P&g Case Study

Highlights of Issues

There are several issues in the case of Procter & Gamble (P&G). The company needs to choose on either to do a product line extension for Scope or to do clinical claims on Scope. There are factors like Product Development, Sales, Market Research, Finance, Purchasing, and Advertising Agency to be looked into in order to do a well-versed three year marketing plan for P&G.

Product development team had created a new product that is similar to Plax but it tastes better. However, they did not succeed to replicate the plaque reduction claim. The team is concerned that if they couldn't replicate Plax's clinical claim, the product will not provide any greater results but will only ruined the image of P&G and its credibility with dental professionals. Another concern is that a new product testing will cost them $20,000.

Sales people view that, to be listed on the store shelves, a brand must be unique or has a strong distinctive value; or else the retailers feel that category sales volume will be spread over more units which will reduce a retail outlet's profitability. When this happened, a retailer will switch brand with some other brand or the manufacturer could pay approximately $50,000 per stock keeping.

Market research people had worked extensively on both possibilities. They discovered that a plaque reassurance will not increase the market share. However, this could prevent the current user from switching to another brand. On the other hand, the new product did not increase the purchase intent on current people who are using a dental rinse. They estimated that a new product launched would result in a 6.5% share of the total mouthwash and rinse on-going market. There were still fighting about what should be the name of the new product. If it is called Scope, would it result in confusion on current buyer of Scope?

In the finance department, they are calculating