• Smart Money, Adweek, Friday, May 28, 2010 9:45 AM

Dyan Machan takes a look around Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald's office and finds that, like many executives, he's filled it with reminders of his extended family. Crest, Tide, Gillette, etc. But as excellent as his offspring may be historically in the marketplace, McDonald needed a spoonful of Pepto-Bismol to digest last year's results as consumers turned to cheaper alternatives.

As a result, not only is P&G beefing up its marketing and pushing product development, McDonald is chatting about it. McDonald's says that single-use sizes are a good fit for consumers in developing countries, that the companying is "innovating at every point in the value pyramid," and that its strategy is to grow markets that don't exist. "Most babies in the world don't wear disposable diapers," he points out.

McDonald tells Machan that in five years the company will have more categories in more countries and that it will have created more categories overall like it did with Swiffer. But he declined to say exactly what the next Swiffer might be. End of Q&A.

Eleftheria Parpis, meanwhile, reports in Adweek that P&G's Pantene named the winner of its first "Reality Hair Star Contest" with a live TV ad broadcast Tuesday on NBC's season finale of "The Biggest Loser: Couples." It was the kick-off of a re-launch of the hair-care product with the tagline, "Put it to the test."

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