How Clorox brands build continuous relevance with consumers
Consumers are moving faster than traditional marketing calendars. Their needs evolve, conversations shift quickly, media use is fragmented, and AI is accelerating the ways they discover, engage with and buy brands.
At the recent ANA Masters of Marketing conference, Clorox Chief Marketing Officer Eric Schwartz shared how his team is evolving its marketing model to keep pace by building what he calls continuous relevance: the ability to keep listening to consumers, act on what we learn and improve while an opportunity still matters.
At the center of that approach is a modern marketing ecosystem that brings together consumer-centered talent, social-first marketing and AI to turn signals into action faster.
Here are four takeaways from Eric’s remarks:
Put consumer obsession into action
Clorox marketers are consumer-centered, business-minded innovators. That means staying curious about people’s everyday lives, asking what matters to them now and having the ability to act quickly on what they learn.
Make social a source of learning, not just a channel
Social-first marketing means building listening and participation into how a brand operates. Consumer responses can inform what comes next, including ideas that extend beyond social itself.
Pine-Sol demonstrates that connection. Consumer enthusiasm around the experience and scent of Pine-Sol helped inform four limited-edition scents launched on TikTok Shop, which sold out in under two and a half hours, twice. That learning later extended into retail with a seasonal Apple Cinnamon scent launched this fall.
Use AI to shorten the distance from signal to action
For Clorox, the opportunity with AI is helping marketers get better signals faster, enabling them to spend more time understanding and acting on what those signals mean. That can include identifying messages that resonate, testing ideas and adapting creative while it is still in market.
With Clorox PURE, for example, AI-powered signals helped the team understand which settings and occasions were driving consideration during allergy season and update creative without a reshoot while the seasonal opportunity was still relevant.
Make continuous learning a growth capability
Ultimately, continuous relevance is about more than moving quickly. It requires an organization that can keep learning and act on what it discovers. For Clorox, that means bringing together consumer-centered people, AI and partners to understand consumers more deeply, make our brands more useful in their lives and earn their choice more often.
Watch Eric’s full talk from the Masters of Marketing mainstage about how Clorox is focused on continuous relevance to keep pace with consumers today.
