This document summarizes a lecture on the benefits of global brand strategies given by Richard Learwood, a Global Marketing Director at Procter & Gamble. It discusses how a global brand strategy can provide efficiencies through shared R&D, capital utilization, input costs and crisis management while still allowing for localized differentiation. A truly global brand is rare as needs, usage and values often vary by location. However, a global strategy aims to unify the brand identity and supply chain globally while empowering local teams to focus on excellent execution. This approach can drive top-line growth, higher profits and free up resources for brand building.
2. THE POWER OF THE GLOBAL BRAND Richard Learwood Global Marketing Director from Procter & Gamble Inaugural Lecture from the ABS UK Business and Management Alumni Network ‘ The power of working together’
3. Welcome Elly Sample, Director of Marketing, Communications and Development for the University of Lincoln (current Chair of the Group) & Vicky Robinson MA, Chartered Marketer Head of Marketing and Communications, Association of Business Schools ‘ The power of working together’
4. This is a first in the UK and a significant step forward in Higher Education, as building strong University links will underpin success in the sector and we hope to expand the group and give all University Business Schools in the UK the opportunity to invite their alumni to future events and shared activities. ‘ The power of working together’
5. Current active members: Potentially ALL UK business schools will be involved in the very short future reaching out to over ½ million business professionals.
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8. Join in/follow the debate today #ABSUKalumni ‘ The power of working together’ ABS UK Business and Management Student Alumni Group Or visit: www.the-abs.org.uk
9. Richard Learwood is a Global Marketing Director for Eukanuba, a Billion $ premium pet food brand pet food sold by the IAMS Company and owned by Procter & Gamble. He is based in Geneva at Procter & Gamble’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Headquarters. ‘ The power of working together’
Hello I’m Vicky Robinson… Welcome. It is my job to introduce our inaugural speakers. Firstly thank you to Mich Neaves from Oxford Brookes for managing the event, Fola Ademoye for helping secure Richard Learwood, Elly our Chair and all our members of the group for supporting this first event And to you for coming!
Richard Learwood was accepted to join Procter and Gamble’s graduate training scheme in 1991, straight after university, and he spent the first six months working on the Old Spice shaving products Christmas marketing promotion. He was immediately exposed to the power of advertising. Sales levels that year suggested that one in eight homes in the UK had a P&G gift-set under the Christmas tree; the Old Spice ‘soap-on-a-string’ being its best-selling male cleansing product.
Good evening…. My name is Richard Learwood and I’m a Global Brand Franchise leader at Procter & Gamble where I lead our Premium Pet food business. Other names you might be more familiar with for this role is Global startegic planning, global marketing director or Brand CMO (Chief marketing officer) It is a pleasure to be here this evening for the ABS inaugural event and I’m looking forward to our discussion on global branding and global brand strategy. SLIDE
Tonight I’m going to share with you my take on the subject of Global Brand strategy. It will be based on my experience and my research. I haven’t written a book or published any research but I do have a lot of front line experience in the area that I hope you will find useful. Now before we get into the subject though I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you about myself, my company P&G and my role as Global Franchise Leader SLIDE
I am a graduate of Queen Mary, University of London where I studied Economics from 1987 to 1990. SLIDE
After graduation I then stayed for an extra year and worked President of the Students’ Union 1990/91. Looking back this was probably the most valuable year of my education. SLIDE
After college I joined Procter & Gamble in 1991 & 19 years later I’m still there So Let me tell you a little bit about Procter and Gamble or P&G as we are more commonly known SLIDE
Read from slide Founded 1837 Cincinnati, Ohio Net Sales $80 Billion Net margin 13.9% 127,000 employees World’s biggest consumer goods company and the World’s biggest advertiser 300 brands, 50 leadership brands = 90% Sales and Profit 23 brands with sales over $1 Billion of which Pampers is the biggest with Net sales over $6 billion More than 4 billion consumers use P&G brands annually and we are working to make that 5 billion in the not too distant future. PAUSE To understand P&G’s success and longevity it is worth looking back at our beginnings and two fundamental values that have endured through the company for 170 years…. SLIDE
Mr Procter and Mr Gamble, an Englishman and an Irishman came together in Cincinnati in 1837 to make candles and soap. At that time Procter & Gamble was one of 14 companies supplying these basic commodities to a city with a population of only 25,000 inhabitants To succeed they needed to be different and this is where they created their first brand…..- Star Candles. The brand stood for good quality at a fair price and was a success. From these humble brand and technological beginning an $80MMM Company grew. SLIDE
In fact, barring acquisitions, you can trace nearly all our technology back to the simple process of bar soap and candling making. Which has created the brand portfolio we have today……. SLIDE
The other consistent value in P&G has been our investment in, and the development of, talent. SLIDE
This is an alumni event but take a look at the companies P&G’s Alumni are running today! Finally I will give you a quick snapshot of my career at P&G……… SLIDE
In my 19 years these are the brands that I have managed. Some have been local, some have regional and some global. SLIDE
BUILDS I started in London in 1991 Moved to Holland beginning 1996 Then to Newcastle end 1997 Then to Geneva in 2001 Back to London in 2004 and then in 2006 back to Geneva where I am based today. SLIDE
Today I‘m the Global Brand Franchise leader- “Chief Marketing Officer” for Eukanuba Eukanuba is a top end pet food brand with retail sales of c. $1 billion competing in the $43 billion global pet food category As Brand Franchise Leader what do I do? SLIDE
AS BRAND FRANCHISE LEADER HERE ARE MY RESPONSIBILITIES Brand positioning Brand innovation strategy and pipeline Long term strategy and growth plan Marketing Communication tools Global execution Global platforms To give you a flavour of the brand here is a short film SLIDE
So on to tonight’s subject….. Global brand strategy SLIDE
There are many, many global brands that we are all familiar with and much has been written on the subject…… SLIDE
We could talk about the cultural and political impact of global brands. We could talk about the immense value of these brand’s equity and identity or we could talk about the many comical mistakes in translation that have occurred. Barring one very comical mistake that I feel I must share because no matter how many times I see it it makes me laugh we aren’t going to talk about any of these subjects…. What we are going to talk about is (SLIDE) when Global Brand does not equal Global brand and how in that situation you accelerate value creation. But first one of the greatest brand selling line gaffs of all time…..
