Edgewell’s AI Marketing: Still Human, Despite the Hype—Rob Master Isn’t Buying the Bot Utopia

Let’s get something clear: the parade of marketing execs promising AI is going to ‘change customer connection’ are mostly sleepwalking through the same old playbook, now with a dash of ChatGPT-generated drivel. But Rob Master, Chief Marketing Officer at Edgewell, is actually awake—and he’s tired of the bullshit. On a muggy Tuesday in mid-August, while most CMOs are on Nantucket posting LinkedIn humblebrags about ‘AI transformation,’ Master is calling time on the fantasy that algorithms alone can read the room.

Edgewell, the company behind Schick and Banana Boat, deals in products people actually use, not vaporware. Master’s playbook? He’s betting on the messy, unquantifiable business of understanding real people—yes, the ones sweating through their SPF on Coney Island this week, not just the avatars in a Salesforce dashboard. The AI tools? Useful, but not a stand-in for talking to customers, watching how they shop, or—God forbid, listening to what they hate about your product.

This is heresy in today’s agency world, where the so-called ’10x AI agencies’ pitch a fantasy of set-it-and-forget-it marketing. Master’s take is surgical: AI can spot patterns, but it can’t tell you why your razor isn’t selling to Gen Z, or why your brand voice sounds like a bot with a hangover. That’s a human job, and anyone pretending otherwise is just after your retainer.

The uncomfortable truth? The best marketers in 2026 aren’t the ones who spent all spring chasing the latest AI plugin. They’re the ones burning shoe leather, talking to humans, and using AI as a sharp tool—not a replacement for judgment. Master’s advice to the industry: Less prompt engineering, more actual listening. That’s how you ship something people want, not just something an algorithm thinks they might click.