Sun & Earth, Inc

Established in 2006, Sun & Earth, Inc. has dedicated their business's pursuits on providing consumers with natural cleaners made from coconut and orange oils; the majority of national brands use harsh, man-made chemicals. Sun & Earth, Inc. hopes to reach customers who are sensitive to the chemicals in other cleaners, as well as those who are eco-friendly.

They promise that their products are as good as, or better than, the leading brands in the consumer products industry. They are free of "petroleum based cleaners, chlorine, phosphates, dyes and perfumes" (Sun & Earth, Inc.), which can harm health.

http://www.sunandearth.com/ProductsPage.aspx

Consumer trends are very important for CPG companies to take into account for they affect companies' marketing strategies. Consumer demographics are a key trend. For example, according to US census data on NetAdvantage, the age bracket demographic including 45-65 year-olds will make up 26% of the nation’s population by 2015. Companies are realizing this, and they are more strongly directing their marketing goals towards this specific age bracket. Perhaps businesses will emphasize skin repair and beauty products over other personal care products.

CPG companies also pay close attention to trends in household income. For example, while in 2008 20.5% of households made $100,000 or more, in 1970 only 7.7% of households made this much money and 22.6% of households made between $50,000 and $75,000. CPG companies must pay attention to these numbers when formulating marketing plans and target markets for their marketing. If more people have or are predicted to have more income in a particular year, companies must adjust accordingly.

http://www.netadvantage.standardandpoors.com/NASApp/NetAdvantage/showIndustrySurvey.do?code=hnd

Colgate-Palmolive's Procurement Group

According to Colgate-Palmolive's Web site, they are very committed to saving money on supply costs. They save on these costs year after year by buying from all kinds of companies from all over the world. These include man- and women-run businesses as well as minority-run businesses. Colgate strives for good supplier relationships that will surprise the stakeholders by lowering supply costs and thus making more profit.

By decreasing supply costs, Colgate-Palmolive are be able to spend more money elsewhere in place that more money is needed, or they are able to make the cost of the product lower and more affordable to the consumers. This, in turn, increases competition because people do not want to spend a lot of money on a product like toothpaste. Lowering costs for the consumer could switch some loyalties and confirm others.

http://www.colgate.com/app/Colgate/US/Corp/ContactUs/GMLS/HomePage.cvsp

Scented Consumer Products Shown to Emit Many Unlisted Chemicals

A study was recently done by University of Washington discovered that widely used fragrance products give off many chemicals that are not listed on the label, including some that are considered toxic. The study analyzed air fresheners, laundry products, fabric softeners, soaps, hand sanitizers, lotions, deodorants, all-purpose sprays, and dish detergent.  It was found that 25 commonly used scented products emit an average of 17 chemicals each. About 133 chemicals were detected and nearly a quarter are classified as toxic or hazardous under federal law. Researchers found that even some of the “green products” emitted just as many hazardous chemicals as other products. It was also found that more than a third of the products emitted at least one chemical classified as a probably carcinogen by the EPA. Manufacturers are not required to disclose any ingredients and the only product label was ethanol.

Although the study makes no claims about the possible health effects it was found in other surveys that about 20 percent of the population reported adverse health effects from air fresheners and about 10 percent complained of adverse effects from laundry products vented to the outdoors. If more people investigate these products, consumer product companies will be able to be blamed for possible health hazards. It’s surprising to hear that companies are willingly putting chemicals into their products that are considered toxic. As a consumer I find this very disturbing that I could potentially be breathing in or using products with toxic chemicals every day.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101026091559.htm

Growth in Profit, But Concerns Over Sales

Though margin profits have improved this past third quarter, according the Wall Street Journal, many companies are worried about the future prices. Commodity prices are on the rise, forcing many businesses to make difficult financial decisions. Whirlpool Corp. has decided to lower prices of products for consumers even though input prices rose. In the consumer products market, Procter and Gamble gross margin fell from 52.6% a year before to 51.8%. P&G are seeing their costs increase due to higher commodity costs, especially from paper pulp and plastic resin; the company is off-setting these costs by seeking out other areas within the company to cut expenses and to avoid raising prices. Though many businesses have seen an increase in profit margins, economists are skeptical as to how this will aid in lowering the unemployment rate or if the economy will see such increases next year.

Many of these companies claim to be cutting back within their businesses and lowering prices for their consumers, but they are increasing their marketing expenses (WSJ). Will the possible benefit of reaching out to more customers through advertisements override the expenses of the actual marketing?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704477904575586181999090898.html?mod=WSJ_Consumerproducts_leftHeadlines

L'Oreal's Mission

According to L'Oreal's web site, they have a pretty simple mission:

"At L’ORÉAL, we believe that everyone aspires to beauty. Our mission is to help men and women around the world realize that aspiration, and express their individual personalities to the full. This is what gives meaning and value to our business, and to the working lives of our employees.
We are proud of our work."

Overall, this mission is all about helping the consumer. If the consumer is happy, they are happy. They do this by making their products so that consumers can use them and be beautiful, inside and out. This mission, though not as detailed as some of the others we have seen in class, tells the consumer who they are and why the consumer should by L'Oreal's products. If they didn't have a mission statement that told the people that L'Oreal cares, people might not be so inclined to buy from them. This adds to competition because without a mission statement like this, they would not have as many customers and would not be such a large competitor in the Consumer Products Industry.

http://www2.lorealusa.com/_en/_us/html/our-company/mission.aspx?

P&G Corporate Structure

The P&G website portrays what aspects of the company’s structure make the consumer-packaged goods corporation a global and local power. P&G divides its efforts into four primary groups: Global Business Units (GBU’s), Market Development Organizations (MDO’s), Global Business Services (GBS’s), and Lean Corporate Functions. While the Global Business Units puts a strong focus on sustaining profitability in a more global sense, that is concerning shareholders, the Market Development Organizations are responsible for truly knowing consumers and retailers in specific regions. In addition to these two branches, the Global Business Services is more concerned with human resource management. P&G understands that the greater the talent level that its corporation reflects, the higher its productivity. The corporation hopes to reduce costs by sustaining these “best-in-class” partners. The last branch of the structure, the Lean Corporate Functions branch is concerned with continually innovating within the business to ensure improvements. P&G functions in a very competitive market, one in which product differentiation may be a predominantly a function of pricing strategies. For this reason, innovating products and maintaining brand awareness and loyalty is crucial. P&G’s corporate structure seems to impressively combine advantages of horizontal and vertical organizational structures. The company has a hierarchy; one can see this in its global functions versus internal motives; however, the branches incorporate a broad range of personnel, which fosters creativity and collaboration between partners.

http://www.pg.com/en_US/company/global_structure_operations/corporate_structure.shtml