P&G Creates ‘Sports Marketing Center of Expertise’

With the Gillette acquisition, Procter & Gamble plans to emphasize its marketing efforts in the sports marketing arena, and has created a sports marketing “center of expertise” in order to explore new opportunities.

The center of expertise is based on an initiative first explored by Gillette, which had conducted a best practices review of sports marketing before it merged with P&G, writes MediaPost. The results of that review have been transferred to P&G.

Now, P&G has identified sports marketing as one of three areas with a high ROI, and the company plans to emphasize it in the future. In the past, Gillette has successfully used sports marketing to forge an emotional connection with their prime prospects, said Susan Arnold, P&G’s vice chair for beauty and health. P&G hopes to do the same.

Interactive (such as viral marketing) and “influencer marketing” were the other two tactics that have consistently delivered financial returns above traditional TV and print advertising,  according to Arnold.

While TV and print still go hand-in-hand with new media, P&G acknowledges that there has been a shifting focus in spending at the packaged goods giant, increasingly focusing on the two-way interaction that is available with consumers via the interactive medium.

Arnold pointed out that high-speed internet access will be in 300 million homes worldwide by 2008, which will speed the two-way process. The shifting focus of spending at P&G could influence how other marketers allocate their budgets, the article says.