Delivering Breakthrough Results with Data: How P&G Is Reaching Consumers More Effectively and Efficiently

Turning the Tide: Reaching Consumers Where They Are

In 1946, Tide revolutionized Fabric Care, launching the first heavy-duty detergent with its promise of “oceans of suds” and cleaner, brighter clothes. Today, the brand continues to lead in the category but has been on a journey to better reach its audience with more effective and efficient media.

In 2015, to understand how well they were reaching consumers, the North America Fabric Care team asked consumers to send in pictures of the Tide ads they saw. It was a wake-up call when they got no response.

This wasn’t the first time P&G elicited consumer feedback in this way. In fact, P&G first measured media reach with a similar tactic.

P&G was a pioneer of radio soap operas in the early 1900s. In 1933, the popularity of a serial called Ma Perkins sparked a question — how many people were listening? P&G offered a packet of flower seeds to Ma Perkins listeners who sent in an Oxydol laundry soap box top and 10 cents. Over a million listeners responded, and P&G had its first-ever media reach measurement.

The curiosity of the North America Fabric Care team ignited a new era for P&G. “That work started the research of in-housing media within the Analytics & Insights function,” said Jason Finck, Vice President, North America Fabric Care Media. Tide was one of the first P&G brands to bring media planning, digital buying and optimization in-house. This has allowed Tide to adopt a test-and-learn mindset, refining their media approach with greater flexibility, speed and productivity.

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Early on, this enabled the team to improve mass reach in traditional television but uncovered a new problem. Data showed consumers were seeing the same Tide ads sometimes in excess of 30 times a month. To improve efficiency, the team worked to cut the excess and place ads with more precision.

In broadcast TV, they received program and network viewing data previously available only to agencies. They converted the data into a planning algorithm that analyzes and chooses where to place ads across 120 networks and thousands of program combinations to maximize reach at lower cost. Then, they developed a scheduling algorithm to optimize the allocation of ads within programs across weeks, days and hours, ultimately increasing reach with the same number of ad units while saving the company money to reinvest in advertising.

With the shift to streaming TV, 70% of households are reachable with ads, but there’s excessive ad frequency within the same shows, with audiences of the big platforms overlapping. Smaller streaming platforms can help Tide achieve more reach because of unique individual audiences. To find these audiences, Tide leverages programmatic media buying — finding unique IDs across all platforms to stop duplicating ad frequency, increase reach and save money.

Today, Tide is reaching 90% of its audience with messages that make buying decisions easier. For the business, these efforts have enabled tremendous productivity gains and growth for the brand and the category.

As audiences have migrated away from traditional television, P&G has followed. Fabric Care’s innovative approaches are now being applied across channels. “The move to streaming is where many engaged viewers went, and we were there first, as a sector. Now, you’re still seeing a highly engaged audience in streaming, but you’re seeing that attention start to divert into the social video platforms,” said Finck.

Going Digital: Helping Shoppers Make Better Decisions

Retailer media is another opportunity to accelerate brand and market growth by engaging shoppers closer to the point of purchase through mass reach with precision. P&G’s Fabric Care and Home Care teams are using algorithms and programmatic media to automate media buying tasks and analyze large data sets. This allows teams to optimize ads in real-time, to target the right size products with the right placements on retailer sites to create superior consumer experiences. For example, organic search results often return smaller size products, but consumer insights reveal online shoppers are looking for bigger sizes. Serving large size products in paid ads gives shoppers the right information to make the best decision.

“What worked in media has given us a good foundation of the strategies that seem to work to drive overall sales and share. We're trying to put that into different capabilities today to grow the digital commerce business,” said Dean Ho, North America Home Care Analytics & Insights Leader.

Let’s Get Social: Innovating Strategies for More Effective Brand Communication

In Home Care, P&G piloted a recent product launch using a social-first media and digital commerce strategy — Swiffer PowerMop. One of the insights behind this innovation was that while people loved P&G’s iconic brands like Swiffer, Dawn and Cascade, less than half the U.S. population was aware that their sub-brands existed. To increase household reach and sales, P&G carved out a new path to purchase, based on where the consumer was — social platforms.

P&G’s advertising approach for Swiffer PowerMop prioritized digital strategies based on the most efficient drivers of digital commerce sales, such as availability, traffic, ratings, reviews and keyword relevance. Looking at consumer search and shopping behavior online, the team created automation rules to optimize spending for the greatest efficiency to drive sales.

They also utilized social platforms to promote Swiffer PowerMop at the different stages of the consumer's path to purchase. As part of this, P&G brought social influencers into the R&D lab to see Swiffer PowerMop. They started posting content on social before the product was available online. Before the first digital sale, “The Swiffer PowerMop search term on Amazon was higher than any other search term in our entire Home Care portfolio,” said Ho. Once the product was live, it became the highest digitally-selling item in their portfolio.

