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On August 13, P&G China held its Innovation Open Day and the opening ceremony of the second phase of Beijing Innovation Center. This is the largest Innovation Open Day held by P&G China so far.

Founded in 1998, the P&G Beijing Innovation Center is now the second largest in the world and the largest in Asia, with more than 800 researchers. The expansion project launched in February last year was officially put into use on August 13. The second phase has a total area of ​​2,400 square meters, including a multi-category "Consumer Experience Center" and three categories of innovation laboratories, which will further enhance P&G China's innovation capabilities.

Media interview at P&G China Innovation Open Day

At the event, more than 30 media visited the Beijing Innovation Center and interacted with P&G executives through multiple interviews and group interviews. More than ten professors and teachers from Tsinghua University and Peking University also exchanged views with the P&G team on the direction of industry-university-research cooperation and talent training plans.

"P&G gives people the impression that it only makes big products and big brands, and does not make small products or small innovations. Looking back, we have done one thing, (that is) to better unleash everyone's innovative motivation and potential." said Xu Min, Chairman and CEO of P&G Greater China.

Xu Min believes that P&G's innovation is inseparable from consumer insights, and effective consumer insights must be "fast, accurate and complete."

Regarding the "speed" of consumer insights, Xu Min introduced that P&G uses big data and e-commerce development results externally, and "encourages mistakes" and multi-department collaboration internally. These are the secrets to P&G's rapid innovation.

Regarding the accuracy of consumer insights, Xu Min said that P&G not only needs to do big data insights but also small data insights. How to use consumer data and real feedback as the driving force for product development is the key to accurately impressing consumers in a market environment with sufficiently rich products.

It is reported that in order to ensure the granularity of consumer insights, P&G invests 500,000 hours in consumer research every year, covering more than 20 million people.

Regarding the "complete" level, Fan Jia, President of P&G China's Healthy Skin Business Unit and President of Safeguard Brand Global Strategy, said in response to a question from 36Kr that consumers have an increasingly complete demand for body care products: from cleaning items that can be satisfied by a simple bar of soap, to aromatherapy products that can now provide emotional value and health needs. She believes that such a full-featured requirement is already the mainstream consumption trend today.

She also used Safeguard as a perspective to introduce how real feedback from consumers can help product departments better promote their products. She gave the example of a user comment on Safeguard Ebony Rose Shower Gel that said, "It feels like a mobile bed after use." "These golden sentences are something our team couldn't come up with on our own in the office."

"Fast, accurate and complete" consumer insights are a brand new proposition for P&G, which once relied on channel scale to win. In recent years, P&G has been committed to implementing cost-saving and productivity-enhancing measures in marketing, branding and channels to increase profit margins.

At an investor conference earlier this year, P&G CEO Jon Moeller also stressed the importance of marketing efficiency: P&G will bring more advertising activities in-house, shifting from media planning and delivery activities to "using our proprietary tools and consumer data to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our communications."

Xu Min also shared P&G China's overall view on innovation at the event: "In the past 36 years, no matter how consumers change, we have never stopped innovating. We believe that accumulation will lead to a breakthrough. When consumers have demand and there is such competition, we will be able to come up with a solution more quickly."

In 2024, P&G sold a total of US$84 billion worldwide, a year-on-year increase of 2%, setting a new performance record in the past 10 years, and its shipments and products were the same as the previous year.