P&G’s Marc Pritchard on 10% in-house media savings and wanting better measurement

Procter & Gamble Co. has saved at least 10% in media costs everywhere the company has in-housed buying, but it still sees plenty of room to get more effective through better measurement and more transparency from digital platforms, Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard said in a talk at the Association of National Advertisers Media Conference in Orlando on Tuesday. In an interview, Pritchard said P&G is now doing nearly 100% of media buying in house in the U.S. and China and expanding the practice across Europe, where it’s currently done in five countries. Media agencies still play a role in helping P&G with automation, measurement and media supply chain streamlining, he said. Look back: P&G’s strategy may be difficult for marketers to follow See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here Bringing buying in-house, he said, is “increasing speed to market and leading to higher levels of effectiveness, because P&G people have hands-on accountability to make better, faster and more integrated decisions.” But P&G, the No. 3 U.S. ad spender and No. 4 globally, per the Ad Age Datacenter, still has plenty of room to get better at media, Pritchard said. “Why do we miss out on investing in effective media?” he asked. “One reason is lack of measurement that matters.” P&G is inundated with multiple measurement currencies such as impressions, ratings, clicks, likes, engagement, followers, view-through rates and more, he said. “These are nice to have, but they’re diagnostics. The currency that matters is sales dollars.” But he said the measurement of sales outcomes is currently too complex and takes too much time and money. “It’s time to innovate on measurement that proves sales effectiveness in an easier, faster, more reliable way,” he said, which will in turn increase spending on media. He decried the fact that only 36% of spending on programmatic buys on the open web reaches consumers and recommended marketers take steps to avoid the waste of made-for-advertising sites identified in last year’s ANA programmatic supply chain study. But the biggest problem in programmatic is that there are simply too many touches in the supply chain, each siphoning off money. Among those drains, he said, are “variances,” which are discrepancies in fees between what supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms report. Also read: Inside the 'made for advertising' crackdown “Although unhappy about these variances, at least we learned about them because our programmatic partners openly shared the touches and costs along the supply chain so they could be addressed,” Pritchard said. “Not the case with other players. We still have zero transparency of the supply chain with several platforms—and you know who you are. It’s time to change. And it’s in everyone’s best interest.” Pritchard declined to name the platforms, though his remarks appeared to be a clear reference to Google, Meta, Amazon and other so-called digital “walled gardens.” Media measurement blog Tracking TV, social and digital updates Click here P&G’s goal for most brands is to reach close to 100% of adults for its everyday use products. But it’s only reaching about 75% on average now, including 77% of Black, 66% of Hispanic and 59% of Asian American consumers. Reaching more consumers more effectively in part will come from more investment in diverse-owned, operated and targeted media, Pritchard said. Avoiding excess frequency is another problem, he said. “We’re still flying with a sheet over the windshield among media providers, with no idea how many times a consumer sees the same ad on the same day across platforms, websites and TV.” The Cross Media Measurement initiative, a long-in-development set of pilots with VideoAmp and Comscore, could help. Pritchard offered a “big thanks to platforms that have agreed to help pay for and use the system,” adding that P&G and several other companies have done the same and encouraged other marketers to pitch in as well. “Maybe when everyone participates, and we all get more efficient,” Pritchard said, “the TV broadcasters will join too.” The Video Advertising Bureau, representing TV networks, has backed out of participating in the CMM initiative, citing what it sees as undue influence from digital platforms funding the effort and lack of adherence to a common measurement transparency standard across media. ~ ~ ~CLARIFICATION: A previous version said the ANA’s study found only 36% of open web digital spending reaches publishers; this percentage referred to consumers (in the form of viewable advertising).

P&G’s Marc Pritchard on 10% in-house media savings and wanting better measurement

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