Speech Transcript: The Arthur W. Page Society
Leading in a “Let Go” World
Charlotte R. Otto
Global External Relations Officer
The Procter & Gamble Company
23 October 2006
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I can’t believe I’m here, for all kinds of reasons. When I accepted
a job offer from P&G as a Brand Assistant on Prell Concentrate in
1976, I never intended to stay. In fact, given my intention to be a
short-timer, I even told them they could take their offer back if
they wanted. (Fortunately for me, they declined.)
I never intended to be a PR professional. In fact, in 1989 – after 13 years in Marketing
– when I was offered what was pitched as a “promotion,” to start-up a new group called
the Issues Management Department in P&G’s Public Affairs Division, I was appalled.
All I knew about the Division was that it picked the Company Christmas card.
The appeal of this opportunity was further enhanced when my soon-to-be boss
explained that Public Affairs was the “garbage can of the Company – you know, if
anyone has a problem, they dump it here.” Not exactly what I had in mind.
Yet, within a month of making the switch from Marketing I knew I was home. I have
loved every minute (well, almost every minute) of the last 17+ years in what we’ve come
to call External Relations at P&G. Our vision is to be a business-building, competitive
advantage for the Company by leveraging Public Relations, Government and
Community Relations, and Technical Communication. I’ve never looked back.
And I certainly never dreamed I’d be inducted into the Page Society Hall of Fame.
Never. In fact, when Marilyn Laurie called me, I thought she dialed the wrong number.
To be among people I have admired for so long like Dan Edelman, and Harold Burson –
the man I admire most in our profession – and my good friend Bill Nielsen, and my role
model, Marilyn Laurie – unbelievable!
But here I am, so let me say thank you for this totally unexpected
opportunity. I am touched beyond words. Thank you to the
selection committee, and especially to Marilyn. You’ve made my
Dad really proud.
Marilyn said there was just one requirement…that I must share some thoughts on a
topic of my choosing. So I guess that while I am touched beyond words, I better come
up with some.
OK, here we go.
Welcome to the Let Go World
About two weeks ago my boss, P&G Chief Executive A.G. Lafley, gave the keynote
address at the annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers. Despite our
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efforts to the contrary, AG has become a “rock star” CEO, so when he talks, people
listen. Here’s what he said:
[AG Lafley “Let Go” clip]
The more we think about relationships and the more we get experience with
relationships with different consumers on different brands in different businesses around
the world, the more we are beginning to understand we have to continually reinvent the
way we create and build brands. And to begin to let go.
The whole notion of the Let Go world strikes fear in my heart, I can assure you. Just
what we want is thousands of P&G marketers “letting go,” right?
Well, we better adjust. The consumer has taken control, and with her (and him – I have
to say him too, now that Gillette is in the family) has gone any notion that a
communications practitioner can “control” the message, or “manage” the medium. I’m
not sure we ever could. But for any of us who remain delusional, take note: those days
are gone.
Now more than ever, consumers own our brands. Consumers
own our messages. Consumers own the conversations about
how, where and IF they invite our brands into their lives.
These changes have been happening for a number of years, but the pace is
accelerating. And while they create a number of “challenges” for us as communications
practitioners and business leaders, there is some very good news for us in this Let Go
world.
In fact, I believe never has there been a more important or exciting opportunity for us to
make a difference for our brands, for our companies’ reputation, and for the vitality of
our businesses. We are all about credibility, trust, and authenticity. That’s what the Let
Go world demands.
One other very critical point: in a Let Go world, the Page Principles have never been
more important. And more than ever, these Principles are not just for communications
practitioners.
They must be tattooed in the brains of everyone in the company. If everyone follows
these seven simple principles, we can fulfill the promise the Let Go world offers, and
we’ll all sleep better at night, too. I’ll come back to this later.
Consumers in Control
So, what’s driving this Let Go world?
There are three fundamental consumer values shifts. They have been underway for
some time, but have now accelerated and are reaching a critical point:
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
People are feeling significantly less secure -- and are growing even less trusting of
institutions.

People are becoming more self-expressive on a scale that was not possible before -among family and friends, and also among networks of strangers…around the world.

