Procter & Gamble

Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G, nyse: PG) is a Fortune 500, American global corporation based in Cincinnati, Ohio, that manufactures a wide range of consumer goods. In 2007, P&G is the 25th largest US company by revenue, 18th largest by profit, and 10th in Fortune's Most Admired Companies list.

History
William Procter, a candlemaker, and James Gamble, a soapmaker, formed the company known as Procter & Gamble in 1837. The two men, immigrants from England and Ireland respectively, who had settled earlier in Cincinnati might never have met had they not married sisters, Olivia and Elizabeth Norris.

Since both their industries used similar resources, the Panic of 1837 caused intense competition between the two and as a result it led to discord with the family. Alexander Norris, their father-in law decided to call a meeting where he convinced his new sons-in-law to become business partners. On October 31, 1837, as a result of the suggestion, a new enterprise was born: Procter & Gamble.

The company prospered during the nineteenth century. In 1859, sales reached one million dollars. By this point, approximately eighty employees worked for Procter & Gamble. During the American Civil War, the company won contracts to supply the Union Army with soap and candles. In addition to the increased profits experienced during the war, the military contracts introduced soldiers from all over the country to Procter & Gamble's products. Once the war was over and the men returned home, they continued to purchase the company's products.

In the 1880s, Procter & Gamble began to market a new product, an inexpensive soap that floats in water. The company called the soap Ivory. In the decades that followed, Procter & Gamble continued to grow and change. The company became known for its progressive work environment in the late nineteenth century. William Cooper Procter, William Procter's grandson, established a profit-sharing program for the company's workforce in 1887. He hoped that by giving the workers a stake in the company, they would be less inclined to go on strike.

Over time, the company began to focus most of its attention on soap, producing more than thirty different types by the 1890s. As electricity became more and more common, there was less need for the candles that Procter & Gamble had made since its inception. Ultimately, the company chose to stop manufacturing candles in 1920.

In the early twentieth century, Procter & Gamble continued to grow. The company began to build factories in other locations in the United States, because the demand for products had outgrown the capacity of the Cincinnati facilities. The company's leaders began to diversify its products as well and, in 1911, began producing Crisco, a shortening made of vegetable oils rather than animal fats. In the early 1900s, Procter & Gamble also became known for its research laboratories, where scientists worked to create new products. Company leadership also pioneered in the area of market research, investigating consumer needs and product appeal. As radio became more popular in the 1920s and 1930s, the company sponsored a number of radio programs. As a result, these shows often became commonly known as "soap operas."



Throughout the twentieth century, Procter & Gamble continued to prosper. The company moved into other countries, both in terms of manufacturing and product sales, becoming an international corporation with its 1930 acquisition of the Newcastle upon Tyne-based Thomas Hedley Co. Procter & Gamble maintained a strong link to the North East of England after this acquisition. In addition, numerous new products and brand names were introduced over time, and Procter & Gamble began branching out into new areas. The company introduced Tide laundry detergent in 1946 and "Prell" shampoo in 1950. In 1955, Procter & Gamble began selling the first toothpaste to contain fluoride, known as "Crest". Branching out once again in 1957, the company purchased Charmin Paper Mills and began manufacturing toilet paper and other paper products. Once again focusing on laundry, Procter & Gamble began making "Downy" fabric softener in 1960 and "Bounce" fabric softener sheets in 1972. One of the most revolutionary products to come out on the market was the company's "Pampers", first test-marketed in 1961. Prior to this point disposable diapers were not popular, although Johnson & Johnson had developed a product called "Chux". Babies always wore cloth diapers, which were leaky and labor intensive to wash. Pampers simplified the diapering process.

