12/1/2022
Four Ways P&G is Raising the Bar on Innovation
Guest Author: Victor Aguilar, Chief Research, Development, and Innovation Officer
At P&G, innovation means solving the real problems consumers face every day. We’re obsessed with them because for us, nothing is more important than understanding, exploring and fixing the friction in consumers' lives. If it touches how consumers care for their families, their pets or their homes, we want to know about it and we want to make it better.
As we work to meet consumers' needs, we frequently review progress and identify opportunities for improvement. Consumer trends and market dynamics evolve. We are operating in an inflationary environment that requires us to further improve superiority and enhance the consumer value equation. Consumers have many choices — and environmental sustainability is an increasing priority.
Given these dynamics, we have raised the bar on our innovation program and have reset the level of superiority that’s needed to higher standards in four key areas:
- Delivering One-Use Wow: Instant gratification has become part of how consumers assess performance and value. We observe this behavior as consumers share their experiences through social media, online ratings and reviews. This requires innovations to be designed with emphasis on in-use delight — immediately after a single use and throughout the life of the product — with consumer benefits such as superior fragrances and aesthetics.
Example: Olay moisturizer aesthetics significantly influence performance effectiveness. We carefully balance the texture and perfume of creams for even application onto the skin, providing an instantly pleasant feel and fragrance experience, and enabling absorption of key actives into the skin without causing irritation.
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Driving Habit Formation: Using the data transparently collected through consumer research, we gain observations and daily measures of consumer behavior, leading to in-depth insights on how consumers use our products. This helps us design products and packages that delight, which in turn encourages positive habits, such as using the right amount of product, using products more consistently or correctly applying products in ways that provide better performance outcomes.
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Strengthening the Core & More: When we raise the bar to strengthen our “core” products, we are also balancing the portfolio to focus on “more” innovations that expand brands into new sources of growth and value creation.
Example: We recently launched Dawn EZ-Squeeze in North America and Fairy Max Power across markets in Europe. We upgraded the formula across the entire “core” Dawn/Fairy line-up and, based on consumer insights, introduced a new inverted bottle with a no-flip cap and self-sealing valve for easy one-handed use.
- Raising the Bar on Sustainability: Most consumers are not willing to trade off superior performance for more sustainable solutions. They want products and packages that deliver on the brand’s core performance promise and are good for the environment.
For more information on how we are leading sustainability, click here to read our blog on Environmental Sustainability.
Click here to learn more about innovation at P&G.
