January 15, 2020 • 12 mins
James Kotecki of C Space Studio speaks with Phil Duncan, Chief Design Officer, Procter & Gamble.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm James K. Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from CS. Hi, I'm James co Tech. You're here with
me in a C Space studio at CS and joining
us as Phil Duncan, the chief design Officer of Procter
(00:21):
and Gamble. Morning, James, how are you? Thanks very much
for being here. Absolutely appreciate it. You have a very
cool job title. How do you how do you define
and explain your job? I do have a very cool
job title, and I have a very cool job too. UM.
You know, I think my job at P ANDNG is
really UM, elevate the superiority of our brands to ensure
that consumers when they are you know, in a relevant
(00:43):
context to shop think about discover brands that they look
at the portfolio of our brands and say that's something
that I, you know, I'm really interested in bringing into
my life. UM. I also have a wonderful team of
designers across the company. UM, so inspiring them, helping them
to elevate their own work. UM. You know, Mary very
busting a bit occasionally, UM, but it's also a you know,
(01:06):
a wonderful opportunity to bring design together across R and
D marketing. I t these days and really be this
interesting confluence to help UM all of our business partners
think about how to bring that superiority to life. So um,
so it's a big end. It's a privilege and a
joy to be in the position that I'm in. And
what does that really mean in practice? Are you are
(01:27):
you doodling all day? You get like giant white boards
where you're scrolling crazy ideas or what is your physical
day to day look likeing? Yeah, I mean I do
think any good creative has always got some level of
you know, practice within them during the course of a day. Um.
But you know, I really do. I meet with our
business teams a lot. Um. We go through a lot
of interesting business challenges in terms of what design ideas
(01:49):
maybe you know on board. Um. So I'm obviously working
closely with a lot of our different areas of the business,
but I'm also responsible for things like our CS program.
So um bringing that whole program together is particularly the
past couple of months, has been a big part of
my work. Can you give me an example of a
design challenge and how you kind of took that just
(02:09):
how that process kind of works a specific for a
specific brand or product. Yeah. Sure, I mean, you know,
there's a lot of different, you know examples I could
point to. Um, I'll use ol A, one of our
premium skin care brands as an example. UM. We really
talk about how to bring consumer experiences and really reinvent
the consumer experience across product package, customer in store, and value.
(02:34):
So as we sit down and think about ideas for
the you know, l A brand, of course, we're thinking
about the product component of it. Um. How the actual
chemical makeup of the physical Yeah, for sure, exactly there's
the product piece of it. How does it feel? What
are the textures, you know, even color, because a lot
of those things can cue performance and efficacy. UM. But
then we're also of course looking at you know, shape
(02:57):
and container, primary secondary packaging. But in today's world, we're
also really quickly integrating, you know, how might we think
about you know, expressing a brand in a digital in
a digital way. One of the ways that we've been
connecting with consumers a lot on our l A business
recently is the l A Skin Advisor, And this is
a technology that allows you to take a selfie of
(03:18):
your own face, so you get your skin age and
then that recommends a regiment of products from ol A
for you. So that user interface and that engagement is
a whole other level of how we kind of think
about crafting the overall experience with our brands. And even
though your consumer products company, do you really think in
terms of selling experiences? Now? Um, it's it's not either
(03:42):
or it really is a combination. I'll use a design
thinking phrase of yes. And obviously the consumer puts out
cash for a product, right, but a product anymore is
not just the physical thing that might sit on his
or her counter at home or in their storage area
above their washing sheen, you know what have you? Um,
it really is about you know, how do these brands
(04:04):
and products fit into my life? Um? How do they
affect my everyday? Um? You know? Being so we really
think about elevating the consumer experience in combination with just
the physical product as well. If you put the same
chemical makeup of l A into a completely unmarked kind
of just white container, right and you didn't do any
(04:25):
marketing or branding around it, Um, do you have a
sense of like how much of the value the consumer
is getting actually comes from all that other stuff beyond
the physical makeup of the product. Oh for sure. I
think we clearly understand through a lot of our both
testing constructs as well as just how we engage with
the consumer that there's clearly the performance component of the
(04:45):
brand is most critical, right UM, that's where the brand
really needs to shine, really needs to drive the superiority
from a performance standpoint. But we've also learned through things
like we use a body of evidence approach to looking
at are we really and truly delivering a superior holistic
consumer experience. So we're looking at a lot of different
metrics to understand whether or not we're really delivering that
(05:08):
kind of wow impact for the consumer. And do you
use things like artificial intelligence to kind of crunch those
numbers and optimize. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, UM technology has
