How Haleon Scaled Marketing Mix Modeling Across 120+ Brand-Market Combinations

In five years, Haleon turned a fragmented measurement landscape into a single, scalable Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) framework, now running across more than 120 brand-market combinations and delivering over £100 million in cumulative value. Here's how they did it.

For years, the marketing measurement conversation has been stuck in a loop. More data. More channels. More complexity. And yet, for all the investment in analytics and technology, the fundamental question remains stubbornly difficult to answer: is our marketing actually driving growth?

At Campaign 360 APAC Marketing Conference held in Singapore May 2026, Olivier Kuziner, Managing Partner APAC at Ekimetrics, stood side by side with John O'Connor, Global Marketing Effectiveness Analytics Director at Haleon, to discuss how his organization tackled this question head on.  Their conversation traced a five-year journey and offers a blueprint for marketing team trying to scale marketing mix modeling globally.

Key takeaways

• Haleon scaled its MMM program from 2 pilot markets in 2020 to 120+ brand-market combinations by 2025

• The program has identified over £100 million in cumulative value since 2021

• A modular framework (common backbone, local flexibility) made this scale possible without losing market-level relevance

• The next frontier: agentic AI and real-time optimization

The Starting Point: Fragmentation

When Haleon began this journey, the landscape will sound familiar to many marketers. Measurement looked different in every market. Data lived in silos. Marketing Mix Modeling existed, but inconsistently, the whole capability rested on a handful of people who knew how to make sense of it all. The whole capability rested on a handful of people who knew how to make sense of it all. If those people moved on, the knowledge moved with them.

The real cost wasn't just inefficiency. When you can't see what's working across markets, you can't learn from it. When every market measures success differently, you can't compare performance. And when you can't build a credible case for what marketing is delivering, you lose trust with the CFO and the board.

The Journey: Start Small, Scale Smart

Haleon's approach was deliberate and disciplined. The program began with a pilot in two markets, testing and refining a new measurement framework designed for scale. The early results-built momentum, and the program expanded rapidly:

• 2020: Two IRI pilots

• 2021: Always-On MMM launched in 12 pilot Brand Market Combinations (BMCs)

• 2022: Program scaled to 27–43 BMCs with co-funding and Optimizer launch

• 2023: Program scaled beyond 43 BMCs with internal capacity building

• 2025: Over 120 BMCs with unified data processing and self-service dashboards

The key was a modular approach that allowed global consistency without sacrificing local agility. A common backbone of data, methodology, and KPIs, with the flexibility for local teams to adapt and respond to their own market realities.

“It’s gone from being a tool, to a service, to a capability, to something woven into how we plan, report and judge performance. People now use it instinctively because they understand its value.”

- John O’Connor, Marketing Analytics Director, Haleon

The Results: Measurable Impact

Since 2021, the program has identified over £100 million in cumulative value through better optimisation. But the numbers only tell part of the story.

The real achievement is that measurement is now embedded in how Haleon makes decisions. Every market uses the same language, a common currency of KPIs. Every team has access to the same insights. And when the CFO asks for evidence, there's a clear, credible answer.

John O'Connor's leadership made this possible. He built a capability within Haleon that doesn't depend on any one person or any one market.

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Why This Matters for CMOs

If you're leading marketing in a large organization, you've probably felt some version of this tension. You have more data than ever, invested in analytics and tools, but still don't have a clear, consistent view of what's working across your portfolio.

Haleon's playbook offers three concrete principles:

1. Build a common backbone first: shared data, methodology, and KPIs across markets, even before local customization

2. Start small and prove value: a two-market pilot, not a global rollout, de-risked the entire program

3. Scale what works, market by market - growth from 12 to 120+ BMCs happened in disciplined stages, not a single leap

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Looking Ahead

The next phase is already taking shape: Agentic AI, data automation, real time optimization… The technology is moving fast.

But the fundamentals haven't changed. The future of marketing measurement is about speed and confidence. It's about giving leaders the clarity they need to invest, protect, and grow with conviction.

Haleon built a playbook for that future. The partnership with Ekimetrics continues to evolve as new challenges and opportunities emerge. And the conversation at Campaign360 2026 was a reminder that the best insights don't come from dashboards alone. They come from people who have the courage to ask hard questions and the discipline to build something that actually works.

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Read the full Haleon case study: How Haleon scaled Marketing Mix Modeling globally to drive growth and efficiency