Where P&G lead, will Reckitt Benckiser follow?

For years P&G relentlessly applied their formula of advertising to each and all their brands.
They found a benefit, turned it into a message and repeated it endlessly. The phrase ‘interruption advertising’ was coined to describe how Ariel, Lenor, Tide, Head and Shoulders and scores more all ran TV commercials that were witless, irritating and which worked.

Why, then, five years ago, did P&G decide to take creativity seriously? The answer is in the speech P.G.Lafley gave to his assembled marketers in 2006 when he said, “We must learn to let go.” The dilemma for the modern marketer, he observed, is that the more in touch you are with your customers, the less control you actually have over your brands. In urging his people to get in touch, he went on to say that P&G must also learn to apply the same principles of R&D to its communications as it does to improving the performance of its products.

“We must experiment”, he said.

The result of all this is that in all the awards shows we monitor at The Big Won, agencies are winning prizes with P&G. So many prizes, in fact, that P&G was Advertiser of the Year at Cannes.

This would have been inconceivable not long ago. It is further evidence that in the new order of media, you have to do more than give people good reasons for buying your products, you have to get them to like what you do as well.

One day Reckitt Benckiser will learn this lesson. But after another year of record sales driven by advertising modelled on the P&G methods of the 1960’s, their top brass will pooh-pooh the notion. The first downturn in their sales figures may see a change of heart.

Inconceivable as it may seem now, perhaps Reckitt’s Cillit Bang will be winning Golds as P&G’s Crest is.

/Patrick Collister/