[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age. Hey everyone, Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute. Risk versus reward. Does it always need to be a binary choice? Do you and your legal teams always need to be at odds?
[00:00:28] Well, there's a new lawyer in town. And Josh Jacobs, Legal Director at North America Core Reckitt, and his team have invested a ton of time and effort in building out a process of collaboration, education, and intense communication to change that paradigm. And make his Reckitt Legal Team a powerful partner in lowering risk and increasing the rewards.
[00:00:51] Josh joined Lauren Levack-Gilbert and me to explain the innovative mindset and strong empathy for business objectives he brings to the challenging areas of risk management, brand protection, and consumer privacy. It's a really fresh perspective and a competitive advantage. And he brought along Mr. Mucus. Josh, we are so excited to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much, Peter. I'm very excited to be here.
[00:01:19] You know, Lauren and I have been trying to trick, sorry, I mean entice someone from the legal team on the podcast forever. So thank you so much for being brave enough to join us and share your knowledge. We're really grateful. You know, compliance, privacy, and other legal issues, it plays such an important role in how products are represented in the market and the consumer's trust and confidence. So that collaboration between your team and all the parties involved in getting a product to market is really crucial.
[00:01:48] That's why we're so thrilled. And so we have so many questions, but let's start with your role and what your responsibilities are at Rekit. Sure. And Peter, I am enthusiastic to be here because I think that partnership between legal and the commercial teams is very important and only increasingly important.
[00:02:13] As we move into a more digital environment. There's just that much more content. We're moving that much faster. If we're not working collaboratively, then the system will fall apart. And then legal will have no involvement in what we're bringing to market. So we need we need to assert ourselves to be at the table.
[00:02:37] And I'm saying that to you as the legal director for the core Rekit portfolio, North America at Rekit. So what what is within core Rekit is our biggest brands in North America are Lysol, Mucinex, Finish, our VMS or dietary supplements portfolio, which is Airborne, Nereva, Digestive Advantage, Move Free, Mega Red.
[00:03:06] Our intimate wellness portfolio, which is Durex, K-Y, Clearasil and Veet in personal care and Biofreeze and Therapearl and a few other a few other smaller brands. Finish dishwashing detergent is a relatively large part of the portfolio as well. So you're really an obscure small company in the space and not busy at all.
[00:03:34] We are we are one of the global leading CPG companies across different different parts of, you know, what what you will see when when someone in your household is sick. You probably have Mucinex, Sepulchol or Delsum in your house. My life this winter, I'll tell you, it was a winter of viruses. Yeah. You're probably using you're probably using one of our Lysol products. You probably have.
[00:04:03] But don't tell me if you have Cascade for your for your dishwasher instead of finish. But but you might be using JetDry. You you might be taking Airborne gummies after after working out. You might use one of our Biofreeze products. We are in your household most likely. So, Josh, in in that role as like lead digital counsel, how do you touch e-commerce? Can you tell us a bit about like how you get involved with the e-commerce team in digital?
[00:04:35] Yeah, e-commerce is certainly one of the teams that we we engage with. I started at Racket as the end to end lead counsel for e-commerce.
[00:04:51] And I don't think that I would be in the role I'm in today if I didn't have the opportunity to be on the e-commerce leadership team and really understand from the beginning with inputs from people from supply and finance and certainly marketing and sales.
[00:05:11] But but but across the whole platform, having having an end to end team that has to move quickly really forces you to learn the full spectrum of the business. So there's really nowhere that that gives you the opportunity to quickly understand a relatively complicated business the way that e-commerce does. And that's not a pitch to say that people should should should find a career in e-commerce.
[00:05:37] But it's really to say that e-commerce is most likely kind of the focal point. If your company is doing something, you are posting something online or you're posting something through social media and that's where people are likely to gain to see it. So it's just more visible. So, I mean, that's I, you know, get up to speed with things because we have to push out content.
