Product Post #1-Presentation Topic: International Product and Services Marketing

Got Water? 2005 Stockholm Industry Water Award Honours Procter & Gamble's Life Saving PUR

Chapter 9 in Kotler & Armstrong’s Principles of Marketing 10th Edition (pgs 304-306) highlights the complexities of developing products for international marketing. Challenges to product and service developers include compatibility with culture, infrastructure and language. There are very few products or services that would translate easily from one culture to another but Procter & Gamble (P&G Home) has managed to hone in on such a basic and universal necessity, that it is no surprise that they have achieved international recognition for their efforts.

Procter & Gamble won the 2005 Stockholm Industry Water Award for their PUR-Purifier of Water® Treatment Product. The product is “designed for use in the developing world where over 1 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water and an estimated two million children die each year [from] preventable diarrhoeal diseases…”. The award, given annually since 2000 by the Stockholm Water Foundation in collaboration with the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, goes to businesses that minimize water consumption, prevent pollution and make lasting contributions to water sector development.
The PUR-Purifier of Water ® Treatment Product is available at low cost US$ 0.10 (EUR 0.09) per 10L treatment and requires no special equipment to use. The product is delivered in small sachets. PUR® requires some training from health care workers which Procter & Gamble co-ordinates with relief agencies using the product. Procter & Gamble involved multiple partners in the non-governmental, local and national government, health agency, charitable and disaster relief sectors to create a holistic approach to manufacturing, distributing and educating users about this product. They created a low cost solution to safe drinking water in disaster relief and chronically deficient areas. The product has proven successful, with 3 million litres of safe drinking water in Haiti alone. P&G developed a product that satisfies the ultimate human need for safe drinking water and went the many extra miles to make sure that the product reaches those people who need it the most. Read the Press Release from Stockholm International Water Institute . I discovered this interesting story through a search of Yahoo! News .

General Interest Post #1-Some fun quizes about business trivia.

Just in case you have nothing else to do (not likely) and you want to distract yourself (quite possibly), here is a link to some cute 5-10 minute quizes about your knowledge of various aspects of business trivia.

Enjoy!

The Biz Quiz

2nd Introductory Post-Test post with Hyperlink to outside site

Hello,

I am attempting to hyperlink to my work
Division of Trauma & Surgical Critical Care, Deparment of Surgery, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Just in case that worked, I am also including links to my two websites for a non-profit charitable organization of which I am president ( in my spare time) dedicated to providing scholoarships to Catholic Elementary Schools.

Official site of the OLOLPA is OLOLPA
The "old" site for the OLOLPA is OLOL Alumni

Assuming these links work, you are more than welcomed to visit the site, post on our message board (old site only) and even join the organiztion if you are so inclined.

I am transitioning from the old site to the new site and would appreciate commentary to improve the sites' utility and content especially from the perspective of individuals who are not familiar with the organization.

Thanks.

1st Introductory Post-Welcome to my Blog!

Hello All,

Thank you for visiting this blog. I look forward to participating in this class although I'm a bit overwhelmed with this blog-thing. Hopefully, a) I'm not alone and b) I'll be very comfortable with it by semester's end.

I work at the University of Pennsylvania, Department of Surgery, Division of Traumatology & Surgical Critical Care. My boss, Dr. Vicente Gracias and I are hoping to strengthen and expand the current research efforts of Surgical Critical Care here at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, part of the University of Pennsylvania Health System.

This blog and its content is a partial requirement of MKTG 411-910/MKTG 011-910 Introduction to Marketing course taught by Alex Brown. This course is itself part of the Wharton Programs for Working Professionals.



Take care,
am