UPDATE:P&G Puts Added Focus On Digital Media As TV Soap Ends

(Updates with added information on the company's plans for digital media, changes focus)

By Anjali Cordeiro
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) will make a bigger push to develop more digital media properties and Web sites targeted at women following the cancellation of its soap opera Guiding Light, which the company used for decades to peddle soap and household necessities.

Guiding Light, the longest running show in broadcast history is due to be canceled on CBS. Procter & Gamble Productions, the company's unit that owns the soap opera, is weighing options to make the show available elsewhere or in another medium, spokeswoman Jeannie Tharrington said.

But a big focus for the unit - which looks to connect the company with its consumers - will now be to develop digital media and Web sites that interact with moms.

"We are just trying to keep up with the times," Tharrington said. She declined to say how many sites or media properties are planned, saying only "there is a pipeline." The sites won't all be targeted at women, but may touch on subjects ranging from health and wellness to the kitchen, while advertising P&G products. P&G will develop some of these Web sites in partnership with NBC Universal, she said. P&G Productions already has a partnership with NBC Universal for a Web site called petside.com, which discusses subjects like health and wellness for pets, while carrying ads for products like P&G's pet food brand Iams.

The P&G unit still has another day-time drama called As The World Turns, as well as the People's Choice Awards show.

P&G products are advertised on Guiding Light, and the soap opera genre got its name from the consumer product companies that helped develop these shows and hawked their brands on them. For years, consumer product makers resisted moving their advertising online, but that has been slowly changing as they find more of their consumers can be reached online.

Consumer companies believed soap operas were an excellent way to reach their target audience - women who did much of the shopping for the household. But as more women moved into the workforce, they began to miss these day-time shows. Many makers of household products and food are now using Web sites that can offer anything from health and wellness advice to recipes as one indirect way of advertising their brands to women.

P&G, the world's largest advertiser and seller of household staples like Tide detergent and Pampers diapers, has recently been attempting to make a greater push into this space. More recently it has had some of its employees swap ideas with those at Google Inc. (GOOG). According to TNS Media Intelligence, Procter & Gamble's overall advertising expenditures fell to $3.2 billion in 2008 from $3.45 billion in 2007.

Ratings for Guiding Light had been falling and Tharrington said the company was still weighing the financial viability of keeping the soap opera alive elsewhere. She did not discount some kind of a digital format for the show, but said the company was considering several options for the program, which will have its finale on CBS Sept. 18.

Guiding Light, which was created in 1937, was originally on radio before its moved to television and follows the lives of four families in a fictional town in the Midwest called Springfield.

-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2408; anjali.cordeiro@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-03-09 1525ET

Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

URL for this article:
http://www.smartmoney.com/news/ON/?story=ON-20090403-000824-1525

CPG Starts Thinking Outside the Box

NOVEMBER 26, 2007

Virtual shelves, real customers.

After decades of relying on television and print advertising, US consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers are finally moving a larger proportion of their marketing budgets online.

This year, eMarketer projects that CPG companies will spend $920 million on all forms of Internet advertising, up 33% over 2006.

By 2011, CPG advertising online will hit $1.8 billion, for a compound annual growth rate of 20.9%.

"Although the increases are impressive, they have been years in the making," says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report CPG Online: Health & Beauty Go Interactive. “Of course, consumer behavior is the driving force behind the spending changes.”

Consumers are going online to search for and research CPG products and then discussing them on blogs and social networks.

“But consumers are not just browsing for promotional offers and coupons,” Ms. Phillips adds. “They are buying CPG products online.”

To take the health and beauty category as an example, Forrester Research expects online sales of health and beauty products to reach 14% of total revenues in 2010, versus 5.6% in 2006.

“The CPG industry as a whole is suddenly bullish on the Internet,” Ms. Phillips says.

In the first half of 2007, eMarketer estimates Internet advertising by CPG companies grew 39.5% to $430 million, compared with just $310 million in the same period in 2006.

That follows a year in which CPG Internet advertising shot up 117%, to $700 million—far higher than the $470 million eMarketer had predicted.

