Haleon to ‘reinvest’ in brand building after split from GSK

Haleon, the maker of Sensodyne toothpaste and Advil painkillers, is planning to “reinvest” in brand building following its split from pharmaceuticals company GSK earlier this year, stated recent reports.  

Formerly known as GSK Consumer Healthcare, Haleon was spun off into its own FTSE 100 business in July. 

“GSK has a fierce reputation for cost efficiency, particularly in marketing and especially in media,” reports quoted Haleon’s vice president of global media Simon Peel, speaking at the IPA’s Effworks Global 2022 conference this week. 

“In fact, over the years GSK has tried to drive the price down on CPMs [cost per thousands], CPDs [cost per download] and other metrics, often at the expense of quality of reach.” 

Haleon’s focus now is on growth rather than making cost efficiencies, and the business views marketing spend as an investment rather than an area to save in, he said. 

“Luckily, we’ve got an executive team that believes in growing the brand. They’re still cost conscious, but where there are efficiencies, they’ll be reinvested back into brand building,” he added. 

Improving marketing effectiveness will be a priority, and is being built into the culture of the business. While Peel acknowledged that both efficiency and effectiveness are important and a balance is needed, he argued that effectiveness is “more important”. 

It comes as Haleon announced a new collaboration with Microsoft to make everyday health more accessible for people who are blind, have low vision or have difficulty reading product labels due to low literacy.

Under the collaboration, people will hear packaging information through Seeing AI by scanning the barcode of over 1,500 Haleon products across the U.S. and U.K. through an app that will provide an audio read-out of important information, such as product name, ingredients and usage instructions.