P&G has released an exclusive music video starring Jewel, who's the brand ambassador for Pampers, and her toddler.

The song, "The Green Grass Grows All Around," is taken from her 2011 children's album, "The Merry Goes 'Round." According to Pampers, the song pays "homage to the beautiful morning moments shared between parents and their babies. From storytime and sing-alongs to feeding horses and spending time with daddy, the video captures Jewel's favorite beautiful morning moments with her son, Kase."

Check it out below, along with a recording of the brand's recent Facebook chat with the American singer/songwriter:Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble and other diaper-makers may be cheering the news that Kimberly-Clark is abandoning Europe with its diaper business. But the move by the American giant, also maker of Kleenex and other paper products, also will land yet another blow to the fragile economy. Kimberly-Clark confirmed in its latest earnings release that it plans to eliminate up to 1,500 European jobs with the move and its broader restructuring plan in Europe, or about 2.6 percent of its global workforce.

The way CEO Tom Falk put it, the company didn't have any choice after banging its head against a wall in Europe for its disposable diapers. P&G controls 44 percent of the market with Pampers, while Kimberly-Clark's Huggies brand had garnered only a 12-percent share over more than two decades in the market. Private-label diaper brands combined have a bigger share than Huggies.Continue reading...

Depending where you were, you may have celebrated Halloween on Oct. 31st. At Procter & Gamble, they've been celebrating the company's 175th anniversary.

That's right: P&G – mother of such consumer packaged goods icons as Tide, Pampers, and Comet, among others – is now 175 years old, but a look back at the company's history reveals that the whole endeavor might not have started if an errant flame and a rapscallion hadn’t done their dirty work all those years ago — or if an opinionated father and father-in-law hadn't intervened.

Or put another way, Mr. Procter's failures in England led to P&G's global success today — and Procter took a Gamble that paid off.Continue reading...

It was embattled Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald's turn today to describe what he sees taking place at the CPG behemoth now and in the future, as he assured shareholders at the company's annual general meeting in Cincinnati that "we're confident we're doing what's right and necessary to achieve [our] objectives, now and for the long-term health of our business."

McDonald pledged that P&G is focusing on the company's 40 largest businesses, 20 top innovations and 10 most important developing markets as well as its $10-billion productivity program to drive future growth. "Our plan," he stated in a press release after the meeting, "is decisive, simple and focused. Grow our core and win with innovation fueled by productivity."

The CPG executive has been taking more heat than any other recent P&G CEO because the company lately has stumbled in meeting its growth objectives, has been shown up by competitors, and seems to have fallen off in innovation compared with a few years ago, when an emphasis on new products, new features, line extensions and new brands was propelling Procter & Gamble to record growth.Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble is in the unaccustomed position of having to defend its business performance compared not only with rivals but with its own recent past, especially in North America and Europe.

For a company under that kind of watch, both perceptual and actual, what possibily could be better to get out there than images of U.S. Olympians — and their moms — taking advantage of P&G products at the company-supplied hair salon in the "home away from home" that it has set up in London?

The P&G Family Home pavilion at the Summer Olympics site has been a non-stop parade of Olympians and their family members, such as Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Breeja Larson (at right) and visiting fellow gold-medalist skier Lindsey Vonn (OK, she's a Winter Olympian) taking advantage of the salon's stylings featuring P&G's own family brands, and a photo opp showcasing the results.Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble had a good thing going with its mom-focused global campaign heading into the London Summer Olympics, and so like the world-class marketers they are, the company is trying to extend the string of positive impressions throughout the Games.

To that end, P&G CEO Bob McDonald and Global Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard joined the mothers of several Olympic athletes and other P&G executives to virtually "ring" the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange "remotely" — from the P&G Family Home pavilion in London.Continue reading...

With 32 days before the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games kick off in London....

Official sponsor McDonald's UK offers sneak peek at designer Wayne Hemingway's sustainable, Mad Men-inspired uniforms that will debut at its biggest restaurant (if for only six weeks), which is now under construction at the London Olympics Park:Continue reading...

The last Summer Olympics were in 2008. That’s seven katrillion years in technology years. Much has changed since then and marketers are planning to put extra emphasis on an area that has grown exponentially in the last four human years: social media.

Brand marketers are particularly interested in using Facebook to boost their brands this summer. After all, you fish where the fish are — and Facebook had 794 million people visiting it each month of last year, spending an average (per comScore) of six hours per visit.Continue reading...