Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble

by Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell and Rowena Olegario

Harvard Business School Press, $44.99, 467 pages

When candle maker William Procter and soap maker James Gamble married the Norris sisters in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the early 1830's, their father-in-law, Alexander Norris, counseled the two entrepreneurs to join forces. Although Alexander Norris would have been elated with the successes of his sons-in-law, he could never have prophesied that twenty years later, Procter & Gamble would have sales of $1 million and, one hundred years later, would register sales of more than $210 million.

Although P&G is no longer a family firm, Alexander Norris’s wise advice helped launch the company that today dominates world markets with soap products such as Camay, Cascade, Ivory, and Tide; food products such as Fluffo and Crisco shortenings, Sunny Delight beverages, Pringles potato chips and Folgers coffees; health care products such as Crest toothpastes, Scope mouthwash, Noxzema skin care, Pepto-Bismol stomach medications, and Head & Shoulders shampoo; and paper product lines such as Royale, Charmin, Tampax, and Pampers. In fact, even those who stock the shelves in grocery stores would have a hard time naming half of the extensive P&G product line.

Rising Tide: Lessons from 165 Years of Brand Building at Procter & Gamble is truly a mixture of lessons. First, it is the history of one of the world’s biggest consumer companies, detailing at length how it grew from a small family firm using animal by-products to make candles and soaps, which were marketed by word of mouth, to become a global conglomerate relying on scientific research and development to produce their hundreds of diverse consumer goods, all publicized now by the world’s largest source of advertising. Secondly, it is case study after case study on how to make a company grow, and how to connect with consumers and professionals. Thirdly, this is the story of a company that never stands still, using ongoing consumer feedback and scientific research to continually refine product development.

P& G was truly resourceful in the 1870's, gaining widespread attention with their newfangled Ivory Soap, the name of which was taken from the Book of Psalms, and which was sold as "99 44/100 pure." P & G researched the floating soap at length, and launched it upon the expanding marketplace about the same time as Andrew Carnegie was building new steel plants, John D. Rockefeller was gaining dominance of the petroleum industry, and Chicago meat packer Gustav Swift was beginning to ship processed meats across the U.S. Also gaining prominence at that time were Joseph Campbell and his soon-to- be-famous soups and canned vegetables; Henry J. Heinz, who bottled condiments such as horseradish and ketchup; and brothers John and William Kellogg, who were beginning to sell boxed breakfast cereals.

According to authors Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell and Rowena Olegario, Ivory Soap "vaulted Proctor & Gamble into a leading position in the newly emerging national marketplace. It was also a high stakes gamble, a venture into unexplored territory, a process filled with trial and error. The challenge of marketing the floating soap drew on many of the company’s traditional skills and strengths, but it also forced Procter & Gamble to unlearn habits and assumptions that were rapidly becoming obsolete....Ivory taught Procter & Gamble how to do business in a new economy."

Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell and Rowena Olegario would be considered academic heavyweights in their writing about the field of business. Dyer is a founding director of The Winthrop Group in Cambridge Mass., while Dalzell earned his PhD at Harvard and Olegario is a PhD, teaching at Vanderbilt. Their absorbing story details the development of innovative P& G products such as Ivory, Tide, Crest, and Pampers. Each of them has a long list of previous publications, separately and with others.

In Rising Tide, the authors describe in detail successful management innovations within P&G, such as the introduction of a profit sharing plan for the employees as early as 1885, and, in the 1960's, the hiring of MIT professor Douglas McGregor, who brought to the company his well known Human Resources philosophy "Theory X and Theory Y." McGregor convinced senior management to staff an experimental new facility in Augusta, Ga., with multi-tasking teams, and to embrace the workplace philosophy which says external threats and discipline were not needed if employees are given opportunities to find satisfaction in their work. That plant has recorded 30% more productivity than others, and workers there have never pushed for a union.

Rising Tide is truly a well written litany of lessons in brand building that teach rather than preach. One of the areas the authors side-step, however, is how P& G reached consumers through their wholly controlled soap operas, first on radio and later, on television. They do mention that at one time P&G had 13 such advertising vehicles on the air, but don’t go into details about how many consumers those popular brand builders might influence. One can only hope they have saved those details for a second volume.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.