Monica Messerly
June 17, 2018
Journalism 350: Public Relations Principles and Practices
Representing Procter & Gamble.
Situational Analysis
Mission Statement
The mission statement of P&G is as follows:
“We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit, and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.”
Organizational Philosophy
At P&G the corporate culture is a goal-oriented operation aimed at achieving leadership in the global market. P&G has found that over time it has had to adjust its cultural characteristics to conform to the changing world. These changes often empower their employees to fulfill their roles in the business. P&G.
As discussed on the P&G website, their employees are their greatest asset. Values that are instilled in each employee reflects on the business goals.
1. Leadership
2. Ownership
3. Integrity
4. Passion for Winning
5. Trust
History
Description of Organization
Procter & Gamble is a multinational consumer goods corporation. Also known as P&G, the company is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio with about 95,000 employees. The company was founded on October 31, 1837, by candlemaker William Procter and soap maker James Gamble. P&G is now a public company with David Taylor as the president and CEO. P&G is now known for their household cleaning agents, personal care products, beauty products, personal healthcare products, and patented diagnostic solutions. P&G boasts a long list of brands, many of which are used by American households on a regular basis. Thus, the company last reported $83.1 billion in sales, and assets worth $127.1 billion.
Major Products and Services
P&G owns a large number of brands that are recognizable to the American consumer. Starting with household items, P&G owns Dawn dishwashing liquid, Joy dishwashing liquid, Gain dishwashing liquid, Ivory dishwashing liquid, Bounce fabric softener, Cascade dishwasher detergent, Febreze, Mr. Clean household items, Puffs tissues, Swiffer cleaning products, Tide detergents, Luvs diapers, Cheer laundry detergent, Downy laundry detergent, and Gain laundry detergent. P&G also owns Ivory soap, Olay skin care products, Old Spice men’s products, Secret deodorants, and Perla bar soap. Within personal healthcare, P&G owns Vicks cold products, Scope mouthwashes, Pepto-Bismol, Prilosec-OTC, Metamucil products, Crest toothpaste, Fixodent denture products, Always feminine hygiene products, and Tampax feminine hygiene products. P&G also owns Aussie hair care products, Clairol products, Frederic Fekkai hair products, Herbal Essences, Head & Shoulders, Pantene, Sebastian Professional, and Vidal Sassoon hair care products. These brands do not represent P&G in its entirety, however, these are the brands most recognizable to the average consumer. P&G is a family of 100+ brands sold multinational every single day.
Market
Procter and Gamble's consumers are part of the ever-growing American society. A large demographic for Proctor and Gamble is the middle-class American family which makes up for 50% of all households in the U.S. Adults within this demographic are looking for quality products by trustworthy brands at an affordable price. It is crucial to keep in mind safety and the trustworthiness of ingredients in the products offered. Their products are not only sold in the United States and North America but also internationally in markets like Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Tide was a proud partner of the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and is important for P&G to relate the values they uphold in America to other cultures and markets internationally.
Financial Information
The main source of income for P&G comes from a full line of products sold in the U.S and surrounding markets, specifically fabric and home care products. In 2017 the net sales were $65.1 billion, the product categories responsible for generating sales from Proctor and Gamble are as follows:
Products
Fabric and Home care: 32%
Baby, Feminine, and Family care: 28%
Beauty: 18%
Healthcare: 12%
Grooming: 10%
Markets
Developed markets: 65%
Developing markets: 35%
Sales by Geographic Regions
North America: 45%
Europe: 23%
Asia Pacific: 9%
Greater China: 8%
Latin American: 8%
India, Middle East, and Africa (IMEA): 7%
Organizational Structure
Procter & Gamble operates under a product-type divisional organizational structure that is organized by product type, geography, and function. The organizational structure of P&G is consistent in each country with P&G products are sold. It is a combination of Global Business Units (GBU), Selling and Market Operations, Global Business Services and Corporate Functions. Everything is centered around 10 category-based GBUs (below). Each GBU is responsible for developing the overall brand strategy, new product upgrades and innovations, and marketing plans for their product.
Board of Directors
Corporate Leadership:
David S. Taylor – Chairman of the Board, President, and Chief Executive Officer
Loïc Tassel – President, Europe Selling and Market Operations
Mark Biegger – Chief Human Resources Officer
Steven D. Bishop – Group President, Global Health Care
Giovanni Ciserani – Group President, Global Fabric & Home Care and Global Baby & Feminine Care
Gary Coombe – President, Global Grooming
Philip J. Duncan – Global Design Officer
Mary Lynn Ferguson-McHugh – Group President, Global Family Care and Global Brand Creation and Innovation, P&G Ventures
Thomas M. Finn – President, Global Personal Health Care
Kathleen B. Fish – Chief Research, Development and Innovation Officer
Fama Francisco – President, Global Feminine Care
William P. Gipson – President, End-to-End Packaging Transformation and Chief Diversity Officer
Shailesh G. Jejurikar – President, Global Fabric Care and Brand Building Organization, Global Fabric & Home Care, and Executive Sponsor, Global Sustainability
Henry Karamanoukian – Senior Vice President, Go-to-Market, China
R. Alexandra Keith – President, Global Hair Care and Beauty Sector
Deborah P. Majoras – Chief Legal Officer and Secretary
Jon R. Moeller – Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer
Julio Nemeth – President, Global Business Services
Charles E. Pierce – Group President and Advisor to the Chief Executive
Javier Polit – Chief Information Officer
Juan Fernando Posada – President, Latin America Selling & Market Operations
Matthew S. Price – President, Greater China Selling & Market Operations
Marc S. Pritchard – Chief Brand Officer
Mohamed Samir – President, Organization Design
Jeffrey K. Schomburger – Global Sales Officer
Valarie Sheppard – Senior Vice President, Comptroller and Treasurer
Kirti Singh – Vice President, Global Consumer & Market Knowledge
Yannis Skoufalos – Global Product Supply Officer
Markus Strobel – President, Global Skin & Personal Care
Magesvaran Suranjan – President, Asia Pacific and India, Middle East and Africa Selling & Market Operations
Carolyn Tastad – Group President, North America, Selling & Market Operations and Executive Sponsor, Gender Equality
George Tsourapas – President, Global Home Care, and P&G Professional
Competition
As of 2016, Tide brand controls nearly 25% of laundry detergent sales. Tide has several competitors, the top brands being Gain, Purex, Arm & Hammer, All, and Xtra. Last year, Tide outdid all of its competition, with sales of $1059.2 million dollars. Its next competitor, Gain, coming in 2nd place, sold $582.7 million dollars’ worth of product. Tide’s main source of competition comes from price wars between brands, competitors harming the brand’s reputation by ambush marketing tactics, and counterfeit products in the rural market. There are many similar products that can be bought for the same price.
Competing for laundry detergent brands are constantly coming up with new smells, colors, packaging, and formulas to entice consumers to buy their brand and ultimately come out superior. Tide combats their competition by selling a good quality product for a lesser price than most competitors offer. The brand also adds different styles of product due to their ever-changing consumer needs. For example, as competition strengthened, Tide had to enhance their products and merge with other brands such as Downy. Tide also made strides to be on top of their competition when they came out with Tide Pods in 2012. This new invention changed the business among all laundry detergent brands. Brands had to keep up with the stiff competition and create their own style of laundry detergent pods at a competitive price.
Tide’s opportunity for growth is consistently rising. Overall, they are the most well-known brand of laundry detergent in the world. They take the leading market position in laundry detergent. Tide has done a very well job of staying one step ahead of the competition by creating new and improved formulas that fit the needs of all their consumers.
Media Coverage
P&G partnered with Seneca Women, a global women’s leadership community, to host a #WeSeeEqual Forum at P&G Headquarters in Cincinnati. In honor of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day (March 8), the event highlighted how businesses, organizations, and communities can work together to create a more gender-equal world. It was an open discussion with journalist Katie Couric and P&G North America Group President Carolyn Tastad. The conversation included employees, business partners, and organizations working together to help women be fully represented in the workplace and the world. More than 700 people attended the live event it also featured an exhibit Women at Work: Myth vs Reality which sought to expose the myths holding women back in the workplace and hoping to change it for the women.
In its 2018 Product of the Year USA study and ranking, Kantar TNS named five P&G products among its line-up of the 31 most industry-advancing, innovative products launched within the previous year. This honor is billed as the largest consumer-voted award for product innovation. Categories in the study include beauty, personal care, household essentials, car care, food and beverages, pet care—and are evaluated on seven key measures. One product is named the Winner of each category, based on the results of the consumer study.P&G products named a 2018 Product of the Year USA were Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Cleaner, Tide Pods Plus Downy, Gain Botanicals, Febreze One, and Cascade Platinum.
