Background

The household cleaning industry, like most industries, is facing hard times with the volatile economic climate. Yet opportunities arise, such as the reduction in advertising costs, new methods for communicating marketing messages to the customers and taking bald risks while others struggle to survive.

Another opportunity and challenge that arises is e-commerce. Private labels compete with expensive brand name products online. The battle for market share intensified after the recession, creating a balance of power and tougher competition. This can also be partly attributed to the decline in ability of leading brands to demonstrate marketing messages via TV and newspapers.

Proctor & Gamble stepped up online advertising to establish new direct links with their customers. However, the low-margin items do not sell well online, and a heavy reliance on conventional retailers becomes hard to break off.

Despite these obstacles, some companies are taking risks like getting tough with suppliers and rivals to gain advantage in these times. Proctor & Gamble is investing heavily on research while most are cutting back on costs.

Media Coverage

Four companies (Proctor & Gamble, Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser and The Clorox Company) and four products (Dettol, Lysol, Fantastik and Formula 409) were monitored throughout the month of June 2009 in the UAE and KSA markets.

Lysol, Fantastik and Formula 409 did not achieve any coverage for the month. Dettol was covered in 9 clippings, achieved a newspaper-generated AVE of $5K, magazine-generated AVE of $5.3K and a website-generated AVE of $3.25K. Dettol achieved 387,811 newspaper impressions and 21,000 magazine impressions. The newspaper coverage size for Dettol was 120cc (columned centimeters) and 0.88 magazine pages.

Dettol’s coverage was split between Arabic (3) and English (4). Five were newspaper clipping. Six clippings were from the UAE market while 2 were from the KSA market. The clippings were mainly press releases and news articles with a single ad. The clippings came from ‘Business’, ‘News & Politics’ and ‘Celebrity & Society’ publications.

As for the 4 companies, Proctor & Gamble took a substantial lead with 23 clippings, compared to Reckitt’s 3 clippings, SC Johnson’s 2 clippings and The Clorox Company’s 1 clipping. P&G achieved a newspaper-generated AVE of $162.8K, magazine-generated AVE of $31.8K and a website-generated AVE of $13K. Reckitt achieved a website-generated AVE of $9.75K, while SC Johnson achieved a newspaper-generated AVE of $19.6K and The Clorox Company achieved a newspaper-generated AVE of $1.4K.

All four companies exhibited similar patterns in terms of their media penetration, with all having their majority of coverage being UAE English newspapers, and their clippings types being mainly press releases and news articles, and their publications’ genres being ‘Business’ and ‘News & Politics’. It is interesting, however to point out that Proctor & Gamble was the only manufacturer to be featured in the KSA media in the month of June 2009. P&G was also the only company to be featured in ‘Feature Report’, ‘Interview’ and ‘Investigation’ clipping types, as well as ‘Advertising & Marketing’ publications.

Content Analysis

Without any contest, P&G takes the lead in terms of the messages communicated in June 2009, in both quality and quantity. P&G’s messages were on its inauguration of its newly expanded Jafza Office, stepping up internet advertising spending, investing heavily on research, appointment of CEO, buying stake in Ocado (online grocery retailer), its Q1, 2009 advertising spending exceeding Emaar’s Q1, 2008’s. P&G’s green ad for Ariel was praised, while its Gillette’s sexual ad raised some eyebrows.

SC Johnson had 2 internet ads, while Uniliver had a single clipping on it focusing on TV as its main form of communicating its marketing messages. Reckitt was mentioned twice as a client of EuroRSCG, while it had a clipping on it sponsoring Best Distribution Award 2008 – Middle East.

Dettol was featured in 2 ads and one advertorial. It was also featured in a clipping on its long history with Enhance (Matrah Cold Stores). Dettol was also mentioned in 5 clippings on a child given Dettol instead of polio drops by accident, constituting 62.5% of its coverage.

All mentions for all 4 companies and 4 products were manifest (direct) mentions with the exception of one latent mention for P&G. P&G had the highest PR Influence with 16 clippings, followed by Dettol with 4, SC Johnson with 2, and Reckitt with 1 clipping. P&G had 17 clippings with positive reputation drivers, followed by Dettol, Reckitt and SC Johnson. While there were no negative reputation drivers, clippings void of reputation drivers were plenty, with 1 for P&G, 1 for Unilever and 5 for Dettol.

Conclusion

FMCG have been ignoring PR for long, while the recession begs for effective yet cost effective methods of communicating marketing messages. On the onset, it seems that P&G as a company and Dettol as a product are the only ones attempting this venture.

Dettol was from the top 20 advertisers in 2008 in the Middle East, according to PARC. Dettol ranked 11th in the GCC & Levant markets with $20.2M, 9th in the Pan Arab media with $16.75M and 9th in the GCC media with $19.8M.

With health scares like the swine flu, PR is the perfect medium to capitalize on those health issues with marketing their disinfectant products that kill viruses and bacteria.

Competition is getting fierce, and e-commerce sites are only making it tougher, while P&G reigns king over UAE and KSA media. The months ahead might prove very beneficial for those companies that utilize PR at its fullest in this coming period.