New Marketing Models

Marketing, Mr Clean and Shifting Models  (Excerpt, read the whole thing)

P&G Super Bowl Ads Point to a Shift in the Marketing Model  by Bob Gilbreath
Co-Founder & CEO at Ahalogy

Many of my friends who are current or former Procter & Gamble employees shot me notes over the past week to ask my opinion on the company's massive investment in Super Bowl advertising. They remember that I worked on the brand long ago and even tried (but failed) to get our own ad onto the Big Game. LinkedIn is as good a place as any to save myself some time and reply to everyone at once. And I think there just might be a bigger idea behind what might seem like heresy in the halls of the world's largest marketer.

This Journey Started 13 Years Ago

Back in 2003 I was a brand manager at Procter, getting ready to launch a new product, Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Wash. That fall our CMO, Jim Stengel, announced a contest to select a brand to star in the company's first-ever Super Bowl ad. The effort was part of Stengel's push to improve the quality of advertising creative at the world's biggest advertiser, which included a now-annual trip to the Cannes Lions ad fest, new standards for measurement, and the introduction of more cutting edge agency partners.  ....

What's Happening Now?

All of these memories came flooding back when I saw the Mr. Clean ad a few days before the Super Bowl. Of course as a life-long marketer I cannot watch any advertising without analyzing the strategy and execution; and I could recall endless discussions of what people thought Mr. Clean could and could not be allowed to do in order to maintain the magic (literally) of his character. ..... "