CEO David Taylor shares perspective on P&G’s efforts to keep people safe and encourage good decisions by teens and young adults. Giving his perspective on the kids taking part in the tide pods challenge. He gave a brief statement in a blog showing his concerns and saying what parents could do to make it safer for the kids. Great way for the CEO of the company to show support towards getting rid of the challenges and also being real with the customers to let them know we are all the same person and have some of the same circumstances.
Organizational Media
The P&G company has a twitter account which it uses to interact with customers and to give notices on new products, deals, and other new things that are involved with the company. The company also has a facebook which ultimately does the same but it has a little broader audience since almost everyone is on Facebook. The company also post blogs on the company website to talk about different events they have going on and conferences that are going on.
On the company website, they have a new release to keep customers up to date on what is all going on with the company. The company also has a youtube account which has the companies commercials. The youtube channel has 37 thousand subscribers so it has a nice following of customers on the channel. Another thing they do have is a LinkedIn account which has over 2 million followers which is a high number showing how popular and supportive the customers and even employees are of the company.
Public Relations Plan
Problem Statement
Tide Pods, a P&G product has made recent headlines for its involvement in a new social craze called the “Tide Pod Challenge.” The challenge involves a teenager consuming a tide pod while videoing themselves and posting the video to social media.
Tide Pods first became popular in February of 2012. Up until early 2018, the only issues that had surfaced with the product was that young children and older adults were mistaking the pod for candy or a treat and eating it. In May of 2016, P&G added a new safety feature, a child guard zipper to the packaging of the pods to reduce this risk.
The current problem is that the young adults, knowingly, are eating the pods to gain internet fame. The dangers of consuming laundry detergent are clearly labeled on the packaging of the product, however, a plan to use other modes of communication to educate all audiences would be useful. Utilizing social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc and sending out small educational videos about the pods will be targeted at the current young audience.
Another issue is not of the packaging, but the appearance of the actual pods themselves. As stated above, the pods have been a mistake by young children and older adults as candy. P&G’s primary concern is for the people who use their products. Using the social media tactic as discussed above, educating and communicating with the consumer on the appearance of the pods and the dangers will be part of the PR plan for this issue.
Mission
“We will provide branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world's consumers. As a result, consumers will reward us with leadership sales, profit, and value creation, allowing our people, our shareholders, and the communities in which we live and work to prosper.”
Goal
Our goal is to restore and ensure the good reputation of Tide Pods, a product of a brand in the P&G family.
Objective
Increase the public knowledge on the dangers of ingesting Tide Pods while informing the younger population, ages 12-16, on the proper usage of the product, decreasing safety concerns affecting sales by a 10% increase in 9 months.
Research
Observe campaign feedback on social media, and through sales data
Observe campaign views/viewer demographics on sites like Youtube, and social media
Hold separate focus groups with parents, young adults, teens, and children to observe opinions and collect data.
Closely monitor sales of Tide Pods for the next year (Did the campaign affect the sales?)
Observe campaign hashtag usage-(Is the feedback positive or negative?)
Survey audience response. (Do they know the dangers/proper usage of Tide Pods?) (Did our campaign help?)
Assumptions
Some people will still choose not to purchase Tide Pods, due to safety concerns for their loved ones.
Tide Pods will still be viewed as unsafe around children to some-and their opinions won’t be changed by any campaigns.
Tide Pods will still have a strong backing due to loyal customers, and convenience of laundry pods.
Tide as a brand will still receive support from loyal customers and individuals who prefer the brand over others.
All people affected by the Tide Pods negative publicity will not necessarily see the campaign.
Strategy
Start a Social Media Campaign
To fully engage the younger population, social media with be used to start a campaign aimed at teenagers from the ages of 12 to 16. This campaign will be effective in showing the proper usage of Tide Pods as well as making the outcomes of misuse of the product known. Also, this campaign will have the hashtags, “#LookingLikeASnack #TastingLikeBurntTastebuds”. This campaign will have the celebrity support of Shane Dawson, a famous YouTuber with over 3.5 million followers. With Shane Dawson sharing the humorous short clips of the anti-Tide Pod challenge, the campaign will reach our target audience with the hopes that these clips go viral.
