First step

Outgoing Procter & Gamble president and CEO David Taylor said marketers “should not be worried” about former CFO Jon Moeller taking the reins, pledging marketing will continue to be a key channel for investment as the business looks to maintain its “superiority”.

Currently COO and was CFO, Moeller was announced as his successor yesterday (29 July), with Taylor shifting to the executive chairman role in November where he will lead the board of directors and provide council to Moeller.

Taylor says the FMCG giant has invested heavily in marketing this quarter by 170 basis points, in addition to the increase of 270 basis points in 2020.

P&G has pledged to continue investing in marketing despite ongoing supply chain pressures driving up business costs and, as a result, product prices.

Speaking on an investor call today (19 October) detailing the company’s results for the first quarter of its 2021/22 financial year, chief operating officer and incoming CEO Jon Moeller highlighted P&G’s positive results and said “this is the time to step forward, not back” when questioned on whether marketing investment would be sacrificed to offset the rising prices.

My PhD thesis was about advertising. Specifically, supplementing the question ‘What does advertising do to consumers?’ with the additional perspective of ‘What do consumers do with advertising?’.

My brilliant PhD supervisor, Professor Richard Elliott, wanted me to use ethnography to watch kids as they used and applied advertising in their everyday lives. He had a hair-brained scheme that at only 24 I could still pass for a teenager, infiltrate a local secondary school and gather my data that way.