Inside Harry's owner's AI playbook for challenging CPG giants like P&G

Good evening. And welcome to all the new subscribers who’ve joined since I published my reporting last week on the Phia “forced click” or “cookie-stuffing” scandal.

Three quick updates and thoughts on this story.

First, I’ve heard of damage-control overtures going on behind the scenes with key brand partners. Not surprising but, if you’re one of them, I’d love to get your thoughts.

Second, even among those who are proclaiming they don’t believe the founders intentionally did this, there’s disappointment knowing the entrepreneurs could allow this to happen when the Gates name and their cadre of celebrity backers mean a finer microscope on them than the average startup their size.

I also wonder if this scandal might tempt the company to move away from the affiliate business model. Yes, it's the easiest, essentially off-the-shelf way to monetize a startup like Phia that is currently focused on surfacing deals and price comparisons. But could sponsorships or other forms of advertising be an option? I’m not sure at the app’s size, or when many people think of it as a browser extension first instead of an app. The company could also potentially try to integrate checkout capabilities directly into its app at some point, though that comes with a host of its own challenges.

A lot may depend on whether anyone pursues legal action against the company, and how much longer the story stays alive. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts or tips.

Lastly, I'll be in Manhattan tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon and have time to add one more meeting to my day. Let me know if you want to meet. You can also catch me at the MARCC NYC affiliate marketing and publishing conference, hosted by Martech Record, next Monday. If you're going to be there, please say hi. I'll be the guy shamelessly sporting a custom The Aisle hat.

Now on to the good stuff…

In the spring of 2019, I was waiting to board a flight to northwest Arkansas for a reporting trip when I spotted two familiar faces who were maybe only celebrities in my e-commerce-obsessed brain: Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield, the co-founders and co-CEOs of the men’s shaving brand and DTC era darling Harry’s. (If we’re being really honest, I think I only really recognized Jeff and then assumed that Andy was Andy. Sorry, Andy!)

A week earlier, the entrepreneurs had announced their intent to sell their company to Edgewell, a large CPG conglomerate that owns the Schick razor brand.

Of course, I had to walk over and say hello. The founders introduced me to Edgewell's CEO, Rod Little, and explained that they were headed to Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as many others on the flight likely were, to discuss what the acquisition would mean for the country's largest physical retailer. How lucky was I to witness the start of the honeymoon?

But the planned marriage would be short-lived. The Federal Trade Commission ended up contesting the acquisition in the following months, pushing Edgewell to eventually back out. The great DTC acquisition dream was over.

In the years since, Harry’s has raised more funding and remained a private, independent company while rebranding to Mammoth Brands. It now owns four other CPG brands beyond Harry’s, including the women’s shaving line, Flamingo, as well as Coterie, an upscale baby product brand it acquired late last year.

Thanks in large part to its direct-to-consumer, e-commerce roots, Harry’s and its parent company have long prided themselves on being more agile than larger CPG giants like Procter & Gamble and Unilever. But I’ve been curious if and how that has changed in this new AI era.

So I recently spoke with Mammoth’s Chief Technology and AI Officer Sandeep Chouksey. We covered so much in the discussion, including why Mammoth doesn't fear “token-maxxing”; the ERP data problem he's spending real time trying to crack; how the company is using LLMs for advertising; why he's not sold on conversational shopping for all of Mammoth’s shopping sites; and the AI rule some retailers are starting to hand down to the brands they carry.

I’ve condensed and edited it in some spots for clarity. Let me know what you think.