Good day, and welcome to today's Colgate-Palmolive Company Second Quarter 2010 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time for opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Ms. Bina Thompson. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you, David and good morning, everybody. And welcome to our second quarter 2010 earnings release conference call. With me this morning are Ian Cook, Chairman, President and CEO; Steve Patrick, CFO; Dennis Hickey, Corporate Controller; and Elaine Paik, Treasurer. This conference call will include forward-looking statements. These statements were made on the basis of our views and assumptions as of this time and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual events or results may differ materially from these statements. For information about certain factors that could cause such differences, investors should consult our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on our website, including the information set forth under the captions, Risk Factors and Cautionary Statements on Forward-looking Statements. And we'll discuss our results and outlook, excluding the one-time charge of $271 million related to the transition to hyper-inflationary accounting in Venezuela as of January 1, 2010. We'll also discuss organic sales growth, excluding foreign exchange, acquisitions and divestitures. A full reconciliation with the corresponding GAAP measures is included in the press release, and it's posted on the Investor Relations page of our website at www.colgate.com. We'll be glad to answer any questions you may have including or excluding these items, as you wish. We are pleased that we continue to deliver solid results despite slowly growing economies in many parts of the world of foreign exchange headwinds and continuing challenges in Venezuela. These factors obviously affected our top line growth with organic sales up 3.5%. Pleasingly, we are still seeing stronger growth in developing markets. Our gross profit margin was flat year-over-year and was significantly affected by Venezuela, which provided a drag on the total company margin of 90 basis points. A portion of this is the result of…

[Operator Instructions] We'll go first to Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

I guess, just on the trade promotion spend and the competitor environment, how should we look at this quarter compared to earlier in the year and how you see the rest of the year playing out? I mean, has it gotten better? Has it stabilized? Or is this, kind of, the new normal in terms of competitive stand that you're just going to have to keep matching the competitors for the next two, three, four quarters?

I think, Bill, to sort of put that in a broader context, and then I will come back and answer the direct question. I think the trends in our, shall we say, consumer engagement spending or commercial investment have been clear for some time. We have said that as part of our communications strategy, particularly in the developed world where we are seeing slower growth, a lot of consumer engagement is happening at the store level. So we have always been quite strategically conscious of having shopper marketing programs at retail, which of course comes out of trade spending, and is not measured in the traditional A&P. And as we have seen our A&P progress, the traditional media spending has been led by the emerging markets where the consumer engagement is more that, direct-to-consumer advertising. If you talk about trade promotional activity on top of that, we have, I think, said before that there was that activity in the marketplace, that it seemed to be quite focused on household product categories. Those that have a very direct volume impact. And I must say that we have seen an uptick in promotional activity in the second quarter across a broader array of categories. We have responded to that with the in-store shopper marketing programs that I have mentioned. And as we look out to the balance of the year, we have used the second quarter as a guide for our developed market activity in this regard. So if we look at our A&P spending going forward, we're going to see A&P up, both absolutely and as a percent of sales, but within that, we're going to see more of the at-retail activity in the developed world, while the emerging market will see strong traditional media investment. So going forward, there will indeed be more of that focus in the developed world.

We'll go next to Doug Lane with Jefferies. Douglas Lane - Jefferies & Company, Inc.: Can you break down the total company outlook for your top line growth this year between volumes, pricing and organic sales growth? And secondly in your gross margin commentary, it sounds like you're still looking for expansion, but maybe not getting fully to the 60% for the full year, so I read that as, kind of, a tick down in your gross margin outlook. Is that due solely to the second quarter? Or is there a change in the lay of the land that might impact gross margins in the back half?

If I start with the gross margin, obviously, as we try to identify, a significant drag in the second quarter was Venezuela. As Bina explained in her prepared remarks, that drag lessens over the balance of the year. And we see ourselves with our traditional funding of the growth programs, increase our gross margin. And we will be around that 60% level by the end of the year, which is what we had said on the last call. So holding to the, around 60% by the end of the year, not for the year average. In terms of the growth of the company, again responding to what we have seen in the second quarter, where in the developed world, we have seen a slowdown in our categories by about a point or so, perhaps in harmony with the economic landscape. And our sense for the balance of the year is that we will still be within our 4% to 7% volume range, but towards the lower end of that range.

Our next question is Chris Ferrara with Bank of America.

Just wanted to ask about -- so SG&A x advertising and your other expense line, together they look like they got about 100 basis points better. I guess, in light of the fact that sales had decelerated. What's driving that better leverage this quarter?