really been a transforming construct and design and particularly in
the past decade, and we use a lot of artificial
intelligence to help us do things from in the creation
phase where we are ideating and utilizing you know, UM
(05:32):
artificial intelligence to help us to get two concepts faster,
help us iterate, UM, help us to kind of go
through a b testing, utilizing and connecting with performance marketing
metrics so any day. You know, I really do think
the design you know industry, if you will, has really
been transforming by integrating these kind of technologies and and
(05:53):
really enabling us to do frankly even better work. Talking
to Fill Duncan, Chief Design Officer, Procter and Gamble is
when us talk about AI in the concept creation phase,
I think people might be comfortable with the idea that
I helping me, you know, a b test things or
crunch some data once something exists. I think some people
are a little more nervous around the idea that I
might be creating the concepts. I mean, how does that
(06:13):
actually look in practice? Well, you know, I think if
you start with the premise of you know, imagining what
an idea of space could be, UM and utilizing artificial
intelligence as a way as a jumping off point, ultimately,
I don't think you will ever replace, you know, the
skills of a of a designer or a design thinker
or a creative. But I also don't believe that not
(06:34):
embracing this kind of technology is is good for creation either.
UM we're trying to be much more agile and faster
in our creation process UM and AI really allows us
to jump faster into concept ing than frankly starting from scratch.
So um it can be a real enabling tool. Interesting.
Do you also think about the fact that people see
(06:55):
most of your physical goods maybe digitally first, they see
them on online or in some kind of online campaign,
or just digitally on screens. Do you design physical products
differently knowing that people will see them on screens first often? Yeah. Absolutely,
We've done some interesting work to look at, um how
our designs kind of winning from what I call it
the post back or winning from the social media post back,
(07:17):
you know how the the ultimate kind of if you will,
reference from a consumer is that I buy and then
I posted on my social media and recommended to my friends.
So it is really interesting to look how at how
consumers are posting and sharing your product and how in
a social or mobile you know world that's very different
than obviously looking at in a you know, on a
store shelf. So we've looked a lot at how our
(07:39):
products and packages show up in a social digital world
and what are some of the nuances in the context
of how we can make sure that we when a
consumer is looking at in a mobile context. Um it
has all the relevancy and all the beauty, all the
beauty that are looking for, and can you share detail
about that? I mean, is it do you tweak a
color or a font size or sure? I mean I
do think in a little phase you don't have to
(08:01):
be so overprescribed in the context of how much data
you share on the package or what have you. An
example for our l A business, we looked at over
five hundred social media posts on our ul A business
in China and uh on a recent launch on our
ul A Whips product, which is a terrific product. But
it was very interesting to see the Chinese consumer who
is taking the cap off the product laying it beside.
(08:23):
Obviously they could get a you know, a shot of
not only the beautiful product on the inside, but also
the package. Well, we had put a lot of our
effort in the decoration of that package and bottle on
the outside of the lid, right, so suddenly they're flipping
it over and we had not necessarily given as much
attention to the inside of the cab. It seems like
a detail, But when you go back to creating holistic
(08:44):
consumer experiences that really are superior, those are the things
that can start to matter. I would fully expect you
to be the details guy comes of this stuff. I'm
proud of that. That's great. Um. You mentioned design thinking
and the phrase yes and being part of it's also
a great phrase. And improv comedy also does. What can
you just explain a little bit more about what design
thinking is and how technology kind of changes or maybe
(09:07):
doesn't change that process because ultimately it's a very human
center process, right. Oh? Absolutely? You know we always talk
about starting any innovation at P and G from the
basis of the consumer and whatether the tensions in his
or her life and how might we you know, solve
those if you will, through different solutions. Um, But I
think design thinking allows you to At its core, what
I love about it is it's both diverting constructs to
(09:30):
explore lots of ideas. Um. You know, I really also
going back to your question about my role, I really
do see me as an enabling person to make sure
that our teams are really broadly and robustly exploring spaces
in today's world. I can't possibly know what a young
Chinese consumer young woman might want from a feminine care
product or a skin care product, but I can help
(09:52):
the teams to robustly explore a space that we think
that is really robust um and then use design thinking
to kind of expand that, and then data and technology
to help us refine and select those that are really working,
using big data to help us to kind of pick
the ones that are really starting to resonate with consumers
and get rid of the ones that are not. So
it's it's got this both widening of concept and then
(10:14):
also narrowing at the same time, which I think is
what is a principle behind design thinking. A sense of asking,
uh knowing kind of not to all the right answers,
but some sense of the initial right questions. Correct, correct?
