The CMO of the world’s biggest advertiser offered a surprising confession about the effect of his company’s advertising on people. “We were annoying the hell out of people,” said Procter & Gamble CMO Mark Pritchard, speaking today at VivaTech18 in Paris.

“P&G’s research found that the CPG giant only needed to reach the average person three times per month, but many people received 10 to 20 ads per month,” MediaPost reports. “This unnecessary barrage (some would say harassment) helped to spark a P&G marketing transformation focused on four key action points, said Pritchard.”

The first action point was to target smaller audiences, such as first-time homeowners or new moms, MediaPost reports.

Said Pritchard: “We still need to reach a lot of people with our brands,” said Pritchard. “People still need to clean their clothes and brush their teeth, but data and analytics is ensuring our precision.”

The executive added: “This may sound like common sense, but we have now reached an inflection point where we can precision target audiences.”

Other action points concern limiting clutter and noise, dealing with issues in the marketer-agency relationship and working toward marketing that can be a force for good as well as growth. Please click on the link above to MediaPost for details.