Introduction
P & G is a fast moving consumer goods multinational corporation based in Downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The company was founded in 1837 by William Procter, candle maker and James Gamble, a soap maker. Procter and Gamble is included in the Fortune’s list of five hundred companies and most admired companies in the world. P& G’s products are popular throughout the world because of their quality and innovation. The company has total net income of 12.74 billion US dollars in 2010 with total number of employees of 127,000 (Horstman, 2005). P& G runs its operations in beauty and grooming, family care, fabric care and pet health care segments. Some of the popular brands that it manufactures include Ariel, Head and shoulder, Bounty. Gillette, Olay, Pampers and Oral-B. Marketing Mix includes four Ps of marketing i.e. product, price, place and promotion. A broad marketing mix of P&G is discussed briefly below:
Product
P&G manufactures products in following categories.
• Beauty and Grooming Brands
Products in this category include Anna Sui, Fekkal , Naomi Campbell, Safeguard, Fusion, Natural instinct, Nice and Easy, Gillette, Olay, Puma, Pert, Zest, cover girl, Dunhill fragrances, Herbal essences etc (Dyer, Frederick & Rowena, 2004).
• Health and Well Being Brands
Products in this brand category include Align, Always, Scope, Oral-B, Crest, Pur, and Vicks etc.
• Household Care Brands
Brands in this category are Ace, Charmin, Ariel Downy, Gain, Tide, Lenor, Tempo, Fairy and many more. All these products are produced with greater variety in between them. For instance, Safeguard which is soap has soaps of different varieties like safeguard white and safeguard pink. P& G manufactured products are popular for their excellent packaging and design, features and strong brand name.
Price
• In 1990’s era, P&G incorporated value pricing strategy. The company adopted this strategy by cutting its coupon, production and logistical cost by effectively increasing efficiency and it increased its advertising by 20 percent.
• Within the period of six years this strategy resulted in higher brand loyalty and stronger brand image.
• The strategy of P&G was quite opposite to that of competitors and marketing practices on that time but resulted in greater success. Now days, P&G has the most effective pricing of its brands and customer loyalty is as enough that they are willing to pay extra for company’s brands.
• P&G gives discount offers on its different products time to time but not frequently as it experienced in 1990s that coupon and discount only decrease customer’s brand loyalty (Whereby, 2006).
Place
• P&G products are available almost all over the world. P&G distributes the products in about 140 countries to approximate five billion consumers.
• DHL courier is a service provider to the company through which it ensures its logistical efficiency.
• Company has manufacturing and distribution networks in all major countries where it runs its operations like China, USA, UK and India.
Promotion
• This era is an era of advertising. Companies have to do huge advertisings to sell their products to the consumers.
• P&G has an effective promotions strategy with an advertising budget of approximately 8.68 billion dollar in 2009 which makes it world’s number one advertiser (Mikkelson, Barbara and David, 2005).
• P&G received Advertising Hall of Fame Award in 2010. The company uses television mass advertising in particular, Internet marketing and other marketing mediums to promote its brands.
References
• Wherrity, Constance (2006). "Dial Agrees to Buy P&G Deodorant Brands". Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York blog.
• Dyer, Davis; Frederick Dalzell, Rowena Olegario (2004). Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble. Harvard Business School Press.
• Mikkelson, Barbara and David. (2005). Tampax Pearl, Snopes.com.
• Horstman, Barry M (2005). "John G. Hankus: He rebuilt P&G – and city, too". The Cincinnati Post.
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This article gave some basic concept about the company.
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