NFL Teams With Procter & Gamble In a Play for New Kinds of Sponsors†

Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2009 — The National Football League has an official drink and an official wireless headset. Now, in a sign of how far sports leagues will go to find revenue in the recession, it has official toiletries.

The NFL, the biggest U.S. sports league by revenue, on Wednesday will announce a sponsorship deal with Procter & Gamble Co., maker of everyday household items such as soaps and shampoos. The multi-year pact, which P&G says is the costliest in its history, lets it slap a newly designed "Official Locker Room Product of the NFL" label on products including Old Spice deodorant and Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo.

At BlogHer Confab, Marketers Show Moms Some Love†

Pepsi, P&G, Walmart, Kodak, Others Look to Learn Lessons of Social Media While Feting Moms With Luncheons, Gift Bags

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — If you were wondering where the media budgets have gone, you might have tried looking around Chicago late last Thursday through Saturday, or maybe even check out one of the city's pawn shops this week.

At the BlogHer '09 conference in Chicago marketers were lining up to woo around 1,500 mommy bloggers with swag, celebrity appearances, shopping sprees and lavish entertainment of the sort that seems part of a bygone era to most of the marketing world.

Unilever, Walmart, P&G Buck the Short-Term Trend†

As Recession Forces Cuts, Leaders Build for Future With Marketing, R&D

Advertising Age, June 29, 2009 — It's been said over and over: There's no time like recession, when competitors are retreating, to ramp up innovation and marketing to grab share.

So far, the competitors have done their part. U.S. trademark applications through mid-June were down 17% from a year ago; patent application growth stalled last year after more than a decade of high single-digit annual growth; and ad spending plunged 14% last quarter, according to TNS Media Research.

The intrepid share-grabbers have been harder to find. Now, however, as the dust settles from the fourth-quarter financial collapse, a growing number of them appear to be sticking their heads out of the bunkers to lay the groundwork for long-term growth in a short-term-obsessed world.

Insight -Out Design

Hub, June 22, 2009 — The Tropicana “orange and straw” debacle is well on its way to becoming a classic example of redesign gone wrong. The lesson is simple but profound: Good designers always remember that they are designing for real people, not for their firms, themselves, or even their clients. This means that design and consumer research are inextricably linked.

P&G Using Online Soap Opera To Market Beauty Products In China

CNNMoney.com, June 17, 2009 — Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) has once again turned to the soap opera genre to market its products, only this time the soap is online and the characters are in China.

Max Factor, a beauty brand that P&G is discontinuing in the U.S., is playing a central role in the firm's new marketing efforts in China. An online soap opera made by P&G's beauty and grooming group and Beijing Hachette Advertising Co. tells the story of two young, energetic professional women, Max Factor's target consumers in the country. And, of course, the show's characters use only P&G beauty products.

P&G Buys Art of Shaving Retail Stores†

Giant Looks to Boost Profile in Men's Prestige Personal Care, Increase Direct Contact With Consumers

Advertising Age, June 3, 2009 — Undeterred by recession or getting into a retail business with which it has little experience, Procter & Gamble Co. is buying the Art of Shaving, seller of pricey men's shaving products at upscale shopping malls.

How P&G Plans to Clean Up

The consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble is investing in game-changing innovations even amid the recession, says CEO A.G. Lafley

BusinessWeek, April 2, 2009 — Since becoming chief executive of Procter & Gamble (PG) in 2000, A.G. Lafley has never had it tougher. Shares of the world's biggest consumer-products company have lost a third of their value since last fall. U.S. shoppers are trading down to private-label products from premium-priced brands such as P&G's Tide, Gillette, and Pampers. And the economic downturn is spilling into developing nations where P&G has notched its best growth. Lafley, nonetheless, seems undaunted. The 61-year-old sat down in his Cincinnati office with BusinessWeek's Roger O. Crockett to talk about managing through the recession. Here are edited excerpts:

P&G Gives Its Marketers a Crash Course in Social Media†

Twittering Digerati Descend on Cincinnati HQ for 'Digital Hack Night' Charity Event

Advertising Age, March 12, 2009 — Procter & Gamble Co. paired 40 digital media and agency executives with 100 of its North American marketing directors in a contest to sell Tide T-shirts for charity last night as its much-awaited "Digital Hack Night" became a four-hour reality show aired largely in social media.

P&G, Others Are Confident Higher Prices Will Stick†

Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2009 — Chief executives from several big household-products makers voiced confidence they could make higher prices stick, even as the recession ratchets up pressure on retailers and consumers to cut costs.

"Our products don't deliver value [just] because the prices on the shelves are lower," A.G. Lafley, chief executive of Procter & Gamble Co., told analysts and investors at a conference here.

Like several other industry executives who spoke at the event, Mr. Lafley said his company doesn't plan to roll back the significant price increases it has made over the past several months.

P&G Looks for Beauty Tips in Genome Lab†

New Tools Help Cosmetics Makers Learn How Skin Behaves at Molecular Level, Use Findings to Improve Products

Wall Street Journal, February 17, 2009 — As scientists worked toward sequencing the human genome, many researchers embraced an exciting new tool that might offer insight into diseases. At Procter & Gamble Co., researchers saw an additional benefit: new ways to develop dandruff shampoo, skin cream and toothpaste.

Ten years ago, P&G began using genomic tools in a laboratory near its Cincinnati headquarters to learn how skin reacts at the molecular level to factors such as product ingredients or environmental changes, and to use that knowledge to improve its consumer staples and health-care products.