---
title: "P&G Renames Marketing Department to 'Brand Management': What Does It Signal for Digital Marketing Trends?"
description: "On July 1, 2014, P&G announced in Cincinnati that it would rename the Marketing Director to Brand Director and the Marketing department to Brand Management. This move signals a new era in digital marketing, emphasizing a shift from communication to experience design across all touchpoints."
author: "马耀"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2014-09-24"
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# P&G Renames Marketing Department to 'Brand Management': What Does It Signal for Digital Marketing Trends?

> On July 1, 2014, P&G announced in Cincinnati that it would rename the Marketing Director to Brand Director and the Marketing department to Brand Management. This move signals a new era in digital marketing, emphasizing a shift from communication to experience design across all touchpoints.

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On July 1, 2014, Procter & Gamble (P&G) announced in Cincinnati that it would rename the Marketing Director to Brand Director and the Marketing department to Brand Management. This news blew my mind: it's a landmark decision, even if it was forced by the times.

According to the announcement, "The new brand-building effort will be organized into four areas: Brand Management (formerly Marketing), Consumer and Marketing Knowledge, Communications, and Design. Brand Directors will have broader responsibilities and a wider perspective at the organizational level. This is to clarify accountability for brand strategy, plans, and results; streamline the structure to improve decision-making efficiency, and free up more time for creativity and execution."

We (i2mago) focus on digital marketing and have worked with P&G since 2007, later expanding to Nestlé, COFCO, Chow Tai Fook, Vinda, and others. The digital space is the center of change, and as a participant in this transformation, I can feel the brilliance and pain in every word of that brief announcement.

**This announcement heralds a new era in digital marketing. We call it the "Era of Delight Experience Design for Full Touch Points."**

If you're interested in understanding the context of this change, please stay with me as we go back to 1999.

### Act One: From Incremental to Disruptive Change

When the relations of production (organization and operations) hinder the development of productive forces (business and demand), change in the relations of production is inevitable. P&G, like an old uncle, is great at self-reform in time to avoid being revolutionized by others.

**Interactive Marketing Held Hostage by Classic Brand Marketing and Communication Theory**

P&G China started its online presence in 1999 with the Safeguard brand website, and around 2000 established a Digital Marketing department to manage and incubate digital marketing for all brands in China. It took nearly six years to prove two things: 1) digital marketing is useful; 2) brand sites and online campaigns can effectively support brand communication and build member databases. Funny, right? It is. But those six years turned China's digital marketing from "making websites" into an "interactive marketing industry," and it became a necessary touch point in the brand marketing system.

We started working with P&G in 2007, with our first project being Online PR: using P&G's official website as the core, we designed a system of four communication channels plus one monitoring tool to help P&G build and protect its online reputation.

In 2008, we began serving brand interactive marketing, running a large number of online campaigns centered on new product launches. This continued until around 2011, when P&G made a major move: the Digital Marketing department was dissolved and merged into the Marketing department, making interactive marketing a part of every marketer's responsibilities. But by then, interactive marketing was hitting a ceiling: 1) The perennial essay/photo/video contests made netizens feel like they were being treated as cheap and gullible; 2) The digital space was stubbornly seen as a supplementary channel for communication creative ideas developed primarily for CCTV. So whatever TV viewers liked, netizens had to like too? 3) Consequently, interactive campaigns rarely connected to sales, focusing only on traffic and engagement, even though e-commerce was everywhere. This hooligan mentality led to widespread traffic fraud across the industry. These three points marked the decline of the interactive marketing era represented by campaign sites.

**E-commerce Driving Disruptive Change**

Let's rewind to the end of 2008, when a small thing happened: P&G set up an e-commerce team. The team was very lean: one Associate Director (AD), one Brand Manager (BM), and one Assistant Brand Manager (ABM). You read that right—just three people, and the AD had other responsibilities too. They approached us to build P&G's Tmall flagship store. At that time, Tmall was just starting, and the first screen banner was free. We worked on it for over four months, and in April 2009, P&G's Tmall flagship store opened, establishing a strategic partnership with Alibaba. In September, the Amazon P&G flagship store opened, establishing a strategic partnership with Amazon.

This kicked off e-commerce in the China region.

After that, e-commerce entered the fast lane, and so did organizational change—almost a major change every year.

In 2010, we did two things: 1) Opened stores on the hottest e-commerce platforms; 2) Created the best product content pages and themed campaigns centered on Tmall, then applied them to other platforms. That year was fun; we begged brands for support, but most other things were autonomous and unmanaged, which was interesting.

