P&G CMO Offers 5 Lessons

Jim Stengel started with Proctor and Gamble in 1983 as a brand assistant, and today he is CMO of the worlds most prodigious marketing enterprise. He participated in building a company that had $11 billion in sales when he started and today has $83.5 billion in sales. Say what you want about P&G and their bravado, but I'll bet you are using methods they developed in the 60's to manage your advertising today.

Jim is retiring and in his last presentation to the Association of National Advertisers, he gave 5 simple lessons to marketing that I thought were worth a mention.

Lesson 1: Put People at the center of all you do. Treat your people the way you would want your customers treated. Stengel said, " I have learned in my career that the most important legacy is the impact you will have the the people you work with. We all have rough months, rough years, which blend together, but what you will remember is relationships and people.

Lesson 2: Engage your heart and mind in everything you do. "We need balance. To often as an industry we approach everything with head, not heart". Manage brands using the characteristics of a great relationships. With audience participation he identified these as trust, respect, love, and humor.

Lesson 3: Don't over complicate the process with complex activities that don't drive the brand. If the corporate drones in major packaged goods enterprises do anything well it's over complicate the process. Take a step back and look at what you are trying to do. Too much time goes toward the short term and tactical.

Lesson 4: Creativity is about problem solving. Everyday we look at creative projects that focus on problems. Are we are just solving the problem of today or building loyalty and the brand?

Lesson 5: Have a purpose. Here I have to take a quote from my the great Washington Irving who made the name Van Winkle live on forever.

“Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes. Little minds are subdued by misfortunes; great minds rise above them."

2009 Could be a rough year for all of us in the marketing field so above all remember the first lesson.