Wal-Mart, P&G team up to make family-friendly TV programming

Bentonville, Ark. Wal-Mart Stores and Procter & Gamble Co. are teaming up to produce “family-friendly” television programming to advertise dog food, batteries and cereal sold by the companies.

The first venture will be a two-hour movie on the NBC network April 16. The adventure movie, “Secrets of the Mountain,” features a single mother and her three children who use P&G’s Duracell batteries for flashlights and feed their dog the company’s Iams pet food. Meanwhile, the family eats breakfast cereal from Wal-Mart’s Great Value private-label brand.

The collaboration stemmed from research by the Association of National Advertisers showing only 23% of consumers were satisfied with the amount of family-oriented TV programming, the companies said. In a separate study by Wal-Mart and P&G, 85% of viewers said they would go out of their way to find family-friendly shows.