What's Happening in Marketing at P&G

P&G cites five core strengths as its key to marketing success in consumer products. Shown above, from its website, the core strengths include understanding consumers, innovating based on consumer desires, building brands, building on go-to-market capabilities, and leveraging scale for efficiency.

The company continues to pare its brand portfolio so it can concentrate on its most powerful products and categories--the two dozen, in particular, that generate annual revenue over $1 billion. A deal is in the works to sell beauty brands including Cover Girl to Coty, for example. 

Yet in the quest to innovate, P&G may make changes that freshen up the product within P&G's product line but don't necessarily resonate with the target market. The result: product proliferation that confuses the customer without adding to the top or bottom lines. In fact, the CEO recently said: "New isn’t the best product in the store, the best product in the store is the one she or he wants, purchase more often, uses more often and comes back to," he said.

In addition, the company is streamlining marketing communications and pushing deeper into digital. As a result, P&G is looking to shrink its roster of marketing agencies and save money in the process.