How "Champions" Help P&G Cultivate a Design Culture LPK explains the importance of cultivating managers who understand the power of design to differentiate and build brand equity.
		In a July 2007 article written for Packworld.com, Phil Best, vice president of product design and innovation at LPK, explores how design is increasingly important to the success of brands, products and entire companies. Best describes how placing design "champions" at all levels of management in an organization (case in point: P&G) creates a culture that is conducive to building innovative, global leadership brands. LPK has helped several brands—including Tampax Pearl, Pampers, Zest, Glad and Dirt Devil—build strong global identities by elevating the importance of design. Packworld.com is the website for Packaging World magazine, a leading publication covering the business of food, beverage, cosmetic and pharmaceutical packaging.
		About Phil Best Phil Best, Chief Operating Officer, is a true veteran of brand design. Best spent the majority of his career at Procter & Gamble. He is credited with building the global design organization at P&G and establishing design as one of P&G’s core competencies. With Best’s counsel, LPK’s Product Design and Innovation group has grown significantly with visionary focus on consumer insights, trends and structured ideation.
		About LPK LPK is an international design agency where remarkable people Build Leadership Brands. By integrating strategy, design and innovation, LPK leverages relevant consumer, shopper and market insights to create value, sustain leadership and transform businesses. The agency’s portfolio of category-leading brands and long-term client relationships attracts some of the best and brightest creative minds in the world. LPK’s combination of strategic skills, creative disciplines and cross-cultural perspectives results in brand-building innovation across media, geography and time. With a presence in North America, Europe and Asia, LPK is the world’s largest employee-owned brand design agency. LPK has developed and managed brand design franchises for some of the world’s most successful businesses, including Gillette, Pampers, Olay, 3M, Jim Beam, IBM, Hershey, Coleman, U.S. Bank, AT&T, Kellogg, Novartis, Samsung, PepsiCo, and Kraft Foods. LPK’s independent spirit champions a vibrant creative culture, recognized by The Wall Street Journal as a “Winning Workplace” and described by HOW Magazine as “one of the largest and most influential branding agencies on the planet.” Contact: www.lpk.com.