Depending where you were, you may have celebrated Halloween on Oct. 31st. At Procter & Gamble, they've been celebrating the company's 175th anniversary.

That's right: P&G – mother of such consumer packaged goods icons as Tide, Pampers, and Comet, among others – is now 175 years old, but a look back at the company's history reveals that the whole endeavor might not have started if an errant flame and a rapscallion hadn’t done their dirty work all those years ago — or if an opinionated father and father-in-law hadn't intervened.

Or put another way, Mr. Procter's failures in England led to P&G's global success today — and Procter took a Gamble that paid off.Continue reading...

When you manufacture electric razors, you spend a lot of time thinking about the shape of people’s faces and noticing how much the simple construction and care of a face communicates about somebody.

Procter & Gamble’s Braun brand took that notion and created the “Wear your face” campaign, which is now turning into a book that will benefit UNICEF. The book, Wear Your Face: Portraits of Men of Varying Ages, Origin, and Character, was the idea of BBDO Proximity Duesseldorf creative director Olaf Reys, who worked on the Braun campaign for P&G.

Reys teamed up with some of the world’s best-known photographers to capture some of the world’s best-known faces, including George Clooney, Robert de Niro, Mickey Rourke, and Mick Jagger.

“Today the male public image is multifaceted and malleable, presenting a kaleidoscope of diversity and sophistication,” Reys said in a press release. “The work I amassed is a visual documentation of how far society has moved towards a more tolerant interpretation of masculinity – and femininity.”Continue reading...

When a company the size of Procter & Gamble divests itself of a brand, it's a given that all of the brand assets go along with it. Rarely if ever is there any kind of agreement to retain control over some of the intellectual property. Rarer still is the notion that the seller will structure the sale in such a way that it can keep one of the brand assest for altruistic purposes.

This is what makes P&G's sale of the PUR brand so unusual. While Helen of Troy Limited announced an agreement to acquire the well-known PUR water purification brand from P&G, along with the deal was the unusual provision that P&G could retain the rights to a powder it developed with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The reason? So P&G could maintain its philanthropic commitment to the Children's Safe Drinking Program.

The novel arrangement turns out to be a win-win in the classic business sense.

The win for Helen of Troy: The acquisition of PUR puts Helen of Troy into water purification, a nice expansion into a new growing market. PUR leads the market in U.S. faucet mount and refrigerator filters and is a top brand in water pitcher filtration systems. Helen of Troy, while it is dwarfed by P&G's portfolio of brands, is no minor player in the consumer packaged goods space and it gets another strong brand to add to the family.

The company owns Ammens, Braun, Brut, Dr. Scholl's, Pert, Vidal Sassoon, and Vicks, among others. According to Jack Neff at Ad Age, Helen of Troy has been "a serial acquirer of P&G orphan brands, including Pert Plus, Sure and Infusium23." The Braun, Vicks, and Vidal Sassoon brands are licensed from P&G.Continue reading...

Amazon launches YoYo portal for kids toys.

American Express buys virtual currency monetization platform for $30 million.

Angry Birds is poised to expand as Rovio works with Starbucks and other brands to expand footprint.

Apple's stock closes at all-time high.

Braun announces theme for 2012 BraunPrize.

CNN opens first CNN Cafe, in Seoul.Continue reading...

When Dieter Rams joined Braun in 1955 to help out on architectural projects, there was no way to know that he would help build the brand into one of the world’s strongest – and help change the face of industrial design, to boot.

Phaidon's new book, Dieter Rams: As Little Design as Possible, by design historian Sophie Lovell, follows Rams through his design path, from toasters and juicers to shavers and radios.

The effect of Rams on present-day design is evident from the comments of Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of industrial design.Continue reading...

Single serving coffee brand Tassimo is taking a page from the Old Spice Guy's well-thumbed viral playbook with its 2011 Mother's Day promotion.

In a series of YouTube videos, Tassimo singers reply with personal Mother's Day messages for consumers. The videos address Julie, Jennifer, Elizabeth and other moms whose digi-kids get a kick out of this kind of thing.Continue reading...

As Starbucks continues to recover and reinvent itself, CEO Howard Schultz keeps looking around for new areas to spread his powerful brand. Via instant coffee was one result of Starbucks’ reinvention.

The next domain for Starbucks might be single-serve coffee.

It's an area the brand is exploring with with a new deal to provide single-serve coffee to a half-million luxury and premium hotel rooms. Consider that the scent of things to come. 

Green Mountain essentially staged the single-serve revolution with its patented K-cup coffee pods for its Keurig makers and has cornered about 80% of the segment, but Schultz isn't phased.

And even though Starbucks already puts its brand on single-serve pods for Braun machines, he sniffs a much bigger opportunity.Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble, arguably the world's most adept branding organization, is simply not content with the status quo.

As we've reported, P&G has lofty ambitions to grow its business internationally, beyond its traditionally strong roots in the U.S.and Europe. In fact, P&G is eying developing countries such as Brazil and China for future sales revenue.

Add brand acquisitions to P&G's wish list. "I'd love to buy more global brands," P&G CEO Bob McDonald tells Bloomberg. "The climate for acquisitions is good, the climate for mergers is good," McDonald said.Continue reading...