Thursday, March 12, 2009

Procter & Gamble Co. marketers have teamed with companies from Facebook to Google to sell T-shirts for charity while exploring online potential.

The world's largest advertiser hosted a "digital night" Wednesday. Some 40 people from social networking and Internet-focused companies, as well as research firms, joined 100 P&G employees in a four-hour exercise in which teams worked to sell online.

P&G has been active online for years. But the consumer products maker says it wants to do more as the potential audience grows rapidly through such networks as Facebook and MySpace and the rise of Twitter, in which people communicate with brief updates.

Some 2,000 Tide T-shirts had been sold at $20 each by early Thursday, benefiting a Tide detergent program that provides mobile laundry service in disaster areas.