I mean, I you know, there's a femcare product that
has been wildly successful in China called Kuala Who Who,
And when I look at the package had had a
lot of sparkles and it was not exactly my design aesthetic.
(10:37):
But it was a good thing that I did not
sit there and judge it because frankly, it has been
a runaway hit in China. And we did that because
we explore a space robustly and the consumer voted and said,
I like that one. So that's a good example of
how we use kind of the diverging and converging aspect
of design thinking. P and G is as a company,
I believe almost over maybe it's over a years old. Yes,
(11:00):
are there design lessons from that long storied history that
you can share with the up and coming tech people
here at sure? Sure? Well, I mean at the heart
of everything that we do from a consumer standpoint or
innovation standpoint is to really pay attention to the consumer
and be very consumer based in any innovation. So you know,
(11:20):
at times the technology has the ability to step out
in front of the consumer message, right or the consumer insight. UM.
So we really try to do a great job of
ensuring that we keep the consumer at the heart of
all we do and don't just introduce technology for the
sake of introducing technology, but from a you know, from
a design and kind of communication and creative standpoint. UM.
(11:42):
I would say that one of the things that we
do really well at P and G is to kind
of understand what are the few iconic assets on a
brand and really be true to those over the years. Um.
If you look at the Tide bull's eye, UM, that's
been an icon for you know, decades, and that business
continues to be really healthy and grow, you know, year
on year for many years. So and I think it's
(12:04):
because the consumer identifies and understands that product, whether it
be now in a physical sense or a digital sense,
understands that bulls Eye reflects their values and it reflects
a wonderful product that meets their needs. And so finding
an interesting space, well, what are the few iconic assets
to help you transcend time? Is important? So Duncan is
the Chief Design Officer Procter and Gamble. Thanks for the
(12:26):
time this morning. Enjoyed it. Thanks so much for sharing
your insights with this absolutely This podcast is in partnership
with the I Heart Podcast Networks
Hi, I'm James K. Techie. You're listening to the C
Space Studio podcast interviews with technology, media and marketing leaders
from CS. Hi, I'm James co Tech. You're here with
me in a C Space studio at CS and joining
us as Phil Duncan, the chief design Officer of Procter
(00:21):
and Gamble. Morning, James, how are you? Thanks very much
for being here. Absolutely appreciate it. You have a very
cool job title. How do you how do you define
and explain your job? I do have a very cool
job title, and I have a very cool job too. UM.
You know, I think my job at P ANDNG is
really UM, elevate the superiority of our brands to ensure
that consumers when they are you know, in a relevant
(00:43):
context to shop think about discover brands that they look
at the portfolio of our brands and say that's something
that I, you know, I'm really interested in bringing into
my life. UM. I also have a wonderful team of
designers across the company. UM, so inspiring them, helping them
to elevate their own work. UM. You know, Mary very
busting a bit occasionally, UM, but it's also a you know,
(01:06):
a wonderful opportunity to bring design together across R and
D marketing. I t these days and really be this
interesting confluence to help UM all of our business partners
think about how to bring that superiority to life. So um,
so it's a big end. It's a privilege and a
joy to be in the position that I'm in. And
what does that really mean in practice? Are you are
(01:27):
you doodling all day? You get like giant white boards
where you're scrolling crazy ideas or what is your physical
day to day look likeing? Yeah, I mean I do
think any good creative has always got some level of
you know, practice within them during the course of a day. Um.
But you know, I really do. I meet with our
business teams a lot. Um. We go through a lot
of interesting business challenges in terms of what design ideas
(01:49):
maybe you know on board. Um. So I'm obviously working
closely with a lot of our different areas of the business,
but I'm also responsible for things like our CS program.
So um bringing that whole program together is particularly the
past couple of months, has been a big part of
my work. Can you give me an example of a
design challenge and how you kind of took that just
(02:09):
how that process kind of works a specific for a
specific brand or product. Yeah. Sure, I mean, you know,
there's a lot of different, you know examples I could
point to. Um, I'll use ol A, one of our
premium skin care brands as an example. UM. We really
talk about how to bring consumer experiences and really reinvent
the consumer experience across product package, customer in store, and value.
