When it comes to its advertising, Procter & Gamble is notorious for sticking to the book, a zeal to protect the equity of its brands that has often strangled good ideas at birth.
These days, the consumer goods giant is singing a different tune, one that's music to the ears of its creative agencies. Putting the change into practice, P&G recently challenged Saatchi & Saatchi to round up the hundreds of ideas its creatives once aspired to pitch to the company, but were too sceptical to do so. This could well prove to be a watershed moment in consumer goods advertising, moving away from the stereotypical images that define the category.
As senior P&G executives told Media, it proves that the company wasn't just paying lip service to its pledge to creativity made at last year's Cannes festival.
"At P&G, there are no more excuses. We're ready to go with, get behind and buy great creative work," says James Stengel, global marketing officer at P&G. "We're becoming a magnet client, not just because we are big, but because we're fun to work with."
The emerging climate of openness in an organisation infamous for its secrecy is what P&G's Austin Lally, general manager Greater China fabric and home care, Greater China feminine care and corporate marketing, describes as a journey brought about in part by the marketing team's first taste of the Cannes advertising festival last year.
"Going to Cannes was very symbolic, and obviously the trend was warming up to that. We took a number of people, we engaged and we made some commitments - that we would do things differently."
The difference is already visible in China, where P&G's marketing team reviewed 66 creative ideas in Guangzhou from a pool of 600 generated from Saatchis offices in Asia-Pacific and Africa.
What Lally describes as a "tremendous" initiative by its roster agency resulted in hundreds of ideas in just two weeks, the result of clear and simple instructions from a company legendary for its epic briefs to agencies.
"In the past, our briefs were like reading a book. The creative would get to page 23 and be frightened to death by all the stuff that the brand manager wanted in the commercial. Now, we are talking about creative briefs that are half a page at the most," says Lally.
The driving force behind the reforms is an urgency to develop advertising that's not just informative, educational and respected, but delights and entertains consumers. As Lally put it, "it's about moving from the head to the heart", as the strategy-driven FMCG company steers its business towards beauty products, a move likely to impact its brand portfolio outside Asia and which has already seen innovations by Olay, SKII, Pantene and Rejoice in China exported to other markets.
"The challenge is how to deliver that information so that it gets you respect and is interesting and watchable communication, and that it links to the brand in an emotive way. In this part of the world, where there are so many brands, companies have to fight for distinction or face extinction," says Lally. To do that in China, P&G has had to tackle barriers to communication with its agency partners - Leo Burnett, Grey Worldwide and Saatchi & Saatchi - and has had to ensure its local marketers are prepared to take more risks to produce better creative work.
P&G, whose sheer size Lally admits has bred unnecessary layers of approval, is working to establish a more fluent decision-making process as part of its emerging creative culture.
The process of change at P&G goes back more than three years, when it moved away from paying commission to a percentage of sales, indicating its willingness to treat agencies as business partners.
That, too, has evolved, says Lally, with P&G's push for agencies in China to be 'media neutral' and to reach consumers at different points of contact.
By lessening their dependence on commissions, P&G hopes agencies and local marketers will "think creatively" about reaching consumers.
"The art of communicating isn't just about reaching consumers when they are receptive; we need agencies to reach consumers in many places and in many ways, not just with 30-second TVCs," says Lally, adding that "of course, agencies have been telling us this for a long time, but now we hope this will send a visible signal to them that this change is taking place."