Over the second half of the twentieth century, Procter & Gamble acquired a number of other companies that diversified its product line and increased profits significantly. These acquisitions included Folgers Coffee, Norwich Eaton Pharmaceuticals, Richardson-Vicks, Noxell, Shulton's Old Spice, Max Factor, and the Iams Company, among others. In 1994, the company made headlines for big losses resulting from leveraged positions in interest rate derivatives, and subsequently sued Bankers Trust for fraud; this placed their management in the unusual position of testifying in court that they had entered into transactions they were not capable of understanding. In 1996, Procter & Gamble again made headlines when the Food and Drug Administration approved a new product developed by the company, Olestra. Also known by its brand name Olean, Olestra is a substitute for fat in cooking potato chips and other snacks that is known to have caused anal leakage and gastro-intestinal difficulties in humans. Procter & Gamble has expanded dramatically throughout its history, but its headquarters still remains in Cincinnati. {Source, Ohio History Central.}

In January 2005 P&G announced an acquisition of Gillette, forming the largest consumer goods company and placing the Anglo-Dutch Unilever into second place. This added brands such as Gillette razors, Duracell, Braun, and Oral-B to their stable. The acquisition was approved by the European Union and the Federal Trade Commission, with conditions to a spinoff of certain overlapping brands. P&G has agreed to sell its SpinBrush battery-operated electric toothbrush business to Church & Dwight. It also divested Gillette's oral-care toothpaste line, Rembrandt. The deodorant brands Right Guard, Soft & Dri, and Dry Idea were sold to Dial Corporation. The companies officially merged October 1, 2005.

P&G's dominance in many categories of consumer products makes its brand management decisions worthy of study. For example, P&G's corporate strategists must account for the likelihood of one of their products cannibalizing the sales of another.

Operations
Effective July 1, 2007, the company's operations are categorized into 3 "Global Business Units" with each Global Business Unit divided into "Business Segments," according to the company's June 2007 earnings release.


 * Beauty
 * Beauty segment
 * Grooming segment
 * Household Care
 * Baby Care and Family Care segment
 * Fabric Care and Home Care segment
 * Health & Well-Being
 * Health Care
 * Pet Health, Snacks and Coffee

Management & Staff
Current members of the board of directors of Procter & Gamble are: Norman Augustine, Bruce Byrnes, Scott D. Cook, Joseph Gorman, A.G. Lafley, Charles R. Lee, Lynn M. Martin, W. James McNerney, Jr., Johnathan Rodgers, John F. Smith, Jr., Ralph Snyderman, Margaret Whitman, and Ernesto Zedillo. Norman Augustine will be retiring from the Board following the Company's October 2007 meeting.

In 2007, the P&G's Canadian division was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, as published in Maclean's magazine, the only consumer products company to receive this honor.

Product brands
23 of P&G's brands have more than a billion dollars in annual sales and another 18 have sales between $500 million and $1 billion.
 * See a full List of Procter & Gamble brands