[00:06:04] We have to figure out what the digital risks are associated with things that we're doing. And it's certainly because of that. It's a quick, you know, fast paced environment with with legal challenges that don't really have easy answers or answers that people know about.
[00:06:22] This isn't it's not an established area of law like contract law where someone could point back to, you know, what what what laws were being established in the 1700s. This is these are things like AI or privacy or security where people are are thinking about it and laws are being generated around it right now.
[00:06:46] So speaking of that, Josh, in terms of collaboration between legal and the e-commerce team and that complexity and trying to figure out what the right answer is, how would you define successful collaboration or what things have been helpful for you to to really collaborate? The most important thing for successful collaboration is to is to bring in the cross functional support people as early as possible.
[00:07:14] And it's OK to say right now this is too much of a concept. We don't need to talk yet. But but thank you at least for informing me that this is something you're thinking about. The advantage of that is that teams like legal or supply or finance can probably pick up on on what are potential risks or pitfalls in an idea and be able to say it's not we're not saying no.
[00:07:39] We're saying think about this and there may be additional costs or burdens that you're going to need to overcome to get this to market. And Josh, in terms of that collaboration, you know, the the commercial teams are all about speed and, you know, the sooner you get to market, the sooner you're making the money and pleasing the consumer.
[00:08:06] But the things you talk about privacy and compliance, they all require caution to a certain degree. And I'm just wondering how those how you work through those those potential tension points and and and have that. What is it that you need in place between the human being is kind of working through this that makes it that makes that makes it work? Does that make sense?
[00:08:34] Yes, I hope that we're not our goal is to facilitate or enable the business to do what they would like to do, but to inform them about the risks and the level of risk attached to some of the activities that they want to do and try to mitigate the risks.
[00:08:59] Or if we need to just say, you know, our opinion is what you're going forward with is too risky for something that we would advise doing. I think that you need to do. I think that you need to build trust and credibility with your commercial stakeholders and you need to understand the business and understand business priorities and understand what is the what is the potential size of what we're talking about. So if there's a project that you know, is a high priority.
[00:09:30] I would say. It's easy to push back to say, you know, if the business is saying, you know, there's tremendous opportunity with something we're doing. Well, there also then may be on the flip of that and even greater magnitude of risk associated with it. So something where you're going to say this, we're launching a TV commercial at the Super Bowl.
[00:09:54] Something with that is going to have more risk than if you're going to say this is going to go on the Instagram handle of a brand and it's going to be up for two days. So I think it involves I want all lawyers on my team to know the business well enough to be able to understand and calibrate risk associated with the nature of what we're doing. And Josh, you talked about level of risk.
[00:10:23] And that was something when I was on the brand side, I talked a lot about with legal because digital's and I'm air quoting here level of risk can be much lower than something that can't be changed or is in writing and going on a wall or something like that. So when you say level of risk, how do you kind of define that with your stakeholder partners? Like I know there's complexity to it, but like at a high level, how would you describe that?
[00:10:52] I think that that's a constant struggle, Lauren, in terms of how do we make sure we're speaking the same language here in terms of what is risk? And I think that that involves kind of talking that through and say, well, does high risk mean that, you know, I will tomorrow, you know, get get challenged with a $100 million class action lawsuit? Does high risk mean that I will get a warning letter from a regulatory body?
[00:11:22] I think that we need to work that out. And that's that's one of the biggest challenges that in-house legal teams face is a lot of times people will come from a law firm environment where you advise on what is the law and any level of deviation from from what the law would say to do.
[00:11:43] And not saying violating the law, I'm saying in terms of are there risks associated given, you know, the direction of interest for regulatory bodies or what would be something that a plaintiff's lawyer would be looking for. Our answer is to is to with the best amount of data we can provide, give you an answer for. What type of activity would carry risk and what is the relative size of the risk?
