• Ad Age, Friday, March 2, 2007 11:30 AM

Procter & Gamble' CMO says that brands today need to be authentic, trustworthy and generous in the midst of a major cultural shift. As a result, P&G is turning into a starter of conversations and a solver of consumers' problems, rather than a one-way communicator, he says.

Addressing a 4As Media Conference and Trade Show audience in Las Vegas yesterday, Stengel's keynote opened with his Second Life avatar visiting the virtual Leo Burnett, the marketer's real-world ad agency. There were plenty of references for the need to understand such two-way, community-oriented technologies. Stengel noted that his travels to Korea have shown him the potential for the "complete irrelevance of what we call traditional media."

(See Online Media Daily Commentary: Second Life, March 2)

"It's not about telling and selling," he says. "It's about bringing a relationship mind-set to everything we do." Describing a trust-starved world, Stengel says that "generous brands" -- a coinage he attributed to Fitch Branding -- will be winners. As examples, he referenced Starbucks composting its coffee grounds and Amazon posting users reviews.

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