People are becoming very comfortable being networked and are pushing the bounds
of what’s possible.
These values shifts are influencing people’s expectations and behaviors. New
technologies and tools make it possible for people to connect with one another and with
brands and companies, on their terms.
In short, consumers are in control more than ever, because they feel they need to, they
know they can, and they want to more and more.
Let me quickly take a look at each of these shifts.
Consumer Insecurity
First, the growing sense of insecurity. It is foundational because it is so tightly linked to
the erosion of trust.
In his most recent book, Profit with Honor, Dan Yankelovich noted the U.S. is now into
its third major wave of mistrust of business and institutions.
The first occurred in the 1930s, when the Great Depression created a shock-wave of
mistrust in government, business and capitalism itself. The second wave of mistrust
began in the 1960s with Vietnam and Watergate, and lasted nearly two decades.
The current wave of mistrust began early this decade. 9/11 created a whole new level
of insecurity. This was quickly followed by the infamous corporate scandals, growing
concerns about privacy, the questionable basis for the war in Iraq, and more. You know
the list.
In the midst of this, brands and companies can still earn trust. But
to do so, they must play a more meaningful role in people’s
everyday lives. Our promises must be broader.
We must understand that people have redirected trust from institutions to people they
know, or with whom they share mutual interests.
To elaborate, I am going to call on a few “third party” experts. The first is Lee Rainie,
Director of the Pew project on the Internet and American Life.
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[Lee Rainie]
“As the amount of information has grown exponentially, as the number of choices
people have to make has also grown, people are increasingly reliant on other people to
help them sort through those choices and make good choices. “
“The new reality of life in this age is that every institution, indeed almost every human
being is much more transparent than that institution or that human being used to
be…there’s more information available from more sources in more ways than ever
before. It’s a reality of life that almost is more important than trust in the modern
consumer’s mind, in the modern person’s mind. If you explain yourself, if you open up
your processes in some respect…that’s a way to build trust. Of course the down side
of transparency is that you lose control of your story sometimes, you certainly lose
control of your information and sometimes your property gets stolen, especially if it’s
intellectual property. But these are things that companies are going to have to adjust to
in this new era, they can’t simply sit behind their information barriers and hope that this
will go away – this is now the reality of the present day and its going to be an even
bigger reality of a generation from now. “
This is the first major implication: in the Let Go world,
transparency trumps trust.
In an environment of mistrust, people want the ability to verify truth for themselves. This
demands that we provide the transparency that enables people to prove things for
themselves. Whether it’s making it easy to understand what’s in our products – like this
“Science of Beauty” website that lets consumers, policy-makers and activists alike
understand a product’s ingredients – or explaining why a product isn’t available,
consumers are demanding the story behind the story.
This commercial, done when Hurricane Katrina caused a supply shortage of Folgers
Coffee, is an example of transparency trumping trust. We had to be transparent to
maintain consumer trust – after all, consistent availability is the ultimate test of trust –
but the benefits in terms of goodwill, loyalty – and ultimately market share – went well
beyond this.
[Folgers Hurricane Katrina Commercial]
Consumer Connections
The second driver of consumer control is that consumers are connected in ways never
before possible: to one another, to third parties, and to brands and companies.
People have always found creative new ways to communicate but even a decade ago I
don’t think we anticipated just how connected consumers are today. It’s driven, of
course, by the explosion of interactive technology and social networks. Just a few fun
facts:

80% of all Americans are now on-line.
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
There are more than 50 million blogs -- and about 175,000 more created every day.

There were nearly 70 million mobile phones sold in the U.S. in just the first six
months of this year. We are wired!

