaker 3: at Unilever North America. And if you like what you heard,

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00:22:14,280 –> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 3: write a review. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 5: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman

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Speaker 5: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast

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Speaker 5: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me

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Speaker 5: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As

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Speaker 5: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and

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00:22:48,580 –> 00:22:51,689
Speaker 5: inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,

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Speaker 5: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience

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Speaker 5: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that

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00:22:58,090 –> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 5: will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is

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Speaker 5: available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out

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Speaker 5: every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.