AWNY's June 2nd Leadership Luncheon with keynote speaker Gina Drosos, President Global Personal Beauty, Procter & Gamble, drew more than 250 people to the New York Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan.
The event kicked off with an introduction from outgoing AWNY President Mary Morgan, VP, Publisher, Redbook Magazine. In-keeping with the leadership theme, Morgan provided a recap of the AWNY Board's leadership achievements over the past year, one of the most challenging times in recent history. "We really came together and stepped up to help our members," she noted. Of the achievements she mentioned were providing new training and career development programs, forming a new AWNY Advisory Board to ensure the organization is on top of industry topics and trends, developing a strong social media presence, and staying focused on members' needs.
The microphone then passed to Karen List, incoming AWNY President and Director of Agency Relations at The NY Times. List focused on the future of AWNY, pointing out that AWNY will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2012 and introducing the incoming board members seated on stage. She also took the opportunity to introduce the event's keynote speaker, Gina Drosos. "Gina is the Procter & Gamble's expert on beauty and a great leader," she said, listing some of the many accomplishments Drosos has achieved throughout her career including, most significantly, transforming Olay into a worldwide $2 billion brand.
After a break was provided for lunch and networking, Drosos took the stage. Her theme, she said, "…is leveraging change to unlock your potential. Change gives us a fresh look and is the key to staying relevant."
Touching on what List already mentioned, Drosos used Olay as her first example of a situation when change led to great results. When she first came to Procter & Gamble, the facial moisturizer category was stagnant. Oil of Olay, or "Oil of Old Lady" as many people called it, was the number one skincare brand in the U.S., but fragmented around the world.
Research by the brand team discovered a consumer need for fixes for fine lines and wrinkles. This discovery shifted thinking about the entire brand position. Instead of targeting teenagers, as it had been, the brand team began targeting older women. They challenged the company's scientists to be innovative and in the end, created a new product which provided significant benefits and a low price point.
The result--the skincare category tripled in sales. Olay became the number one facial moisturizer in the world. The team didn't rest on their laurels though, continuing to innovate and change. Last year, in one of the worst economies in recent history, the company launched ProX, a high-end but accessible alternative to expensive beauty products.
A second example of a time when change led to new success began with the appointment of a new CEO, Bob MacDonald. Drosos credited McDonald with bringing a fresh perspective to the company. The change in leadership provided a renewed focus on the purpose of the company, broadening it "to serve more consumers in more countries," she said.
The 2008 Bejing Olympics offers a prime example of the new perspective. In the past, individual brands had advertised, but "for these Olympics," she said, "we lined up beauty brands as participants in a larger corporate campaign uniting the purpose of P&G and the purpose of the Olympics." This theme of unity led to the creation of the "Thanks Mom" campaign, because, "in strategizing about our theme, management realized that the one thing that unites all athletes is having a mom."
The company put together a fully integrated advertising and promotion campaign that included providing financial gifts so that every athlete's mom could attend the games, creating a P&G family home on the grounds so that athletes' families could spend time with each other, and providing 24-hour meal service, Tide laundry service and a beauty spa among many other things.
The campaign was a tremendous success. "We generated more than 6 billion impressions and are still receiving letters from moms," she said.
Before taking questions from the audience, Drosos spoke about how her perspective of senior management has changed throughout her career.
The first question posed focused on the ability to micro-target consumers and whether or not P&G was working to develop specific creative executions for each micro-demographic.
Drosos responded affirmatively. "Yes, absolutely," she said. "The key to marketing is consumer insights." She used Secret Clinical Protection as an example, talking about how the brand team identified two distinct targets-athletic teenagers and menopausal women-and used separate advertising campaigns to reach them.
Asked how P&G balances individual brand marketing with the overall company brand marketing, Drosos said that this is one area in which P&G is underleveraged. "Our biggest opportunity is to link our brands," she said. "We must think across a consumer's entire regiment."
One question generated considerable laughter from the audience. Drosos was asked by gentleman, who is an avid Olay user, whether or not it was common for men to use traditionally female products like Olay. She responded by saying that "genderization" of products has spawned considerable innovation. As examples, she cited women's-specific razors and the Olay men's line that P&G recently launched to tremendous success in China.
As she closed the session, Ms. Drosos touched one more time on the central message of her speech. Change-identifying it and leading it-is the key to growth. "We need to break paradigms," she said. "Be intentional about change and you'll stay relevant."