And, at a time when computers and videogames would seem to be eating away at
television consumption, Americans are watching 14 more hours of TV per week than
they were in 1975. TV consumption is expected to continue growing nearly 2% a
year for the foreseeable future. So, those predicting the end of mass media better
think again. This is all about AND…not OR.
Howard Rheingold, whose latest book is Smart Mobs: The Next Revolution, and Lee
Rainie, both have some perspective on the meaning of all this connectedness.
[Howard Rheingold]
“I think you can make a case that whenever there’s a new way for people to
communicate…whether it’s a speech or the alphabet or the telephone or the
internet….they immediately begin organizing new social forums, new forms of economic
production, new cultural products, the people who invented these means of
communication never dreamed of.”
[Lee Rainie]
“Consumers are more networked now than they have ever been before, partly because
the technology enables people to have much bigger social networks. The number of
people who are really ,really close to any given individuals has not changed in millennia.
But, the number of people that they are loosely associated with, the people that they
know informally, the people they know through their business relationship, their
consumer relationships have grown very much larger because the internet allows them
to stay in touch with more people and to meet more people.”
[Howard Rheingold]
”A great deal of your message is happening outside of your walls. You are not always
composing it. I think there’s a matter of finding out where the parade is and getting
ahead of it already, rather than manufacturing a campaign and manipulating people’s
desires on a mass scale.”
Today, the conversations never stop. In fact, as anyone with
teenagers in the house will attest, there are almost always
multiple conversations underway at one time.
These conversations have always happened and have always been beyond our control.
But more and more, they are about our brands. They are being multiplied, as blogs for
example become both sources of news and news media themselves.
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There is an extraordinary temptation to exert more control because we can now see
these conversations in ways that before were not possible. And we’ve seen how this
can backfire. Just ask some of the major movie studios.
The trap we have to avoid is focusing our energy on how to co-opt people’s connections
and networks to advance our agenda. That focus will lead us astray. It will undermine
our credibility and will result in our being locked out of the conversations altogether.
We need to understand how to participate in these conversations without intruding and
without compromising our credibility.
Figuring out how to strike this balance – participating without
intruding, engaging without deceiving – brings me to the second
implication: experimentation trumps expected.
We’re just scratching the surface of experimentation, and you can bet it’s making some
people nervous. Take Crest Whitening plus Scope Extreme for example. Their concept
is “irresistibly fresh breath.” Their target is the 24 year-old female fresh breath seeker.
Apparently these ladies are hard to reach…but they LOVE MySpace.
So, one element of their plan has been “Miss Irresitible’s” profile on MySpace where
users can begin the Irresistibility IQ Quiz, register for cool prizes like iPods, post to a
blog, download MySpace skins and more.
This has been huge. The MySpace page attracted over four million views and twice the
average number of click throughs – a sign of real engagement.
PLUS, for us old folks, it produced a case study in Fortune. They phrase the Let Go
dilemma well:”Given that MySpace is raw and bursting with sexual material, the trick is
to make the site feel safe for advertisers yet authentic for users.” We’re experimenting
our way to safety.
And in the midst of all this experimentation, we have to figure out new ways to measure
effectiveness. I’m very proud of the progress we have made at P&G in measuring the
bottom-line impact of PR-based Influencer Marketing. We’ve proven that these
programs are consistently the number one or two contributor to marketing return on
investment. Now we must prove the value of the new communications channels.
By the way, the Crest folks would tell you the “Irresistible” interactive and PR campaign,
which was the majority of their program, drove sales 20% ahead of objective. Keep
experimenting!
Consumers Want to Co-Create
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The third reason consumers have taken control is because they want to: they enjoy
being a participant and co-creator, and the more they do, the more they want to do
more.
We’re now in the second generation of the web: Web 2.0. We are seeing the first adult
generation that has grown up with the web. The information, access and
connectedness of the web are table stakes for this generation. They want more…they
want it to be their own.
Consumers have co-opted the web — and other media — in ways
we could not fully appreciate a decade ago.
We see this most clearly in consumer-generated content.

Nearly 60% of teens have created content for the web.

Nearly 40% of Americans have posted pictures on websites for others to see.
More than 200 million photos have been posted on Flickr.

People are posting videos to sites like YouTube, where more than 100 million
videos a day are viewed; 65,000 new videos are posted each day.
We’re just at the beginning of the trend toward greater self-expression. It is a basic
human need that new technologies and media have turbocharged. And it requires a
new attitude on our part.
Take this YouTube production starring Mr. Pringle.
[Mr. Pringles Press Conference]
In our old mindset, we would have whipped off a snarky letter chiding the producer for
copyright infringement. Now, we have to think twice. Of course we have to protect our
IP, but the lines have blurred with co-creation.
In just two weeks, this Mr. Pringle video has had more than 320,000 hits. For
perspective, a reasonably hot video might get about 10,000 hits in a month. It was a hit.
The trend toward self-expression is about more than blogging or
MySpace or YouTube. Increasingly, it is about consumers
personalizing products, services and experiences to reflect their
own identity.
Here’s a perspective from P&G Design leader, Claudia Kotchka.
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[Claudia Kotchka]
“When I look at self-expression, it’s everywhere….from (you know) personalized M&Ms,
you know you can personalize your Nike’s you can personalize your M&Ms, you can
have your own Fantasy Football team. Fantasy Football is huge, right? Because
people design their own team, and then that’s who they play all year—it’s an amazing
thing. So consumers want control, they want self-expression, they want to be able to
make a statement about who they are. We have to do things that enable that.”
“You’ve hit heaven when the consumer says, “That is my brand. Alright? That’s not
Procter & Gamble’s brand, that’s not Unilever’s brand….THAT IS MY BRAND.”
We need to respect consumers as co-creators -- not just for products and services, but
also for communications. This means acknowledging that consumers have as much
control over our messages — if not more so — than we do.
We need to become much more adept at mass collaboration…
which leads to the third implication: co-creation trumps control.
The ultimate benefit of co-creation is stronger relationships. They are based on shared
experiences, shared values, shared dialogue and shared decisions.
Tremor: Leading in a Let Go World
The Let Go world offers incredible opportunity to build brands and company reputation.
As communications practitioners and business leaders, we have been dealt a new
hand. These are the new rules of the game:



