It has been an honor and a privilege to work at Colgate-Palmolive for almost seven and a half amazing years. As I leave, I want to thank my partners, collaborators and teammates. I joined as an outsider – an external ‘design agency’ hire, and leave as the first SVP of Design for Colgate-Palmolive feeling fully embraced and integrated. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity.
So rewinding to Oct, 2016, my reasons for joining were only two – to provide stability for my new family (for my beautiful wife Adrianne and our two girls), and to explore to see how much impact great design could create for as many people as possible.
As I reflect on our journey, our Design vision is to drive the cultural transformation of Colgate-Palmolive into a Design Integrated company – where brand experience, breakthrough innovation and a design-mindset, create both short term and long term momentum by breaking down silos and readying our organization for the next 100 years of growth, opportunity and change. How exciting is that!!?
Thank you to our amazing Design team around the world. When I started (thank you Yves Briantais for believing in me) we were a packaging (graphics) service. As I look at the team now, we have elevated the impact and influence of Design around the world, from our New York Headquarters to our Regional and local teams. We’ve created Design leadership by promoting and hiring great leaders and we’ve doubled the size of the Design team – filling it with excellent, diverse talent. Thank you to my design team, you are the force driving this amazing progress.
We’ve also expanded the definition and expectation of design by adding capabilities like Brand Strategy and experience, Design and User Research (led by David Cole), Content Design (thanks to the amazing Tiffany Ou-Yang), Retail Design and Digital (UX/UI) Design (led by Aviva Buivid). We’ve outlawed the word vendor, and instituted the idea of partnership and collaboration (big thanks to our Design Operations team). Design is now a strategic partner and driver of growth.
We’ve experimented with team rituals, learning forums, yearly design sizzle reels, we’ve designed and produced annual year-in-review design books, websites, blogs, communities and community. We’ve experimented with AR (Softsoap 2023 Winter Seasonals), VR (Colgate Connect @ CES 2020) and thanks to our chief-experimenter-in-residence, David Cole and his Experience Design Team, and we’ve experimented with Generative AI in our creative process – both upstream in breakthrough innovation, and downstream our traditional Industrial Design (bottle-making) process (with amazing results I might add). We’ve built repeatable people-centric feedback loops into our design process so we learn what people really want and need – not just what we want them to want. Now we’re exploring using machine learning to automate parts of our development process. The opportunities are endless.
Favorite projects (and awards)
Some of my project highlights include designing **#SafeHands** identity and packaging as part of our response and contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic. We ended up donating (in partnership with WHO) 26.5 million bars of bright red packaged bar soap with ‘proper’ hand washing instructions on the back (as icons) so everyone, no matter what language they spoke, could understand how to correctly wash their hands…and save lives in the process. When I think about Design making material positive impact at global scale, this is what comes to mind.
Hill’s Science Diet relaunch, led by Jen Giannotti-Genes in partnership with Beardwood, is our benchmark for business value by design, netting over 100MM in new top line revenue from a single (albeit extremely complex) packaging design change – no formula, channel, or pricing change. In 2018, at the relaunch of Science Diet, Hill’s was a 2.2BB business. Now, 5 years later, Hill’s is on pace to be a 4.5BB business. There are many reasons for the growth of course, but great packaging design, and adding emotion to our already excellent science story is undeniably a part of the growth.
And of course there is oral care brand Colgate…our flagship brand with higher household penetration than any other brand on the planet. In 2017, we relaunched the global toothpaste packaging system (led by Kristina Karaiskos in partnership with PI Global, ECD Paul Cowley), across all sizes, all sub-brands and variants, and all markets. In 2019 we reimagined the Colgate toothbrush system (led by Jada Britto, partner agency Sterling) which is perhaps our most complex design system to date (if you need convincing, visit the toothbrush aisle of a supermarket or drugstore and then tell me I'm wrong!) In 2020 we transformed the entire Colgate brand equity (brand strategy, brand identity, brand voice, digital systems, toolkits, training and implementation), impacting all touchpoints in all markets. Thanks to partners at Redfuse WPP and Designbridge who also collaborated on our Colgate Sonic Identity – the Sounds of Optimism with partners Massive Music. 2020 also saw the launch of hum by Colgate (thanks to Pearlfisher for the identity, digital platform led by Aviva Buivid), an affordable, beautifully designed electric toothbrush built on our Colgate Connect platform allowing people to know when, how long and how well they are brushing via our connected iPhone app. In 2021 we launched CO by Colgate, designed bespoke for Ulta beauty channels, (great job Kayla Risch!) and Recycle Me, an award-winning brand campaign in a package (congrats Gerard Rizzo), celebrating our world-leading recyclable tube (launched a year earlier). And the transformational relaunches continue with exciting news coming soon across our biggest (sub)brands.
