P&G Future Friendly Unveiled

More and more Americans want to "go green," and Procter & Gamble is going to help them. The Cincinnati-based company announced the U.S. expansion of its Future Friendly program, an environmental and consumer education platform first introduced at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative.

According to P&G representatives, the Future Friendly platform is designed to show consumers how to use P&G products to save water, waste and energy. "The platform is really about being future friendly, not just buying future friendly," says Maurice Coffey, marketing director for the program. 

After a test run at such retailers as Hy-Vee, Sam's Club, Target and Dollar General, among others, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a national television campaign begins in late March and company officials say that products with Future Friendly messages will begin to appear on retailer shelves in early April. More than 15,000 retail locations are participating in the initial phase of Future Friendly, which focuses on primarily P&G's household products. In order to obtain a Future Friendly designation, products must meet "measureable and meaningful" criteria in one of three areas: energy, waste or water. Brands taking part in the initiative include: Tide, Gain, Cheer, Era, Dreft, Dawn, Ultra Downy, Pampers, Charmin, Bounty, Cascade, Duracell and Prilosec. Phase II will address many of P&G's beauty brands.

"Retailers want to be the store of the community," says Duncan Love, associate director of strategy and marketing. "Future Friendly is a platform to help them deliver on that. However retailers are also risk averse. There is not a huge amount of risk in Future Friendly because these are products consumers already trust."