Kenvue Inc. (NYSE:KVUE) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Navann Ty: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our final questions will come from the line of Jeremy Fialko with HSBC. Please proceed with your questions.

Jeremy Fialko: Hi. Jeremy Fialko, HSBC. Thanks for fitting me in the call. So, questions on advertising and promotions. So, the first one is, could you give a bit more color on what your advertising spend did in the quarter, the extent which it was up and also whether it was up as a percentage of sales? And then if you could talk a little bit about your plans for advertising spend in the second half year? And then the second question related to that is, have you seen any change in competitor behavior? Can you give examples of where you are seeing your competitors put more into advertising or more into trade promotion as the raw material prices in some areas start to ease? Thanks a lot.

Thibaut Mongon: Yes. Jeremy, thank you for your question. I will not comment on what other companies are doing. We live in a competitive environment. What I would tell you is that we continue to invest behind our brands. Remember that our business model relies on demand generation delivered through different means. One is direct-to-consumer demand generation activities. Another big part of our model relies on healthcare professional recommendation. And so on both fronts, we continued to invest. We are on track with our investments, and we intend to continue to invest to that level. We do not disclose advertising at a quarter level. We will disclose it on a full year basis. But you should always remember that for Kenvue, advertising expenses is only one part of our demand generation model.

Another part, and important part, is linked to healthcare professional recommendation. But we are absolutely committed to invest behind our brands, that’s what we have been doing in the first half, and we intend to continue to do it in the back half of the year.

Jeremy Fialko: Okay. Thanks very much.

Thibaut Mongon: Thank you, Jeremy.

Operator: Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Thibaut Mongon for any concluding comments.

Thibaut Mongon: So, thank you for this good conversation, and thank you everyone for participating in today’s call. Once again, as you heard from Paul and I, we are very pleased with the strong results we achieved and our teams achieved around the world this quarter. They reinforced the power of our iconic brands, the strength of the Kenvue operating model. So, very strong debut for Kenvue as a newly publicly traded company and we look forward to connecting with all of you again and keeping you updated on our continuous progress on future earnings calls. So, have a great day and thank you everyone.

Paul Ruh: Thank you.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect your lines.