[00:12:12] But to your point, absolutely. There's different types of risk associated with what goes on on pack of a product versus what's something that lives only in a digital environment. Because something that lives in a digital environment can be removed quickly, which means not only can you take take down the content. In a very short period of time.
[00:12:39] But also when you do so, it greatly limits the amount of eyeballs that are going to be on something. Imagine, you know, a new head of e-commerce comes to one of your one of your areas at Rekit. What would be like the the top five things you should know about making your go to market process as pain free as possible from a legal and risk perspective?
[00:13:07] In other words, what things would you advise them like, hey, here's the best way we can work together to be able to get in front of issues. What are the things that they should tell you? You know, what are the you know, I'd love just your thought on sort of a little prep document. For what would be really helpful.
[00:13:25] Yeah, what would be really helpful is to understand what the high level priorities are of the team so that when projects come through the legal team, we can we can contextualize them and also prioritize things.
[00:13:41] And people need to be increasingly comfortable with the idea that what what the numbers are in terms of if I were if yesterday priorities were one, two, three, these different things that that can change on the fly. So you also need to build a relationship so that you can say, I've got 10 things in front of me today. I'm not going to be able to work through all 10 of them based on my understanding from yesterday.
[00:14:09] This is this is my understanding of how to prioritize the workflow. Is that still how we're working? What what to you business are are the top priorities that we need to get out the door, because it's not going to be, you know, business likes to say everything needs to get out the door in 24 hours. Well, that's not going to happen. And so we need to be able to kind of push back both in terms of saying so we need to share with each other and understanding.
[00:14:37] No, no, what the what the priorities of the business are. No, no, what the top objectives are. Know where the where the big bets are. And also what we need to then do is be a credible partner so that we're trusted when we say. That may be a big bet for you, but let's slow down and talk through it. I love that you guys sometimes have to slow down to go quick, well, quickly. But if you are collaborative and you're working together, then it can all be successfully worked through.
[00:15:07] So I love those examples. And Josh, do you have any specific examples of a collaboration with a brand or specific teams that really worked well and any kind of highlights from those collabs? I mean, all the time, I think that there's very good examples of how we collaborate. I think that we have good content across our portfolio.
[00:15:35] I think that they're trying to do things that have their own unique voice. I think that we've done great things to make Mr. Mucus an iconic and respected figure in the world of cold and flu that differentiates Mucinex. Mr. Mucus TM, I'm sure. Yeah. That guy is trademarked. Yes.
[00:16:05] But a lot of fun around that and how we've used Mr. Mucus in social media to build upon the personality. You know, Lysol has maintained its leading position. I think that even beyond the category, it's the number three or at least the top five trusted brand in the country. Just like a name.
[00:16:35] So like Google, like it has something not even just in like the cleaning space. So to be able to work through COVID and kind of expand its reach as a category, as a brand, that's taken a lot of great collaboration. And digital is part of the strategy.
[00:16:57] We are always thinking about what role does digital play in terms of what is the go-to-market messaging for a brand. I think with some of our brands as well, sometimes we've done a great job leveraging organic content. I remember a few years ago, I think Cardi B said she loved Veen.
[00:17:24] And we were able to reach out to her agency and able to leverage that ourselves. And I thought that was a really good example that a lot of brands try really hard to work with influencers. And sometimes the best way to get content is have really good products that people like and people will on their own endorse or promote your product.
[00:17:52] And there's nothing better than something that's authentic. The fact that you know organic and you know about search and how that works, I think that is a very strong testament to you having the education and the understanding of e-commerce. And I think it's a great call out to brands to say, if you haven't helped to educate your legal teams on the right lingo and understanding the business, that is the number one factor here.
[00:18:21] You can speak the language of the brands and you understand why all of this is important. But if you didn't have that, I feel like you couldn't do your job effectively, right? Absolutely. And these are conversations that I have all the time. And the ability to understand things from a technical and operational perspective is critical to be able to help them.