In 2011, we did three things: 1) Split stores. We spun off OLAY and Pampers from the P&G flagship store into their own brand flagship stores. Nestlé's flagship store also spun off a mother-and-baby flagship store. 2) Increased support for self-operated e-commerce platforms (B2C, JD.com, Yihaodian, etc.). 3) Provided centralized creative promotional campaign designs for the whole network by brand, then sold them to various platforms. That year was extremely busy; workload surged, brand involvement increased, e-commerce platform demands grew, and both clients and we added many staff. The e-commerce team (centralized management), brand teams (creative support), and e-commerce platforms (sales execution) worked closely together that year. Busy and tired as we were, we made a huge leap.

In 2012, we moved to refined operations: 1) Optimized ad and campaign effectiveness; 2) Improved store user experience design (UED); 3) Platform traffic acquisition hit a ceiling, so we turned to interactive marketing and online PR for support, developing integrated marketing. That year, a dilemma emerged: Marketing first or Sales first? The two philosophies clashed. For us, when recruiting, traditional ad creatives would say, "You e-commerce folks need an idea a day; there's no creative space." Those from Taobao brand operations would say, "You don't speak human; you float in the air, out of touch." I said from day one of e-commerce, we believed that only the fusion of the two could create a sustainable business. Some believed and stayed; others said e-commerce wasn't part of digital marketing and tried to kick us out of the digital marketing circle. They didn't even spare our little hearts.

In 2013, we set aside disputes and each worked hard: 1) Chasing festivals. Double 11, 618—you know. 2) Using all marketing tricks to create compelling promotions. 3) Refining store operations around product planning. But we found that no matter what we did, we were just sellers (as my father-in-law put it), while Afu, Three Squirrels, Puppy Electric, and Pechoin had fans flocking to them. What was wrong? Most likely the mindset.

Luckily, we're an elephant; we locked ourselves in the fridge and found the crux: "Full Experience." It was around this time that P&G released its answer: renaming the Marketing department to Brand Management.

Digital marketing has reached a crossroads. Now let me talk about the digital marketing trends I see in 2014. (Don't blame me; at my age, I have many memories...)

### Act Two: 2014 Digital Marketing Trends

Understand two things.

First, Human-Centered Design. Sounds familiar? Chairman Mao said "Serve the people," P&G says "The consumer is boss," Nokia said "Connecting People." This is crucial for internet thinking. The logic is: you'd better design your product and service for one person, so you can perfectly satisfy a specific personal need, which will bring extreme delight, and that delight will influence others with similar needs around them to feel the same.

Second, the Experience Economy. "The experience economy is called the fourth stage of human economic life after the agricultural, industrial, and service economies, or an extension of the service economy." "An experience is a beautiful feeling that arises in one's consciousness when one reaches a certain level of emotion, physical strength, or spirit." What's the difference between service and experience? My partner Daniel gave an example: On Double 11, you're unhappy because your delivery is late. You call customer service to complain. The rep says sorry and waives the 10 yuan shipping fee. That's service. If the package contains a letter saying sorry, with 10 yuan in cash as compensation for the delay, hoping for your understanding, that's an experience.

Yes, I mean, let's start by genuinely liking consumers/users and integrating into their lives.

**Consumers Enter an Always-On, Multi-Screen Digital Existence**

I compare today's consumers to goddesses—post-90s goddesses.

In her life, she's surrounded by multiple screens: mobile, PC, smart TV, wearables, smart home devices (Figure 1). These screens aren't just for information; they're tools for life. The virtual and real are completely intertwined. Negroponte's 1996 prediction of digital existence has truly arrived.

Figure 1: Goddess surrounded by screens

Have you had this experience? Where to go for lunch? A friend says the restaurant on the sixth floor is good. Okay, get in the elevator, open Dianping, check the restaurant's group deal, click WeChat Pay. Ding! Sixth floor. Walk in, order the group meal. Yeah~

**Consumer Shopping Path Change - Brands Need to Manage More Interactive Touch Points**

The most important thing is that the consumer's shopping path has changed.

Previously, a brand aired a TV ad, which moved and changed consumers' awareness and purchase intent (Figure 2). About 300 hours later, the consumer walked into a store and made the purchase. Those 300 hours were crucial: P&G aired ads, Unilever did too, L'Oréal did too. Whoever captured the consumer's mind won the chance for the consumer to pick up their shampoo from the shelf instead of someone else's. This separation of "seeing" and "buying" created the advertising industry based on one-way push communication.

Figure 2: Traditional shopping path

But now, it's changed, completely (see Figure 3)! From first sight to purchase, it takes only 30 minutes. Not even 30 minutes—just 3 minutes. Three minutes, with a few taps on one screen! Then delivery in 3 hours. When you open the package, note: Is the courier handsome? What's the taste of the packaging? These will affect the goddess's feelings about you. And that's not enough; you need a complete product usage plan, a stylish and practical plan to improve quality of life! Goddess, you ask too much!

