Cincinnati, OH
www.pg.com

Sales: $40.3 billion for household, beauty and oral care sales. Corporate sales: $65.1 billion.

Key Personnel: David S. Taylor, chairman, president and chief executive officer; Mark Biegger, chief human resources officer; Steven D. Bishop, group president, global health care; Giovanni Ciserani, group president, global fabric and home care and global baby and feminine care; Gary Coombe, president, global grooming; Philip J. Duncan, global design officer; Mary Lynn Ferguson-McHugh, president, global family care and P&G Ventures; Thomas M. Finn, president, global personal health care; Kathleen B. Fish, chief research, development and innovation officer; William P. Gipson, president, end-to-end packaging transformation and chief diversity officer; Shailesh G. Jejurikar, president, global fabric care and branding building organization, global fabric and home care, and executive sponsor, global sustainability; R. Alexandra Keith, president, global hair care and beauty sector; Jon R. Moeller, vice chairman and chief financial officer; Julio Nemeth, president, global business services; Charles E. Pierce, group president and advisor to the chief executive; Javier Polit, chief information officer; Juan Fernando Posada, president, Latin America selling and market operations; Matthew S. Price, president, Greater China selling and marketing operations; Marc S. Pritchard, chief brand officer; Mohamed Samir, president, organization design; Jeffrey K. Shomburger, global sales officer; Yannis Skoufalos, global product supply officer; Markus Strobel, president, global skin & personal care; Magesvaran Suranjan, president, Asia Pacific and India, Middle East and Africa, selling and market operations; Loïc Tassel, president, Europe selling and market operations; Carolyn Tastad, group president, North America, selling and market operations and executive sponsor, gender equality; George Tsourapas, president, global home care and P&G Professional.

Major Products: Beauty care—Head & Shoulders, Pantene and Rejoice hair care; Olay, Old Spice, Safeguard, SK-II skin and personal care; Grooming—Gillette shaving products; Health care—Crest and Oral-B oral care; Fabric and home care—Ariel, Downy, Gain and Tide laundry products; Cascade, Dawn, Febreze and Mr. Clean.

New Products: Crest Gum Detoxify and Crest Pro-Health (HD) oral care products, Olay Whips and Olay Minis skin care products; Febreze with OdorClear technology, Febreze Small Spaces, Febreze One fabric and air mist; Downy Nature Blends; Cascade Platinum dishwashing detergent; Mr. Clean Magic Eraser with Durafoam; Old Spice Red Collection scents; Snowberry skin care (acquisition).

Comments: Corporate sales dipped less than 1%. Not bad, when one considers P&G eliminated or consolidated more than 100 non-core brands and reduced the number of categories it operates in from 16 to 10 categories in 2016. By focusing on 65 brands in 10 categories, P&G net income rose slightly last year to nearly $10.2 billion.

By region, North America accounted for 45% of corporate sales, followed by Europe, 23%; Asia Pacific, 9%; Greater China, 8%; Latin America, 8%; and IMEA (India, Middle East and Africa), 7%.

Walmart remained Procter & Gamble’s biggest customer, representing 16% of sales in 2017, up from 15% in 2016.

In an effort to gauge and evaluate consumer experience, P&G is moving from a single evaluation metric, Weighted Purchase Intent, to a “body of evidence” approach, which uses a mix of technical tests, blind tests, context-aided tests, household panel data and in-market product reviews to provide a more complete assessment of the actual product experience. It includes behavioral data, which is more reliable than the attitudinal data P&G collected in the past. The goal, according to P&G, is to create products “that are so good, consumers don’t want to part with them after use, to the point where they consider their old product meaningfully inferior.”

That kind of thinking helped P&G place five products on Kantar TNS’ 2018 Product of the Year USA list, including Cascade Platinum Dishwasher Cleaner, Tide Pods Plus Downy, Gain Botanicals, Febreze One and Cascade Platinum.

But that doesn’t mean P&G isn’t focused on the bottom line. From fiscal 2012 through 2016, P&G saved $10 billion. Now, the company plans to save an additional $10 billion through 2021 with the majority of the savings opportunities in cost of goods sold, which includes reducing expenses related to raw and packaging materials, manufacturing expense, transportation and warehousing. Marketing spending is getting chopped, too. P&G identified savings opportunities such as driving down media rates; eliminating media supply chain waste; reducing agency fees and advertising production costs; and improving the efficiency of in-store materials, direct-to-consumer programs and sampling programs. Finally, in trade spending, there is a large spending pool where just a 10% efficiency will result in meaningful savings, according to the firm. This will come from improved execution against category and brand key business drivers, and better optimizing investments by category.

For the nine months ended March 31, 2018, corporate sales rose 3% to more than $50.3 billion. Beauty sales rose 8% and fabric and home care increased 4%.

In March, P&G acquired Snowberry, a New Zealand-based skin care company. The brand, founded by cosmetician Soraya Hendesi, markets a range of skin care products that include anti-aging treatments, serums and moisturizers. All of the company’s products are carboNZero-certified. The firm is based in Auckland where it manufactures and packs products. Snowberry also has a logistics center in the US.

To expand its health care business, In April, P&G acquired the consumer health business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, for about €3.4 billion. The business has a presence in 44 countries and offers more than 900 products. The move enables P&G to expand its consumer health care business by adding a fast-growing portfolio of differentiated, physician-supported brands across a broad geographic footprint. It also provides P&G with strong health care commercial and supply capabilities, deep technical mastery and proven consumer health care leadership that will complement P&G’s existing consumer health care capabilities and brands such as Vicks, Metamucil, Pepto-Bismol, Crest and Oral-B.

“We like the steady, broad-based growth of the OTC Health Care market and are pleased to add the Consumer Health portfolio and people of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, to the P&G family,” said David Taylor, chairman of the board, president and CEO, P&G.

The Merck KGaA acquisition will improve P&G’s OTC geographic scale, brand portfolio and category footprint in the vast majority of the world’s top 15 OTC markets, too. These brands provide solutions in relieving muscle, joint and back pain, colds and headaches, as well as supporting physical activity and mobility, many of which are treatment areas not currently addressed in P&G’s portfolio. According to reports, approximately 3,300 Merck employees could move to P&G upon completion of the transaction, which is expected in the fourth quarter.

Elsewhere, P&G is successfully rebuilding its business in China. In 2015, six of seven categories there reported sales declines, which resulted in a 5% drop in sales. Two years later, sales in Greater China are up 7%, and every category is posting gains with the exception of baby care.

Alex Keith, president of P&G beauty business, told Women’s Wear Daily that to get back on track in China, the company focused on Olay, eliminating 20% of SKUs and improving packaging.
Meanwhile, in global laundry care, P&G maintains that 90% of laundry category growth can be attributed to unit dose. Throw in fabric enhancer beads and some fabric softener and P&G says it can double the average price per load from $0.30 to $0.60.