reveries - bob wehling - procter & gamble

FEBRUARY 2002

"I certainly haven't done a good job of retiring," chuckles Bob Wehling, until last August the top global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble and, it's been said, the most powerful man in marketing.

People give you advice, when you retire, that you should zero-base your life and get out of everything and just say "no" to everything for six months.

Not Bob Wehling. Not only did he not get out of everything, he added a few things. Busier than ever, really, maybe even busier than he was when he was at P&G. That's pretty busy. He was at P&G for 40 years. Forty years! Beginning in 1960, he held 18 different titles, beginning with the one John Smale gave him way back then -- Brand Assistant. Why did Smale hire this kid anyway? It's a mystery to Bob, and he will explain why. It's in the interview.

Illuminated, too, is Bob's perspective on the business of big brand marketing. His is a vantage point that few people, if anyone at all, can match. His accomplishments at P&G truly are too numerous to ennumerate, but Bob does single out the handful of achievements of which he is most proud. He offers a definition of great advertising, and what it takes to get it out of an agency. He has an opinion on the Internet, and shares his secrets of successful partnerships between manufacturers and retailers. He comments on promotion marketing's status relative to advertising's, too. Later on, in the interview.

Bob Wehling seems just as comfortable looking forward as he is looking back. Indeed, his view of the marketing universe is about as breathtaking as the nine-mile panorama of the Ohio River from his 500-acre farm. Did you know he lives on a farm? Well, he does. It's about forty-five or fifty miles east of downtown Cincinnati. His wife's the farmer. She raises Tennessee Walking Horses; that's her principal thing. But she has some tobacco and cattle and what Bob calls a Noah's Ark: Three buffalo, two llamas, two donkeys, some sheep, long-horned cattle, ducks and geese. You name it.

You can't get a better view than we have from our farm. It's just magnificent. On the other hand, you have to drive quite a ways for a New York Times or a restaurant.

Looming largest within Bob's post-P&G life is his role as senior advisor to the Hunt Institute, a new effort in association with the University of North Carolina and former Governor Jim Hunt. The idea is to create a national institute that will do a couple of things. It will educate politicians and policy makers at the local, state, and national level on education and early childhood issues. Research, policies -- that sort of thing.

At the same time it will provide teachers -- particularly those whom Bob refers to as teacher leaders -- with seminars designed to help them become more effective in working with policy makers and politicians in their district or state. Bob's interest in childhood education (note his necktie) and public policy issues actually is a direct connect from his days at P&G, where his responsibilities included the Procter & Gamble Fund as well as state and national government relations.

So, given that, it should come as no surprise that one of Bob's most detailed answers was his three-part response to the question, " What advice would you give a young person who'd like to grow up to be as successful as you've been?" We'll get to that one in a moment.

But first, here's Bob Wehling on the past and future of Procter & Gamble, and the business of marketing itself.

Is Procter & Gamble still the gold standard of marketing?

I don't know that I would say that P&G is the "gold standard" exactly. But I don't think anybody does a better job, over a period of time and over two hundred plus brands, of marketing and staying in touch with the consumer and building the business than Procter & Gamble does.

Sure, you read a lot in the press about whether P&G has lost its edge. But if you look at the most significant new brands that have been launched over the last several years, and you see a number of P&G products among them, like Swiffer. You see brands that have turned around over the last several years. Crest was a brand in some difficulty a few years ago and it's now doing extremely well. Procter & Gamble has always been a company -- and continues to be a company -- that stumbles from time to time and makes mistakes. But no matter how many mistakes it makes it keeps trying until it gets it right.

What do you imagine will be the biggest changes at P&G over the next five, or even ten, years?

I think -- and not just for P&G but for everyone in our industry -- the continuing evolution of technology will have a huge impact on the business. Those who make the right decisions and the right technology and strategic choices, and who are there first with the right choices, are going to have a really significant advantage.

The next ten years are going to continue the trend -- in all businesses including P&G -- of being even more efficient. Finding ways to get better results with lower expenditures is going to be absolutely crucial. We're going to have to find ways -- and we are finding ways -- to use real-time relationships with our consumers via technology, to be even closer to what they want and need so that we'll have a higher hit rate with the new products we introduce and the products that we improve over the next several years.