But first one of the greatest brand selling line gaffs of all time…..
Perdue is a leading chicken brand in the US. Perdue’s selling line is “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” The Purdue chicken decided to spread its wings and head south to Mexico where it would simply translate it’s proven US campaign SLIDE
Builds This is Mr Purdue at one of his factories And this is how the brand selling got translated into Spanish in Mexico The brand was not a success…….. SLIDE
Let’s start by looking at what needs to be true to create a truly homogeneous global brand. And then look at what you can do to extract similar value even if all these factors do not hold on your business. SLIDE
Homogeneous needs world-wide- does the consumer around the world have the same basic needs from the category? Common usage- is the product used in the same way around the world or are usage habits so different that you can’t meet the needs with same format/product? Common, unique features and benefits- “do your Points of Difference” resonate with consumers around the world or do they have different needs Same value equation- price/performance ratio hold everywhere? Common heritage and roots- can the brand be rooted in a common set of beliefs globally or don’t they travel? Common brand values- if the beliefs can be the same can the brand express its values in the same way around the world. These last two are critical in today’s social media connected world.. Common visual identity- does or can the brand have a common look and feel? BREAK So can you and how can you create similar value and reap all the benefits of a global brand if all of the above is not true? Yes in can and there are many, many examples out there. Tonight we are going to look at a real case that shows you can and it could be argued that actually you can create more value by having a global brand masquerading as a local brand because the local brand is likely to have more heritage and trust. So how do you do it…..? Slide
Here is where we get back to the point that global brand strategy does not always equal global brand BUILD The value creation comes from common back office with late stage differentiation allowing you to reap the manufacturing scale benefits.. Let’s look at the example I want to use tonight… Slide
Well it is one of these….. It is something much more mundane….
Here is our global brand masquerading as a local brand Dreft in Holland Fairy in UK Dawn in USA Yes in Sweden Let’s watch some very old ads, and I apologise for the quality, to illustrate some of the points and differences… SLIDE
In this case…… Homogeneous needs world-wide √ Common usage X Common features and benefits √ Same value equation √ Common heritage and roots X because of legacy approaches and acquisitions Common brand values √ Common visual identity X different brand names
So if you accept that you can have a global brand strategy without a Global brand you can still reap many of the benefits. But the conditions must be right and the benefits will correlate strongly with how far you can limit differentiation and how late in the value and supply chain you can differentiate for local needs. Let’s look at some of the benefits…….
Here is a summary of the key benefits R&D efficiency- product and engineering Capital utilization Input costs Crisis management supply Management over head Agency and design costs Brand Assets Experience-interdependence Market level Operational focus on excellence of execution. SLIDE
Common technology and common platforms you can either reduce R&D costs and fund more projects to fuel you advanatge.
With a common platform you can design one global manufacturing process become excellent at it and reduce your costs.
If you design you process correctly then the only variation could be the label with all other inputs common. This will give you a huge scale benefit in purchasing and production. Before we moved to this model dreft came in a green plastic bottle and fairy was white. It wont always be the case that 100% same so set up you manufacturing process for late stage differentiation- if the dutch prefer a different scent to the Brits make sure perfume is the last thing added in the manufacturing process to allow bigger batches…
What happened when you have a crisis and a plant goes down? In this example all we need to do is ship labels to another plant and we are back in business. Capacity will be down but we will still be selling… Slide
If you have achieved 90% same around the world the opportunity to reduce overheads is clear. This might or might not go to the bottom line but the benefits are clear Slide
We all spend a lot on outside services. By operating with a global strategy you can reduce these costs dramatically. You can have one storyboard and shoot with different talent to mirror local culture. Let me show you some examples from around the world. There is one very old ad here and the quality is very bad so sorry… VIDEOS
Shared brand assets are another area to reduce cost. What the public sees may be branded differently but all the technology and systems that go behind it can be a shared cost.
More time to listen
More to time to listen to and work with your retail partners on co value creation
More time to understand your local consumer More time to study the local landscape To create better local buzz To provide deeper more insightful feedback to the brand development group
More time to plan better execution
More money to invest in brand building in your markets
And through all of the above you can expect higher growth if you get it right
And that should yield higher profits
Global Brand strategy ≠ Global Brand Benefits of a Global brand strategy can be significant to top-line, bottom line and organisation capacity. Understand local needs and meet them but as far down the value chain as possible. Be 100% vigilant in the local market to maintain relevance.
