A.G. Lafley, he talks to you like you're a seven year old. It's like Mr. Rogers. Remember those who were kids during Sesame Street? And, and that sort of, and, and it sort of, Proctor and Gamble was things like the customer is boss or the customer is king, but then they'd make billion dollar decisions in the basis of a very simple approach. And thento talk about, well now an easier competitor, an interesting thing, example, of keeping it simple is to look at what happened when Jobs took over as then acting CEO of Apple
Cut. I know, I know. When Proctor and Gamble went from 26 varieties of Head and Shoulder down to 15, they actually saw a rise in sales of ten percent.
is the most ethnically, racially diverse city on the face of the planet of any consequential size. If you're Proctor and Gamble, you can get 100% retail distribution of something almost immediately.
it's in technology or in sales and you have to or I'm suggesting you really see it as an assumpt failure and begin to partnered with Proctor and Gamble and what they created was the crest spin brush the crest spin brush and they
it's in technology or in sales and you have to or I'm suggesting you really see it as an assumpt failure and begin to months later Proctor and Gamble bought him out for $475
Let's look at a contrast. You look at Proctor & Gamble. Where's most of the value for the company coming from?
Because the way you assess the company is going to be very different, if it's Procter & Gamble, as opposed to LinkedIn. If you're Proctor & Gamble, you should be very focused on earnings reports and say, how much did they make last year. If you're LinkedIn, who cares what they made last year.
We stepped out of the classrooms for exams. We don't proctor exams. And students hold themselves to this rule.
So after college I went to work for Proctor & Gamble, I was a salesperson there, won some sales awards, was the sales manager, and was the sales trainer. But I left Proctor & Gamble, big fancy Proctor & Gamble, multi-national company. I left there and I went to work for a sales training company, and it was this little speck of a sales training company, it was a six million dollar company compared to Proctor
in K1 in 19 38 took place just before he left for China he had been to see by the Americans or Proctor and Gamble or something in the 19th century not at all there are records showing that soft
book one of the examples that um that the business press was kind of praising is as Proctor and gambles uh icon of the new generation of like Innovation was the crest spin brush remember when this came out like 2003 and was battery powered spin brush and I thought at the time you know this is the height of
this badly probably other people do as well and so it became a book idea as well okay and so you wrote this book while you were working at Proctor and Gamble um what was the point where you decided hey this is a popular book maybe I should go out and do this full time oh yeah well so it it kind of was in that order I I I didn't know for sure that I
it's in technology or in sales and you have to or I'm suggesting you really see it as an assumpt failure and begin to right here so even he challenged Proctor and Gamble who are the smartest marketers in the world and what did he do he said we'll create a little button
We work with a lot of kind of major Fortune 100 clients, that's really our, our business focus. Heavy in the CPG with Proctor and Gamble, retail with Kroeger, Luxottica, and also some financial services; I know some of you here represent that. We work with Fifth Third Bank.
Again, it's really hard for traditional advertisers to kind of think this way especially marketing that, that may not have the force, you may not force to buy the product or service itself. I know when I worked at Proctor and Gamble, I worked on new formulas with Tide, new products like Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. I loved getting up in the morning and knowing that I was creating products that people loved and they told me at focus groups; they wrote emails.
Conversation ensues. Math and verbal SAT scores are shared. Conversation ends. Proctor walks back into the room and says, do you recall the math and the verbal SAT scores that were shared with you? So what do we think?
with a story I haven't read that yet but I have kids so I plan to read it soon good um Paul spent a couple of years as a consultant at Accenture and 20 years at Proctor and Gamble as a director of consumer Communications research he's a popular keynote speaker he's been featured in The Wall Street Journal Inc
least in terms of ambition of the media companies and so and they're a global brand outside of just Media or entertainment so um Apple Google uh um Proctor and Gamble I could learn a lot and I could apply that on a worldwide basis potentially which I
So clearly I was on fire for sales. So after college I went to work for Proctor & Gamble, I was a salesperson there, won some sales awards, was the sales manager, and was the sales trainer. But I left Proctor & Gamble, big fancy Proctor & Gamble, multi-national company.
would know Whi Pro and its it uh division which is an important player here in Silicon Valley but how many of you know that they're also a competitor to Proctor and Gamble and that they sell vegetable oil and soap and that their original name was actually Western Indian vegetable products so all examples of the N expected I also like
And I want to run this the gamut. Probably the biggest brand from the past of traditional world is Proctor and Gamble, right? Proctor and Gamble. 99% of households in the world have one product from Proctor and Gamble.