[00:18:43] In conversations I had with some leaders yesterday on one of our parts of our portfolio that has significant amounts of consumer data. And we're talking through, you know, they asked me, what is the five-year horizon from a privacy perspective? And we were talking through, you know, what data points do you need? What's critical?
[00:19:08] And I was really pushing them to say, you know, you're collecting some of these data points today. Because you can't, they're offered to you by a service provider. But my challenge to you would be, can you collect less personal data and then try to use the fact that I know that you guys work with another partner for CDP augmentation?
[00:19:34] Can you get used lookalike or matching to kind of build some of the data that you would want so that you're reducing your potential exposure on a personal information respect, but still drive to your media objectives?
[00:19:53] So I think it was important that I understand not just what the business does, but what's critical to the business to say, are there ways that you can reach your objectives while also reducing your legal risk in the future? That's really impressive.
[00:20:39] I think it's about, they don't want to have this conversation every day. They want to try and figure out a way to work that feels like it's going to be a sustainable approach that protects both the company and the customer and the consumer at the same time. And also satisfies regulatory things that are changing all the time. I'm just wondering how you're feeling about that regulatory environment right now.
[00:21:05] And because everything's so chaotic at the moment in the world. And it does feel to a certain degree, like some governments, understandably maybe, are using regulatory action to act about things that are happening in other spheres and to exert control where maybe in other areas they no longer have control.
[00:21:57] I won't dig into any of the details. You know, kind of what we can do. We're a global company. We have raw materials that are sourced from different places. We have production in different places. There are different things that resonate with consumers. So I think that understanding kind of that there are also different regulatory actors.
[00:22:26] That was also something that I try to make sure the teams are conscious of. When there's something that's done, whether it's the U.S. federal government, whether it's an EU law, there also are states like the state of California kind of also reacts in sometimes in concert and sometimes in reaction to what's going on at the federal level.
[00:22:55] And then kind of outside of just government bodies. I think the teams also need to be attuned to what are the types of things that a consumer just expects that might not be a legal requirement. But also, would there be reputational risks or harms associated with doing something that might be legally permissible but might not be desirable to a consumer?
[00:23:23] And those are things that I think that we need to also be challenging ourselves on. I don't really think we should be even, for a lot of these things, asking the question of what's the exact legal requirement. I think we should be asking what would a reasonable consumer expect and are we meeting their expectations?
[00:23:44] And whether that's privacy and someone saying, and I try to put things in those terms, in terms of saying, you know, someone might think doing something like this could come across as creepy. So let's just take a step back and kind of think that through.
[00:24:02] Because the answer really is not determined by what is legally permissible, but what would make someone trust us and make us a brand that they want to have in their house? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:20] We just recently came out of our Digital Shelf Summit, where so much of the conversation was about the ability to be able to scale how you present yourselves and your products to consumers, how the desire of companies to try and create content that fits more and more.
[00:24:46] And so, you know, you know, you can see more sort of niches of personas because that makes for a better experience for the consumer. At the same time, what that requires is a lot more data, not only for that purpose, to be able to have multiple versions of every product that might be persona focused, but also how much data, you know, large language models want to suck up, especially the data that comes from manufacturers, because that's the most reliable and trustworthy data that exists.
[00:25:16] In the world. And so I'm wondering sort of on two sides of AI. One is that sort of increasing of the flywheel of compliance checks that will need to happen. And on one side, can AI, you know, how do you view AI, you know, as a potential ally in your work to deal with the scale of what it is that you have to do?
[00:25:43] And then secondly, how do you think about how, you know, what are the rules of AI for people at Rekid to be able to engage in the use of AI to get their work done? Can you talk about both sides of that? And I can remind you of any piece of that as you go through your hands as if you like. Sorry. Okay. I'll try to talk generally about about Gen AI.
[00:26:07] So first we have, and I appreciate that companies are all over the place. I think last year I was on a panel about Gen AI and we have a, we have a policy for use. We have some governance rules.
