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

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Harvard Business School Press, 2004 - Business & Economics - 467 pages
Procter & Gamble is one of the world's largest and most influential companies -- the maker of numerous billion-dollar brands that have helped shape the way millions of people live today. Brands like Tide, Crest, Ivory, and Pampers have become household names in modern consumer culture -- and legends in the annals of brand-building history. Yet the full story behind P & G's remarkable growth and success has never been told. Rising Tide tells the fascinating tale of P & G's 165-year journey: how it grew from a two-man soap and candle maker in 1837 into a $40 billion global brand powerhouse, employing over 100,000 people in 80 countries. As it charts that journey, the book reveals the principles and practices of brand building P & G-style: how the company learned -- through trial, error, and breakthrough successes -- to consistently anticipate and satisfy consumer needs. Based on unprecedented access to P & G's corporate archives and exclusive interviews with key executives and employees, Davis Dyer, Frederick Dalzell, and Rowena Olegario vividly recount the key events and episodes that stimulated P & G's learning about brand building. From the birth and evolution of brand giants like Ivory, Tide, and Crest to lessons learned from product disasters like Olestra, and from intense global competition to the diaper wars, Rising Tide reveals insightful lessons about product innovation, global expansion, leadership transformation, business reinvention, and brand building. From a powerful belief in doing the right thing to an unparalleled passion for winning to a laserlike focus on consumer needs, the authors distill the powerful arsenal of branding principles P & G has built over the years. A compelling and candid account of hard-won, sustained success, Rising Tide is also a strategic guide -- taken straight from the playbook of the brand master -- to delivering superior consumer value. Book jacket.

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