The Honest Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:HNST) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Carla Vernon: Well, we are of course, still refining and working on the strategy, right. But in the 10 weeks that I have been here, I have had an opportunity to do a lot of assessment on our current portfolio and understand, do we €“ is everything we are in today going to be part of our program going forward. And the truth of the matter is, Andrea, there are some things that we are in today that we will de-prioritize going forward and may even get out of. But those things will make sense and there will be things that actually really give us the ability to have more momentum over the places where we want to invest. We want to grow. We believe innovation is going to be something that’s going to be embraced by both the consumer and the retailer, so that we can drive continued growth and bring new benefits to the categories where we play.

So, it will be a mix of really taking a look at what we have today and determining that some of those things don’t fit the margin or growth profile where we are going forward to emphasizing and investing in some of our hero products that we actually have the opportunity to really grow and build. That’s something I learned on brands like Nature Valley, a business that had many, many SKU offerings, but some of them are very core, driving the fundamental growth and business model of the brand and then new places to play where they will really fit our business model as we go forward.

Andrea Teixeira: That’s €“ and the only other thing, sorry, if I can €“ I did mention SG&A. And Kelly, you quoted some of the known extraordinary items that we should be removing or should we not €“ should we €“ because I understand and I appreciate that you don’t have an adjusted number, but it will be nice to see how much overhead we should be banking and how much marketing spending we should be thinking as we go embedded in your guide?

Kelly Kennedy: Well, I can give you a quick highlight. As you think about marketing, one of the things that we have been talking a lot about is how the shift in spending has allowed us to be more efficient. And so we were at 12% for the fourth quarter. As we go forward, I think you can think about that as our baseline. And then we lean into innovation. And as Carla highlighted, over time, as we figure out what that future innovation and kind of will look like in the longer term, we will absolutely adjust the marketing spend to be appropriate to the categories we move at. But right now, we found more efficiency, and you can anticipate that going into 2023. As it relates to SG&A, I know we have been throughout 2022, managing that very carefully.

For example, our headcount is actually down 5% from where we were kind of mid-2022, we have been very cautious and careful in SG&A and will continue. And our cost savings programs are predominantly focused on margin, but we will also be looking for savings as well within SG&A as well.

Andrea Teixeira: Okay. Great. Thank you. I will pass it on.

Operator: Thank you. Please standby for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Jon Andersen with William Blair. Your line is open.

Jon Andersen: Hi. Good morning everybody. And Carla, it’s nice to meet you and look forward to meeting you in person in the future.

Carla Vernon: Thank you, Jon.