P&G and Google Trade Employees

Procter & Gamble Co. is swapping employees with Google Inc. in a program to learn how each company targets and markets to consumers, according to an article in the Dayton Business Journal.

About two dozen workers at the two companies have switched workplaces over a period of weeks this year, according to The Wall Street Journal. For P&G (NYSE: PG), the nation’s largest consumer products company, the program is expected to offer a glimpse into the emerging youth market, which spends more time online than in front of a television.

The program speaks to the challenges of retailers and other advertisers to capitalize on the Internet. While P&G spends billions in advertising annually, a small share had traditionally been earmarked for Web promotions or even blogging sites. But P&G has been more active of late – in mid-November it announced the launch of its virtual “Pampers Village” here, a site that includes articles, blogging and promotions for Pampers diapers.

“We’re trying to open the eyes of our brand managers,” P&G’s Stan Joosten told the Journal. Joosten is P&G’s digital innovation manager, a job created last spring.

The job-swap plan was launched last January, following a meeting between Jim Stengel, P&G’s former global marketing officer, and Tim Armstrong, president of Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) advertising sales and operations in North and Latin America.

Both companies had something to gain. Mountainview, Calif.-based Google controls 74 percent of “search term” advertising spending, the Journal reported, citing the research firm eMarketer Inc. Meanwhile, Cincinnati-based P&G ranked as the nation’s largest advertiser in 2007, having spent $5.2 billion compared with $4.9 billion in 2006, according to Advertising Age magazine.

Among the revelations for P&G workers: Google data revealed that online searches for the word “coupons” rose about 50 percent in a 12-month period, according to the Journal.