I think Chris, simply said, it is our unremitting focus on finding cost savings. And largely, those cost savings are in our overhead area. So we are simply, as part of our strategy, being more efficient in how we invest in the overhead area.

Our next question is Joe Altobello with Oppenheimer. Joseph Altobello - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc.: Just a quick question on the market slowdown, Ian, you just cited. Is that new for 2Q? And is that mostly Europe? Or are you also seeing that slowdown exacerbate in North America as well?

It is a change in the second quarter, and it is across Europe and the United States as well. And it's about a percentage point in both cases. The emerging markets continue to be quite strong, high single, low-double digits, which of course, is encouraging, given the global breadth of our business.

And our next question comes from Ali Dibadj with Bernstein.

You did mention how much Venezuela hurt on volumes in Latin America, but you didn't mentioned how much it helped on price? So if you guys clarify that, that would be great. And the other real question is, as it sounds like more and more investment is needed to be -- [indiscernible] of the market, whether it be shipping from advertising to above the line or what have you, first to defend competition and defend the, I guess, slow down in the consumer, I'm trying to understand how much more you're going to need to invest, particularly as it sounds like it's spreading? And I guess I asked that on the context of, kind of, your level of certainty on making our double-digit EPS growth for this year and going forward, which you've, sort of, publicly said you would do?

I can answer the first question quickly, and that is we don't break that out, so you can see the effects of Latin America, in terms of our price as we show the division and the rest of the world. And given the environment we have just talked about, our expectation going forward is that we would see pricing modestly negative for most of our geographies with the exception of Latin America, going forward. Now when you turn to the consumer and what is required to engage and entice the consumer, both from a marketplace point of view and a competitive point of view, there is more at play than simply advertising. Of course, we feel that we have a very strong innovation flow for the back half of the year starting in this quarter, and part of engaging in consumers is having a strong flow of products. Then you come to the engagement. And as I said earlier, in terms of engagement in the developed world, in a slower economic environment, we are seeing increasingly consumers making decisions at the point of purchase. And therefore, your best way of engaging is to do it at the retail level, and our plans for the balance of the year, consistent with our strategy, assume that. And with that shift in the developed markets, our total advertising increases on an absolute basis and on a percentage to sales basis, driven more by the emerging markets where the traditional media engagement still applies. Now all of that said, and we feel quite comfortable with that decision, obviously we have absorbed the additional impact to Venezuela and the headwinds we faced from a currency point of view, keeping our advertising at levels we believe are competitive. Indeed, as a traditional share invoice analysis, we do show that our spend levels are quite healthy year-to-date, and our market shares are quite strong. All of that said, absorbing those pressures and maintaining what we believe to be the right focus on advertising for the balance of the year, we have indeed reaffirmed the double digit, but in that environment, it's a double digit closer to the 10%.

Next question is Ed Kelly with Crédit Suisse. Edward Kelly - Crédit Suisse AG: Ian, could you provide more color on the issue with the resizing and repricing of the Hill's business? And I'm specifically interested in the strategy behind it. And then, why it took a bit longer to rollout?

Yes, I guess there's a couple of things to say, again, in the broader context with Hill's. The repricing and resizing is an important part of a corrective strategy when we knew we had gone one price increase too far. So as Bina said, for the balance of this year, new product activity supported by commercial investment to the consumer. And some of these larger promotional events, like the German one that Bina mentioned, are very important parts of our Hill's business recovery and growth. Now when you turn to the specific pricing and sizing, the pricing we were able to effect at the shelf quite efficiently. The sizing, unfortunately, has taken us longer. And the objective of doing both was to return our relative pricing compared to other premium products in the channels in which we distribute to historical levels, i.e., before the price increase we took that was one price increase too far. And as I said while the pricing was reasonably easy to execute, the sizing took us longer to get to the retail shelf than we would have wanted. And then to the point Bina made with a two-month purchase cycle, the rebuying of bags ends up being pushed out of the quarter. And as Bina also said, at the end of the quarter, we have seen quite a nice run-up in terms of the unit purchases. But simply said, if the consumer was buying nine bags a year before, she's now going to have to buy 10 bags. So your pick up from a volume point of view is somewhat delayed. And it was that slowness in getting it to the retail shelf against our original projections and the interval approaches that has pushed the recovery back a little bit to the flat scenario that Bina mentioned earlier. So that was really the crux of the matter.

Your next question is Bill Schmitz with Deutsche Bank.

