Procter & Gamble Forms Marketing Company

Procter & Gamble Co. said it will use the Internet to leverage marketing expertise accumulated during 160 years of selling soap, toothpaste and other products to consumers worldwide. The nation’s largest marketer of consumer goods will team with Worldwide Magnifi Inc. of Los Gatos, Calif., to develop proprietary software that companies can use to speed goods to market. The new stand-alone company, which has a working name of Project Enterprise Marketing Management, will have about 80 employees and will be jointly owned by Procter & Gamble and Magnifi. The new company will try to build an online business-to-business system that will give marketers and their business partners immediate access to documents, data, video clips and other information, said Dan Maurer, a Procter & Gamble manager who will serve as the company’s president. He said the system could chop between 20% and 40% off the time needed to introduce new products. Procter & Gamble shares closed up 31 cents at $69.44 on the NYSE.