Current brand details

 * Always is a brand of feminine hygiene products, including maxi pads, pantiliners, and feminine wipes, produced by Procter & Gamble.--See also Brand homepage; related trademarks: Ultra Thins; Flexi-Wing; Maxis; Alldays; CleanWeave.
 * Ariel is a brand of washing powder/liquid, available in numerous forms and scents.
 * Bounce is a fabric-softener sheet, produced in many scents, for dryers.
 * Bounty is a brand of paper towel sold in the United States, Canada and British Isles.
 * Braun is a small-appliances manufacturer specializing in electric razors, coffeemakers, toasters, and blenders.
 * Camay is a beauty soap made for women.
 * Cascade brand dishwasher detergent.
 * Charmin brand bathroom tissue and moist towelettes.
 * Cheer is a laundry detergent available in powder and liquid.
 * Clairol is a personal care products division of Procter & Gamble that makes hair coloring, hair spray, shampoo, hair conditioner, and styling consumables.
 * CoverGirl is the largest color cosmetics brand in the US, with distribution in Canada, Australia, and Switzerland as well.
 * Crest brand toothpaste.
 * Dawn brand dishwashing detergent.
 * Downy brand fabric softener.
 * Dreft brand laundry detergent. It was actually the first synthetic detergent used for delicate clothing and dishes when introduced in 1933 from P&G.
 * Dryel brand home dry cleaning kit.
 * Duracell brand batteries and flashlights.
 * Era is P&G's first liquid laundry detergent.
 * Eukanuba brand Premium dog and cat foods
 * Folgers brand coffee.
 * Gain brand laundry detergent and fabric softeners.
 * Gleem brand toothpaste.
 * Gillette is a safety razor manufacturer
 * Hugo Boss brand colognes.
 * Iams brand dog and cat foods.
 * Ivory brand soap.
 * Joy brand dishwashing liquid.
 * Lacoste brand colognes.
 * Luvs brand disposable diapers.
 * Max Factor brand cosmetics.
 * Millstone coffee.
 * Mr. Clean product line.
 * Olay brand.
 * Old Spice brand.
 * Oral-B brand inter-dental products.
 * Pantene brand.
 * Pampers brand disposable nappies.
 * Pepto-Bismol brand pink bismuth.
 * Pringles brand potato chips.
 * Puffs brand tissues.
 * Scope brand mouthwash.
 * Secret brand deodorant.
 * SK-II brand beauty products.
 * Swiffer brand.
 * Tampax brand tampons.
 * Tide brand laundry detergent.
 * Wella brand hair care products.
 * Zest brand soap.

Historic product brands
Brands owned by Procter & Gamble in the past, but since divested:


 * Biz, sold to Redox Brands in 2000
 * Cinch, a line of cleaning products, was sold to Shansby Group, a San Francisco investment firm
 * Chloraseptic, throat medicine and lozenges sold to Prestige Brands.
 * Clearasil, over-the-counter acne medicine sold to Boots Healthcare.
 * Coast, bar-soap brand sold to Dial Corporation in 2000.
 * Comet, long-time P&G brand of cleanser owned now by Prestige Brands.
 * Crisco (vegetable oil and shortening) sold to J. M. Smucker.
 * Dash detergent
 * Duncan Hines packaged cake mixes, sold to Aurora Foods (now Pinnacle Foods) in 1998.
 * Hawaiian Punch, now owned by Dr Pepper/7up
 * Jif (peanut butter) --divested by Procter & Gamble in a spinoff to their stockholders, followed by an immediate merger with The J.M. Smucker Company in 2002.
 * Lava, sold to WD-40 in 1999.
 * Mon Shelle, a beauty soap
 * Oxydol sold to Redox Brands in 2000; was P&G's first popular laundry soap then later became a laundry detergent after Tide was introduced in 1946.
 * Pert Plus, sold to Innovative Brands, LLC in July 2006.
 * Prell shampoo, sold to Prestige Brands International in 1999.
 * Spic and Span, now owned by The Spic and Span Company, a division of Prestige Brands.
 * Sunny Delight orange drink, spun off in 2004.
 * Sure, anti-perspirant/deodorant line was sold in October 2006 to brand-development firm Innovative Brands.
 * Lilt Home Permanents, Including "Push Button" Lilt, The First "Foam-In" Home Permanent In A Can. Sold To Schwartzkopf/DEP
 * Salvo, a brand of detergent tablets which was sold in the early 1960s
 * Thrill, a peach-scented brand of dish-washing liquid.
 * Top Job all-purpose cleaner
 * Vizir, was a detergent, most saled in Europe
 * Wondra, a brand of hand lotion

