Looks like somebody did a little market research and didn’t like the trending. This sort of thing takes a while to show up, and I’m sure the general outlook at the P&G boardroom was that they could afford to take a hit temporarily if the ads ended them up with more new customers than the old who might have been driven away. Frankly I was surprised the hit they took right out of the box seemed to be so small, but you can’t always trust a company’s declared sales figures.
Many, if not most big companies use focus groups, to test new products or corporate ads/programs.
The have regular customers, potential customers and undecided customers in participating in their focus groups programs.
If done properly, these focus groups can determine if new actions/programs will help the company or hurt it re lost sales.