Probably the biggest brand from the past of traditional world is Proctor and Gamble, right? Proctor and Gamble. 99% of households in the world have one product from Proctor and Gamble. Astounding. Astounding in terms of the reach, right?
still in school working for a very large company Proctor and Gamble and I was
responsible for helping uh one of the very first teams in Proctor and Gamble uh dip their toes into the water in
My background before joining Bridge, I was Grant Manager at Proctor and Gamble and did that for about six years. Almost went to Yahoo instead of going to Proctor in the late 90's and it was probably a pretty good move at the time but always kind of had digital in my blood and, and working as some, both the kind of traditional brand management stuff, I was also the digital geek in the halls and always got a lot of those projects so going to Bridge was kind of chance to kind
Charmin is one of our clients; they have a great app called "Sit or Squat" that helps you find bathrooms, public restrooms, when you're in need. I've had both on the client side of Proctor as well as the agency side working with a lot of big companies on the mistakes to look out for.
Not on the side of Mr. Proctor , who was a pretty pure, pure soul.
three parts and it starts with a partnership between brands and consumers. When you think of the Pepsi refresh project, when you think of Walmart sustainability index, when you think of Proctor and Gamble's click forward water blogation campaign, when you think of Starbucks shared planet, when you think of Pampus and UNICEF, why are these big brands doing it? They're
in order to do that so that's how I started working uh at at Proctor and Gamble and as as I uh as I was going I
convinced now that I learned more from the buyers than I did the sellers tell me a little bit about how you did all those interviews you just contacted by all over the place were these people you knew from your former days at Proctor and Gamble or yeah some of them so I mean I I I started of course with people that I knew but the the last question I typically ask in any of my interviews is
it's in technology or in sales and you have to or I'm suggesting you really see it as an assumpt failure and begin to said to proor gamble we have our advertising all set they said no wait a minute we're the experts and we're Proctor and Gamble we're the experts we
OK. So in 1980, Proctor and Gamble had a huge problem.
graduated from the University of Cincinnati I had a full-time job as an assistant brand manager at Proctor and
time um when when I started getting into this book what I found was the the the feed the monster philosophy was a word that brander used a lot um I went down to Cincinnati where Proctor and Gamble is based and I heard this term a few times oh you know we're feeding the monster we're feeding the monster and I said one
in North America. Again, part of WPP. My background before joining Bridge, I was Grant Manager at Proctor and Gamble and did that for about six years. Almost went to Yahoo instead of going to Proctor in the late 90's and it was probably a pretty good move at the time but always kind of had digital in my blood and, and working as some,
And the problem though is that this is a medium that's gone pretty old and hasn't been updated in a while. A project we got to work on with two of our clients, Proctor and Gamble and Kroger, was P&G E-Saver and this is a -- really the first for, for both -- an online coupon linked to that Sunday paper. What you could do is register on the site, register your Kroger shopper card and then every week you can see which coupons are coming out.
with organizations such as Pepsi, Mayo Clinic, Proctor & Gamble, and Steelcase.
it's in technology or in sales and you have to or I'm suggesting you really see it as an assumpt failure and begin to do this kind of stuff for a living we know what to do uh he said we're going to do a big advertising campaign Proctor
And so I stayed there for the next eight years, and I lived in the dorms with the freshman as a Proctor
But I left Proctor & Gamble, big fancy Proctor & Gamble, multi-national company. I left there and I went to work for a sales training company, and it was this little speck of a sales training company, it was a six million dollar company compared to Proctor & Gamble, so obviously very small.
You know, just decades ago, if we were mad at the Proctor and Gamble Company because we didn't like the flavor of our Crest toothpaste.
line are 25 billion dollars. Huge growth area from where it was just a few years ago. And Proctor and Gamble, a big consumer goods company that you are all familiar with, makes detergents
And over here, we have Con Agra, General Mills, Hormel, Kraft, Proctor and Gamble, and they're
For us in the agency business, we also love it because you can still win can advertising awards for it. We got a Gold Lion in June and this was the first Gold Lion in the cyber category, or digital category, that Proctor and Gamble had ever won so even the lowly banner ad; you can do some fun stuff with.
connections. One of my favorite stories that illustrates the element of the value in a connection culture comes from the Proctor
I'm sure you've thought a bit about that. It wasn't so much, they were concerned about the idea that students say they're gonna be honest, but they didn't believe that if we weren't proctoring exams assumes we're not
Another thing is whining; I don't go into that in detail, but whining is pretty destructive when people turn all their energy to trying to say how everything sucks rather than to try to make it better. Simple language and simple action, at the same time we got all the crazy mortgage stuff going on with the banks. You have A. G. Lafley running Proctor and Gamble and his motto was, "Keep it Sesame Street simple." And if anybody has ever met
What are you buying, when you buy this company? Because the way you assess the company is going to be very different, if it's Procter & Gamble, as opposed to LinkedIn. If you're Proctor & Gamble, you should be very focused on earnings reports and say, how much did they make last year.