LP9 Assignment: Proctor & Gamble Turns to Social Networking

LP9 Assignment: Proctor & Gamble Turns to Social Networking
Directions: Read Case #1 on pp. 376 – 377 of the textbook. Analyze the move toward social networking that many advertising companies are making. Write a 2 – 3 page paper discussing the topic.
Your paper should include the following:
• Discuss how the success of a social networking marketing campaign should be measured.
• P&G dropped long-running soap operas to replace them with social networking advertising. List key arguments might have been used to convince P&G marketing executives to make this change.
• Develop a list of five key criteria that P&G might use to assess both the appropriateness and effectiveness of its YouTube commercials.
Your paper must follow these guidelines:
• Double-spaced
• 12 point Times font
• 1 inch margins
• Quotes over 3 lines, Reference page, and title page do not count in page total
• At least 3 references used (textbook and two Internet resources)
• APA format (title page, citations, Reference page)
• Correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation

Spending big on advertising has always been a key strategy for consumer products giant Proc-
ter & Gamble (P&G). With recent annual global ad spending in the neighborhood of $9 billion,
P&G is one of the world’s top advertisers.64 P&G was an early sponsor and producer of daytime
radio and TV dramas—for which the term soap opera was coined. Its Guiding Light program
began airing on radio in 1 937 and moved to TV in 1 952.65 The P&G produced and sponsored
As the World Turns was the leading soap opera for decades, winning many daytime Emmy
awards. However, over the years, women—the target audience for such programs—made a
huge shift in their TV viewing habits as they moved into the workplace, became more interested
in talk and reality shows, and, more recently, began spending more of their leisure time online.
The daytime soap opera died when P&G finally pulled the plug on As the World Turns in 2010
after 53 years. In 2006, P&G began working with Facebook to promote its brands using standard banner
ads and promoting Facebook groups seeking fans for the company and/or its products. How-
ever, this approach was not very successful. P&G’s biggest success was a Crest Whitestrips
promotion that invited college students to become “fans” on its Facebook page. The company
offered thousands of free movie screenings and sponsored concerts but still only attracted
1 4,000 fans to the product’s Facebook page. When the promotions ended, the fans left too. The
problem, according to Web guru Seth Goldstein, is: “Advertisers distract users; users ignore
advertisers; advertisers distract better; users ignore better.”67
P&G’s next experiment with social networking was in 2007, when it collaborated with
Yahoo! and the ZiZi Group to create Capessa.com, an online social network targeted at women.
Capessa enabled women to post their stories and discuss topics such as parenting, managing their careers, getting in shape, and dealing with illnesses. One of the goals of this experiment
was to identify ways in which social networking could be used to gain a better understanding of
women’s likes, dislikes, interests, and needs. Ultimately, no direct connection between Capessa
and an increase in sales could be made.68
Some people are concerned about the blurring of lines between editorial and advertising
content. They also are skeptical as to whether the stories posted on social networks are from
real people or from paid actors or authors.69
Recognizing that its current approach was not working, P&G invited Google, Facebook,
Twitter, and other social media experts to work with it to explore how online and digital media
could more effectively support its marketing program. This spawned several new approaches.
P&G has expanded its efforts to sell some top brands (Pampers, Olay, and Pantene) by offering
shopping through a Facebook app. Consumers click a Shop Now tab on the page to complete
their orders and then check out through Amazon.com.70 And its “Smell Like a Man, Man” com-
mercials began appearing on YouTube. These commercials starred the beefy ex-football player
Isaiah Mustafa wearing only a towel. The commercials were a big hit, drawing over 1 40 million
views and helping its Old Spice brand sales to expand at a double-digit growth rate.71 , As a result of these successes, P&G set a goal that each of its brands develop a meaning-
ful presence on Facebook. In addition, it is creating smartphone applications for its consumers;
one free app available at Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market provides women with
guidance on which P&G beauty products to use and how to use them to get a desired look.73
Marketing experts say many of the large companies were slow to adopt the use of social
networks; however, they also agree that consumer goods companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi, P&G,
Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson are now coming on strong.74 The decision to drop soap
operas and move advertising dollars to social media was not a popular one with some senior
P&G managers (who had spent much of their careers supporting advertising on soap operas)
nor with many soap opera fans (who were very attached to these programs), but the decision
was a clear indication that P&G recognizes that “the times they are a-changing

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