Brands owned by Procter & Gamble in the past, but since phased out:
 * Both Banner and White Cloud toilet tissues were merged with the company's best known bathroom tissue, Charmin.
 * Bold a brand of laundry detergent. The product is still sold in Europe.
 * Citrus Hill, orange juice drink last made in 1992.
 * Dash a brand of concentrated laundry detergent. The product is still sold in Europe.
 * Duz was a powdered detergent which had a glass in each box.
 * Encaprin, the first competitor to Tylenol in the ibuprofen-capsule pain-reliever market. In 1984, it beat Advil and Nuprin to the stores by a few months. Only two years later, it was forced off the market by a cyanide poisoning hoax.
 * High Point was a brand of instant coffee
 * Monchelle was a bar of beauty soap
 * Puritan oil was a brand of liquid vegetable oil (The first brand to sell canola oil)
 * Salvo the first concentrated tablet laundry detergent which was discontinued in the 1970s then later a dish detergent (sold in the US 2004-2005 it's still sold in Latin America)
 * Rely, brand of super-absorbent tampons in production from 1976-1980. It was pulled off the market with the TSS crisis.
 * Thrill was a dishwashing liquid.
 * Wondra was a lotion for dry skin. There were many formulas. ( The First Major Brand To Use "Silicones")
 * Pace & SELF "No-Lotion" Home Permanents,-The Waving Ingredients Were In The Special Waving "Papers", Squares Of Treated Cloth-Like Material Sealed In A Foil Packette.

Procter & Gamble Productions
P&G produced and sponsored the first radio soap operas in the 1930s (Procter and Gamble being known for detergents (soaps) was probably the genesis of the term "soap opera"). When the medium switched to television in the 1950s and 1960s, most of the new serials were sponsored and produced by the company. Two of their serials, As the World Turns and Guiding Light, are still on the air today and are distributed by Procter & Gamble Productions.The Young and the Restless also is sponsored by products from Procter & Gamble, as well as other daytime serials.

List of past serials produced by P&G:


 * Another World
 * The Brighter Day
 * The Edge of Night
 * The First Hundred Years
 * From These Roots
 * Search for Tomorrow
 * Somerset
 * Texas

Logo used during these debuts:
 * Another World - February 14, 1985
 * As The World Turns - Fall 1985
 * Search for Tomorrow - February 26, 1986
 * Guiding Light - Fall 1986

A new Procter & Gamble Productions logo with new accompanying music debuted on August 6, 2007 after the serials As the World Turns and Guiding Light. The logo appeared some weeks back on the CBS website after the web-streamed episodes.

Procter & Gamble also was the first company to produce and sponsor a prime-time show, Shirley, starring Shirley Jones, in 1979; it lasted 13 episodes. They also produced TBS' first original comedy series, Down to Earth, which ran from 1984 to 1987 (110 episodes were produced). They also distributed the syndicated comedy series Throb. Procter & Gamble Productions co-produced Dawson's Creek with Sony Pictures Television (although P&G was uncredited in the series). It was also produced for the 1993 TV movie Triumph of the Heart co-produced by The Landsburg Company.

In addition to self-produced items, P&G also supports many Spanish-language novelas through advertising on Univision, Telemundo, Telefutura, Azteca and many more channels. P&G was the one of the first mainstream advertisers on Spanish-language TV during the mid eighties.

Logo controversy
The company received unwanted media publicity in the 1980s when an urban legend spread that their previous corporate logo was a satanic symbol. The accusation is based on a particular passage in the Bible, specifically Revelation 12:1, which states: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." Since P&G's logo consists of a man's face on a moon surrounded by thirteen stars, some have claimed that the logo is a mockery of the heavenly symbol alluded to in the aforementioned verse, and hence the logo is Satanic. Where the beard meets the surrounding circle, a mirror image of 666 can be seen when viewed from inside the logo, and this has been interpreted as the reflected number of the beast, again linked to Satanism. Also, there are two horns like a lamb that are said to represent the false prophet. These interpretations have been denied by company officials, and no evidence linking the company to the Church of Satan or any other occult organization has ever been presented. The company has sued and attempted to sue a number of companies and individuals who have spread rumors of this type, in some instances because they sell competitive products and have spread such rumors for the purpose of tarnishing P&G's image to increase sales of their own brands.

