P.&G.’s Chief on Whether Brand Loyalty Is Enough When Prices Keep Climbing

The New York Times ^ | 4th October 2026 | jordyn Holman

[Cronos]

Sales growth at P.&G. has slowed for years as households with lower incomes are increasingly turning to store brands, which are usually priced lower than P.&G.’s products.

At the same time, tariffs and rising energy costs caused by geopolitical conflicts have added costs to P.&G.’s operations and its sprawling global supply chain. In response, the company has raised prices and laid off workers. Last year, it said it was cutting 7,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its work force, over the next two years as it looked to reorganize amid the changing dynamics.

My experience from emerging markets is sometimes we think the lower-income consumer is not willing to pay for performance. Actually sometimes they are more willing to pay for performance because for them, failure is not an option. If I don’t have tons of clothes, I absolutely need those clothes to come out clean.

Tide liquids is more expensive than many brands in the market. To earn the loyalty, we need to make sure consumers feel that performance is something that we would never trade. But we have to earn it, and we have to earn it every day.

What kind of work do you see A.I. eliminating?

We find certain work can completely go away, but certain work suddenly pops up. I’ll give you a simple example. I can move a lot of my manufacturing lines to autonomous manufacturing. In those cases, we are actually redeploying more of those people on innovation.

There’s another case where, on brand building, the number of people we now need to generate the stuff is dramatically increased. The brand building space is where we are adding the most number of people right now.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS:

[Cronos]

Do you buy branded stuff? Or prefer store labels?

[Sacajaweau]

I’m 82...I just bought Tide...but couldn’t afford it when I had all my children and used the cheaper kind.

[Sacajaweau]

I shop at Aldi and Walmart. If I buy brands, it’s usually cuz they’re on sale.

[Paladin2]

P&G has gone Indian?

[drwoof]

Almost exclusively branded. I have found the quality to be higher. I do buy some store brands of some items. The local chain grocery store makes outstanding sourdough bread, so I buy that. Their canned fruit and veggies are good, too, and when on sale a good bargain. Kirkland stuff from Costco is good, generally. My brand loyalty bent started back when I was in college. While I was poor and eating ALOT of potatoes, rice, and whatever cheap fuel I could get ahold of, I once bought some store brand dish soap instead of the high grade stuff I generally used. It was absolute crap. That lesson stuck, perhaps better than it should have.

[devane617]

Take a look at Flowers Food...Sunbeam Bread etc (FLO) on the stock exchange for the past couple years and you will see what happens when prices increase...Loyal buyers jump to a cheaper brand.

[scenicsoap]

The quality of name brands has steadily gone downhill. One example is I have used Charmin toilet paper most of my life but have now switched to Cottonelle. A local store uses Scotts (I think it was) and I may try that.

Charmin-The toilet rolls are narrower, shed lots of dust particles and leave pilling in wiped areas.

I wish some manufacturers would leave things alone.

[devane617]

Take a look at COKE company sales lately...with $16 per 24 pack at WMT...Sams Cola is really surging in WMT sales. At some point customers will turn to other less expensive products.

[equaviator]

Levi jeans. I’ve been finding them at local Salvation Army stores. Sometimes they’re brand new with original tags on them. Can’t beat the price and not all sales are final as long as you bring the receipt back with an item you’d rather exchange for something else.

[Brian Griffin]

Detergent products should be required by federal law to state on their labels the percentages that exceed 1% of cleaning agents in them.

[Mogger]

When I was poor, I always converted all of the lubricants in every vehicle I bought to Amsoil immediately as I couldn't afford the lower fuel economy from whatever was in the vehicles.

Now that I'm not poor, after buying a new Jeep, for the first time ever, I let the dealership do the "free" first three oil changes.

I know that caused lower gas mileage, poorer performance and more wear, maybe wasn't such a good idea.

[Socon-Econ]

Where there is no real difference between products, brand loyalty just makes you poorer.

[Dalberg-Acton]

I’ve boycotted all P&G products since Gillette released the controversial “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” commercial on January 13, 2019.

The short film by Procter & Gamble (P&G) addressed topics like bullying, sexual harassment, and “toxic masculinity”.

[Dr. Sivana]

Do you buy branded stuff? Or prefer store labels?

There's lots of in-between. My wife moved from P&G Tide unscented to All Unscented. All is a name brand too, but is cheaper than Tide. Not as good, but good enough. I remember the '70s. We are seeing a repeat.

[Terry L Smith]

There are items in stores with labels, some store brands, and some independent labels that fit both purpose and pocket change.

[Cronos]

The same here - at that time and for 4 years prior I used to provide analytics for them.

Their focus was on “the billion dollar brands” - and the focus was on how to reduce cost inventory, improve ‘eyeball and display positioning’ and planograms. The budget for the actual product improvements was lower....

so I shifted to dollar shave and to store brands and quite frankly I don’t think i miss the brands at all

[Cronos]

[ClearCase_guy]

P&G profits seem OK:

P&G stock value seems OK:

If the company has concerns, they could probably cut their prices and be more competitive.

[Paladin2]

The legend doesn’t describe a filled in black dot.

They have a facility in Canaduh’s NWT?

[ConservativeMind]

Apparently.

H-1Bs on steroids. They get promoted because they help their diversity numbers and because it’s not their original home country, they walk the company line.