Procter & Gamble Co. is swapping links — sorry employees with Google Inc. in a program to learn how each company targets and markets to consumers.

About two dozen workers at the two companies have switched workplaces over a period of weeks this year, according to The Wall Street Journal. For P&G (NYSE: PG), the nation’s largest consumer products company, the program is expected to offer a glimpse into the emerging youth market, which spends more time online than in front of a television.

The program speaks to the challenges of retailers and other advertisers to capitalize on the Internet. While P&G spends billions in advertising annually, a small share had traditionally been earmarked for Web promotions or even blogging sites. But P&G has been more active of late – in mid-November it announced the launch of its virtual “Pampers Village” here, a site that includes articles, blogging and promotions for Pampers diapers.

“We’re trying to open the eyes of our brand managers,” P&G’s Stan Joosten told the Journal. Joosten is P&G’s digital innovation manager, a job created last spring.

The job-swap plan was launched last January, following a meeting between Jim Stengel, P&G’s former global marketing officer, and Tim Armstrong, president of Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) advertising sales and operations in North and Latin America.

Both companies had something to gain. Mountainview, Calif.-based Google controls 74 percent of “search term” advertising spending, the Journal reported, citing the research firm eMarketer Inc. Meanwhile, Cincinnati-based P&G ranked as the nation’s largest advertiser in 2007, having spent $5.2 billion compared with $4.9 billion in 2006, according to Advertising Age magazine.

Among the revelations for P&G workers: Google data revealed that online searches for the word “coupons” rose about 50 percent in a 12-month period, according to the Journal.

P&G regularly offers pamphlets of coupons for its products through its Brand Saver newspaper insert.

Hi Ad Planner users,
Since our initial launch to US users, many of you have sent us your comments and ideas on product features and improvements. We’d like to highlight some product changes that were based on your feedback:

- Define audiences based on searches. For example, find football fans based on their search for the words “football”, “nfl”, “football score”.
- Rank your site results the way you want. For example, rank your sites by ‘Audience Reach’ to scale the reach of your media plan or rank your sites by ‘Composition Index’ to find sites with the highest concentration of your audience.
- Target your audience by state & DMA. You can now define your audience at the state and DMA level, as well as by languages spoken.
- Show sites that have ads, belong in certain categories, or have a particular domain suffix. For example, to find football fans you can filter your site results to show only sites that have ads, are classified in the Sports category, and have the country domain of ‘.co.uk’.
If you haven’t visited Ad Planner in a while, be sure to check out our new training videos that walk you through the tool and highlight some of these new features. For a full list of feature updates since our launch in June, visit our Help Center.
Thank you for participating in our Beta Test - as always, please continue to send us your feedback.
Best regards,
The Google Ad Planner Team

Google Ad Planner release notesPrint
11/10/08
Filter search results by domain suffix.
Filter search results by sites that accept advertising.
10/23/08
Define an audience by states and designated market areas (US) and regions and cities (outside the US).
See demographic data from the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain.
Filter search results by site categories.
9/25/08
Define an audience by keywords.
Review interactive charts for media plans.
Define an audience in multiple languages.
Change ranking methods to display different sites.
Email preferences: You have received this email announcement to update you about important new Ad Planner changes and features because you have indicated that you are willing to be contacted by the Google Ad Planner team. If you do not wish to receive emails of this nature in the future, please reply-to this email with the text ‘OPT-OUT’.

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