Summary: P&G 99

Review and Analysis of Decker's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511021248
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Charles Decker's book: `P&G 99: 99 Principles and Practices of Procter & Gamble's Success`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Charles Decker's book `P&G 99` shows that P&G's success doesn't happen by accident. Every year, the company spends more than $3 billion advertising and promoting its brands – more than any other company on earth. In his book, the author reveals the fundamental beliefs that lie at the heart of P&G's impressive success, including customer service, strategic thinking and brand building. This summary will provide you with an insight into one of the world's most successful companies and how you can adapt their processes to achieve success in your own company.

Added-value of this summary:
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To learn more, read `P&G 99` and learn from the successes of one of the greatest companies.

Summary of P&G 99 (Charles Decker)

1. P&G’s GUIDING PHILOSOPHIES

Main Idea

Four philosophies influence and color everything P&G does:

1. Understanding what the consumer wants is critical to the business of P&G.
2. P&G’s corporate mission is to develop new products that deliver real value to the consumer.
3. P&G creates unique brands for its products that consumers can form an emotional and trust-based relationship with.
4. P&G maintains a long-term perspective on everything it does and is consistent and focused.

Supporting Ideas

P&G principles regarding understanding consumer needs are:

1. Trust consumers to always weigh relative merits against relative costs and determine where real value is being delivered. Manufacturers who deliver real value will always be rewarded proportionately.

2. Never try to fool consumers by marketing inferior grade products. They’ll see right through it every time. Good marketing is never a substitute for good product performance.

3. Value isn’t simply price – it’s what the customer says it is by the choices they make in the marketplace. In fact, for most products, Value = Perceived Benefit / Price. If the perceived benefit is high enough, a wide disparity in price can be offset.

4. The only way to succeed is to find out exactly what consumers want and how they want that benefit delivered. Every decision must be supported by research.

5. Consumers can’t be expected to buy solutions to problems they don’t even know exist. You have to provide a frame of reference first.

6. It’s very easy to misunderstand what consumers are saying if you don’t listen carefully, and ask the correct questions.

7. Listen carefully to consumers after the sale is made. It’s a key opportunity to strengthen the relationship.

P&G principles in relation to developing superior products:

8. Better products never happen by accident. The company has to invest in innovation to consistently develop market leading products.

9. Products using new technologies will often require patience and persistence to get right. Keep going until all consumer reservations have been addressed.

10. Real value is built on what superior performance benefits a product delivers – not on cosmetics. If you have a product which is no better than your competitors, you’re bound to fail.

11. A good product never rests on its laurels. Improve it, and then work hard at improving it again – because your competitors will be doing the same.

P&G principles in relation to creating unique brands:

12. Consumers form an emotional bond with a brand – not a product or a company. Therefore, the brand has to have a personality and a character people trust and relate to – something distinctive that no other competing brand offers.

13. If there’s room for more than one brand in a product category, it’s better to compete against yourself than against another company. Compete aggressively against your own brand by introducing additional brands in the same product category, and let the consumer rather than the management decide the winner.

14. Gorilla brands that dominate the market have significant competitive advantages over small guerrilla brands that seek to exploit only smaller niches. Build gorillas, not guerrillas.

15. Brands should never be compromised by incorporating new technologies which contradict how consumers think about them – their positioning. Grow a brand by expanding the benefits currently offered, but never by incorporating entirely different technologies.

16. Manage each brand as if it were a separate business. Focus resources on whatever is required to build the business of each brand. Every brand must have a brand manager who oversees everything that affects that brand.

P&G principle of how to maintain a long-term perspective:

17. A brand must evolve as consumer needs change. If the brand stands still, it will be left behind by the marketplace. P&G brands are expected to last forever – therefore, they must be reinvented on an ongoing basis to keep them fresh and relevant.

18. The company always promotes from within. Therefore, the best people are hired and the company’s employees are trained to become the best they...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Book Presentation
• Summary of P&G 99 (Charles Decker)
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright