P&G's Content Marketing Serial Folds

This week, Proctor & Gamble announced its long-running serial, "As the World Turns" air its last episode in September 2010. The announcement marks the end of 73 years of creating content - to sell product. Specifically, soap. Which is how P&G coined the name "soap opera." P&G realized that if they produced addicting content, they would build a loyal following who would also hear their product pitches.

The times they are a changing -- but using content to sell product is not. P&G has the art of serving up content to increase audience loyalty mastered BeingGirl.com and Home Made Simple are two web community sites that unabashedly splash the P&G logo and product around. According to Josh Bernoff, analyst at Forrester, "Procter & Gamble's BeingGirl.com, an online community for adolescent girls, is four times as effective as a similarly priced marketing program in traditional media. Initiatives like BeingGirl.com require a long-term commitment," he added.

While the daytime serial has not yet translated to the Web (apparently the costs are prohibitive), rest assured that P&G will continue to be in the content business -- as much as they are in the soap and personal products one.