One-on-One

Turning Intention to Action

How Procter & Gamble is making sustainability easier for its consumers

In mid-April, Procter & Gamble rolled out a new effort, It’s Our Home, focused on helping its consumers turn their intentions about living more sustainably into actions. The initiative includes more communication about sustainability, as well as revised product formulations and packaging that can be refilled or recycled more easily. Drug Store News spoke with Carolyn Tastad, P&G’s group president of North America, about It’s Our Home initiative and how the company is using its reach, innovation and expertise to make sustainable actions accessible to consumers.

Drug Store News: Can you tell us a bit about P&G’s new It’s Our Home initiative? Carolyn Tastad: Most of us want to do more to protect the planet, but we’re not always sure where to start. Through It’s Our Home, P&G and our brands are committing to use our voice, reach, innovation and expertise to make sustainability irresistible for consumers because we know that small actions at home can make a world of difference for our planet.

More than 70% of consumers want to do more to be sustainable at home, but 54% don’t make environmentally conscious choices as often as they’d like, and “not knowing how” is the biggest barrier. We can close this intention-to-action gap by making our products more sustainable and by inspiring simple habit changes. We’ve published tips and ideas at pggoodeveryday. com, which is our new consumer rewards program powered by P&G’s trusted brands. When consumers engage with P&G Good Everyday, they earn points that can be redeemed for rewards. As they earn, P&G makes donations to causes consumers care about. Through their actions on P&G Good Everyday, people can support environmental causes and other well-known P&G impact programs, such as Tide Loads of Hope and Children’s Safe Drinking Water.

Carolyn Tastad, group president of North America, P&G

“We know consumers expect the brands they buy to help them live a more sustainable lifestyle. We also know they don’t want to compromise.”

DSN: Why is it important for P&G to help play a role in bridging consumers’ intention-toaction gap, and how is the company uniquely suited to do this? CT: Consumers, stakeholders at large and our own employees expect companies to be a force for good and take action on issues that are important to them. P&G touches 5 billion consumers a day, which means we have a responsibility to help protect the planet and an opportunity to raise awareness, so that consumers can take action as well.

P&G’s sustainability efforts go beyond consumer use. Over the past 10 years, P&G has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 50%, reached zero manufacturing waste to landfill across all sites globally and doubled the use of recycled resin in its plastic packaging. Our 2030 goals include purchasing 100% renewable electricity, improving finished product transportation emissions efficiency by 50%, making 100% of packaging recyclable or reusable, and reducing virgin petroleum plastic packaging by 50%.

DSN: What are some of the ways you’re leveraging P&G’s well-known brands within It’s Our Home to help consumers take steps toward living more sustainably? CT: We know consumers expect the brands they buy to help them live a more sustainable lifestyle. We also know they don’t want to compromise — consumers want both sustainability benefits and superior product performance, with no tradeoffs. Our goal is to continue to do both — here are some examples: • Tide is formulated to get clothes clean in cold water — and turning to cold also saves energy and money; • Dawn Powerwash Dish Spray creates spray-activated suds without water to get dishes clean, so there’s no need to use the faucet until the final rinse; • Cascade encourages families to use the dishwasher more frequently with its “Do

It Every Night” campaign. A running sink can use up to 4 gallons of water every two minutes while most newer dishwashers use less than 4 gallons per cycle. So consumers can save up to 100 gallons a week by skipping the pre-rinse when using their dishwashers.

This decade represents a critical window to accelerate progress on sustainability, and meaningful change starts at home. P&G and our brands will continue to reduce our impact and help people be more sustainable to protect our planet — our shared home — for generations to come. dsn

Easing the Medicare Enrollment Process

How eHealth can help pharmacies’ patients navigate Medicare and Medicaid enrollment

Jeffrey Bekos, vice president of business development for pharmacy and provider channels at eHealth, said that his Santa Clara, Calif.based company can help retail pharmacies retain Medicare customers and provide Medicare savings. He talked with Drug Store News about how eHealth can provide services to retail pharmacists.

Drug Store News: Tell us about eHealth. Jeffrey Bekos: eHealth created the nation’s first online marketplace for health insurance in 1997. The technology we provide directly to consumers through eHealth.com, eHealthInsurance.com and eHealthMedicare. com, makes it easy for people to compare health insurance plans and to enroll in the plan of their choice. At eHealth, consumers can enroll in the plan of their choice online or with the aid of a licensed insurance agent over the phone. eHealth has connected more than 8 million people with quality, affordable health insurance. Our proprietary marketplace offers Medicare Advantage, Medicare Supplement, Medicare Part D prescription drug, individual, family, small business and other plans from over 200-plus health insurance carriers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

DSN: How does your company help the mass retail community? JB: We help pharmacies in three key areas:

The first is Medicare customer retention: We help pharmacies keep their Medicare customers filling scripts at their pharmacy because those customers are overwhelmed by competing offers to switch plans and pharmacies.

The second is Medicare customer savings: We help pharmacy customers review their coverage each year so that, when necessary, they can move into plans that save them money when they fill scripts at the pharmacy — on average, our customers

Jeffrey Bekos, vice president of business development for pharmacy and provider channels, eHealth

save more than $700 per year.

The third way we help pharmacies is to grow their Medicare customer base: We provide programs and resources to help pharmacies attract new Medicare customers who shop at their pharmacy today, but do not yet fill prescriptions.

DSN: How does the retailer educate the consumer in store and digitally? JB: COVID-19 has changed consumer shopping behavior. NACDS and WSL Strategic Retail research indicates that 83% of seniors are going online to research and shop for Medicare coverage. eHealth’s playbook helps our retail partners retain, acquire and improve patient loyalty. We use omnichannel marketing to help retailers ensure the highest conversion rates, along with high patient satisfaction. Tactics include in-store media, direct mail, email and text campaigns.

Every tactic is tracked independently with unique phone numbers and websites so we can effectively measure performance. We provide retailers with Medicare educational content — articles, videos and graphics — that they can brand and use on their website that provides helpful information regarding aging into Medicare. We also provide support for patients who are shopping so they understand key considerations while looking at plans. Our goal is to make the enrollment process as easy as possible.

DSN: Where is Medicare going in the future? What is your role? JB: We believe the future of Medicare will be driven in large measure by continued public/private partnership. Medicare Advantage, for example, is one of the very best examples of successful, innovative public/private partnerships in health care today, and increasing numbers of Medicare beneficiaries are signing up. In 2008, 9.7 million beneficiaries were enrolled in Medicare Advantage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. By 2020 that figure had grown to 24.1 million. Medicare Advantage plans are offered through private insurers that essentially manage enrollees’ Original Medicare Parts A and B benefits. These plans also typically fill in some of the coverage gaps of Original Medicare, most of which include prescription drug coverage, and many offer additional benefits that beneficiaries value.

There’s a lot of competition in the Medicare Advantage market. Costs have been driven down as a result, with many Medicare Advantage plans available at no cost (beyond the Part B premiums that are already typically taken from their Social Security check). At eHealth, we’ve been charting the increasing popularity of Medicare Advantage and reporting on costs and plan selection trends among enrollees for several years (see our latest report here: https://news.ehealthinsurance.com/_ ir/68/20211/Medicare_Index_Report_ AEP_2021_Coverage.pdf). dsn