Figure 3: Shopping path in the digital existence era

**Change 1 - Communication and Marketing Shift to Experience Making**

Clearly, the stage time for one-way push advertising, developed over 200 years, has been compressed from 300 hours to 3 minutes. Brands now need to manage many more touch points that influence consumer purchase and loyalty. The delightful experiences at these touch points, when combined, create an indelible impression and love for the brand. We must change: communication and marketing, which aim to move the mind, need to shift to experience making that delights the whole being.

Thinking about Afu's "surprises throughout the consumer shopping experience," Three Squirrels' "9-OFS ultimate customer experience," and Puppy's "every product is born for you," it's no wonder we couldn't beat them despite all our integrated marketing efforts. It's not that our communication ideas weren't good; it's that we were all doing that moving 3 minutes, but a single tree, no matter how tall, can't compare to a forest.

Feelings can't just be verbal; they must be shown through action. Great, major discovery: from saying to doing, build the brand experience comprehensively! Congratulations, the nightmare begins.

Consumers crave 24/7 creative, obsessive care - ignite passion in 3 seconds, surprise every 3 days

The goddess is surrounded by more and more screens, and the fragmentation of information interaction at touch points is accelerating. She receives too many temptations. If you can't attract her attention and ignite her passion within 3 seconds, sorry, you'll lose the chance to develop a further relationship with her.

Also, each touch point has its own screen media characteristics, and the goddess's behavior and needs at each touch point are different, so you need to redesign your interaction with her. And please, give a surprise every 3 days! It seems the goddess has forgotten what deep affection means.

Recall: when you lie in bed before sleep, browsing on your Apple or Xiaomi, what makes you stop? Facemeng, the neuro cat, or "Post-85s, the Mutant Generation: If You're Pretentious, I'm Indifferent"? Then, would you play Facemeng for a month?

Basically, it's a "no zuo no chance to die" rhythm—if you don't do it, you don't even get a chance to die.

**Change 2 - The Delightful Experiences at Each Touch Point Are Guided by Business Models and Strategies, Not Big Communication Ideas**

My god, each touch point is a small ecosystem, and every interaction requires careful creativity and design, with a response speed of "from decision to launch within 5 hours." This pace will inevitably bring two changes: 1) Empower touch point experts to create and produce delightful experiences at those touch points; 2) Abandon the dominance of big communication ideas, and instead be guided by higher-level business model and strategy creativity. This gives touch points the time and space from creation to execution (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Business model and strategy guide the full brand experience

**Summary - The New Trend of Consumer-Brand Integration and New Role Division**

Yes, a new era is coming. Let's review the roles in the new digital marketing model (see Figure 5): The consumer, like a goddess, is self-centered, with the main task of focusing on how to live better. The brand, the irreplaceable hero, focuses on brand spirit and value creation, while also managing the business model and strategy. The relationship between brand and consumer will change to an integrated experience. The creation of delightful and unique brand experiences at each touch point can be left to the experience designers and smart tech engineers—those "losers."

Figure 5: Role tasks in the integrated experience era

Now, looking back at the P&G spokesperson's comments on the organizational change: "The change is intended to 'unify brand-building resources to focus on delivering better brand and business results, clarify roles and responsibilities to make faster decisions, and simplify our structure to free up time for creativity and better execution,'" she added. How do you feel?

So, this is the 2014 digital marketing trend we see: Era of Delight Experience Design for Full Touch Points.

### Act Three: Change Continues

How P&G's organization will further adjust, what new name data marketing should have, and how communication and marketing will continue to shine—all need further exploration and waiting.

But one thing is certain: change will continue, and the integration of various disciplines and touch points is inevitable.

I told this story to the supermarket auntie next door. She looked at me with pity and said, "You digital kids have it tough. You do so much, but online sales only account for 20-30% of China's retail." True, China is vast, and the combination of TV ads and supermarkets is still the main sales channel. Although in the past two years, the supermarket auntie's sales growth has been single digits or negative; although more than half of young people haven't watched TV for a long time; these still don't shake the leading position of offline business. I especially appreciate the auntie's concern, but I still asked a silly question: If the bathroom can buy shampoo by itself, and the kitchen rice jar can have COFCO deliver rice, would P&G and COFCO just deliver directly to consumers?

Source: SocialBeta

**Daonong PS: In times of change, the internet's impact on traditional industries may be greatest on our generation of distributors. From today, Daonong will push one excellent article on internet thinking and micro-marketing daily, hoping to help distributor friends and marketing elites who want to transform from traditional marketing to internet marketing.**

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