Kenvue is promising to invest more in its marketing spend.
The company – which was formerly a segment of Johnson & Johnson and that includes such brands as Tylenol, Band-Aid, Listerine and Neutrogena – beat quarterly profit estimates and posted a Q1 revenue of $3.89 billion, topping analyst estimates of $3.79 billion. Self-care net sales for the quarter moved up 3.5% year-on-year, while health and beauty dropped 5%.
“This quarter, we started investing more behind brand activation, where we see opportunities to unlock profitable growth in line with our plan to increase our investment by 15% in 2024,” the company’s CEO Thibaut Mongon said in Tuesday’s earnings call.
Mongon also noted that Kenvue is “strengthening consumer engagement through compelling and modern marketing campaigns appealing to young consumers,” citing an activation partnership in April where Neutrogena was the exclusive sun care partner for the popular Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
As it noted in its last quarter, Kenvue sees category opportunity as the majority of North Americans do not use sunscreen on a regular basis, and it believes it can leverage consumer insights and innovate new products.
Mongon says Kenvue is “reinventing our ways of working, freeing up resources to invest behind our brands.” In the U.S., for example, Tylenol, the top pain-care brand in the world, achieved its seventh consecutive quarter of share growth. In oral care, where Listerine is five times larger than the next name competitor, Kenvue reports “growth across all regions.”
Its global leadership also remains strong, Mongon adds, with Johnson’s Baby and Aveeno Baby as the number one and two brands in baby toiletries globally.
Paul Ruh, chief financial officer, said that in terms of it plans to spend its brand investment, Kenvue always takes a “digital-first, ROI-driven approach.”
“We are on track to investing the $300 million more that we mentioned at our Q4 earnings,” Ruh noted in the Q&A. He says the company started Q1 with a focus on its 15 priority brands, considering what it calls investable propositions and those are the ones where Kenvue can maximize the return on investment.
“We are increasing investment across a spectrum of activities, from in-store activation to media, digital influencers and also health care professional endorsement with a focus to amplify our innovation.”