Is TV advertising as relevant today as it was in the past?

It's as relevant as it's ever been; it's just harder to do. Because of fragmentation and hundreds of channels available, because of lower ratings and things like that, it's just more challenging. It puts a greater burden on your consumer understanding and insight, and your ability to turn those insights into persuasive, dynamic advertising. But when you do it, and do it well, and make good media choices you can have, I think, the same great results today that you could ten, twenty, or thirty years ago.

What is your definition of great advertising?

Great advertising, I would say, is advertising that strikes the consumer in a way that's consistent with where they're at and makes them want to try or re-try a product. It makes them want to try that product in such a way that when they buy it and experience it, it will meet or exceed their expectations.

Bad advertising, in contrast, does one of two things generally. It over promises what the product or service is going to deliver and thus disappoints the consumer when he or she tries it. Or, it seeks to entertain them at the expense of giving them the information they need in a persuasive way that ties the ad to the product so that they feel that they really want to try it, so that they make a note to themselves, mentally or physically, to try that product the next time they're at a store.

How do you get that great advertising out of an agency?

By having the agency be your marketing partner in a true sense of the word, and having both of you focused on in-depth, first-hand consumer contact and knowledge.

Great advertising comes generally when the agency works hard enough with the client to share deep consumer understanding. As they understand and talk to the consumer more, insights come out of that consumer interaction that lead to a great advertising idea.

Most of the bad advertising that I've seen comes from superficial consumer understanding as opposed to deep consumer understanding. A lot of people don't feel they have the time to do that, and therein lies the fact that there isn't as much great advertising as there should be.

To what extent do retailers offer national brands an opportunity to build brand equity?

I've always looked at the retailer as a partner with the advertiser. The trick is creating a win-win, so that retailer's consumers feel that the retailer is offering them the brands they want, where they want it in the store, and present it in a positive way at an attractive value.

It's in the advertisers interest to work with the retailer, to arm them with the same knowledge of the consumer that they, as advertisers, have relative to their product categories. That way, the advertisers are working in concert with the retailer to, in effect, convince their mutual consumers that this is the right brand and the right store for them.

Other than consumer insights, are there any other secrets of successful partnership between retailers and manufacturers?

Obviously the whole supply chain issue and all of the logistics issues are important. Manufacturers and retailers who work together to understand the whole system -- from the inception of the product and its ingredients to the time the consumer picks it off the store shelf are going to be the most successful.

When they work together to make that whole process as efficient as possible for both of them so that extraneous costs are eliminated and the consumer is then enabled to buy a great product at a low price -- that is the secret. But you can only achieve that through a retailer-manufacturer partnership that's aimed at improving quality while driving costs down.

Is promotion marketing still a poor cousin to advertising?

That depends on how you define promotion marketing. The best promotions have some relationship to the brand's advertising and fit in with the overall strategic direction of the brand. But I think the best promotions are as relevant and important today as they ever were.

What has to happen before the Internet will maximize its potential as a medium for marketing?

It's going to vary significantly by category. I don't think it's ever going to be a one size fits all. It's never going to be a mass medium, in my opinion, like television has been. I think it's going to be much more of an individually tailored medium that will be an incredibly important adjunct to an overall marketing plan that includes other media and ways of communicating with the consumer.

In a category like cosmetics, which we're in, the Internet is very important and will be increasingly important because young women want advice, direction, and options about cosmetics. They want news about new cosmetic improvements and opportunities. However, there are other categories where there isn't a passion to learn more about the category which are more just everyday household activity type of things, where I don't think the Internet will be as important as it will be in categories like cosmetics or feminine protection or baby care.

Needless to say, you enjoyed a tremendous career at P&G. What was that like for you?

It was terrific. First of all, working for a company that, to the best of its ability tried to do the right thing, was an extraordinary experience. Procter & Gamble is a company where you would never get into trouble making a decision that you felt was the right thing to do for your consumers and your shareholders -- even if it was unpopular or it wasn't expedient in terms of short-term business considerations. If you could justify it as the right thing to do, you would always be backed up. That's a great environment to work in.

