The Wall Street Journal has a facinating story on a very simple innovation -- A New Odd Couple: Google, P&G Swap Workers to Spur Innovation. According to the story, the partnership came about as P&G seeks to do a better job marketing to the on-line crowd and Google is seeking more of P&G's advertising money.
The idea of the employee swap between the two companies gained momentum about a year ago, when P&G's then global marketing officer, Jim Stengel, expressed concern that one of the biggest initiatives in the company's laundry-soap history -- a switch to smaller bottles with a more concentrated formula -- didn't include enough of an online search-term marketing campaign, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The issue: Without an online campaign, Tide buyers searching the Internet to figure out why the detergent bottle shrank might not be directed to Tide's Web site. (Mr. Stengel acknowledges raising questions about the campaign but says he was ultimately satisfied.)
Mr. Stengel had recently met with Tim Armstrong, who runs Google's ad sales and operations in the Americas. The two men tossed around the job-swap idea. It started in January.
The learning has been mutual:
As the two companies started working together, the gulf between them quickly became apparent. In April, when actress Salma Hayek unveiled an ambitious promotion for P&G's Pampers brand, the Google team was stunned to learn that Pampers hadn't invited any "motherhood" bloggers -- women who run popular Web sites about child-rearing -- to attend the press conference.
"Where are the bloggers?" asked a Google staffer in disbelief, according one person present.
For their part, P&G employees gasped in surprise during a Tide brand meeting when a Google job-swapper apparently didn't realize that Tide's signature orange-colored packaging is a key part of the brand's image.
Not only does this appear to be a good way to share information between partners, it seem to be a good way of opening up the culture to new ideas in general.
Very interesting.
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