Procter & Gamble (P&G)
Febreze “Breathe Happy Campaign Launch”
1. Apply the principles of perception to the three insights listed in the case.
Consumers act and react on the basis of their perceptions, not on the basis of reality. Each
customer has different wants, needs, values, and personal experiences, so no two people
have the same reality. With that being said the consumers’ perceptions are much more
important than their knowledge of objective reality. For if one thinks about it, it is not what
actually is so, but what consumers think is so, that affects their actions and their buying
habits.
First Febreze got the attention of their target market. They realized that the threat of
malodors did not only make them uncomfortable, but triggered passionate descriptions of
unpleasant smells, reflecting their disgust of uncleanliness. They used the stimulus of bad
smells and uncleanliness to get the attention of consumers, which is a prerequisite of
perception. Next P&G applied the application that perception is the anchor for branding.
Information gathered from in-home interviews helped P&G gain insight that a
messy-looking home can still be clean, but a smelly home can never be clean. The
sensation or stimulus of Febreze being sprayed in a home hits most people’s sensory
receptors and allow them to evaluate the house as being clean because it has no true odors,
despite the home not being cleaned. Finally when shoppers were observered in stores it
revealed that consuemers were spraying the product in the asile after picking it off the
shelf. This was an application of Hedonism a sensory trigger. Most people had to smell the
scent after they picked it up. They had a consumption pleasure associated with smelling
the scent before they put it in the cart.
2. Are the three objectives aimed at repositioning Febreze? Explain your answer.
I would consider the three objectives discussed as an aim to slightly reposition Febreze.
They did not really want to make a distinct change in the consumers’ mind they more so
wanted to reinforce their goals and gain more attention. Repositioning is needed when
companies feel that the consumer has got to use to the original positioning and it no longer
stands out in their minds, or when consumers have forgotten about the product because
competitors stress the same benefit in their positioning, so marketers must freshen up their
brands’ identities and that is what Febreze did. They want to restore faith in their
