Travel through Europe looking at new ‘local’ brands made the team at PSFK wonder about modern brands and whether ‘holding companies’ like P&G and Unilever can really last doing business the way they are.
More and more consumers appear to be attracted to ‘real’ brands - brands with soul, history and substance - brands like Innocent Drinks or Method soap. These brands live because they reflect the values of the management and staff and the transparency generated by the web helps fuel the love of them.
Meanwhile over at P&G and Unilever brands appear to still be run from brand books by an army of brand managers who aren’t connected with the values each brand is supposed to contain. They sell faux brands that were created in an age of control - control of media and message.
Sure, P&G ‘got’ design recently but design is just lipstick - it might make a consumer look twice but the he or she is smart enough to work out whether that brand is truly pretty quickly.
What is the future for these companies? Well we could argue that there are plenty of products that just don’t need soul and that there will be no brand Armageddon. But what we will probably see is a war of attrition - as time goes on, new valued brands will come into Unilever and P&G’s duller markets and attack marketshare. Remember that Method changed a boring cleaning market just because no one cared.
Something that might be worth remembering is that while they will struggle building modern brands with soul, comapnies like Unilever will continue to wield great logistical power. Could they somehow support brands we consider authentic? Maybe they could take inspiration from the fashion sector: Recently H&M bought stock in hip denim brand Cheap Mondays - allowing the brand to grow fairly independently with the financial injection but offering a distribution network they didn’t have before.
It would be naive to think P&G and Unilever are in grave danger - but maybe the way they work may change from marketing organizations to distribution networks that support and even co-own real brands with the management and their consumers who believe in their values.
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You’ve made an important point and what you’re saying after all is where the Cluetrain Manifesto began some years back. I’ve noticed also that products such as those made by Freitag (freitag.ch)attract people because the company is true to a social mission (see also scrapile.com). The fact that the leaders of these companies kinda hurt in the process of creating their goods seems to strike a nerve.
Should it be a surprise to see morality coming back in. Not really. Surprising that it has taken so long.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Piers - So as one of the “army of brand managers” who you call-out as “[not] connected with the values each brand is supposed to contain”, I couldnt resist responding. I’ll do so more over at my blog but here’s the thing…I agree with you completely…at least on most of the points. Brands that have passion..that have soul are the future. And you know what, it is tough to add that emotional connection back to a brand if it wasnt there at the start. There are going to be brands at P&G, Unilever, Dial, L’Oreal, etc that never get there. That die a slow death because they dont connect with their consumers and dont invite them into the conversation. But for every brand like that, there is another one like that is making the change and recognize what they need to be when they grow up. Will we get there overnight? Not a chance. But are there Brand Managers at P&G and Unilever ready to try. You bet there are.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Unilever seems to have attracted a lot of positive consumer response from their “Real Beauty” campaign despite the airbrushing accusations last month. I’ve always thought Unilever’s marketing strategy was right on target especially after receiving a huge endorsement from Oprah’s media empire.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
As a marketing bod, I much prefer dealing with the start-ups and challenger brands. People who have had sleepless nights over their business and really put their skin in the game.
It inspires me to work harder on their briefs knowing there is a passionate human being working hard to make a product a success.
On the other hand, the big companies constantly rotate their managers from product to product. It’s clear they have no real heart in the game or product - it’s just a stepping stone up the corporate ladder.
If they aren’t inspired, why should we be at an agency level and in turn, the people we sell to?
PS
For heaven’s sake stop using the word “consumers!” It’s dehumanizing.
June 13th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Your inspiration combing the stores of Europe, of urban markets in NYC, Boston, SF and Portland would quickly be killed by a quick tour of America’s heartland, where social responsibility, design, and “brand passion” are distant thoughts compared to price, bulk and easy access.
P&G is doing just fine, for better or worse.
June 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Sometimes I think the supply chain efficiencies are enough for these brands to continue crushing the competition. The thing that will kill them is when brands like Unilever unveil a real beauty campaign on one hand and then get flamed for environmental destruction on the other. Consumers may be lazy, but they’re not THAT stupid.
June 13th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Piers,
I enjoyed the article and I really appreciate the challenge you are making & the debate you have started…hopefully it will spur even more change within big FMCG companies. But where I disagree is when you call out BMs for not being connected to their brands…I wonder how you got this impression? Before starting at P&G, I worked in several other companies (and govt. organizations) & I can tell you that P&G Brand Managers are very passionate about their jobs and their brands. Sure, you will find all types of people in a huge conglomerate, but your generalization is a bit dated I think.
P&G is a tradition rich company that will manage through all of this. You don’t make it past 170 years as a company by just sleeping through major transitions in culture and consumer behavior…having said that, great conversation starter! I will be checking you guys out more often.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Reality Check:
June 14th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
http://www.pg.com/company/our_commitment/community.jhtml
June 14th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Piers - well said. amen. I totally agree. I have also been wrestling with this BIG question myself as I have been working with P&G advising them on their social media strategy [full disclosure].
What I have learned from passing though the threshold of one of these big companies is that there are very passionate people inside [waving to Dave!] - not only brand managers. What does not yet exist is an ecosystem & industry that is structured to support the way companies and customers need to connect now and in the future. There is a holdover from a 20th century time when we stripped the creator from the executor so we could go “mass”.
The brand managers at large companies are handed an existing entity to care-take for a period of time, whereas microbrands & hyper-local companies are run by the founders and creators of said brands.
The question is how to [re]structure a very large industry to more intimately connect the people who are passionate about a product and believe in it to the market that wants to buy it — to reintroduce and connect the creator to the customer efficiently - like a good ole souk.
June 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
How many mothers are considered by their children as loving them “too much”? This often relates to not acting to help them do what THEY like, but rather projecting their own notion of Happiness into their children.
I believe what some Marketing people call “passion” is very often the simple projection of what their own personality into the brand they “market”, with the risk to forget than most of time they are NOT the typical user of the brand they sell.
What I believe makes P&G in the best position to win tomorrow is that it is fully focused on understanding what its consumer wants, and hence very much in touch with the trends evolution. Does it mean P&G manager have less passion for their jobs? Looks like you ve never worked there ;-)
July 18th, 2008 at 7:09 am
My view is that most of the brand managers at these companies put a lot of value on precedence. If X brand has done it, let me try something similar. Most of the ideas therefore lack originality. They take the risk of playing safe, often immune to new thinking. Look around, large FMCG companies aren’t the guys setting the trend anymore. You will have a rare example..may be. I believe the real problem is their consumer research bit, people aren’t making conscious decisions and the entire research is about trying to understand the conscious brain, which unfortunately doesn’t take most decisions. Many new products fail in spite of excellent market research results.
August 1st, 2008 at 7:49 am