P&G Brands on the Market

Ever since P&G announced that it would be cutting a massive number of brands from its line-up, there's been incredible speculation around what brands will be on that list and what will happen to them.

Will the brands just merely go away? --- Like the iconic brand Ivory that appears to be on the list of possibilities.  Off to the brand grave yard?  Who will write the obituary?

Will these brands be sold off to another organization who is willing to reinvent them?  --- It's very typical for a brand to go through phases of its lifecycle.  Perhaps some of these brands just need a refresh, which could be a priority project for another company.  I have experience in this area myself, when I worked at Johnson & Johnson and relaunched Clean & Clear, a brand we purchased from Revlon.  They didn't make the brand a priority, but we certainly did by reinventing it as a teen skin care brand.  One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Will smaller companies buy some of these brands because while they may be small for P&G, they are huge for a smaller organization?  --- This seems like a no-brainer and would keep some of these brands (that many people still love) alive.  This is where size matters.

There was no stated timetable attached to the P&G announcement, but that hasn't stopped the scenario mapping from consumers to fellow marketers to Wall Street.  I'm betting that's because the company is managing the exit strategies of each of these brands, which could fall into any of the categories above.

Time will tell.  What's your experience?  JIM.