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An accurate and up-to-date digital shelf is vital to connect with online customers, so they can discover and learn about the products they love. For consumer health company Kenvue, the digital shelf became increasingly important as ecommerce sales grew. Discover how by working with VML to establish a new product information management (PIM) system and processes founded on Salsify, Kenvue has cut the time taken to prepare content by up to 85% and reduced Amazon listing times by up to 97% in some markets, all while enhancing customer sales and loyalty.

Providing ecommerce retailers with accurate and up-to-date product data

Kenvue knows how important accurate product data is to keep customers well-informed and loyal to the brand. Formerly part of Johnson & Johnson, it’s the global consumer health giant behind Aveeno, Band-Aid, Calpol, Nicorette, and Neutrogena. With hundreds of millions of customers across Europe and booming ecommerce sales, Kenvue depends on a seamless digital shelf to help shoppers find and fall in love with their products.

But outdated, manual processes were holding them back. In the UK alone, managing 40+ channels and hundreds of SKUs meant endless spreadsheets and time-consuming manual data checks. This led to delays, incomplete product information reaching retailers, and even penalties for failing to provide timely, up-to-date content. Product data often wasn’t optimised for search, with products failing to appear high in searches, or not at all, making it hard for consumers to find what they wanted.

Compliance with industry regulations around product data is also vitally important to Kenvue, but the company’s manual processes made meeting requirements arduous and costly.

Kenvue frequently worked with agencies to get data to their channel retail partners, but this wasn’t cost-effective, and data lacked ownership. With product data not only important to ecommerce operations, but also logistics, marketing, and R&D teams, Kenvue knew it was time for a change.

They set out to build a scalable, centralised product information management solution to clean up their processes, ensure data accuracy and work seamlessly across local and global markets.

With fragmented data and processes, keeping product information up to date was time-consuming and complex. This increased time to market and meant customers couldn’t always find the products they wanted online.

Erzsebet Kirner

Senior Manager, Tech & Data, at Kenvue

Transforming product information management

In 2021, Kenvue (then Johnson & Johnson) launched its PrIMe project to enhance product information management (PIM), bringing together ecommerce, marketing, and IT teams. Partnering with VML (then Wunderman Thompson), the company developed a centralised PIM blueprint that could be localised across European markets. “VML provided PIM expertise and experience, helping us design and implement a scalable solution that standardised processes while maintaining the flexibility for regional variations,” explains Kirner.

The project began with discovery workshops to assess business needs and processes at central and regional levels. After evaluating three PIM platforms, the team chose Salsify PXM for its scalability and syndication capabilities. Already in use by Kenvue’s US team, Salsify was a natural fit for global expansion.

VML provided PIM expertise and experience, helping us design and implement a scalable solution that standardised processes while maintaining the flexibility for regional variations.

Erzsebet Kirner

Senior Manager, Tech & Data, Kenvue

A phased regional rollout

VML designed the system architecture and data model, rolling out central and local instances of Salsify in phases from a single blueprint. This approach allowed the team to share best practices while adapting to regional cultural, legal and process differences, balancing global alignment with local flexibility. The implementation was divided into central, north, and south clusters, covering all major European markets including France, Spain, Germany, Austria, and the UK.

Kenvue also reorganised teams, creating roles for digital shelf managers specialising in Salsify. VML provided training for the larger regions, which then went on to train smaller markets, ensuring smooth adoption. By 2024, Kenvue became self-sufficient, continuing to refine the solution with VML’s support.

Kenvue now uses Salsify to manage all product data, including text, images, and videos. The architecture connects source data from SAP ERP (enterprise resource planning) and Kenvue’s DAM (digital asset management) system with the product information managed in Salsify, enabling automated data flows, data reuse, and greater efficiency. VML has added data governance and taxonomy to ensure every piece of data meets compliance requirements.

In total, the Salsify solution integrates with around 20 major retailers and at least three key data pools across regions. These include Google, Amazon, and Zalando across markets, Boots and Lookfantastic in the UK, Markant for Germany, Austria, and Czechia, and Atida for France and Spain, as well as many others. The team also creates digital catalogues for key brands and retailer such as Brick&Click, Carrefore, and El Cortes Ingles.

With workflows designed and optimised by the VML team, the Salsify solution now provides:

  • Centralised and unified data for consistency
  • Compliant frameworks to provide complete content in retailer-specific formats
  • Automated workflows for ecommerce data enrichment and task allocation
  • Approval flows to ensure content meets legal and channel requirements
  • Service level (SLA) enforcement through automated reminders
  • Simplified lifecycle management with triggers to keep data up-to-date

VML helped to configure hundreds of workflows in Salsify, totalling 100 for central Europe, 60 for the UK and Ireland, and 40 for Spain and France. These included automations for product enrichment for localised content, product lifecycle/archiving, asset validation, and A+ content enrichment – each tailored based on the needs and maturity of the market.

To streamline compliance, Salsify connects to legal systems using formula identifiers rather than individual SKUs. By adopting a common language, this breaks down siloes between new product development teams, which use formula identifiers, and ecommerce, which uses SKUs.

“The Salsify platform provides Kenvue with accurate and consistent data across regions and channels, with support for content in multiple languages,” comments Jonathan Maier, Senior Director Global Programs, Salsify. “With seamless integration and accelerated workflows, Kenvue has clean, unified, and accessible data for global and local ecommerce, marketing, and brand teams.”

Happier customers, faster launches, and a digital shelf that’s always stocked with the right information

Kenvue’s new PXM environment has completely transformed how it manages product content. It now has better-quality, complete and up-to-date data that reaches retailers faster. This doesn’t just reduce the risk of fines for non-compliance, it makes life easier for customers by helping them quickly find the products they’re looking for, building trust and loyalty along the way. “Stronger product descriptions mean better product positioning and more sales,” says Kirner. “And with simpler processes, we’re able to work with more retailers since there’s less manual effort involved.”

The changes have been a game-changer for efficiency too. By reusing data, cutting duplication and improving collaboration, Kenvue has driven efficiencies across the board. For example, faster processes for pulling together and enriching content have slashed time-to-market by up to 65%. In Germany, the time it takes to enrich content has improved by 80% within just three months of rolling out the new system. And transferring data from source systems to channels now takes just eight hours instead of 48.

Kenvue’s PXM setup doesn’t just save time - it unlocks growth potential, improves compliance and ensures a seamless experience for both customers and retail partners.


Kenvue’s product data transformation outcomes

  • Faster time to market for new products
  • Simplified compliance with regulatory and retailer requirements
  • 85% reduction in content preparation time per SKU (Germany and Benelux)
  • 97% decrease in Amazon listing time (Germany and Benelux)
  • 20+ retailer channels
  • 3+ data pools
Stronger product descriptions mean better product positioning and more sales.

Erzsebet Kirner

Senior Manager, Tech & Data, Kenvue

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