P & G Launches 'Communications Planning' Review

Procter & Gamble has launched an agency review which calls for the "redesign its media planning agencies into communications planning agencies." Acknowledging its concerns over waning audiences and increased costs of traditional media, P & G, in an agency review, will ask agencies to re-create themselves to embrace a broader range of consumer communication. An early adopter of media optimization, P & G's agency request for a broader approach to consumer planning, which, in essence, would include anything a consumer comes into contact with, asks agencies to rely less the traditional "tonnage" approach to media and more on "non-media" approaches such as product integration, video game advertising, package design, SMS marketing, IM advertising and musical tour sponsorships.

While this harkens back to many of the pontifications we have heard before regarding P & G's desire to revolutionize its approach to marketing, this time, albeit slowly, it might stick. Agencies and media shops are averse to change but two billion media dollars gets attention. One can't help but hope P & G's pontifications become reality.