P&G / Google employee job swap
I love this idea and thought it was long overdue: set up an intensive job swapping program for CPG brand marketers (like those from P&G) and a new media organization (like Google). Expose one another to a “month in the life” of the other side to build a better appreciation for how to do business with one another. Sounds great on paper.
Here is a link to the story on WSJ (subscription required).
This is a fantastic first step, but more of this cross-breeding needs to happen in CPG land, as many of the big brand teams (and their old line agencies) are still focused on traditional media. The needle is slowly moving, and behavior differs by brand and category, but there is still a pretty big gap to close. The last research I saw suggests that, on average, CPG budgets allocate just a few percentage points to interactive with the vast majority still funneling toward television and print. Old habits die hard, I guess.
That all said, kudos to Tim Armstrong from Google and his counterparts at P&G for pulling this off.
