Procter & Gamble (P&G)

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P&G's HOF Speech

Television and Procter & Gamble, the world's biggest advertiser, have enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship since the earliest days of the medium. The maker of such ubiquitous brands as Ivory, Tide, Crest and Pampers has funneled billions of dollars worth of ad spending into the coffers of broadcasters, cable networks and syndicators over the years. P&G has also been a force in programming, producing the daytime dramas that became known as "soap operas" because of their sponsor, as well as producing numerous made-for-TV movies, awards shows and series.

"It was TV that was able to create mass awareness of our brands, and creating mass awareness allowed us to reinvest into advertising and continue to produce more and more shows," says Procter & Gamble Global Marketing and Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard. "Over time, this marriage of content and advertising has helped both industries grow and flourish."

"P&G early on realized that they had a head start on television relative to their competition, and they have learned to use it in a unique way," says Irwin Gotlieb, who worked on the P&G media buying account for 22 years before joining GroupM, where he is CEO. "And that led them to invest money in the medium, to invest their resources to improve the medium."

Gotlieb says P&G was among the first advertisers to put big money into cable and syndication. "They have always been proactive to ensure that the medium remained healthy. And they didn't just put their money where their mouths were. They put their resources and their efforts behind it."

Through its involvement with TV, messages for P&G brands have seeped into America's consciousness.

P&G has had "an enormous influence not only because it provided thousands of hours of programming through the years, but its brands, as communicated to us through television advertising, have provided some of the modern corporate folksongs and sayings for the past half-century or more," says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

Those memorable sayings include "Four out of five dentists" recommending Crest, Rosie touting Bounty as "the quicker picker-upper" and Mr. Whipple admonishing consumers, "Please don't squeeze the Charmin."

In the early days of TV, marketers and their agencies produced and sponsored entire programs. "As we moved into the later 1950s, that began to change, whereas Procter & Gamble really stayed with that model on their daytime soap operas," Thompson noted.

The soaps started on radio and lasted until As the World Turns went off the air in September of this year.

"The hallmark of the P&G soaps always remained their rich tapestries of communities and characters," says Barbara Bloom, Senior VP, Daytime Programs at CBS, which aired them for more than 50 years. "Fictional towns and people became families to generations of viewers, and the legacy of their storytelling will forever be the deep emotional connections so many people felt to their shows."

P&G is known for eschewing especially racy and violent programming. In the early days, those values had considerable influence over what got onto network schedules. These days, with cable networks producing edgy original programming, conservative advertisers hold less sway.

"As important as Procter & Gamble is to the economics of television advertising, and it is very important to them, I would not go so far as to say that Procter & Gamble is determining the content of American television because there's an awful lot of stuff on American television now that probably is not up to Procter & Gamble's standards and it's on TV," says Thompson.

Pritchard says appropriate content is important. "Many of our brands are loved and trusted by moms and families, so much of our advertising is placed within those contexts," he says.

That practice is good business. "We've found that brands are really judged by the company they keep," Pritchard says. "When they're in content that is appropriate for the entire family we've seen that the favorability ratings of our brands go up significantly and the purchase intent goes up significantly. And we've found just the opposite in shows that may be less appropriate or not appropriate at all for the whole family viewing things together. And that's because context matters."

P&G invests in programs to create more family-friendly options. Its current productions include The People's Choice Awards and the Family Movie Night films it creates with Wal-Mart, such as Secrets of the Mountain, The Jensen Project and the upcoming A Walk in My Shoes.

As far as P&G is concerned, the investment pays off. "Our consumers get programming that they like and they can watch with their families. Our ads, the images of our brands and the reputations of our brands and equities are built. And we generate more sales. And so does Wal-Mart," Pritchard says.

While some see digital being TV's death knell, Pritchard sees the industry changing and P&G helping to spur innovation. That happened in cable, where P&G was an early backer of Lifetime and Discovery and recently pledged to spend $40 million a year on the new Oprah Winfrey Network.

Joe Abruzzese, president of advertising sales for Discovery, recalls that when he was with Viacom, P&G made one of the first big multiplatform deals, spending $300 million on many of Viacom's media assets, including CBS. "They have an unbelievable read of the market, " Abruzzese says. "When P&G does something, the industry follows. They're usually in front of something."

Pritchard says he expects the challenge of new media to force television to step up its game. "You now have more choices in terms of being able to engage people, but if you want broad-scale awareness, you still go with TV," he says.

At the same time, changes in technology and consumer behavior are creating new opportunities. "People are watching TV and are also on the Internet and texting and so forth," Pritchard says. "If you can get some simultaneous or even somewhat different content going at the same time, you see a bigger boost in engagement on your brands."

Recently, P&G has seen social media take a TV campaign--Old Spice's "Smell Like a Man"--and multiply its reach. The ads became a viral sensation, drawing millions of online views. The company let consumers send questions via Twitter to spokesman Isaiah Mustafa, who answered in YouTube videos. In addition to generating views, it boosted sales. "We can't get enough supply, " Pritchard says. "We're selling out of Old Spice."

The bottom line is television still works for P&G, and vice versa. "We continue to innovate with communications and how we make sure that we engage people with our ads, and now we're renewing our commitment to content that our brands can be associated with," Pritchard says. "We've grown with TV, and we will continue to grow with it."--Jon Lafayette