The gross margin bridge -- I don't want to waste my question on that one, but if you're feeling charitable, that would be great. And then the other question is, I know when Procter bought to what normal BU [ph] this Project Achilles [ph] to really drive your toothbrush share. Is there a similar sort of holistic global plan to try to address the receptive spending pretty much globally in toothpaste now? And if you can add any details on it, that would be great also.

Well, let me be charitable. So the margin bridge runs as follows: prior year, obviously 58.8%, pricing picked up 20 basis points, funding the gross savings of 1.6, basically offset material prices of 1.7 and that saw us back at the 58.8%. And as we said, Venezuela was basically 90 basis points of that from a transaction of view. Turning back to the Project Achilles [ph], we don't have any Greek-coded plans in a holistic context. But we do have a global strategy and specific set of programs that we deploy when faced with competitive activities in specific markets. We have deployed them before and I think they are understood and well tested and as Bina said, Brazil continues to perform very well, we believe, from a share point of view. And in Mexico, we are still north of 82 share points as the competitors cyclically has back up to 12, 13, which is exactly the kind of curves we have seen historically with the activity. So suffice to say, we do have specific global plans that we deploy to each market condition in our Oral Care category and part of it is when that category comes under attack. But part of it is us picking markets in which we want to grow our share or we want to establish a category expansion position as with mouthwash. And China share is growing. India share is growing. Brazil share is growing. And in Russia, we're holding a strong 34 leadership position and bringing toothbrushes and mouthwash along behind it. So it's a combination of a global plan deployed by country in response to competitive activity and then it's selective plans by market to grow our businesses by segment, country by country. So I guess, the short answer would have been, yes, we do.

Next question is John Faucher with JPMorgan. John Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co: If I'm looking at my model correctly, it looks like the European comp gets -- from a volume standpoint, gets dramatically more difficult in Q3 versus Q2. And I think you're guiding for roughly similar volume growth. So can you talk a little bit about what you see there that's going to drive that sequential improvement in the underlying performance?

Yes, it is specifically an innovation flow, John. I think some of which, Bina talked about, along with the strengthened integrated marketing activity that we have across the year, the balance of the year and the plans developed with retailers against those. So it is innovation joint business plans with customers, behind increased commercial investment.

And we'll go to our next question Lauren Lieberman with Barclays Capital.

Just actually wanted to continue on Europe. One thing is that in the quarter and in your remarks, you've said that the categories, while they slowed categories are still up and your shares are up. But your organic sales was down in the quarter in Europe, and a very significant deceleration sequentially. So what kind of -- can you just give me a little more color, I guess, maybe on the quarter? And then what change the significantly sequentially because that doesn't look like a 1.4 than in market growth, that looks like something more.

There is nothing that stands out from a sequential point of view that I can talk to, Lauren. It is a slowdown in the category growth, maybe there is some timing of activity, but nothing material that I can point to.

But from 7% volume in Q1, Q1 and a half and Q2, so was there are lot of shifting for Pro Sensitive that helped Q1 and...

Let me put that into context. The fact of the matter is in the first quarter of 2009, we had a very weak point of comparison because we had, at that point in time, some fairly meaningful, shall we say, altercations with some retail partners, that saw us without product at retail in some categories. And certainly, far lower levels of promotional activity than we had. So that was the reason for the, I would say, abnormally high comparison, first-quarter-on-first-quarter. Second quarter, if you take an underlying volume rate in Europe at between 2% and 3% then that comparison for the second quarter alone, I think tracks quite well with a category. So it was an aberration of comparison, first quarter to first quarter last year, driven by trade situations rectified in the first quarter of 2010.

Next question is Jason Gere with RBC Capital Markets.

Just a question on the advertising in the quarter. I was wondering if you can just kind of rank in the buckets, when you look at the 1% spend, I mean how much was affected by, one, I guess the magnitude of the Q1 spend which was up over 30%. Two, some of the shift to promotional spending. And then three, was there difficulty getting inventory, just with the World Cup going on, had been hearing that a lot of the media rates went up? I just want to see if that was actually a factor as well?

The World Cup was not a factor, particularly given the early exit of the U.S. and England. So it was not a factor. If you kind of profile the second quarter advertising, I would make a couple of observations. I think I have painted the strategic framework of how we think about advertising and how one engages with consumers in the developed markets versus the emerging markets to give some texture around that from a geographic point of view and where the spending is point of view. The advertising, and now I'm talking the traditional A&P below the line, as you would see it increase in the emerging markets, strong double digits. In the developed markets, we spent competitively. But we moved spending into shopper marketing programs at retail. And our overall commercial investment grew high single digits on a global basis driven by the developed market. So that's the profile we're seeing in terms of how best it is to engage with the consumer and that's how we're thinking about the balance of the year.

