How P&G is Using Tech To Reinvent the Brand

As one of the leading marketers, Marc Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble is on a mission to reinvent advertising at P&G, the world's biggest advertiser by spend. Here are 3 key points he highlighted at the Collision Conference on how that brand is reinventing itself:-
 
Winning Consumers Through Smart Products 
 
Trusted brands collide with technology. And now being at home, consumers are placing their bets only on trusted brands and we are enforcing that trust. P&G is introducing smart products with cutting-edge tech and putting them into everyday products. Illustrating his point with a Smart toothbrush by Oral Care B which is able to capture your brushing technique with its Bent 3D tracking technology and this information can be stored on your mobile, tracking can give feedback and shared with your dentist and is about creating wow brushing experience. 
 
Digital Media: Value Exchange where the Brand is Empowering Consumers via Tech
 
Digital media which is fuelled by data and tech has collided with traditional media and for the last 25 plus years, we have been transitioning into this digital world and now it has exceeded TV media worldwide, and soon everything would be digital. But digital was built upon monetization using tracking technology and things like cookies which track consumer’s browsing behavior and brand’s reach people through advertising through this tracking information. Over time, people have started being concerned over their privacy and they start objecting to being tracked without their consent and they want more transparency about how their data is used by digital platforms and advertisers. Many brands around the world are dealing with this situation and dealing with the collision. However, digital media is still dominant and still rising. After 25 years of cookies and device ID tracking, digital media finally collided with trust.
 
Now, the effectiveness of cookies in digital media is diminishing, so that is going to create an Internet that is more conducive to consumer privacy, and that has huge implications on advertising as all our systems are built on using that data and by the way, advertisers pay for the free content that we have on the Internet, so we have another collision between more privacy-protected Internet and free content via advertising, So the question is what do we do about it?
 
It is inevitable and it is time to get enthusiastic. So we are doubling down on transparency and consent-based consumer data collection across all of our brands around the world leveraging the best practices of the industry and it will help us in the value creation of being a trusted brand. We tell our consumers about how we use the data and they make informed decisions about whether they want to opt into our programs and whether they do consent, we really focus on providing them useful information and content from our trusted brands. It is a value exchange and we do this through the multiple touch-points that we have and through which we exchange with consumers.
 
We enrich the data in a way that allows us to improve the analytics, algorithms and engage with consumers through applications that drive growth and efficiency but most importantly build trust and make the experience a better experience for consumers.
 
3 Areas Brand Marketers should be Paying Attention
 
1. Transparency: The most significant application is to use transparently collected data, analytics, and digital technology to lead constructive destruction to reinvent the brand, move from mass blasting messages to generic target audiences, and moving that to mass reach with greater precision.
 
2. Precision: We create probably smart audiences. They are smart because they are precise audience profiles that are built from algorithms that we have created. We create these audiences to reach and engage more consumers with the precision that it is possible with a generic target audience and the effect of that is that what we can do is we can serve content that is far more useful, engaging, and interesting. We do not keep on serving the same content over and over again which is annoying and we do that in a transparent way, so consumers now know that how their data is being used and it helps us build more trust.
 
3. Power of Programmatic: Probably, the biggest application is automated programmatic media or better called addressable media where P&G can connect to the publishers throughout the Internet and find the audience that we want to reach the best media. More of our digital media is programmatic and addressable and that is going to drive a shift for TV that will become addressable in the future. For Example Streaming services and connected TV as the shift occurs. P&G is building programmatic media on TV from the very start to ensure there is precise and effective communication with consumers and not really go the old way - go in the future. 

Here a Case in point is brands like Pampers that is taking precision to a further level and are trying to go on one to one level with the consumer and predicting and engaging with consumers on their parental needs,self-care needs all the way, and engaging the parents through apps and emails which enriches the parents experience with far more accuracy, efficiency, and much higher engagement  This one up from the TV and wasteful digital media which would reach out to all sorts of people, who would not be using these products. 
 
Retail and Media Networks are a Big Part of the Future
 
The Future is media all the way through commerce like being seen in Alibaba and Jingdong ecosystem in China. The blend of media and brand building with commerce is growing and what that means is to work with others to get data and algorithms to connect and do propensity modeling and connect more effectively to be able to drive growth. It is happening across the world with players like Amazon, Target, and Walmart who are essentially trying to become networks because they are closest to the consumer and that is the biggest shift that will happen in the next two years.