What if you could add more than a half million new customers to your business EVERY DAY, for the next five years? Make that 548,000 new customers, to be precise.
That’s what Procter & Gamble’s new chief executive Robert McDonald says he’ll be doing for the company. He wants to do this by continually expanding P. & G.’s reach beyond its core markets of the United States, Western Europe and Japan, and start winning over new customers in places like Nigeria, India and Somalia.
But its competitors Unilever and Colgate have already enjoyed a longterm presence in many of these emerging markets!
One industry analyst describes the upcoming challoenge as a brutal knife fight that will be fought in shampoo, detergent, deodorant, with no one rolling over. I imagine that is a pretty fair prediction.
Many are wondering how a company that built itself on selling premium products at premium prices can shift to selling an array of low-priced products for consumers who often live on only a few hundred dollars a month or less. After all, these new customers may even have to be taught how to use P. & G.’s prodcucts.
But the naysayers need only look to the incredible potential of these markets where P. & G. has already been laying the groundwork to be inspired:
Today, sales from developing countries are doubling every four years. P.& G. has annual sales of $25 billion from developing countries, compared with $8 billion eight years ago. Procter already operates in 80 countries, selling its wares everywhere — large superstores in cities and tiny storefronts in remote villages.
So what will the marketing strategy look like in places like China and India? Check out this article for a fascinating read: