March 27, 2007
P&G Executive Says Information Management Key to Future of Marketing
By Sandie TaylorWith new technologies surfacing faster than ever and consumers
looking at various media channels for product information, Procter &
Gamble is constantly deciding which future technologies to bring into
the company’s marketing strategy and how to implement new technology at
the right speed.
Tony Tsai, general manager of retail innovation for global operations at
Procter & Gamble, and Bob Johansen, senior fellow at the Institute for
the Future, discussed some of these current challenges March 21 at “The
Future of Business: Connecting with Generation Next” panel.
For more than 20 years, Tsai has worked with Johansen’s think tank, the
Institute for the Future (IFTF), to forecast possibilities for P&G. The
nonprofit works with various organizations to predict emerging trends
and discontinuities that will transform the global marketplace, and then
they create strategies based on these projections.
“We think 10 years ahead and at least 20 years back,” said Johansen.
“It’s easier to do forecasting for 10 years out—the patterns are clearer
than for one year from now.”
According to Johansen, wireless connection and sensors will be
everywhere. “The future is already here,” he said, quoting William
Gibson, famed cyberpunk author of “Neuromancer.” “It’s just unevenly
distributed.”
 Left to right: Tony Tsai, general manager of retail innovation for global operations at Procter & Gamble, and Bob Johansen, senior fellow at the Institute for the Future at “The Future of Business: Connecting with Generation Next” panel. |
Bringing the Future to P&G
In 1999, IFTF predicted biotech would be important at P&G, so the
company created a biotech mentoring program with young executives
and biotech Ph.D. students.
Today, one technology Tsai and Johansen spend quite a bit of time
examining is radio frequency identification (RFID). RFID is a term
for technologies that use radio waves to instantly identify people
or objects.
While Johansen believes RFID will become mainstream within the next
five years, Tsai imagines it will take about 10 more years and isn’t
ready to move P&G in that direction.
“It would be great to have RFID on every missile in the military, but
I’m not sure we need it on every box of Tide right now,” Tsai said.
“Barcodes took 30 years to become mainstream.”
The customer’s shopping experience is another area of innovation.
According to Tsai, 70 percent of consumer product purchases are made in
stores, but the decision to buy those products are influenced by various
channels of communication.
“The shopping experience in the store is now informed by shopping on the
Web first,” Johansen said.
Unique Shopper Experience: A Win-Win Collaboration
Traditionally, marketing has meant commercials advertising the quality
of a product, but today companies focus on shopper-focused marketing,
which includes an information management component.
“Marketing and information management is a new frontier,” Tsai said. “IM
is so key to getting those shopper insights.”
For example, creating a virtual wall of products that captures customer
insights can then inform shopper-centric design in retail stores, which
can significantly increase sales.
“You need to be connected to the people who buy your product,” Tsai
said. And for P&G that means connecting with both direct customers and
retailers.
P&G collaborates with more than 200 top retail stores to assess their
“retailer equity” and help them reach their top-tier customers through
new store design techniques. In fact, the company has 150 employees
based in Bentonville, Ark. to work on these issues with Wal-Mart.
This strategy has also helped in P&G’s foreign markets, but with small
tweaks.
“You don’t want to send the same thing to China as you send to India,”
Johansen said.
One of the key challenges is how do you build on scale and appear
personalized and localized, Tsai added. “P&G can’t look foreign
anywhere.”
Notable Soundbites
Tsai on using virtual reality for real-time marketing:
“The big challenge in virtual capability is taking the results and correctly applying it to marketing. You don’t want to find out what happens in virtual reality doesn’t translate into the store.”
Johansen on increasing the customer experience:
“What if you were in the store and you could scan the barcode of a Tide package with your cell phone and find out what Green Peace says about Tide? That’s where the future is going.”
Tsai on his working relationship with Johansen:
“Usually our relationship is pretty amicable. But we really have heated debates about how P&G should move into the future.”
Johansen on finding experts on the future:
“The celebrities and presidents are never the experts. They lose their insight after they become celebrities. We look for people who are not yet world-known.”
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