Next question is Connie Maneaty with BMO Capital.

I think you'd probably expect a Venezuela question out of me. What I'm wondering is if you could sort of put market conditions in context in Venezuela if you think the impact is going to be limited to this year? Or will there be some operating spillover into next year? And if you're still getting the preferential rate?

The answer is, as we think about Venezuela from an operating point of view, even though this is a soft comment, I think our people down there are doing an absolutely terrific job in very challenging and difficult circumstances. As we think about the balance of this year going forward, we recognize what happened in the second quarter. And although our market share has continued to be quite strong, toothpaste at 94%, Venezuela consumption is of course under pressure. The margin will improve, as we said, because of that change in hyperinflationary accounting. And we have modified our investment over the balance of the year in harmony with that. We are still getting the preferential rate at that 2.6 level, quite a sizable sum, allowing us to continue to operate the business. You well know that there are elections in September of this year, and would I think be irresponsible of me to talk about 2011. As we see how this unfolds, we will provide, I think, the customary early advice that we have all the way along on Venezuela, as we get a better sight on 2011. But that's how we're thinking about 2010 and the access continues even if the process is a little bit slow.

And I don't know if you mentioned this, but what did Venezuela cost EPS in the second quarter?

We didn't mention it, and we wouldn't mention it. We gave the guidance for the year.

Next question is Alice Longley with Buckingham Research.

My question is about North America. You said that categories have weakened here from the first into the second quarter and yet your volume was still up 5%. And we've seen in some other companies that shipments have started to be up more than sell-throughs because some retailers are restocking, particularly the biggest one in America. And I'm wondering if you've seen any of that or expect to see any of that in the second half, meaning do you think your shipments have been or will be up more than your sales at retail?

I think that's difficult to project. We haven't historically and don't believe so far, have seen that kind of restocking swings to any magnitude. That, of course, will depend on strategies that retailers deploy over the second half of this year. As you know, we have seen a shift in terms of the consumers' buying habits to more of the so-called mass club and the dollar retail outlets. And again, we'll just have to see how those strategies from the retailer's perspective play out in the second half of the year. But I don't think -- I know we're not planning for, and I don't think we would suggest that there would be an inventory imbalance, let's say.

Our next question comes from Andrew Sawyer with Goldman Sachs.

I was going to follow up again on the topic of weaker U.S. and European category sales. And my question is that we've seen a pretty broad increase in promotional spending from your sales in a lot of your competitors. What are your metric say about the effectiveness of that promotion in this sort of consumer environment? Are you seeing abnormally low volume lift as you promote? Or is there something else going on that's driving that category deterioration?

Yes, well, part of it -- I mean, from a value point of view, obviously part of the category deterioration is promotional activity itself, not compensated for by volume lift. I think the answer to that question strategically and why we have been so cautious over time in terms of this promotional arena, is you have to ask yourself the question -- which is the question you're asking -- what is the most engaging way of reaching the consumers at retail? And many of the programs that we tried to structure, albeit executed at retail seek to bring a conceptual value, not just a price value, so that there is more of an equity build than simply a price-related volume build, which may be a transfer from one store to another or will suffer the peaks and valleys in future periods. And when we do that, we see good lift. We see good lift on traditional promotional activities too, but those tend to be shorter term and you do them in order to protect your business from what you see from competitors. But ultimately, our belief and my belief, even though we are assuming it's for the balance of this year, is that manufacturers will have to move away from that and back to brand building through engagement, not price promotion.

Next question is Jon Andersen with William Blair. Jon Andersen - William Blair & Company L.L.C.: Pricing and aggregate improved slightly from first to second quarter in light of your commentary on developed markets and incremental shopper marketing programs. How do you see pricing playing out in the second half of the year and the full year?

I think we covered this a little bit earlier. We would see the balance of the year, from a price point of view, in line with our historical average, which is less than a percentage point for the full year. And that really is composed of, as I mentioned earlier, pricing that would be positive in Latin America and part of that, of course, is Venezuela. And yet pricing in the other divisions, particularly the developed world, reflecting the shift of activity to trade spending, the so-called above-the-line investment at retail shopper marketing engagement program. So positive in Latin America, modestly negative in the rest of the world, driven by that strategic shift in the developed markets and under a percentage point for the year all up.

