Liquid Death, Hain Celestial, and Kimberly-Clark Join Pilot for AI-Powered Promotion Optimization

Three major CPG brands team up to pilot a machine-learning tool aiming to rescue billions in wasted trade spend.

Liquid Death, Kimberly-Clark, and Hain Celestial are piloting a machine-learning tool built to fix one of the most expensive inefficiencies in the CPG world: trade promotions.

Created by Blacksmith Applications and Acumen, the AI-driven platform scans historical data, promo tactics, and retailer performance to recommend smarter combinations of pricing, timing, and format — potentially transforming a $200B industry practice plagued by low ROI and poor tracking.

With 15–20% of gross revenue typically burned on promotions, even modest improvements can unlock serious gains. For fast-growing brands like Liquid Death, this could mean scaling with sharper precision. For legacy players like Kimberly-Clark, it’s a critical opportunity to modernize operations and cut out waste in a crowded retail landscape.

If results are strong, this pilot could set the stage for a wave of predictive, AI-powered decision-making across CPG trade marketing — where instinct finally gives way to data. Corpbrief insight: Promotions are often the largest and least understood line item in a CPG P&L. By applying machine learning to trade marketing, this test signals a major mindset shift: from reactive volume chasing to proactive profitability engineering.