[00:26:28] We have AI champions that will, that will funnel something through on a function and region basis to, to a centralized team that will help with the structures. And we have an assessment tool put in place that's calibrated against the EU AI Act. I think we have a relatively mature AI governance structure.
[00:26:54] We also have, have put forth a good number of resources towards building out AI use cases. We're, we're certainly looking for it in the innovation space.
[00:27:08] We're looking for it where, where we can try to find efficiencies so that some of the more administrative type, type tasks we can, we can see if there's a way to safely leverage Gen AI learnings. One of the things that, that, that I've been pushing our team really hard on is exactly to your point, Peter.
[00:27:35] Are there things that we can use within the legal team? There absolutely are. And I think those are things that we're trying to test and we're trying to make people feel more comfortable with the idea.
[00:27:48] So we are pushing for a, a claims pre-consult tool that is built with inputs from legal and regulatory and medical and R and D and also has some learning capabilities. You know, these are things that we'll see how they do. Yeah.
[00:28:13] You know, I, I think though with Gen AI, Gen AI generally and legal is, is a team of, of people that are, that are highly skeptical of all things. And I, but I think that, that it usually it, it, it, it, I think people are positively surprised by the capabilities at this point of some of the tools that, especially tools that we can build in house.
[00:28:40] Yeah. That is, I mean, just hearing you list out the, the robustness of that program is so impressive because, you know, being at the summit, we, and Lauren, you probably can reinforce this as well. I talk to people whose companies are like, there's no AI happening at our company, including in the word brain.
[00:29:01] Like, like, like it's just not allowed all the way up to, and I think I would put you at some of, at the top, I mean, hearing the description of it at the top of companies that are leaning into a building structures. And that's just so impressive.
[00:29:19] And I think it's so competitively critical when we look at, you know, cost margins and the need for efficiency, but also the desire to drive better experiences and better performance. So it's super impressive to just hear what you've described there, because it's not usual. I don't know if you know that. Well, it's not realistic to tell people they can't use something that they, that they know will help them.
[00:29:47] So people will find ways around it. So I think that if we, and I, and I appreciate that, Peter, I understand that other companies are trying really hard. We are aware of that.
[00:30:00] And, and, and we certainly did put up guardrails to make it harder for people to, to use gen AI in an unauthorized way to push and, and really like as quickly as we could pilot some things, which are, there's a few projects in pilot phases right now. To try to get people to leverage it.
[00:30:23] Um, but beyond that, there's many vendors, um, that, that offer services, um, where they're using gen AI. Um, and, and what I would say is to all those companies that are, um, banning the use of AI within their, the walls of, of their, their operations. Um, they're probably using, um, third-party partners that are, that are, I mean, agencies will say, we'll use gen AI to create content for you.
[00:30:53] Um, I think that if you have a little bit of control over it yourself, uh, it'll probably be less expensive, uh, and probably be higher quality content. And I also just think it's important to know what questions to ask. To your point about agencies, like brands should know, like you should work with your legal teams to understand, like, are they using AI? Are we comfortable with that?
[00:31:15] I think it, it creates a whole new set of operating rules and questions for onboarding technology agencies, partners in any way that I think partnering with your legal team is such a critical aspect of that. Yeah. I would encourage them to partner with, with their legal teams. Um, because I, I know for sure that brands are doing this and that they're working with agencies or consultants, um, to, to drive, to, to build things.
[00:31:43] Um, and, and they will be asked questions, um, that they're not necessarily expecting. Um, and this is a real opportunity for, uh, for legal, uh, to show that they can have some strategic leadership, um, by going to their teams and, and, and, and, and trying to get an understanding of, you know, is this, uh, an open source or closed source, um, tool that's being built? Um, what are the inputs to it?