“Media-channel spending shifts in CPG mirror the changes taking place in many other industries,” Mr. Phillips says. “Automotive, financial services and pharmaceutical advertisers are all cutting ad budgets for traditional channels in favor of digital communications with consumers.”

CPG Bites into Online Marketing

MAY 1, 2007

You've played the game. Now eat the food.

Nearly half of consumer goods companies plan to increase their interactive marketing budgets by 25% or more over the next two years, according to Coogan & Partners and SoftCoin's "Interactive Marketing Landscape Survey."

CPG firms have been increasing their online ads in particular, and eMarketer estimates that almost half of CPG category spending on Internet advertising in 2007 will come from food and beverage companies.

Internet advertising was the only medium to see a significant increase in food and beverage ad spending last year, according to eMarketer calculations of TNS data (and TNS does not include search in its calculations).

eMarketer senior analyst Lisa E. Phillips says that the Coogan/Softcoin study points to the scale of the CPG industry's interactive marketing.

"Like advertisers in other industries," said Ms. Phillips, "CPG companies spend far more on interactive marketing campaigns, such as microsites, advergames and downloadable music, than on Internet advertising such as display ads, search and e-mail. This year, CPG companies will spend $600 million to advertise online, just 3.1% of the total $19.5 billion expected."

As for interactive campaigns, food and beverage marketers have been actively using advergames to establish their brands.

eMarketer expects US spending on advergaming will hit $344 million in 2011.

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.'s advergaming site is one sign of a CPG marketer's success with this type of campaign.

The firm's candystand.com draws between 4 million and 5 million unique visitors per month to play Wrigley-branded games such as Orbit Video Poker. Earlier this year, the company launched a microsite, wii.candystand.com, which can be accessed through Nintendo's Wii Internet channel, even though it is not licensed or authorized by Nintendo.

Learn about emerging opportunities for CPG marketers. Read eMarketer's CPG Online: Food and Beverages Party On report.

CPG Smacking Its Lips over Internet Advertising

APRIL 24, 2007 After getting a taste of online advertising, many consumer packaged goods marketers seem to like it. Food and beverage advertisers cut spending in nearly every major media last year — except the Internet. This year, eMarketer estimates this category will spend $288 million advertising online, a 36.6% increase over 2006. Why has Internet advertising become a meat-and-potatoes buy for food and drink marketers? "Because food and drink is becoming an online staple for consumers who are searching the Internet for healthy eating tips and recipes, as well as for products they see advertised in other media," says Lisa Phillips, eMarketer Senior Analyst and the author of the new CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On report. "Eat, drink and go online" is the message food and beverage companies are sending to US consumers, and they are following their own advice. In fact, according to TNS Media Intelligence, the Internet was the only medium to see more than a small increase in food and beverage ad spending last year. While spending in newspapers tanked almost 25% and outdoor spending fell 9.5%, online advertising gained nearly 27%, to reach $183.4 million (and TNS does not include search advertising in its calculations). CPG companies, however, do not spend as heavily on paid search advertising as many other categories do, preferring to focus their Internet campaigns on branding, sponsorships and direct response such as e-mail. "In the CPG segment, purchase consideration hinges more on in-store sales and discount coupons," says Ms. Phillips, "so paid search is not as paramount as in other industries, such as automotive or financial services." eMarketer estimates CPG companies devote only 15% to 20% of their online spending to paid search. "The shifts in food and beverage marketers' media mix in 2006 mirror what is taking place in other industries," says Ms. Phillips. "Last year, traditional media such as television, newspapers, radio and outdoor all lost share of spending within food and beverage budgets, while magazines and the Internet gained share. Even as total spending in other media fell 1.8%, Internet advertising rose, from 1.6% of the total in 2005 to 2.1% last year." As a category, however, food and beverage advertising did not make the list of the top 10 advertising categories in 2006. Data from TNS show that the personal care segment was the only CPG category to break into the top 10, ranked eighth in overall spending last year, up 1.1% to $5.7 billion. To feast on more CPG and food and beverage figures, read the new eMarketer report CPG Online: Food & Beverages Party On today.