“I really think that the next frontier is around social commerce. That’s where people are discovering new products. That’s where people are then buying new products straight off that platform versus anything they see as an ad on TV or an ad on streaming,” said Ho.

Looking back, the P&G Analytics and Insights teams’ focus and passion for understanding the consumer and providing superior brand experiences hasn’t changed in 100 years. What has changed is the how — innovating in the use of data, technology, analytics and insights to be even more effective and efficient.

For 100 years, P&G has relied on meaningful insights to develop innovations that address people’s unmet needs through superior consumer experiences. This is possible thanks to the thousands of talented Analytics and Insights (A&I) professionals around the world whose deep consumer understanding mastery combined with data and digital technology expertise help us raise the bar on the experiences we deliver – informing superior product design, packaging, brand communication, retail, and value.

P&G values all talent and sees the success of the Company and employees as inseparable.

We recognize and reward individuals who have demonstrated mastery in a core skill area, applying that skill to drive innovation and contribute to business growth. Recently, P&G Analytics & Insights expanded its mastery recognition programs to celebrate A&I talent with high levels of expertise who have used their skills to deliver exceptional value by uncovering jobs to be done and solving business challenges. Currently, eight A&I leaders have received the designation of A&I Master. Read on to learn more about these talented individuals.

Derek Chan — Director, Analytics & Insights, Canada Market Operations

Derek has spent 15 years at P&G as a business analytics, technology, and retail media expert. His work is all about action and outcomes. “Insights are just insights until actioned. Insights hold true value when they are used to facilitate meaningful change and outcomes,” he says. Early in his career, through collaboration with the Canadian IT Innovation team, Derek helped P&G gain real-time insights on in-store display placement to ensure on-time in-store communication and product availability. When Shoppers scanned a QR code for rewards, P&G gained knowledge to better work with retailers to verify and ensure excellent on-time and quality execution of displays. This led to an 8% increase in sales and is just one reason why he is a Customer Selling Master and continues to be a leader, delivering impact within the P&G Canada A&I organization today.

Gao Feng — Director, Commercial Analytics, Corporate Function Greater China

Gao has embraced innovative technology and solutions to find answers to new questions. Like how many people are we reaching in digital media across devices? A testament to his expertise, Gao built a platform to help P&G in China to answer this question. This was a breakthrough as we want to reach as close to 100% of consumers given our portfolio of daily-use household and personal care products and we want to manage frequency as people only need to see our ads about 1-2 times a week to be top of mind. While this is one of many contributions from Gao, one important lesson he has learned in A&I is to step away from massive data when it appears confusing and imagine from the consumer's perspective. “Transitioning from cold data to vibrant individuals broadens our understanding,” he said. “This principle has been instrumental in gaining true consumer insights in my work.” That’s why he is an Advanced Analytics Master!

Jad Naja — Senior Manager, Media Science, Asia, Middle-East, Africa

Jad is known for effortlessly applying his mastery of digital, analytics, and insights to solve business problems with agility. For him, analytics isn’t just about managing big data and building tools. “It’s fundamentally about understanding the consumer deeply and leveraging those insights to drive strategic decisions that improve their experiences,” Jad said. How does he do this in his work? A great example is a digital media tool he pioneered that allows brands to analyze and make real-time decisions to optimize their media campaigns while they are still active — making them more effective for consumers. Jad has a mindset that in the rapidly changing consumer landscape, the ability to pivot based on real-time data is invaluable. It’s not just about current data, it’s also about forecasting and staying ahead of consumer needs. This is why Jad is a Media Science Master!

Megan Budzynski — Director, A&I Accelerator, Human & Behavioral Sciences, Global/North America

Megan firmly believes you should never stop learning. “How we do research today will be different than how we do research tomorrow,” she says. That’s why it’s so important to stay tapped into consumers’ mindsets, knowing them so well that you have empathy for them. P&G connects with millions of consumers every year around the world and Megan influences how we do research to learn from these consumers in the best possible ways and drive data quality. One way Megan fosters this is by ensuring consumer research data is diverse. “I’m particularly proud of the representation in our research, ensuring our research is reflective of the consumers we serve,” she says. This is foundational to help P&G brands serve all potential consumers and each unique consumer group with superior brand experiences to drive what matters – market growth. This is why Megan is a Consumer Research Master!