[00:32:12] Um, what type of guardrails do we have in place? Um, I mean, I've asked questions just kind of say, well, when you, when something is built, whether internally or externally, um, does it then just go live or, or I'm sure that, that then it gets to a point where, where, where it's put in front of some human beings and, and we look at the output. Um, and, and that is the answer that, that the brands want, cause they want to have some ownership. Um, but they need to ask that question.
[00:32:39] Um, and they certainly need to be asking, um, what type of material is going into, um, the, the, the tool, um, to make sure that, um, both that we're not running into any IP, um, misuse or, or, um, infringement issues, um, to say, oh yeah, it's just pulling from anywhere in the internet.
[00:33:00] Well, that's, that's, that's, I'm, I'm sure problematic, but also even if, even if it's a internal closed network, um, is it pulling together, pulling out things that are not public facing? And are there, are there proprietary or confidentiality type risks? Um, and this is an area where, um, legal is going to ask questions, um, that other functions haven't thought of yet. And we're going to lead to a better product.
[00:33:27] Well, and that's where the, the confidence, being able to build confidence in a process that you've established together is so important. Um, because once, you know, I think of the importance of like automated workflows as an example, so that you can be sure that, that nothing can go out without the right signature having happened.
[00:33:49] What you can do is make that process faster and get your content, your AI content better and better so that the reviews become more and more, uh, rapid. I mean, it's taking the air out of something in a way that's repeatable, I think. And that's, that's what it sounds like you are building is a process that is repeatable. And then you can just work and work and work to make that more and more efficient over time.
[00:34:15] But the word that keeps coming to me on both sides of the equation, but as I listened to you is that the relationship that you and your team are intent on building is one of trust. And, and, uh, and that creates the atmosphere for real collaboration instead of how long can we keep this away from legal before they start to muck around. And it sounds like that's, you've created that environment with your partners, which is really impressive.
[00:34:44] That's my hope, uh, Peter. Absolutely. I think that, that, that trust, um, is very important and, and you build trust by being a credible actor, uh, and, and by being someone that, uh, understands the business, um, extremely well. Uh, that's, that's, that's my goal for the whole team is, is you need to understand the business objectives as though you are the, you are the marketing director.
[00:35:14] You are, are the, uh, e-commerce, uh, sales director. Um, if you know what they want to do and, and, and you can think about how do I, uh, put the advice that I'm providing in the context that they need to hear. Um, that's how, that's how we'll be successful. Okay.
[00:35:35] Well, someday, Josh, you need to write a book about this and then we'll have you back on the podcast because seriously, this, uh, what you're describing it, you know, it, it reminds me of the people who got into e-commerce early and, and mid and then created all the rules that we, that we run by and the ways of working and they continue to evolve. Well, this is the same, at least, you know, just from my perspective, Lauren's nodding. I agree. Completely agree.
[00:36:05] Uh, so anytime you want to talk about this or when your book is. Come back anytime. I know you're not writing, or you might be writing a book. I don't know. Um, but, uh, either way, this has been incredibly valuable for our audience and just a blast to hear you talk about what you're up to there. It's, it's really cool. And, and I have to give Josh props because I was recommended to him by a colleague of his who used to work at record who said he was such an amazing business partner. So I can contest to the fact that Josh, you are doing an amazing job and your business partners really appreciate it.
[00:36:34] So bravo to you and the team. Well, thank you very much, Lauren. Thank you, Peter. Happy to help out. Um, there is no better way, uh, to, to learn, uh, how to do work in any business environment, um, than to be in e-commerce.
[00:36:50] Um, if you work in e-commerce, um, just based on, on the speed and, and the complexity of the issues that you face, um, you, you can go, you can build upon that experience, um, into any type of business. We will quote you on that. Thank you, Josh. Literally. Get ready. Social media. All right. Hey, uh, we'll run it by you, Josh. Don't worry. Thanks again, Josh.
[00:37:19] We really appreciate you coming on. Thanks again to Josh for joining us. And thanks to you as always for being part of our community.