P&G reduces digital marketing expenditure in 2017

Consumer goods group Procter & Gamble (P&G) has announced that it has cut digital advertising costs by $200m last year.

This move was taken after its viewership metrics indicated that the ads were not effectively reaching intended audiences.

The company recently led a campaign to encourage transparency in digital media companies when providing viewership metrics. This served as an opportunity for tech companies such as Facebook and Google to work on algorithms to enable marketers to gain control of their advertisements, reported Reuters.

Speaking at the Association of National Advertisers’ media conference in Orlando, Florida, P&G chief brand officer Marc Pritchard said: “Transparency shined a spotlight on reality and we learned valuable lessons, which are driving profound change.

“With transparent viewability data, we learned that the average view time for an advertisement on a mobile newsfeed is 1.7 seconds, little more than a glance, pushing us to innovate.”

Between April and June last year, the digital spend was cut by more than $100m and similar cuts continued for the rest of the year.

P&G spent $7.2bn in 2016, which was reduced to $7.1bn the following year.