Jordan Gray — A&I Director, North America Fabric Care

Jordan knows true consumer understanding requires expanding capacity and taking time to learn and develop new capabilities. True to this belief, Jordan expanded her analytical skillset to translate big data sets into a granular level in what P&G calls Neighborhood Analytics. Working to understand urban consumers, it’s easy to have insightful conversations, but understanding consumers from one block to the next and the difference in purchase behavior, allowed Jordan to work with retailers to customize product assortment in urban stores based on what was most popular in each neighborhood. This underscores Jordan’s innate curiosity. “Learn about your consumers as people first, then as product buyers.” This applies to her fellow A&I coworkers as well. Jordan helped build the consumer research arm of the A&I team globally. “I got to listen to their values and struggles and with gratitude, realizing that even at two ends of the earth, we're all more similar than we are different.” That’s what makes Jordan a Human Insight Master!

Stephanie Craig — A&I Director, Global Shopper Behavior, Corporate Function Sales

In a world where data is everywhere, Stephanie knows what makes the difference is understanding “the why” behind the data. Data is critical, the bricks in the foundation of our understanding, and deep insights about human behavior are the mortar that holds the foundation together. Without insights, all we have are piles of data. Stephanie focuses on business outcomes to raise the bar on P&G brands superior retail experiences. That means going to retail, seeing the shelves through a shopper lens in both physical and digital, and then working backward to design the category, brands, portfolio, and communication strategy in a way that makes shopping easier. Leading P&G’s proprietary application of Behavioral Science to retail strategy to make shopping easier is the most exciting project Stephanie has ever worked on. “It turns traditional thinking on its head and enables everyone who learns to see things in a new and exciting way to delight consumers and grow sales,” she says. All of this and more is what makes Stephanie a Behavioral Science Master!

Leonor Montanes Aldaz — A&I Director, Fem Care Dailies, Europe Feminine Care

Leonor is a master at understanding what consumers want and knows the consumer is really boss. The best and most successful projects she has worked on were where she "shows consumers the cards" right from the start and involves them in product creation, communication, packaging, and understanding a value that is “worth it”. Her favorite project was the launch of Always Discreet. She saw it as an amazing human and professional experience where Always is improving the lives of women suffering from incontinence with a superior product innovation. Leonor has a deep level of empathy that makes her an amazing consumer mind and soul reader. She discovers “insight nuggets” by connecting dots from qualitatives with quantitative data sets as she brings to life the consumer stories. She has an amazing ability to communicate these stories in a way that takes business teams from understanding to empathy to actions that create business value. This is why Leonor is a Consumer Understanding Master!

Matt McFadden — A&I Director, Senior Data Analyst/Data Science Global Oral Care

Matt sees himself as a data wrangler, leveraging his analytic, data science, and automation expertise to enable business agility and decision-making, providing real-time insights on consumption and channel trends, category growth, and market development. He played a key role in developing a patented solution that provided sales and marketing guidance at the individual store level. His vision and drive were instrumental in conceptualizing its potential and facilitating its activation, integrating it into P&G's decision-making processes; it was so successful in transforming go-to-market strategy that it was highlighted in a Harvard Business Review case study. What does Matt see as key to his becoming an A&I master? Mentorship. “In every assignment, there was a skill, knowledge, or experience gap and a period of learning to gain depth of understanding,” he said. “Through the support of a series of terrific A&I managers and mentors I grew in each role and believe I came out of them better equipped to support P&G.” Matt is always up for new challenges and opportunities to apply his first-hand experience in recognizing the opportunity to analyze new datasets to solve business challenges. This is why Matt is a Business Analytics Master!

This post is part of a series celebrating 100 years of P&G Analytics & Insights. Click the link below to read our first story.

• A Century of Curiosity: P&G Analytics & Insights Discovering the Future

Since 1984, P&G feminine care brand Always has used consumer insights to dispel myths surrounding menstruation and empower girls and women from their first period and beyond.

It starts with asking the right questions

“We start nearly every feminine care consumer research interview by asking women about their first period. We do this because all women remember it — it’s a rite of passage,” said Daniela Margescu, Vice President, Global Head of Analytics & Insights for Feminine Care at P&G.

Through these conversations, Always has found that a woman’s menstruation experience is profoundly shaped by her education, culture and support system.

There’s a stark difference between girls who have adequate puberty and period education from trusted sources before their first period and those who do not. For the latter, it can be quite a harrowing experience, surrounded by taboos, myths and even fear.

For the last 40 years, Always has been uncovering and trying to break deep-rooted taboos, providing accurate information about puberty and periods — and providing access to period products for those who don’t have it — through different initiatives and campaigns inspired by the insights discovered by our team.

Turning an insult into a rallying cry

One of the most iconic and universal insights discovered by our consumer research efforts showed that stereotypes in many parts of the world portrayed girls as weak, overly sensitive and less capable. The demeaning phrase “like a girl” was so ingrained and accepted, few even noticed the negative effect it had.

Ten years ago, Always launched their “Like A Girl” campaign to help change the narrative. Today, 76% of people feel “Like A Girl” is a positive expression, versus 19% before.

