Meet P&G Signal Innovator: Gian DeBelder

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Gian De Belder, Technical Director, Packaging Sustainability and R&D, is helping P&G reach its sustainability goals through the Holy Grail 2.0 initiative, a project led by AIM and powered by The Alliance to End Plastic Waste. The initiative would allow digital watermarks — imperceptible postage stamp-sized codes — to be printed on plastic packaging.

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When plastic waste enters a recycling facility, high-resolution cameras installed at sorting units will detect and decode the watermarks and sort the plastic waste more accurately. Ultimately, this project demonstrates how using digital watermarks is a powerful tool in improving recycling results.

Click here to learn more about the Digital Watermarks program.

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As the Senior Director of Data Science and the AI Factory Product Lead, Irene Poh is enabling R&D business unit partners to use AI Factory, helping P&G increase efficiency.

She has helped the team use AI Factory to disrupt the media buying process. It analyzes large data sets, allowing teams to make faster decisions about where to focus resources for the greatest impact. It is also increasing consumer retention as models enable them to identify consumers who are likely to switch brands and to help them specifically reach them with customized advertising and communication.

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The team also uses AI Factory with devices like Oral-B iO’s connected toothbrush, synthesizing consumer data to create a smarter algorithm, teaching the device to brush better for each consumer. This process allows the Oral-B iO team to test many different models and continuously deploy them, taking a process that usually lasts months and shaving it down to just a few weeks. Poh and her team are working to apply this across brands, moving from a bespoke approach to one that can benefit all of P&G.

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Jefri Misawar, P&G Japan’s Physical Distribution Director, has effectively used AI to create network design that allows his department to lower forecast error in product demand from 25 percent to 15 percent.

With a separate algorithm, Misawar’s team helped truck drivers and sales managers deliver products to stores more efficiently, reducing transit time from one store to another by about 60 percent. Together these reductions help streamline P&G’s supply chain process.

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Katie Kelly, Director of North America Sales Talent, and Cem Canikoglu, Senior HR Director, P&G North America, are on a mission to reinvent the new hire experience at P&G.

At Signal 2023, Kelly and Canikoglu shared the value of employee connectedness and retention and how it fosters innovation. Previously, some new hires had inconsistent onboarding, with experiences varying from manager to manager and lacked a sense of connectedness and belonging. After seeing the disconnect between what the team thought was being done well versus what team members perceived, Kelly and Canikoglu got to work.

They created the New Hire Summit in 2022 and focused on supporting new hires, managers and peers. They brought to life a consistent onboarding experience to help new employees feel more connected and supported from Day 1.

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR P&G SIGNAL INNOVATORS

Their work has extended well beyond that original summit and is delivering on the P&G’s commitment of a superior employee experience, which we call P&G + Me = Mutual Success.

“We have room to grow,” Canikoglu said. “But, I feel more confident now that the new hires we are bringing in will have a better chance of succeeding in this company and feeling this amazing experience that they were looking for.”

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Jasmine Turner, Senior Strategic Media Planner

Innovator Jasmine Turner, Senior Strategic Media Planner, and her team, helped bring media planning in-house at P&G. Through a pilot program with Amazon, called Audience Modeler, the team were able to increase return-on-ad spend for the company.

Audience Modeler offers a way for the media planning team to identify and engage with consumers who are interested in P&G’s products. The team uses historical data from Amazon — looking to see how many consumers have used their platform to look for P&G products — then uses those insights to build ads for interested consumers.