• William Procter, a candle maker, and James Gamble, a soap maker are the founding members of P&G. Procter & Gamble was born on 31st October 1837.

• Headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio.• In 1859, sales hit $1M.• Since then, it has been a company based on

innovation• Today it is a multinational consumer goods

company.

• Has pursued international expansion as early as the 1930s, and from 1945 to 1980 it began to enter markets in Latin America, Western Europe, and Japan.

• In the 1980s, P&G ramped up its global expansion and developed its first global brands, including Always/Whisper, Pringles, and Pantene.

• Constantly looks out for opportunities to acquire brands in order to boost their hold on that market.

• The $57 billion acquisition of Gillette in 2005 made P&G the top consumer goods company.

• Usually believes in introducing multiple brands in the same market.

• In 1887, a nephew of one of P&G’s founders, set up an analytical lab for the company, laying the foundation for a professional R&D division.

• P&G took a scientific approach and connected R&D with the company’s sales and marketing.

• First-time products included Crest toothpaste (1955), the first toothpaste with fluoride; Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo; and Pampers disposable diapers (1961).

• Lafley decided to make P&G the top product-design company in the world.

• Named Claudia Kotchka as vice president for design innovation and strategy.

• Named Jim Stengel as chief marketing officer (CMO).

• The new emphasis shifted the company toward a more consumer-centric marketing approach.

• Shifted from TV and print to digital and direct marketing.

• Stengel, with urging from Lafley, also brought a sharper focus to return on marketing investment.

• Project Apollo, a joint venture between media and marketing research firm Arbitron Inc. and VNU, the Dutch media company that owned Nielsen, tracked the media habits of 30,000 households representing 70,000 consumers.

• Multibranding, or leveraging the P&G brand to drive sales to its sub-brands, was a strategy that P&G tried to pursue.

• One of the first examples was P&G’s successful advertising campaign for the 2010 Winter Olympics, which combined 18 P&G brands under a common message and featured a commercial that thanked moms around the globe for their efforts

COMMITMENT TO

CONSUMERS

• P&G invested more in market research than any company in the world, interacting with more than 5 million consumers in almost 100 countries.

• Qualitatively, it ran focus group discussions, interviewed consumers at home, and performed in-context visits and in- store reviews.

• Quantitatively, the firm gathered data on consumers utilizing blind tests, concept and use tests, and quality monitoring, and doing large-scale studies of the habits and practices of consumers who purchased P&G products.

• In June 2010, P&G announced a partnership with Tobii, a leader in eye tracking, which objectively identified visibility and attention that consumers gave to packaging, displays, and advertising.

• In 2008, P&G took a stake in Ocado, a U.K.-based online grocer.

• P&G employed psychological surveys to measure mood and electroencephalography (EEG) technology to measure electrical activity in the brain as subjects were exposed to commercials.

CELEBRITY ENDORSME

NTS

• BeingGirl.com, launched in 2000, provided information and expert advice on “issues that teenage girls might be too embarrassed to ask a parent or doctor about, such as menstruation, eating disorders, acne and dating.”

• P&G launched its first mobile marketing ad campaign in 2006 to promote Crest Whitening Plus Scope toothpaste. The campaign advertised on bar napkins and club bathroom mirrors to encourage customers to text the words “IQ” or “Extreme” to 27378 (C-R-E-S-T) and take an “Irresistibility IQ quiz.”

• YouTube’s Old Spice channel was the most viewed channel that week and became the third-most subscribed channel ever in the site’s “sponsor” category.

• By the response campaign’s third day (Wednesday), Old Spice’s official Twitter account had 32,000 followers. By the following Monday, it had 94,000 followers, and the account was featured on over 2,300 Twitter lists.

• The campaign was seen as a milestone in P&G’s transition from a mass marketer to a one-on-one digitized marketer.

• In 2011, when company research showed that men were going to women’s sites for information on recipes, cleaning the house, or getting a stain out of a shirt, P&G rounded out its earlier social media efforts with Manofthehouse.com

• Featured household advice for men, including tips on grilling burgers, cleaning toilets, and disciplining children.

• In contrast to other similar sites focused on single men and heavy on sex advice, Manofthehouse.com aimed to “speak to the whole man.”

INTERACTIVE

COMMUNITY PROMOTION

• As P&G continued to push toward reaching 5 billion consumers served worldwide, its evolving marketing capabilities took center stage.

• The firm had proven its ability to navigate the digital environment with efforts like “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” and Manofthehouse.com, had incorporated a sense of design into its culture, and aimed to complement its strong function-driven marketing background by adding emotional efforts such as the “Thank you, Mom” and “Loads of Hope” campaigns.

• Building on its strengths in R&D, consumer research, and product performance, P&G continued to evolve and innovate as the world’s largest marketer.

DISCLAIMER

Created by Mihir Parikh, IIT Bombay, during a marketing internship by Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.