Busting myths and breaking taboos

By interviewing and spending time with young women, our team at Always has uncovered insights that have helped the brand tell powerful, authentic stories — and change the narrative around menstruation.

In India, consumer researchers for Always (known as Whisper), discovered that three out of 10 girls were unaware of menstruation at the time of their first period. Many are subject to outdated cultural restrictions during menstruation. They are told not to sleep in their bed, not to enter places of worship, and not to touch the family pickle jar — otherwise, the pickles will rot because women are unclean when on their period. These beliefs and behaviors inspired Whisper’s “Touch The Pickle” campaign, which encouraged girls to challenge outdated practices and live their lives to the fullest — even during their period. The campaign earned the Grand Prix in the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity Glass Lions category in 2015.

But the Always team didn’t stop there. They’ve continued to work to understand cultural norms in India, including periods are something that you do not talk about, to the point that most schools do not provide period education. This led to 1 out of 5 girls dropping out of school, as they are not prepared and don’t have adequate support.

Through their 2021 campaign, “The Missing Chapter,” Whisper broke a social taboo by sharing their findings and advocating for period education in schools. Whisper’s efforts in India are to prompt a change to a century-old education system and add the “Missing Chapter” on period education to the school curriculum. This earned another Grand Prix in the Sustainable Development Goals category at Cannes in 2022.

Period Poverty, the lack of access to good menstrual health, hygiene and period products, are unfortunately a universal truth that affects millions of girls and women around the world, virtually in every country, and not only in low-income nations, as many would have thought.

LEARN MORE ABOUT ALWAYS’ EFFORTS TO END PERIOD POVERTY

Research shows that one consequence of period poverty is that many girls miss school every month. When girls don’t have access to the products they need to effectively manage their period, not only do they not feel protected, but it also puts their confidence and education at risk. That’s why Always launched the #EndPeriodPoverty Program in 2018, generating awareness in more than 28 countries and donating more than 290 million period products globally since.

Setting our sights on the next 100 years

Throughout its 100-year history, Analytics & Insights at P&G have used the combination of human, data and technology to uncover consumer insights that drive innovation. This approach is not just a strategy for Always — it’s how we fulfill our pledge to champion girls and women at every stage of life. With deep consumer understanding, Always will continue to challenge taboos, innovate products and empower girls and women to live without limits.

It all started with the insatiable curiosity of one P&G employee.
One question sparked a revolution in consumer understanding and led to the birth of the field of market research:

Keep in mind this was 1924. The man asking that question was “Doc” Smelser, a PhD working in the P&G Economic Research Department at the time. The interesting truth was that nobody knew the answer, and so William Cooper Procter, then CEO, suggested Smelser himself “go find out.” And he did.

Smelser conducted our first-ever research by knocking on doors — and he both asked and observed how women used Ivory. This led to P&G’s creation of a Market Research Department and development of market research skills. These professionals went door-to-door and sought to answer questions like, “Which fragrances should be put into Camay soap bars” or “Which colors looked best on the newest packaging.”

From then on, we’ve been on a relentless journey, focusing on consumers and using their insights to inform strategies, develop superior products and make a positive impact in small but meaningful ways on lives worldwide.

Consumer understanding has shaped P&G's strategies.
From product development to communications, insights have directly influenced the creation of products like Tide, which revolutionized how people wash their clothes.

As the world changed, P&G adapted its methodologies to connect with consumers on an even deeper level. From in-home visits to telephone calls, mailed surveys, and now digital platforms and AI Models, P&G has always sought innovative ways to bridge the gap between consumers and brands. By always moving closer to the people we serve, P&G has been able to gather invaluable insights and deliver propositions that meet their needs.

We are now reimagining the synergy between human, data and technology in homes, retail environments, and digital and physical spaces. And while we are innovating and embracing data and technology in new ways, we never lose sight that Data is Human.

We never lose sight that data is human.
Consumer data is the product of human behavior or insight. That may be a consumer viewing a digital ad delivered through a programmatic platform. It may be the purchase of a package of Pampers at their local supermarket, where the beep of the register and scan of the loyalty card generates a transaction. The data we use to analyze and plan our business comes from real people. From our consumers. The same people we aim to serve with our superior products every day. This is what sets P&G apart.

P&G Analytics & Insights has come a long way from its humble beginnings.
As we celebrate a century of success, we look forward to a future where Analytics & Insights continues to drive innovation for P&G and our brands in our mission to improve the lives of consumers worldwide today and tomorrow.

Together, the team will continue to be driven by an insatiable curiosity and a relentless pursuit of understanding consumers. This will unlock new frontiers and shape consumer understanding for the next 100 years and beyond.

Follow us throughout the year to hear stories from our heritage to today — stories from our brands, our innovations, and our people.