Transparency trumps trust
Experimentation trumps expected
Co-creation trumps control
To take full advantage, we have to get out of our comfort zones. We have to sharpen
our ability to take smart risks. We have to help our marketing and management
colleagues create new opportunities to connect – to co-create – with consumers. In
short, we have to help people feel in control when they let go.
One new business at P&G that certainly has taken me out of my comfort zone from time
to time is all about generating word of mouth in a way that is scalable. It is the essence
of co-creation, and enabling consumers to be in control.
This involves two word of mouth services: Tremor, which focuses on teens, and
VocalPoint, which focuses on Moms. The idea is to work with connected consumers to
determine what interests them about a product, and then enable them to talk to others.
We don’t tell them what to say, we don’t pay them, and we don’t monitor them. It’s the
ultimate in “let go.”
Here’s Tremor CEO Steve Knox to share an example of how it works.
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[Steve Knox]
“Dawn is a wonderful story…a wonderful word of mouth story. Again, we have to go
back to the fundamental underlying principle of, there’s a message the consumer wants
to share with their friends and 100-percent of the time those are different messages.
So, Dawn has a wonderful new product called, ‘Dawn Direct Foam.’ The consumer
need for the product is that 40-percent of consumers don’t like filling up a sink full of
dishes and sticking their hands in the dishwater. They prefer to apply the dish detergent
directly on a sponge and to wash each dish individually. So the advertising, Procter &
Gamble advertising behind this product is very traditional. Ten times the grease cutting
capability of any other dishwashing detergent. I think the tag line is that it’s a ‘grease
vacuum.’ Very traditional, very successful advertising.”
“When the brand hired us to see if we could create a word of mouth campaign, we
started working with our ‘Connector Moms’ and they looked at this product and went –
WOW! That’s so cool, my kids would want to help and suddenly we develop a new
insight that the brand had never heard about before. The idea of ‘my children would
want to help do chores around the house’ is a thought that Mom wants to share with
her friends.”
“So let’s be clear, no consumer walks to her neighbor and says, ‘have we talked about
dishwashing detergent today?’ But instead, they do say, ‘my kids don’t do enough
chores around the house’ and suddenly the conversation changes to….’Oh, well there’s
this new product out from Dawn that apparently the kids love using.’ And, we enable
that conversation to take place by giving Mom some helpful hints on how to get your
kids to do more chores around the house. You combine that, now Dawn became a
natural part of the conversation. And, the business results behind the ‘word of mouth’
are simply spectacular. We nearly doubled Dawn’s business in the test market.”
In everything we do on Tremor and Vocal Point, we strive to be mindful of the three Let
Go rules.

Transparency trumps trust. We do not hide VocalPoint’s or Tremor’s connection to
P&G. We post it clearly on the web sites. We have a section for parents on the teen
site. There even is a story on the Vocal Point web site about a mom who
participated in a Business Week story about her experience. We are 100%
transparent.

Experimentation trumps expected. We have built Tremor and VocalPoint through
continual experimentation in how we identify consumers, how we learn from them,
how we interact with them, how we equip them to tell their stories about our brands.
We have experimented with new staffing, compensation and partnering models.
And perhaps the biggest change, more than half the business is customers outside
P&G! Shockingly, we’ve learned that people want to talk about more than P&G
products!
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
Co-creation trumps control. We’re not creating messages and then trying to sell
them to consumers. We are working with them to create the messages they want to
share, which are different than the messages they want to receive. And then we’re
stepping back and letting go of the conversations. Steve’s Dawn example is a great
one – co-creation led us to an entirely different place than we started.
I wish I could say that I am totally at ease with Tremor. It’s not what we are doing; it’s
how some people’s mistrust and cynicism can attribute motivations or actions that aren’t
there. And we’ve gotten our share of negative headlines, calls from the corner office,
and anxieties about whether this business truly belongs at P&G. Yet, I am very proud of
Tremor. It’s the new “in control while letting go” mindset…in action.
Implications for PR Professionals
As I said at the outset, this new Let Go world is tailor made for
external relations practitioners. It offers…indeed demands…we
lead at a new level, in new ways, with new skills, experiences and
instincts, new partnerships, and new ideas.
I’d like to close with three suggestions for how we can seize and deliver on the
opportunity the Let Go world presents.
1. First, let’s cultivate a mindset that embraces letting go. We’re in a unique
position to do this because, more than anyone in our organizations, we’re the
people who bring the outside in. Outside our corporate walls, outside the
boundaries of our profession, the Let Go world is alive and well. There is no
better way to learn to Let Go than to bring the Let Go world inside. Familiarity
will at least breed understanding, if not comfort.
2. Second, let’s help build Let Go capabilities in our agencies. Bill Nielsen
spoke here three years ago about the importance of agency partnerships. He
pointed to the strengths agency partners bring us: strategic thinking we often
have little time to do, exposure to wide-ranging issues, the ability to see our
companies as others see us. Helping us Let Go in ways that build relationships
and build the business, as well as protect it, can be yet another unique strength
agency partners can bring.
3. Third, let’s remind ourselves and all those we work with and for that — in a Let
Go world — living the Arthur Page principles matters more than ever.