It was also a great environment to work in because it was truly a system where you advanced yourself objectively on the basis of data and accomplishments, as opposed to who you knew and other such considerations.

Which accomplishments at P&G were you most proud of?

Many. I had a variety of fun and productive assignments, all of which I learned from and where I was able to be helpful on occasion. I think I can say I played a role in the successful national introduction of Head & Shoulders Shampoo. It was also a struck of luck that got me assigned to that brand when I came out of the military service, at a point in time when they were getting ready to introduce the brand nationally. I mean, I was just in the right place at the right time. But I think I played a role in that successful introduction.

I'm proud of turning around the Secret deodorant business from a profit loser to a significant profit maker through the adoption of an all-feminine strategy with the Strong Enough For A Man, But Made For A Woman campaign. I think I helped Crest Toothpaste at the time reach an all-time share high through a number of activities, including the first commercials that Bill Cosby made. Some print ads that we did in conjunction with NASA, and a lot of innovative activities and promotions also helped build that business.

I felt good about establishing the first ethnic marketing program. I felt good about promoting some of the first female brand managers and women at other levels at P&G.

In the later stages of my career I think I made some contributions that I felt good about, including spending a few years on the development and implementation of a new method for compensating our advertising agencies. I deeply believe that is in their best long-term interests, as well as Procter & Gamble's best long-term interests.

Instead of compensating our agencies on the basis of how much media we happened to be spending at any given point in time, they are compensated based on a formula that relates to the sales growth of the brand that they manage for us. So when we win, they win and when we lose, they lose. But we're all motivated to the same degree to get the business moving faster.

Was there anything that you wished you had done differently?

There were a couple of moments in time when I would have done some things differently. For example, there was a moment in the early '80s when the company wanted me to go to Japan and run our marketing there. From a business and a career standpoint it would have been wonderful, but I had a couple of daughters who were having some difficulties here in the U.S. at the time and I just couldn't do it. So from a family standpoint I said "no," although from a career standpoint I would have said, "yes." But everything works out. I just believe things are meant to be so I don't look backward and I have no regrets.

Were there any people in particular who influenced you or helped you along the way?

Absolutely. Many, but I would single out John Smale, who hired me. I always single out John because, first of, all the fact that he hired me, in retrospect was kind of a surprise because I couldn't answer any of the questions he asked me in the interview!

What did he ask you?

He asked me questions about advertising, and I didn't know anything about advertising. He asked me what I knew about business, and I said, "nothing." I've never had a course related to business in school, ever, to this point. He asked me why I wanted to work for P&G, and I told him I didn't know anything about P&G, that I wasn't sure I wanted to work there but I hoped he'd tell me about it. And it just went on like that.

You must have said something that impressed him!

Well, I think he wanted to take a flyer and see if this kid was for real!

What were you doing there in the first place?

Well, I was a senior in college and I had a wife, a daughter, and another child on the way. I knew by that time I couldn't be a professional baseball player. I had to do something. I knew I didn't want to go to school anymore. I happened to be reading a novel at that time called The Detroiters, which was about General Motors and their advertising agencies.

I thought, hell, there's a lot I like about what they're saying about advertising, in terms of dealing with the consumer and consumer research, and influencing people through advertising. I figured that if I had to work that sounded like something I'd enjoy. So I decided I'd interview with the next company that came to the campus to talk about advertising. That company happened to be Procter & Gamble.

What advice would you give a young person who'd like to grow up to be as successful as you've been?

I guess I'd give two or three pieces of advice. One would be, if you want to be successful in anything, be prepared to work extremely hard for a long, long period of time. A lot of the people that I've seen not do as well as they might have liked to do at P&G, in many cases, fell short because they wanted to make big decisions right away -- to be a decision-maker as opposed to a worker bee. I've always found that the people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and do whatever needs to be done, and don't think of their work as something that's beneath them, are generally going to be more successful.