Notable mentions…Fabuloso – a brand I was not familiar with before I started, but have grown to love for its sheer "fabulousness and joy".
Softsoap – our new look and feel (led by Monica Goodman) is so good that it is changing our relationship with retail partners (thanks to United, our agency partner) and how I think about liquid hand soap.
Irish Spring – the brand with insane amounts of nostalgic good will and that fragrance!
Hello, that we acquired in 2020, brought with it the brilliant founder Craig Dubitsky, to help carry the design vision. Thank you for your friendship and mentorship Craig.
Elmex and Meridol, our European oralcare gems look amazing (thank you Blue Marlin) and last but not least, Murphy Oil Soap (in partnership with JKR) is the perfect reinvention of an icon. (Iconic icon anyone?)
I've learned about Designing for different cultures, and their respective idiosyncrasies. In particular, thank you to my LatAM Head of Design Daniel Donnet for reminding me that 'Latin America is different Jared!'
Thank you Pat Verduin, without your support none of this would have been possible – you truly are the leader who creates other leaders. You are a legend! Thank you for taking me under your remarkable wing.
Thank you to Prabha Parameswaran for elevating me and our design team to even greater heights. And thank you for welcoming me into your leadership team. I hope my perspective was engaging and challenging, and that I helped you think differently.
Thank you to our marketing partners, technology and science partners, finance partners, copyright lawyers, HR partners, packaging engineers, data scientists, supply chain masters, world class vets, storytellers and agency partners.
Thank you to the Design Leadership council for enterprise Design executives set up by John Gleason in 2017, and to my peers on the council who helped me grow and connect dots. Your support was above and beyond and I’ll be forever grateful.
Thank you to the speaking platforms I was afforded, both internally and externally – from American Packaging to NYC Circular Design (shoutout to my partner in crime Greg Corra), to the recent Generative AI and Creativity series in London to name a few.
I was also really proud to be able to give back to the New Zealand business community when I hosted the NZT&E at our headquarters last year, sharing learning across a cross-functional team of supply-chain, sustainability and design for maximum value. Makes me a proud kiwi!
As a proud Kiwi, I love to travel. And thanks to Collate-Palmolive I’ve been welcomed into homes in rural India, to experience first hand the importance of good oral health across four generations living under one roof. Every year to Switzerland where we can do store checks in three countries (Germany, France and Switzerland) in three hours. I’ve been in Mexico City during one of their infamous earthquakes, I’ve studied UX design in Chinese homes, I’ve visited Tom’s Of Maine (yes…in Maine) and experienced where it all started. I’ve been to Bangkok, Manila, Paris, California, Hong Kong, Kansas and London. It really has been an amazing journey of discovery.
Colgate-Palmolive is a 217 year-old company and with longevity comes the responsibility of stewarding this special company through the uncertainty of today, and readying it for the unknown challenges of tomorrow. I believe a design-mindset, and the agility and adaptability that comes with being design-obsessed, is a great way to do that.
At the end of the day, I’m a dreamer.
I dream about the full potential of a design integrated company where we are one connected team, where there is zero waste and each of us is included and valued equally. Where data-driven decisions and digital scale are the perfect complement to a creative culture. Where design-led capabilities like storytelling, user research and prototyping are commonplace. Where we obsess about the needs, wants and desires of all people and where we prioritize our home, the Earth, before she deprioritizes us. Such is the power of the design mindset to inspire, influence and drive us forward.
I know Design is a change agent for social good and I’m proud to have worked with brands such as Colgate, used in more homes than any other brand, to create maximum positive impact.