(02:34):
So as we sit down and think about ideas for
the you know, l A brand, of course, we're thinking
about the product component of it. Um. How the actual
chemical makeup of the physical Yeah, for sure, exactly there's
the product piece of it. How does it feel? What
are the textures, you know, even color, because a lot
of those things can cue performance and efficacy. UM. But
then we're also of course looking at you know, shape
(02:57):
and container, primary secondary packaging. But in today's world, we're
also really quickly integrating, you know, how might we think
about you know, expressing a brand in a digital in
a digital way. One of the ways that we've been
connecting with consumers a lot on our l A business
recently is the l A Skin Advisor, And this is
a technology that allows you to take a selfie of
(03:18):
your own face, so you get your skin age and
then that recommends a regiment of products from ol A
for you. So that user interface and that engagement is
a whole other level of how we kind of think
about crafting the overall experience with our brands. And even
though your consumer products company, do you really think in
terms of selling experiences? Now? Um, it's it's not either
(03:42):
or it really is a combination. I'll use a design
thinking phrase of yes. And obviously the consumer puts out
cash for a product, right, but a product anymore is
not just the physical thing that might sit on his
or her counter at home or in their storage area
above their washing sheen, you know what have you? Um,
it really is about you know, how do these brands
(04:04):
and products fit into my life? Um? How do they
affect my everyday? Um? You know? Being so we really
think about elevating the consumer experience in combination with just
the physical product as well. If you put the same
chemical makeup of l A into a completely unmarked kind
of just white container, right and you didn't do any
(04:25):
marketing or branding around it, Um, do you have a
sense of like how much of the value the consumer
is getting actually comes from all that other stuff beyond
the physical makeup of the product. Oh for sure. I
think we clearly understand through a lot of our both
testing constructs as well as just how we engage with
the consumer that there's clearly the performance component of the
(04:45):
brand is most critical, right UM, that's where the brand
really needs to shine, really needs to drive the superiority
from a performance standpoint. But we've also learned through things
like we use a body of evidence approach to looking
at are we really and truly delivering a superior holistic
consumer experience. So we're looking at a lot of different
metrics to understand whether or not we're really delivering that
(05:08):
kind of wow impact for the consumer. And do you
use things like artificial intelligence to kind of crunch those
numbers and optimize. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, UM technology has
really been a transforming construct and design and particularly in
the past decade, and we use a lot of artificial
intelligence to help us do things from in the creation
phase where we are ideating and utilizing you know, UM
(05:32):
artificial intelligence to help us to get two concepts faster,
help us iterate, UM, help us to kind of go
through a b testing, utilizing and connecting with performance marketing
metrics so any day. You know, I really do think
the design you know industry, if you will, has really
been transforming by integrating these kind of technologies and and
(05:53):
really enabling us to do frankly even better work. Talking
to Fill Duncan, Chief Design Officer, Procter and Gamble is
when us talk about AI in the concept creation phase,
I think people might be comfortable with the idea that
I helping me, you know, a b test things or
crunch some data once something exists. I think some people
are a little more nervous around the idea that I
might be creating the concepts. I mean, how does that
(06:13):
actually look in practice? Well, you know, I think if
you start with the premise of you know, imagining what
an idea of space could be, UM and utilizing artificial
intelligence as a way as a jumping off point, ultimately,
I don't think you will ever replace, you know, the
skills of a of a designer or a design thinker
or a creative. But I also don't believe that not
(06:34):
embracing this kind of technology is is good for creation either.
UM we're trying to be much more agile and faster
in our creation process UM and AI really allows us
to jump faster into concept ing than frankly starting from scratch.
So um it can be a real enabling tool. Interesting.
Do you also think about the fact that people see
(06:55):
most of your physical goods maybe digitally first, they see
them on online or in some kind of online campaign,
or just digitally on screens. Do you design physical products
differently knowing that people will see them on screens first often? Yeah. Absolutely,
We've done some interesting work to look at, um how
our designs kind of winning from what I call it
the post back or winning from the social media post back,
(07:17):
you know how the the ultimate kind of if you will,
reference from a consumer is that I buy and then
I posted on my social media and recommended to my friends.
