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Procter and Gamble is a global company that provides consumer products in the areas of pharmaceuticals, cleaning supplies, personal care, and pet supplies (pg.com). This description however becomes increasingly simplistic the more one looks into the size of P&G as well as the scope of their operations. Is made up of over 300 brand names including Bounty, Gillette, Old Spice, Ivory, Pringles, Tide and Pampers and currently owns 22 brands that have more than $1 Billion in annual net sales (2008 Annual report, A. G. Laffley). P&G is a model for related product diversity; almost all of P&G’s products benefit from the same distribution to the same or same type of retail outlets and consumers. Procter and Gamble are also generally credited with having invented brand management.

From P&G’s website:

P&G was founded in 1837 (making P&G 172 years old) by two men who met by chance. William Procter, emigrating from England, established himself as a candle maker in Cincinnati, which was a busy center of commerce and industry in the early nineteenth century. And James Gamble, arriving from Ireland, apprenticed himself to a soap maker. The two might never have met had they not married sisters Olivia and Elizabeth Norris, whose father convinced his new sons-in-law to become business partners.

As of 2009 P&G Employed 135,000 individuals worldwide and had global sales $79,029,000,000.00 (Wright Reports). P&G also claims to be the world’s 8th largest company in terms of market capitalization (a measure of a companies size equal to the share price times the number of shares outstanding). According to a 2010 report on P&G by Wikinvest, products from Procter and Gamble reach 4 billion of the planet’s population. P&G’s largest competitors are Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Unilever.In terms of product scope, P&G’s company operations are split into three “Business Units” described by the company as Beauty Care, Household Care and Health Care. P&G claims its corporate structure is split into “four pillars”; Global Business Units (mentioned above), Market Development Organizations, Global Business Services and Corporate Functions (pg.com).

A large part of P&G’s success can be attributed to its diversification, which comes from the development of related products through either acquisitions or in house start up development. P&G’s latest acquisition of the Gillette Corporation cost the company $67 billion. The deal added Gillette’s Duracell battery, Right Guard deodorant and line of razors to P&G’s collection of more than 300 consumer brands, which include Head and Shoulders shampoo, Pringles, Crest toothpaste and Bounty paper towels (MSNBC).

The idea of brand management is also very important in P&G’s success. Brand management is the idea that a company can use marketing to increase the overall value (to the company) of each product in a brand and there by increase the value of the brand as a whole. The idea that each and every product offered by a company is of the same high quality and has similar characteristics to other products in the product line and brand increases consumer confidence in try new products in a line. If this is in in face the case with consumer buying, then each product and brand contributes to the value of each other product and brand within the company. This allows the company to charge a higher premium on the products due to an increase in implied value to the consumer.

Procter and Gamble is also currently developing and launching a direct to consumer sales online products store. Procter and Gamble says it is launching the store as a “learning lab” and not as a way to “bypass the big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Target that peddle its household and personal care brands to Internet shoppers (Forbes).” The online shopping site will be owned and operated by PFSWeb and exclusively feature P&G products to consumers in the U.S.

www.wikinvest.com/stock/Procter_&_Gamble_Company_%28PG%29

finance.yahoo.com/q?s=PG

money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune
/global500/2009/snapshots/6619.html

wrightreports.ecnext.com/coms2/reportdesc_COMPANY_742718109