Why Unilever Lost the Laundry War†

P&G Has Been More Aggressive Than All Rivals in a Category It Really Cares About

Advertising Age, August 6, 2007 — In a 1999 interview with Advertising Age, then-P&G President A.G. Lafley shook his head at an admission by then-Unilever Co-Chairman Niall FitzGerald in a magazine article that at one point he and other Unilever executives hadn't been in a laundry room for years.

"That would never happen here," Mr. Lafley said.

In the end, that was the story of how one of the most fabled marketing battles of the past century was won — and lost. P&G had its head, literally and figuratively, in the laundry room. Unilever didn't.