[Case] Interpreting the social media strategy of P&G (Procter and Gamble)

Author @ Chai Doll Marketing Notes

A few postings on Weibo have said that Procter and Gamble have gone from the golden age of traditional television commercials to social media for creative advertising. Is Procter and Gamble just starting out now? Not too! Its social media strategy has actually been part of the overall strategy.

According to P&g's annual report, P&g spends about 60 of its overall marketing expense on TV commercials, with the print media (printed media) accounting for 34%, while internet advertising accounts for around 5% (us$169 technologists). Visible, digital marketing (digital marketing) for the traditional FMCG industry is still a virgin territory. However, it is believed that with P&g's "touch and improve Consumer ' Lives" strategy, interaction with consumers will become increasingly important, and social media offers a lot of technical convenience!

P&G Products

To understand the essence of p&g social media marketing, it is important to learn from the basics of the enterprise that its "touch and improve Consumer ' Lives" strategy is one of the ways to get started, by thinking about the synergy of social media and pillar strategies (synergy), To understand its overall layout and strategy.

P&g's core ideas have been around the "purpose, Values and principles", p&g believe that the purpose of the enterprise is to provide consumers with good products, so as to improve and enhance people's quality of life, as long as can help consumers solve life problems, They naturally buy products and identify the value of their brands. Provide power to p&g business growth (i.e. purpose).

In addition, this guideline is also paid to the employees ' commercial behavior (for life/for turnover, etc.) some moral value, the effective unification employee's behavior and the cohesion centripetal force (also namely values;p&g will organize it to 5 big value). For P&g, some of the behavioral principles derived from purpose, after the staff internalization, become the enterprise's culture and core values, guide the day-to-day behavior of employees and enterprise Development (that is, PRINCIPLES;P&G will be organized into 8 principles). Visible "Purpose" is the cornerstone of the overall strategy, very important. For the definition of purpose, the original text reads as follows:

The power of Purpose

We are provide branded products and services of superior quality and valuethat improve the lives of the world And for generations to come. As a result, consumers would reward us with leadship sales, viewable and value creation, allowing we people,our shareholders and The communities in abound we live and work to prosper.

Access to Marc pritchard@p&g (Global Marketing officer)

Mr Marc Pritchard

How can we know that P&G products effectively improve and enhance the quality of everyday life of consumers? Obviously, we must fully understand the needs of consumers! In addition to knowing how they feel about the brand, they also need to understand the consumer's income, the life problems (and the products), and so on. In one visit, CMO Survey visited P&g's Mr Marc Pritchard (Global Marketing officer), with some of the following points:

· More Touch Points:

To understand consumers, you have to get in touch with consumers often. Therefore, whether TV, shop, Internet, etc., the more contact the better. P&g wants "high share of voice."

· Brand Loyalty:

Brand recognition comes from how much "benefits" consumers get from their products. Because P&g believes these benefits help them to improve some of the problems in their daily lives. Therefore, understand the consumer to the product feeling. including price, packaging, production quality and so on is very important.

· Live with them:

He said he and his colleagues had spent the whole week living with these consumers to understand the consumer needs of some low-income people, to understand the challenges they faced, the budgets they could spend on daily necessities, and their sense of brand. The important thing is some "deeper insights"!

· Touch Points Integration:

He thinks that the former CMO only need to concentrate on one thing, is advertising! CMO's work is much more complicated now. In addition to advertising, it is important to sharable around touch points, the integration of different touch points received information, collation and analysis.

From the visit of Marc Pritchard, I have come to the impression that to fully understand the needs of consumers (deeply understanding) must go into the middle of the crowd. The simple demographic profile does not provide an in-depth consumer insight. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand the importance of social media for P&g.

On different occasions, we can often hear from P&g's management that the words "to touch and improve the lives of the" and "the much consumers in much parts of the world", It seems that "touch and improve consumer ' lives" has internalized into the minds of every executive.

How does P&g consider its social media/online marketing strategy? How do you integrate social media into the big strategy of "touch and improve Consumer's Lives"? From Mr. In the visit of Marc Pritchard, we can probably get some inspiration, here are some highlights:

· Reach more deeply:

Different channels suggest that traditional media viewing rates (especially TV) are falling, and Marc Pritchard that there are no fewer people to look at, but that the media they choose to watch have changed. From the previous single choice TV, to the current online, or even mobile. It's good for p&g.

First, it can reach far more consumers, because netizens are many times more than TV viewers.

Second, you can reach the more deeply, because TV ads generally only 30 seconds, but consumers spend much more time online than 30 seconds. It means that they have to contact with consumers a lot of time, more opportunities to understand the needs of consumers. Therefore, P&G will devote more resources to the online marketing.

Different kinds of social media

· IBuySpy of Content:

In the past, P&g considered how to effectively bring TV advertising information to various supermarkets, how to use product packaging and store pops and consumer communication, stimulating consumption. Now they have one more task. is to consider how to bring different information (products/advertising, etc.) to the Internet effectively.