Advertise Tide Pods
To get the word out to concerned consumers that Tide Pods are in fact safe to buy and store in the home, Tide will release a commercial targeted at parents. This commercial will show the consumers the proper use and storage of Tide Pods. This advertisement will also show all the benefits of Tide Pods, such as their ability to clean and save energy, saving the consumer money. This will hopefully reinforce the consumer that the Tide Pods have more benefits than they do downfalls.
Audience
The social media campaign is targeted at the younger audience of teenagers, specifically teenagers from the ages of 12-16. It is targeting the children who come from middle-class families whose average household income is 75,000-100,000. Children coming from middle-class families have access to social media through smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc. This is the demographic that is most likely to have full access to social media.
The second strategy of advertising is targeted at parents. These individuals are making the average household income of around 75,000-100,000 per year. This audience age range varies between 30-50.
Key Messages
• Proper use of Tide Pods
• Proper storage of Tide Pods
• Dangers of ingesting Tide Pods
Theme
The theme:
The theme of our campaign is to restore and ensure the good reputation of Tide Pods, a product of a brand in the P&G family. In all of our promotions, we will reiterate the importance of our customer's safety and how to properly use the tide pods.
Slogan:
“ Tide is the safe and right way to go”. The slogan will be used on all our promotional advertisements, commercials, and on social media. A hashtag that will be used is #Tidesafety on all social media platforms to help promote our movement. Also to help get our movement worldwide and hopefully get support from other countries.
Tactics/Tools
1. Use popular social media platforms where testimonials and videos demonstrating the proper use of Tide Pods can be shown.
2. Vendor events with celebrity guests.
3. Hashtags on media platforms to raise awareness.
4. Polished ad campaigns.
Calendar/Timetable
Budget
As described in the Gantt chart, the proposed budget will be as follows:
1210 hours (Staff) x $80 per hour $96,800
100 hours (Executive) x $100 per hour $10,000
Total over a two-year period $106,800
Evaluation
Rise or fall of Tide sales
Checking the sales to see if our message got across to the customers to see if they are still buying the product. Checking if any of our tactics worked to keep customers using the tide pods and what we can do in the future to not cause this problem again. Analyzing the sales from previous years to do a comparison to see if sales were higher or lower.
Did social media tactics work
Checking all social media accounts to see if the customers took in what we were saying serious and either reposted or retweeted what we said in a positive way. Checking if the company had a rise in followers in social media accounts. Also checking if the celebrity partner helped with the increase in sales and portraying our message across to audience to give them a better idea what we are talking about.
How customers received our message
Checking if customers still go to stores and purchase tide. Did customers receive our message in a positive or negative way do they feel we did too much or too little to confront this problem. Will customers still buy our product even after all the problems that have occurred? Will kids know not to do the tide pod challenge because of our promotion of the dangers involved with doing it?
Works Cited
“The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground.” Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, 9 Dec. 2015, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/.
“P&G Annual Report 2017.” Procter & Gamble, us.pg.com/annualreport2017/annual-report.html#/Financial.
https://us.pg.com/annualreport2017/annual-report.html#/Financial
Development of Tide Synthetic Detergent – National Historic Chemical Landmark. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/tidedetergent.html
Tide SWOT Analysis | USP & Competitors | BrandGuide. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from
https://www.mbaskool.com/brandguide/fmcg/818-tide.html
The Best Laundry Detergents of 2018. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from http://laundry.reviewed.com/best-right-now/best-laundry-detergents
Leading laundry detergent brands sales of the U.S. 2017 | Statistic. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/188716/top-liquid-laundry-detergent-brands-in-the-united-states/
How Tide Cleaned Up the Competition. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/how-tide-cleaned-up-the-competition
Our Brands. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from
https://us.pg.com/our-brands
Leadership Team. Retrieved March 05, 2018, from https://us.pg.com/who-we-are/leadership-team
“P&G Hosts #WeSeeEqual Forum with Katie Couric.” P&G Hosts #WeSeeEqual Forum with Katie Couric | P&G BlogP&G News | Events, Multimedia, Public Relations, news.pg.com/blog/WeSeeEqualForumRecap.
Procter and Gamble. Wikipedia. (1999, May & June). Retrieved March 7, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procter_&_Gamble
http://news.pg.com/blog/kantar2018
http://news.pg.com/blog/KeepingUsSafe