Procter & Gamble Co., whose sponsorship and production of daytime TV dramas helped coin the term “soap operas,” has pulled the plug after 77 years. Instead, the maker of Tide detergent, Ivory soap and Olay skincare is following its customers online with a big push on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
“The digital media has pretty much exploded,” marketing chief Marc Pritchard said in an interview. “It’s become very integrated with how we operate, it’s become part of the way we do marketing.”
The last P&G-produced soap opera, “As The World Turns,” went off the air in September. The show was the leading daytime soap for decades, but had lost some two-thirds of its audience at the end.
Over the years, P&G produced 20 soap operas for radio and TV. But ratings for daytime dramas have been sinking for years, as women, their target audience, increasingly moved into the workplace, switched to talk and reality shows, and spent more time using online media and social networking sites.
P&G, the world’s biggest advertiser, still buys individual commercials on daytime dramas. But the dollar amount has shrunk. P&G won’t say by how much.
Dori Molitor, whose WomanWise LLC agency specializes in marketing brands to women, says big companies are realizing that social media is an efficient way to connect with customers.
“Social media has become mass media, and for women especially,” she said. “I think for all marketers, these one-way, 30-second (TV) spots are very expensive, and are less effective for the way that women make decisions.”
Marketing experts say the biggest companies were generally slow to adapt to the rapid rise of social networks, but that beverage rivals Coca-Cola Co. and Pepsico Inc., and P&G and fellow consumer products makers Unilever PLC and Johnson & Johnson are among those quickly making up for lost time.
In recent months, P&G began selling Pampers diapers on Facebook, offering an iPhone application for Always feminine products that allows women to track menstrual cycles and ask experts questions, and using social media to turn a campaign for the venerable Old Spice brand into a pop-culture icon.
The “Smell like a Man, Man” commercials starring hunky former football player Isaiah Mustafa became a YouTube sensation, drawing tens of millions of views and spawning parodies such as one with Sesame Street’s Grover, and generated another round of attention with Twitter questions that Mustafa answered in videos — such as on ABC’s Good Morning America when he suggested that President Barack Obama could improve standing with female voters by wearing only a towel and beginning speeches with “Hello, Ladies!”
The echo effect gives P&G a bigger bang for its nearly 9 billion bucks a year spent on advertising.
“It is such an effective advertising campaign that we are getting impressions that we did not pay for,” CEO Bob McDonald told investors recently, recounting that he saw an editorial cartoon showing Obama on horseback, a takeoff on Mustafa’s “I’m on a horse” Old Spice catch-phrase.
For a company known for measuring just about everything, P&G touts big numbers from Old Spice tracking:
• Number of impressions (people who saw, read, or heard about commercials): 1.8 billion.
• Number of YouTube views for Old Spice and related videos: 140 million and counting.
• Increase in Twitter followers for Old Spice: 2,700 percent.
P&G also said Old Spice sales are growing at double digits, taking more of the market for body washes and deodorant.
Just 20 months ago, P&G hosted “digital night” at its Cincinnati headquarters by inviting Google, Facebook, Twitter and other online experts to help test ways online and digital media could be used in marketing. By the Vancouver Winter Olympics last February, P&G was coordinating TV commercials with Facebook messages and tracking instant reactions to new commercials on Twitter.
P&G, which sponsored Team USA, unveiled sentimental “Thank you, Mom!” commercials at the Olympics that it estimates added $100 million in sales. The campaign has included Facebook essay contests and e-Cards for mothers.
P&G says it’s still exploring new uses for social media.
“It’s kind of the oldest form of marketing — word of mouth — with the newest form of technology,” Pritchard said.
“Mufasa: The Lion King” and “Sonic 3” Rule Box Office For 1st Weekend Of 2025
The Walt Disney Co.'s "Mufasa: The Lion King" claimed the No. 1 spot on the North American box office charts over the first weekend of 2025.
The photorealistic "Lion King" prequel earned $23.8 million in its third weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. Paramount's "Sonic the Hedgehog 3," which has dominated the past two weekends, wasn't far behind.
"Sonic 3" stayed close with a 3-day estimate of $21.2 million, bringing its total domestic earnings to $187.5 million and helping the overall franchise cross $1 billion worldwide. "Mufasa's" running total is slightly less, with $169.2 million.
In third place, Focus Features' "Nosferatu" remake defied the fate of so many of its genre predecessors and fell only 39% in its second weekend. Horror films typically fall sharply after the first weekend and anything less than a 50% decline is notable. "Nosferatu," which added 140 screens, claimed $13.2 million in ticket sales, bringing its running total to $69.4 million since its Christmas debut. The film, directed by Robert Eggers, already surpassed its reported production budget of $50 million, though that figure does not account for marketing and promotion expenses).
No new wide releases opened this weekend, leaving the box office top 10 once again to holdovers from previous weeks. Several have been in theaters since Thanksgiving. One of those, "Moana 2," claimed the No. 4 spot for Disney in its sixth weekend in theaters. The animated sequel earned another $12.4 million, bumping its global total to $960.5 million.
The Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," dipped only slightly in its second weekend, bringing in $8.1 million. With $41.7 million total, it's Searchlight's highest grossing film since Disney acquired the company in... Read More