Secondly, I'd say you've got to be a person who enjoys learning from every single thing you're doing. Every assignment has opportunity, every experience is a learning opportunity. You have to approach it like that. I've seen a lot of people who didn't like particular assignments. They didn't like who they were working for and they let that affect their mindset and their well being. You need to just go after it, do the absolute best you can and learn from the bad as well as the good experiences. Keep a smile on your face and keep your perspective.

Almost all of the most successful people I've worked with in advertising are exceptionally good communicators. One-on-one, verbally, in a group, written communication -- no matter what form of communication, they are articulate and persuasive.

Thirdly, I'd say relationships are crucial -- getting along with the people you work for, work with, and who work for you. Empowering people, trusting people, seeing what you can do to be of help to people are all crucial ingredients. And finally, for anybody who is going into advertising -- or many other aspects of business -- I'd say anything a person can do to hone their communication skills is going to come in handy.

I always tell kids when I speak on college campuses and things like that, to take some public speaking courses, take writing courses -- do whatever you can now to improve your communication skills. If you do that, I'll almost guarantee you that you'll have a more successful business career.

What were the biggest changes at P&G during your time there?

In my early years at P&G the economy was so strong in the United States, and all of the markets we competed in -- and around the world for that matter. All the markets we competed in were growing and so that market growth covered a lot of your sins. You could run mediocre advertising and do a mediocre job of marketing and still have some good numbers at the end of the year because of the market. That's both good and bad.

But then when the markets tightened up, and the first oil crisis hit in the '70's, then you had to become a lot smarter about how you went about things and a lot more efficient, a lot more strategic. It got more difficult. But that was good -- it was a good discipline for all of us to learn how to compete effectively in those times.

The other key change in my career was learning how to market effectively globally, versus just in the U.S., England, Canada, Mexico, and a couple of other countries. Learning what things travel well around the world and what things don't. Learning to respect every culture that you're in and to dialogue with the consumers in every area and deal with them where they're at, versus where you might wish they were, or like them to be.

We made a lot of early mistakes trying to transport North American practices and commercials and things like that to other parts of the world as opposed to starting from scratch with the consumer, and having maybe the fundamental strategies and principles travel, but the execution tailored to the local attitudes, cultures and practices.

How did the role of the brand manager change during your tenure?

Not as much as I think some people seem to think! Throughout my entire career, including when I was a brand manager, brand managers have always felt that they had too much responsibility and not enough authority. I found that not only true at Procter & Gamble but in most companies that I know of around the country. It seems to go with the territory.

Brand managers have always had too much to do -- and therein is both the problem with the job and the opportunity with the job. Then, as now, the most effective brand managers are the ones who are able to do the research and have the insight to know that there are only three or four things they can do on a brand in a year that are really going to make a very, very, significant difference and who religiously focus on those priorities and move them forward. They either do not do -- or find someone else to do -- all of the other stuff that can distract you from those priorities. That's a heck of a lot easier said than done.

But that has always defined success of a brand manager. You have so much that is on your shoulders and yet there's a lot of it that you do not directly control. That's why communication skills are so important. So is finding a way to work with people from different countries, different disciplines -- manufacturing, finance, sales, you name it.

You've got to persuade all of those people who don't report to you that what you'd like them to do is the right thing to do -- and do that with data and persuasion, and keep the ship moving forward. Again, always being focused on only those most important things that will affect the business.

What do you see as the next great frontier in marketing?

I'm not sure I'll articulate this as well as I'd like to, but if you look at television as the great mass medium, and you look at the Internet as the great individual relationship-building medium, I think the breakthrough is going to go to marketers who tie both of those things together in the most effective and efficient way.

I don't think anybody's really done that yet. I think we're still at a point where about half the people really want to deal in the world of technology and the other half don't, for one reason or another. How do you effectively and efficiently market to everybody? That bridge needs to get crossed and it's just going to be very difficult.

The other huge challenge for international marketers like Procter & Gamble, is how to effectively market to the "have-nots" to the same degree that you've done over the years with the "haves." And that means both here in the U.S. and in all of the third world countries of the world. There is so much learning that all marketers need to do in that area. That's an area that I think you'll read and hear and study more about over the next ten years.