Welcome back to closing bell and cheddar news. Everyone
. Let's take a look at the stock market ended
on this midterm election day games across the board and
stocks closing higher. Of course, as voters head
to the polls and investors look toward results that might
lead to a split. Congress or even republicans taking
control of both the House and the Senate under President
biden's Democratic White House. Well, divisions in Washington
could actually be good news for Wall Street as the
division would likely limit government spending and new laws like
regulations and even taxes. So a split. Congress
has historically led to higher gains on Wall Street.
Specifically after midterms, investors do get a clear picture
of what future policy might look like due to gridlock
in the government. So let's run through the major
indexes to see how he fared the dow continuing to
lead the way up 1% the S. And P
. 500 gaining 6/10 of a percent and the NASDAQ
up about half a percent. Well Kimberly clark the
company behind brands like Kleenex and Huggies still going strong
150 years after its founding. And today the company
ringing the opening bell here at the new york stock
exchange to celebrate that 150 year milestone. And earlier
I spoke with the Chief growth officer Alison Lewis about
how the company is dealing with economic challenges like inflation
. It's business here in the U. S.
And abroad. Its future plans and much more.
Take a listen were purposeful because we started that way
, we started back in Wisconsin as a paper company
making paper out of recycled cotton rags and linen rags
. And we've been able to from their transition to
more of a consumer company where the brands that we
created in categories we created always had purpose. So
we created five of the seven categories we compete in
today. Brands like Kotex were born from women on
the front lines in World War One stitching together,
sell you cotton to make the first menstrual pads so
that they could keep working helping the soldiers in need
while being on their period. So that's a great
example of being purposeful and that remains at the heart
of what we do today. And absolutely these basic
yet essential household items that every american and every family
does need. It is, it's pretty impressive,
right? I mean we're three years into the pandemic
, nearly three years into the pandemic and I remember
how everyone was stocking up on these items in the
early days. What is the current state of the
economic consumer for your audience? Yes, Well,
certainly, yes, toilet paper became the sexiest product
around during the heat of the pandemic. But in
terms of the consumer today, I think the key
is we need to always be following the consumer listening
the consumer. So obviously pocketbooks are tightening somewhat and
that means that it's important for us to think about
pricing and the segmentation of our categories from a good
better best perspective, so that we have entry level
products and we have premium products, what we see
in the market though with the economic downturn is it's
sort of a bifurcation. So yes, there are
consumers that are wanting less expensive products. There's also
consumers that are still trading up and want those premium
products and premium Ization has been a trend for quite
some time. I think it has a lot to
do with. We have Prada and brands and we
participate in categories where there's sort of no fail situations
. So I need the diaper, the Huggies diapers
to work. I'm willing to pay a little bit
more so they don't have leakage from my baby or
the same with the period product or the same with
an incontinence products. So we find that they're still
well willing to pay there at the same time.
You know, we do see that we have to
have products on both sides of the offer in both
premium Ization and entry level pricing is the company planning
to raise prices for concern summers on these essential items
as we head into the holidays and even next year
. Yeah, So we have been taking a number
of price increases because it's been very important for us
to recover our margins that we can keep investing in
the business and ensure that we continue to innovate and
make this business a business for the long term,
but at the same time we've been very smart about
our pricing and we've been very segmented. So if
you look at we price where we're bringing value into
the brand. So if there's a new innovation,
it's a great opportunity to bring pricing into the equation
. So something like a summer diaper that's more breathable
that we launched in Korea, that is at a
more premium price, We get a little bit more
price, but at the same time give something that
consumers want, which is a more breathable diaper during
those hot summer months. As the chief growth officer
at the company, what sort of innovations can consumers
expect here in the months ahead? Ah, well
, that's a great question. So I probably can't
talk about everything that's coming, but I can certainly
talk about some of the exciting things that we're doing
. One of the things that I'm really excited about
is our investment into things, which is a period
panty company, We now have majority ownership of that
and we're actually rolling period panties out in over 10
countries around the world in the spirit of not being
afraid to disrupt ourselves knowing that the market is moving
more and more towards reusable. So that's a terrific
example. Another great example is we've done a lot
of work in the area of overnight, so whether
it's overnight training pants for the baby, whether it's
overnight diapers, whether it's overnight Kotex, that is
a moment when again you want that no fail situation
, you want a product that works, it's a
growing area across all of our businesses. And we're
continuing to innovate in that overnight space. How as
the chief growth officer, have you been able to
navigate some of these supply chain challenges that have impacted
every company, especially companies, Right? That self
physical items. Absolutely. So the good news is
we are really good operators and execute ear's that comes
from our roots of being a paper manufacturer. So
we've been able to really stay close to the supply
and demand equation and just do everything in our power
to make sure we serve our customers which are the
Walmarts of the world. The test goes at the
world and ensure that consumers have access. We actually
, through the pandemic, continue to gain market share
, which is a great example of the fact that
we know how to execute and we were delivering the
products that people needed to those stores while we're doing
this interview as cop 27 is underway in Egypt Global
gathering of top leaders thinkers to talk about ways to
fight the climate crisis and make a more sustainable future
. What are some of the sustainability initiatives as a
chief growth officer that you're overseeing to make a more
friendly climate? Yeah, so we're very committed to
sustainability and that's one of the key areas of innovation
focus that we're doing which is sustainability by design.
So we launched things like plastic free wipes. Great
example of sustainability initiative. We've launched things like toilet
paper made from bamboo or up our eucalyptus amount of
eucalyptus in our paper, toilet paper products. So
using alternative fibers and then also trying to find plastic
free alternatives. And that's where we're continuing to invest
. We're continuing to focus and given that we are
a company that has come from very much a pioneering
spirit. I'm pretty excited about what you'll start to
see as we go out over the next 150 years
. And I think it's worth noting too that your
company is an international company. Right? So what
works in the US? Is that the same thing
that's being pursued in other countries around the globe?
Yeah. So yeah, we operated over 100 75
countries. And what we've really tried to do in
the last couple of years is scale a lot of
those innovations to a far greater degree. So there's
something called the thin core diaper Huggies. Diaper in
china was the first to launch in china two millimeters
thick, so more flexibility and movement for that baby
. And we've launched that around the world and everywhere
we've launched it, we've seen a couple of share
points of gains. So that's an example of innovation
that's traveling coming from china at the same time.
Things like overnight and the occasion work that we do
in the US. So little swimmers is a great
example or training pants or overnight diapers. We've had
great success in the US and we traveled that to
other parts of the world. So one of the
reasons we're number one or two in all the countries
that we operate is because we take that innovation and
we scale it big, thanks there again to Alison
Lewis, chief growth officer at Kimberly Clark.