P&G’s Couric partnership goes back to shows being ‘brought to you by’

Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

Journalist Katie Couric at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France, June 2018

Content is a hot topic in marketing right now, both in terms of brands creating their own short films, and scrutinizing the third-party produced content they are associated with.

Advertisers are keen to produce videos that stir people’s emotions, such as HP’s six-minute “Paro” film that shows a schoolgirl whose teacher reads a story she has written and makes it into a book, released for International Women’s Day in March. P&G produced an award-winning video in 2014 for its Always feminine protection brand, aiming to change the negative meaning of the phrase “Like a girl,” in a three-minute spot that has been watched more than 65 million times on YouTube.

But one question is whether such content, which doesn’t always feature products, leads to sales. But for Pritchard, it’s part of a broader marketing plan. “What brands need to do is not try to do everything in one 30-second ad. We like to think about brands as kind of like painting on a canvas,” he told CNBC.

“You have some content, we don’t even call it advertising, some content that is expressing the point of view the brand believes in. Always ‘Like a girl’ was simply bringing you the view point that young girls have a huge drop in confidence at puberty, because of demeaning phrases like ‘You do that like a girl.’”

“So (we) wanted to make ‘Like a girl’ an amazing thing. You know, Always could do that because Always is about feminine protection. It’s about confidence, we understand confidence, we brought that out. They also have ads about the product — (ads that are) 30 seconds, 15 seconds, two seconds.”