As stated in one of the resulting lawsuits, the logo originated in 1851 as the symbol for their Star brand of candles. It was later altered to show the man in the moon overlooking 13 stars, which were meant to commemorate the original 13 colonies. Proctor and Gamble v. Amway 242 F.3d 539

An example of one such rumor was the fabricated account that the president of P&G had appeared on a Saturday edition of the Phil Donahue show, and declared that he was a Satanist and that the company's logo was Satanic. This rumor circulated despite the facts that the company's president has never made such a statement in public; had never appeared on Phil Donahue's show; and that Donahue's show never ran on Saturdays.

However, the continuous media coverage prompted P&G to adopt an entirely new logo consisting of just the letters P&G. In television commercials in Hong Kong and China, the former P&G logo still appears at the end of each commercial. It also still appears on the Company's packaging that it sends to retailers.

The original logo still appears on Procter and Gamble stock certificates as of this date.

A Dilbert strip pokes fun at this controversy. In the strip, Dilbert asks "Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light" what he does for money. Phil responds, "Corporate sponsorship. Procter and Gamble pays me to stay away from them."

Toxic shock syndrome and tampons
Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a disease caused by strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus. Most people have these bacteria living in their bodies as harmless commensals in places such as the nose, skin, and vagina. The disease can strike anyone, not only women, but the disease is often associated with tampons. In 1980, 814 menstrual-related TSS cases were reported; 38 deaths resulted from the disease. The majority of women in these cases were documented as using super-absorbent synthetic tampons, particularly the Rely tampon created by Procter and Gamble. The Rely tampon was so super-absorbent that one by itself could in fact hold one woman’s entire menstrual period. Unlike other tampons made of cotton and rayon, Rely used carboxymethylcellulose and compressed beads of polyester for absorption. The materials used in Rely were causing an increase in the thickness of fluid inside the vagina, resulting in more toxins being released.

The slogan Procter and Gamble used for the product is ironic in retrospect, "Rely. It even absorbs the worry."

In the summer of 1980 the Centers for Disease Control released a report explaining how these bacterial mechanisms were leading to TSS. They also stated that the Rely tampon was associated with TSS more than any other brand of tampon. In September 1980, Procter and Gamble voluntarily recalled its Rely brand of tampons from the market and agreed to provide for a program to notify consumers. Since the 1980s, reported cases of TSS have dramatically decreased.

Research
In December 2005 the Pharmaceutical division of P&G was involved in a dispute over research involving its osteoporosis drug Actonel. The case was discussed in the media Doctors for Research Integrity, and more recently on a blog Scientific Misconduct Blog

Environmental record
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have identified Procter & Gamble as the 52nd-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 350,000 pounds of toxic chemicals released annually into the air. Major pollutants indicated by the study include manganese compounds, sulfuric acid, epichlorohydrin, and bromine.

Procter & Gamble's Environmental Quality Policy and Perspective

Animal testing
P&G sometimes conducts research using animals to demonstrate safety or efficacy of their raw materials and products. This has led to a world-wide campaign to raise public awareness and to stop P&G being involved in animal testing, including that of Uncaged Campaigns in the UK and Stop Animal Exploitation Now in the USA.

On the other hand, P&G was recognised by the Humane Society of the United States for "advancing alternatives to animal testing".

Criticism

 * Uncaged anti-vivisection campaign Uncaged anti-vivisection campaign against the animal testing by Procter & Gamble
 * Boycott Procter & Gamble Against the animal testing by Procter & Gamble
 * McSpotLight.org: Procter & Gamble in the McSpotlight also critical
 * List serve of HOPE (Help Our Polluted Environment) in Taylor County, FL, US
 * FSU PowerPoint "What Stinks", that names the P&G/Buckeye mill in Perry Florida in its sequence of pollution disasters caused by pulp mills.
 * Scientific Misconduct Procter & Gamble involved in a dispute over scientific procedure and hiding of information in research of the drug Actonel
 * Procter and Gamble Animal Tests Exposed