Supermarkets to Communicate P&G Green Campaign

CAROL ANGRISANI

CINCINNATI — Following a pilot at Hy-Vee, Dollar General and other retailers in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Procter & Gamble’s new green consumer education platform is slated for a March 29 national rollout by 115 grocery/club retailers for a total of about 15,000 stores.

A floorstand holds Tide HE, a designated Future Friendly product because it reduces energy use in every load by up to 50%.

The goal of the "Future Friendly" strategy is to make it easy for consumers to find and use products that help save energy and water, and reduce waste. Beginning next month, P&G will identify such products with Future Friendly hangtags and, eventually, seals on product packaging.

To qualify for the Future Friendly designation, products must provide “measureable and meaningful” savings in one of three areas: energy, waste and water.

About one dozen products/brand franchises currently meet the criteria. They include Tide Coldwater, which P&G says reduces energy use in every load by up to 80% with a special formulation that enables consumers to clean clothes in the cold/cold cycle rather than warm/cold; and the just-launched Pampers Cruisers Dry Max, which are more absorbent and 20% thinner than regular Pampers, resulting in less environmental waste.

“Retailers want to be the store of the community,” said Duncan Love, P&G’s associate director of strategy and marketing. “Future Friendly is a platform to help them deliver on that.”

P&G’s household products are part of Phase 1; beauty products will be included in Phase 2.

P&G is treating the platform as a “Tier 1” initiative, meaning it gets the highest level of executive and marketing support.

In-store communication includes branded floor stands holding Future Friendly products, as well as shelf strips and wobblers. The marketing program also includes national television ads, social media, the launch of the futurefriendly.com website, a multimedia educational content partnership with National Geographic, and coupons in P&G’s April 4 brandSaver.

Future Friendly got its start in the United Kingdom and Canada in 2007. It came to the U.S. on Earth Day 2009 in the form of the Cedar Rapids pilot. Along with Hy-Vee, other pilot retailers included Sam’s Club, Target and Wal-Mart. All retailers saw significant product lift across the Future Friendly lineup, according to P&G.