Jim Stengel rewrites the rules for his 300 brands
February 6th, 2006 by Hugh Kennedy
Stengel is Global Marketing Officer for P&G, the guy who recently gave the advertising and marketing world a grade of C-. He’s moving away from TV (US spend down 23% in first 9 months of 2005, web display ads up 88.5%), where the ability of advertisers to reach consumers has eroded, and into the Web; that is, toward a more personal, targeted, integrated approach (sounds familiar) that makes the consumer the ‘boss’. How does P&G get personal in a market where in the 1980s it used to be able to each 90% of UK consumers with 3 TV ads, but now needs 1,000 to reach the same number?
- Offering advice through web sites and landing sites, a great example being the Pampers.com site that transitioned the brand from diaper to aid in child development (see Pampers.com for yourself; it gets 400,000 hits a month, features the Pampers Parenting Institute, and has helped sales grow at double-digit rates in a cutthroat market as well as leading to new products defined by customers).
- Doing favors and displaying cultural empathy, for example using traditional medicinal remedies to create new Crest flavors such as Tea Clean, Herbal and Salt White; a special formulation Downy for lower-income customers in Latin America; promoting Biomat detergent using a scheme to have Orthodox Jews to donate second-hand clothing during Passover, then washing them in full view of the owners; and creating a campaign in the Middle East for Tide White Musk tied to Ramadan.
- Insisting that media planners work together with creative directors at his agencies. According to Stengel, it’s all about having incredible relevance to the target market, so they make you ‘one of their brands.’ That’s why P&G pushes to create media in addition to simply using it (again; sound familiar?).
Closing point: Stengel is even pushing for new broadcast ratings technologies, using a pager-type system that records inaudible signals during commercials, so advertisers know if anyone listened.
If you’re interested, I have the FT article. It’s great.