For example, through the launch of new products, through influential blogs, and even through the consumer's own dissemination. He mentioned an example of a UGC (user generated content). Pampers (Pampers) China has done a campaign to ask consumers to upload photos of their sleeping baby. P&g the packaging into a PR campaign, getting good feedback and exposure. At the same time, Pampers's China sales have benefited greatly from this activity. This example shows that the strength of the UGC is very large, as long as the good use, not worse than in the POPs of the store!

Pampers Good Morning smile trip

Visit by Joan Lewis@p&g (Consumer and harsh knowledge officer)

The strategy for P&g,online marketing is to deepen the understanding of consumer demand and broaden the breadth of content spread. Social media is more like a tool for p&g. A technology that helps them understand consumer needs and disseminate content! How does P&G deal with its digital marketing (digital marketing) strategy? In one interview, Joan Lewis (P&g's consumer and harsh knowledge officer) was very informative about P&g's interpretation of digital marketing. Here are some highlights:

· Social Networking:

P&g's mastery of social media is still inadequate, and the various "tests" that are being done are just beginning. What they value is not technology, but what trends can be summed up from the activities of social media. One of them is that people are eager to connect ("relate to the other") with a stronger heart than ever before, and new technology helps people connect with one another! As a result, the Community (community) has a much greater role for consumers than ever before. P&g to learn is how to deal with the "digital relationship with consumers."

· Mobile:

Mobile is the core of digital marketing. The research direction of P&G is how to integrate the experience of shopping, buying and learning into mobile terminals. They observed that many consumers, while shopping, also use mobile phones (or other mobile devices) to find product data, share data, and so on. Therefore, P&g developed a lot of brand-oriented, but for consumers to provide and brand/product benefits-related Apps. For example, you can let your parents record the "My Baby Registry by Pampers" APP (related products: Pampers diapers/diapers) that your child has grown up in. "Sitorsquat" (Related products: Charmin paper/toilet paper) can be made known to consumers about the condition of nearby toilets. Through these apps find opportunities to interact with consumers to understand their needs.

(Note: I try to compare P&g's app with Unilever.) P&g seems to have more control over what is consumer benefits and believes that they are better able to understand the needs of consumers through apps. Take the Hong Kong market as an example, whether it is Lipton "Lipton Black tea Challenge Concentration" or Pond ' s "Pond ' Bubble Fever" are mainly game-oriented, and consumer benefits have nothing to do with it. Let alone apps to understand consumer demand. ）

Sitorsquat Mobile Apps

· Speed:

Now everything in this world is changing fast. In addition to economic change, consumers are changing, and competitors are becoming more and more fierce. Therefore, who can master speed, also can adapt to change! Joan Lewis proposed two ways to improve speed. First, simplify the communication within the enterprise to speed up the event decision. Second, based on the information available to infer the possible future scenarios (what we know today and what we can project forward with what level of confidence and how many degree Of freedom we'll have there). Very clever way! Of course, including digital campaigns's monitoring. P&G will monitor these activities for 24 hours (too short!) To learn how to speed up decision-making and to quickly grasp changes in consumer and market changes.

· Community:

P&g's idea of the community can be summed up in a sentence: "We don ' t create the community, we add value to existing communities." There is a community of different interests that already exists,p& What G needs to do is to add value to these communities. Joan Lewis cites an example: Beinggirl.com is a social web site that allows teenage girls to share the problems they encounter when they grow up. Online and have experts to give them advice, there are a lot of relevant information for their reference. At the same time, if users have the need to buy products, they will guide them to the relevant website, the demand into sales! In addition to sales, p&g in the operation of the site also received a lot of "benefits." First, they can get a lot of useful consumer insights from the user's dialogue and sharing. In addition, for their other project "Connect + develop", these social conversations give p&g a lot of useful ideas. (Note: "Connect + Develop" is a great plan that I will share in future articles.) ）

Beinggirl.com

· P&g's website:p&g in many places touch points e.g Facebook, etc. But there are many facets to the indicators of consumers, and P&g wants to Social conversations on points on their own website e.g. Www.pampers.com. Because, in their own website has more information and resources, and consumers can do in-depth interaction, help p&g increase understanding of consumers. (Note: It is tantamount to bringing people from different social circles into communities that focus on a particular area.) Filter out some messy social conversations, and focus on the product-related dialogue, clever! ）

· Vs media company: Never do media companies! Although it is becoming more and more difficult to attract the attention of consumers, many advertisements and activities require a lot of entertainment to attract consumers. However, do not put the cart before the horse into a media company, not this necessary! (Note: See a lot of enterprises apps to play for the purpose, as if they forget their maxleaf is what. I agree! ）

Extended Reading
· P&g:our Foundation
· CMO Survey:interview with Marc Pritchard
· P&g Core Strengths
· Geing Girl Website

This article is from @socialbeta author @ Chai Doll Marketing notes.