So it is really interesting to look how at how
consumers are posting and sharing your product and how in
a social or mobile you know world that's very different
than obviously looking at in a you know, on a
store shelf. So we've looked a lot at how our
(07:39):
products and packages show up in a social digital world
and what are some of the nuances in the context
of how we can make sure that we when a
consumer is looking at in a mobile context. Um it
has all the relevancy and all the beauty, all the
beauty that are looking for, and can you share detail
about that? I mean, is it do you tweak a
color or a font size or sure? I mean I
do think in a little phase you don't have to
(08:01):
be so overprescribed in the context of how much data
you share on the package or what have you. An
example for our l A business, we looked at over
five hundred social media posts on our ul A business
in China and uh on a recent launch on our
ul A Whips product, which is a terrific product. But
it was very interesting to see the Chinese consumer who
is taking the cap off the product laying it beside.
(08:23):
Obviously they could get a you know, a shot of
not only the beautiful product on the inside, but also
the package. Well, we had put a lot of our
effort in the decoration of that package and bottle on
the outside of the lid, right, so suddenly they're flipping
it over and we had not necessarily given as much
attention to the inside of the cab. It seems like
a detail, But when you go back to creating holistic
(08:44):
consumer experiences that really are superior, those are the things
that can start to matter. I would fully expect you
to be the details guy comes of this stuff. I'm
proud of that. That's great. Um. You mentioned design thinking
and the phrase yes and being part of it's also
a great phrase. And improv comedy also does. What can
you just explain a little bit more about what design
thinking is and how technology kind of changes or maybe
(09:07):
doesn't change that process because ultimately it's a very human
center process, right. Oh? Absolutely? You know we always talk
about starting any innovation at P and G from the
basis of the consumer and whatether the tensions in his
or her life and how might we you know, solve
those if you will, through different solutions. Um, But I
think design thinking allows you to At its core, what
I love about it is it's both diverting constructs to
(09:30):
explore lots of ideas. Um. You know, I really also
going back to your question about my role, I really
do see me as an enabling person to make sure
that our teams are really broadly and robustly exploring spaces
in today's world. I can't possibly know what a young
Chinese consumer young woman might want from a feminine care
product or a skin care product, but I can help
(09:52):
the teams to robustly explore a space that we think
that is really robust um and then use design thinking
to kind of expand that, and then data and technology
to help us refine and select those that are really working,
using big data to help us to kind of pick
the ones that are really starting to resonate with consumers
and get rid of the ones that are not. So
it's it's got this both widening of concept and then
(10:14):
also narrowing at the same time, which I think is
what is a principle behind design thinking. A sense of asking,
uh knowing kind of not to all the right answers,
but some sense of the initial right questions. Correct, correct?
I mean, I you know, there's a femcare product that
has been wildly successful in China called Kuala Who Who,
And when I look at the package had had a
lot of sparkles and it was not exactly my design aesthetic.
(10:37):
But it was a good thing that I did not
sit there and judge it because frankly, it has been
a runaway hit in China. And we did that because
we explore a space robustly and the consumer voted and said,
I like that one. So that's a good example of
how we use kind of the diverging and converging aspect
of design thinking. P and G is as a company,
I believe almost over maybe it's over a years old. Yes,
(11:00):
are there design lessons from that long storied history that
you can share with the up and coming tech people
here at sure? Sure? Well, I mean at the heart
of everything that we do from a consumer standpoint or
innovation standpoint is to really pay attention to the consumer
and be very consumer based in any innovation. So you know,
(11:20):
at times the technology has the ability to step out
in front of the consumer message, right or the consumer insight. UM.
So we really try to do a great job of
ensuring that we keep the consumer at the heart of
all we do and don't just introduce technology for the
sake of introducing technology, but from a you know, from
a design and kind of communication and creative standpoint. UM.
(11:42):
I would say that one of the things that we
do really well at P and G is to kind
of understand what are the few iconic assets on a
brand and really be true to those over the years. Um.
If you look at the Tide bull's eye, UM, that's
been an icon for you know, decades, and that business
continues to be really healthy and grow, you know, year
on year for many years. So and I think it's
(12:04):
because the consumer identifies and understands that product, whether it
be now in a physical sense or a digital sense,
understands that bulls Eye reflects their values and it reflects
a wonderful product that meets their needs. And so finding
an interesting space, well, what are the few iconic assets
to help you transcend time? Is important? So Duncan is
the Chief Design Officer Procter and Gamble. Thanks for the
(12:26):
time this morning. Enjoyed it. Thanks so much for sharing
your insights with this absolutely This podcast is in partnership
with the I Heart Podcast Networks
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