Douyin livestreams turn household cleaners into impulse buys
Lysol maker Reckitt has achieved 12 consecutive quarters of double-digit sales growth in China, not by relying on traditional e-commerce — which local executives convinced CEO Kris Licht was “a yesterday technology” — but by pivoting to social commerce on apps like Douyin, according to Natasha Khan’s reporting for The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today newsletter.
From a five-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai, Reckitt sells everything from Veet hair removal cream to Lysol’s international equivalent Dettol. Crews broadcast live for 12 hours a day while shoppers fire off comments and questions. In neighboring studios, teams record short dramas and skits that feature Reckitt brands.
“This is the way forward,” Licht said. “Those that don’t figure this out will be left behind.”
What Khan found striking was that the playbook succeeded with products not typically associated with impulse buying. Cleaning sprays and hair removal creams, items shoppers usually pick up on routine grocery runs, are being repositioned as discovery products through video storytelling.
Dettol offered a case in point, Khan wrote. Sales of the cleaning product rose after one video showed a parent arguing with their teenager about smelly shoes, with the brand stepping in to address the odor. People might see cleaners and sprays on supermarket shelves and not look twice, Khan wrote. When they are watching a short video, they might see someone use a product and think they need it too, she added.
The operation grew from improvised origins. Reckitt originally ran the streams using customer-service representatives out of a makeshift conference room, Khan reported. As the social commerce division became more established, the company built out the Shanghai facility, where company hosts now join guest actors and influencers in producing quick comedies and mini-dramas about domestic life featuring Reckitt brands. Khan characterized the livestreams as “a sort of interactive infomercial,” with Reckitt hosts responding rapidly to viewer questions. A team monitoring the livestreams guides the hosts and adjusts the products they feature in real time, according to the Journal.
The same CMO Today newsletter reports that advertisers from Macy’s to Levi Strauss are telling Wall Street that significant portions of their multimillion-dollar tariff refunds are going straight into marketing. These announcements may say more about investor-relations strategy than budget expansion, the WSJ Leadership Institute’s Patrick Coffee writes. Brands are framing the government cashback as fuel for major pushes.
“Our tariff refunds are being reinvested first to support our value proposition through lower prices on ~10% of our portfolio, then to support marketing across our portfolio of brands, highlighting our holy grail innovations,” Kory Marchisotto, president of e.l.f. Brands, said in a statement. “Marketing is one of our best-performing investments.”
But some messages are likely aimed at reassuring investors about costs rather than describing net-new budget additions, said Brian Wieser, founder of consulting firm Madison & Wall. “In an established business, you don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘I can’t wait to increase my budget,’” Wieser added. “You’re a hero when you cut your budget.”
In box-office reporting, North American ticket sales placed Universal Pictures’ “Other Mommy,” a new horror movie, at the top of the domestic chart despite poor reviews from both theatergoers and critics. Sony Pictures’ “The Social Reckoning” took in $5.5 million.
A separate item centers on a Royal Mail advertising controversy. “Pay the money and get somebody in to do the job,” said Lucy Wynne, daughter of the late voice actor Paul Vaughan, in a remark on advertisers who use AI for voice-overs instead of humans. Wynne believes the AI-generated voice in a Royal Mail ad was modeled on her father, who narrated BBC programs and Paddington audiobooks. The postal service says the voice-over was “not designed to replicate any specific individual.”
The newsletter also previews the CMO Council Summit the WSJ Leadership Institute will host in New York on Nov. 17 and 18. The gathering will feature marketing leaders including FUBU founder Daymond John, Visa’s Frank Cooper III, Mars Inc.’s Gülen Bengi, IBM’s Jonathan Adashek, United Airlines’ Josh Earnest, PepsiCo’s Mark Kirkham, e.l.f. Beauty’s Oshiya Savur, and the National Women’s Soccer League’s Rachel Epstein.
Several briefer items round out the newsletter. Kelly Clarkson is engaged in a social-media dispute with a Brooklyn novelty shop, accusing it of giving her the “Pretty Woman” treatment and rejecting its explanation for the encounter, according to EW. Pat McAfee will host a commentary-driven Super Bowl telecast this February, expanding a range of Disney feeds, Variety reports. The Justice Department is probing whether major TV networks violated antitrust laws by briefly suspending White House pool coverage last month, according to the WSJ. Press Gazette reports that the recent daily output of business news publisher Quartz appears to largely come from a “single, hugely prolific journalist heavily aided by AI.” TikTok’s CEO said AI-generated videos on the platform are attracting a smaller share of views than their prevalence might suggest, per Provoke Media. Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang said his X feed full of memes about Muse is a deliberate strategy to make the company “cool again,” per BI. The newsletter also flags how Airbnb could still be a winner in the era of AI agents that can book travel, that Apple TV’s acquisition of streaming rights for the Australian crime series “Dustfall” hints at a strategy shift for the streamer, and includes a trend report on what one tween is raiding from her stylist mom’s closet.