Kraft Heinz — Marketing AI Case Study
Kraft Heinz needed a unified CRM strategy that could operate across a global, multi-brand portfolio, accelerate cross-brand engagement, and increase lifetime value while enabling AI-driven content at scale. We designed the strategy, built a modern, AI-native content foundation combining modular systems with a custom RAG architecture for brand-safe generation, and implemented and managed lifecycle programming on Customer.io that increased engagement, helped accelerate cross-brand trial, and unlocked new pathways for customer lifetime value.
The Challenge
Kraft Heinz operates dozens of brands globally, each with its own consumer base, campaign calendar, and creative requirements. Lifecycle marketing had developed brand by brand over time, which meant workflows, data practices, and personalization infrastructure varied across teams. Contest-driven acquisition brought in high volumes of subscribers, though typically with limited attribute depth to support precision targeting. Outreach followed campaign cycles, and consumers engaged with individual brands in isolation, with limited visibility into adjacent products across the portfolio. Content was another dimension of the scale challenge. Each brand required tailored creative for every segment and occasion, and the asset volume needed to power true personalization at Kraft Heinz's scale was difficult to meet through manual production alone.
Our Approach
We developed a multi-brand CRM strategy to connect activity across the portfolio into coordinated, cross-brand programming. The strategy established shared principles for lifecycle, segmentation, and personalization while preserving each brand's distinct voice and audience logic, enabling signals and behaviors to be unified across the portfolio and activated to drive intelligent cross-sell. We introduced a stream-based, cross-lifecycle framework to capture high-quality data, progressively deepen customer understanding, and trigger relevant next-best experiences across brands. To deliver this at the scale Kraft Heinz's portfolio required, we built the strategy on a modern, AI-native foundation. Modular content systems allowed assets, components, and messaging to be assembled dynamically across brands and segments, while a custom Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture ingested each brand's guidelines, tone, approved messaging, product data, and compliance rules. Together, these components were designed to power on-brand, highly personalized email content, subject lines, and campaign variations in real time, reflecting individual preferences and cross-brand opportunities at a speed manual production could not support.
The Impact
The program established a scalable, AI-enabled CRM foundation across the Kraft Heinz portfolio, reducing the cost and time of campaign execution while unlocking cross-brand engagement, accelerating trial, and driving measurable gains in customer lifetime value.
Key Results
- 4x Up to 4X improvement in Open Rate
- 17x Up to 17x improvement in Clickthrough Rate
- 60% 60% reduction in content production time
- 8x 8x brands operating on unified CRM architecture
Capabilities: Marketing AI Enablement, CRM & Lifecycle. Platform: Customer.io, Google Cloud Platform.
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