Tell the truth: It will be verified in minutes. There is no alternative.
Prove it with action: Walking the talk is the key to trust, and like the truth, it
can be determined in minutes.
Listen to the customer: The people we serve expect to be heard. If we
choose not to listen, we will be shut out of conversations that will happen with
or without us.
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



Manage for tomorrow: The promises we make must be bigger today than in
the past. We must understand which promises we need to make and ensure
we have the ability to keep them.
Realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people: In a world in
which trust has been redirected from institutions to people, and in which
connectedness and self expression matter more than ever, letting our people
tell our stories -- honestly, authentically -- may be the best way to participate
in consumers’ conversations without intruding.
Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it. A misstep in
the Let Go world becomes very visible very quickly. Yet, preventing missteps
is a small part of our role here. To fully exploit this new age, we must be at
the brand-building table to chart strategy for the age of consumer control and
bring forward new commercial innovation ideas.
And last, remain calm, patient and good-humored. We have to keep things in
perspective. The shift in control may be uncomfortable, but when you think
about that Mr. Pringles video, you have to admit it can keep you laughing.
The Page Principles are enduring, and simple…and mandatory in
the Let Go world.
One of the real privileges of this occasion has been the opportunity to reconnect with
the Page Principles. As I said, they are more important than ever.
Now, I don’t want you to worry. We’re close to the end. I’d like to wrap up with two very
special thank yous.
First, to my husband Bob Otto, my partner in life for the last 24 years. As Bette Midler
belted out, “you are the wind beneath my wings.” Thank you for your coaching and
critiques – even when I didn’t want to hear them. Thank you for your explanations of
what makes powerful males tick and your incredible patience when the latest crisis
caused me to be late for dinner or miss your birthday.
Thank you for being a card-carrying P&G Ambassador. Thank you for your bravery in
being the only male partner at so many Company functions, and for being the first man
to host the year-end spouse dinner. Thank you for putting your career aside to support
mine. Thank you for sharing this honor with me today. It is yours, too. I am unendingly
thankful … and unendingly proud of you.
I also want to thank Procter & Gamble…the institution, and the people. For more than
30 years, it has been my professional home. Yet, it has been so much more than that. I
have grown up there. I have formed my closest friendships, and partnerships. I’ve
learned from inspiring colleagues and incredible bosses, including four P&G CEOs.
And P&G has offered opportunities I never dreamed of…to travel the world, to be inside
some of the most important changes in our industry, to be a leader in our Cincinnati
community, to serve our consumers.
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So, if you will indulge me, I’d like to close with a tribute to my company… to P&G’s
commitment to touching lives and improving life, every day. It certainly has touched
mine.
[Touching Lives Video]
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About Procter & Gamble [NYSE:PG]
Three billion times a day, P&G brands touch
the lives of people around the world. The
company has one of the strongest portfolios of
trusted, quality, leadership brands, including
Pampers®, Tide®, Ariel®, Always®, Whisper®,
Pantene®, Mach3®, Bounty®, Dawn®,
Pringles®, Folgers®, Charmin®, Downy®,
Lenor®, Iams®, Crest®, Oral-B®, Actonel®,
Duracell®, Olay®, Head & Shoulders®, Wella,
Gillette®, and Braun.
The P&G community consists of over 135,000
employees working in over 80 countries
worldwide.
Please visit http://www.pg.com for the latest
news and in-depth information about P&G and
its brands.