http://www.businessinsider.com/pg-ceo-to-lay-off-1600-after-discovering-its-free-to-advertise-on-facebook-and-google-2012-1
I will be the first to say Facebook appears to have done a successful job in building a large enough and diverse enough customer base that it has effectively created the perfect mass market advertising customer pool.
It is difficult to criticize P&G’s CEO, Robert McDonald. I think P&G’s timing is perfect. Could McDonald have implemented this strategy last year? Maybe. But at least he did something.
P&G is a juggernaut consumer products company and hence I am less inclined to pound P&G’s lateness to the web. Besides, at least they got the Old Spice campaign right.
I think the challenge for many consumer products companies as it relates to the web has been that cross over in the use of the web. The web as a business and marketing tool has been morphing over the last 15 years. It has gone from the GEEK world to the business world (B2B, enterprise, wholesale, non-retail, etc.) and now to the consumer space. Over the last 15 years the Internet has matured as a commercial tool. Like all marketing and advertising, retail businesses target certain demographics to sell to. The broadest group is one that is typically called the mass market; basically includes all age groups and all ethnic groups. If you are going to use a brand new advertising venue, you should use it on a younger population rather than an older population. Let us face facts the younger generation will have the greatest tendency to use new information technology than an older generation.
Over the last 15 years the customers P&G had considered to be young children and teens have grown up with the Internet and have been exposed to the Internet for more than half their lives. Hence, P&G’s timing is right. The customers who buy the largest percentage of high ticket items are now adults and these adults will be using the very media platforms P&G is hoping to leverage for marketing purposes.
I have always found the consumer space to be infinitely more challenging than the wholesale space. It’s easy to criticize McDonald. However, I believe the Old Spice campaign ought to be considered P&G’s grand experiment in monetizing the web.
The loss of jobs is the price of progress. It is an unfortunate reality but a necessary one.
Now on to business. What does Proctor & Gamble plan on doing with the Internet? It can use it to not only promote but also sell. However, will proctor and gamble risk its relationships with major retail outlets and supermarkets to sell products on their own via the web? There has to be some details to the company’s Internet plans.