Olivia Tong : Right. And then just following up. I know you mentioned a couple of times too early to read too much into the December pricing. But just overall, are you seeing any bifurcation as far as pack sizes or willingness to stay with branded versus private label with high-end consumers versus well in? And I imagine that as the year progressed — so I don’t think you have so far, but as the year progresses, how much of that is embedded into sort of some conservatism on the outlook? Because it seems like the consumer is still sticking with you, but just curious if you see anything that would give you a reason for some caution as the year progresses?
Linda Rendle : Sure. As we’ve said, it really is too early to judge December’s price increase at this point. But maybe I’ll speak Olivia to the broader sets of price increases and just what we’re seeing on average and what we continue to expect to happen as December gets fully reflected in the marketplace. We are seeing consumers and our categories remain resilient. And you can see that just in the strong consumption that you see in right now. Consumers are reacting favorably. And I think this is really due to the fact that we’re in essential categories. These brands play a role in consumers every day, routines, and we’re continuing to see them favor value. That’s what we’ve always focused on with our brands. They’re looking for superior value, not necessarily the lowest price.
And with our superiority rating, I mentioned earlier of 76% consumers continue to feel that our brands are the best value and they’re voting for them in store. And with that, we are seeing value-seeking behavior though within our own brands. So people want to stay with a Clorox Company branded product. And so they’re trading within our portfolio, and we’ve seen that over the last number of price increases. Some consumers are choosing to buy opening price points because perhaps that day, their wallet, they have a limited amount of money they can spend in the category or they’re looking for the very, very best value on a price per use basis and so they’re trading up to larger sizes, or maybe they’re trading within our cleaning portfolio between a dilutable and a spray cleaner, in order to get the value equation right for them.
And the good news is we have offerings to meet their needs there. And that’s what we’re really focused on with retailers, ensuring we have the right distribution to meet those needs as consumers continue to look for the best value within our portfolio. And I think we’re going to continue to see that happen. As it relates to private label, we’re not seeing any meaningful trade down in our categories to private label. And again, we maintain share amid four price increases. So that is playing out. But I’ll tell you we’re watching it really closely. This — it looks like it’s going to continue to get tougher for the consumer in aggregate. And so we’re looking particularly as that fourth round is implemented and particularly in categories where we have higher private label penetration to ensure that we have that right value.
And I also mentioned earlier, we haven’t seen some competitors reflecting additional price increase as we did in December. And so we’re watching our gaps really closely in those categories as well to ensure that we are continuing to offer superior value. And we will make adjustments. We are ready to, if we need to, to protect the value of those brands. But at the moment, category and consumer is resilient. Our brands are very resilient, maintaining share, and we’re going to continue to activate our plans on innovation and investment to keep them healthy.
Operator: And our next question will come from Javier Escalante with Evercore ISI.