Next question is Nik Modi with UBS.

It's actually Mike Kwon for Nik. Could you just give us some perspective on Lat Am [Latin America] volume momentum outside of the 400 basis point drag from Venezuela, I mean did you see a slowdown in marketing growth as well? Just trying to reconcile the volume trends with your commentary on market share gains.

Yes, from a volume point of view, we didn't see much of a slowdown from a -- yes, we didn't see much of a slowdown in Latin America or at all, nor in the rest of the emerging markets and every other geography in Latin America was up. So which was why we called out the drag of Venezuela, because we're actually quite pleased with our continued volume growth in Latin America x Venezuela and, of course, share progress as well.

So would you say there's nothing really to look at behind, going from 8% last quarter to 5%, if you put back in the 400 from Venezuela?

That's basically yes.

Next question is Linda Bolton with Caris. Linda Weiser - Caris & Company: Do you have any estimation of when you would get FDA approval for your Sensitive toothpaste in the U.S.? And if not, can you tell us when you filed?

Well, as is customary with these things, Linda, we are in conversation with the FDA, as is part of a customary process, and I have nothing I can comment on relative to timing. When we have a clearer view on that, you will be amongst the first to know.

Next question is a follow up from Chris Ferrara with Bank of America.

Ian, on the ad spending, I know you said that it would be -- I think you said it would be up as a percentage of sales over the rest of the year. I think you were referring to both media advertising and the gross to net promotional spending, but can you just clarify that?

No, Nik (sic) [Chris], I'm glad you asked the follow-up question. Earlier, I was trying to say from a strategy point of view, we are deploying investment in the gross to net, as you call it, the trade spending, particularly in the developed world to engage with consumers, where they increasingly make their purchase decision in a slowing economy. The number I was talking about was the traditional Advertising & Promotion, which is exclusive of the gross to net, the number that we customarily talk about. And I was saying that, that, which is to say advertise, media and promotion will be up absolutely and as a percent of sales for the balance of the year. Led by the emerging markets as in the developed world, we put more of our investment into those shopper marketing programs at retail.

We'll go to our next question from Mark Astrachan with Stifel, Nicolaus. Mark Astrachan - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Just following up on the advertising question again, just thinking about it from the effectiveness of spend standpoint, when do you think you'll see evidence of an improvement? And then sort of related to that on the develop market standpoint, do you think there was a bit of restocking towards the end of last year coming out of the economic issues? And now that things are potentially getting worse again, are you seeing a destocking that has to get cycled once again?

I don't believe so, Mark, we don't believe so. The rule of thumb in our business, certainly the way we approach it with our major retailer is we're always looking for inventory efficiency. So you don't tend to get these swings of destocking and restocking. So no, I don't believe that's a factor.

We'll go next to John McMillin with Lord Abbett.

I know you want to look forward, not backwards. But if you look backwards, a year ago, you said, come hell or high water, we're going to have our double-digit EPS in dollars, despite whatever happens to dollars and euros and so forth. And I just wonder kind of in your retrospect with your kind of -- you used too much gas in the tank and kind of left the organization with a little vulnerable lead either the P&G and so forth. But if you just look backwards for a second with me, and say, was that a prudent move?

I'm not sure, John, that I would have said hell or high water. But I think we committed to double digit and we believe, as an organization then, as we do now clearly, as we reaffirm it, that this is an appropriate stance to take. We believe we have modified our plans for the balance of the year in a way that is responsible in terms of building our brands by redeploying between Advertising & Promotion and the in-store marketing. So we challenge ourselves all the time in terms of the appropriate balance between performance and brand building and we feel this is still the right place for our company to be.

Our final question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays Capital.

One was just -- in the press release, I noticed there was a comment about Sensitive toothpaste of some sort launching in the U.S., can you just say what that is? Because obviously, it's not the special one?

It's a traditional potassium nitrate technology, which rounds out our offerings in terms of our current portfolio. So this is not the so-called Sensitive Pro-Relief that we talk about all the time.

Was that part of your initial plan or is it something you're doing? Because there's been a greater delay with the FDA approval and you've had P&G and Glaxo being very aggressive with Sensitive toothpaste in the U.S. clearly, in anticipation of you launching Pro-Relief?

We didn't have Pro-Relief built into our plans, no.

But I mean, was this -- the Multi Protection, is that something you've...

That's something we would have done anyway. Yes, it's something we would have done anyway. In fact, if you look at our businesses around the world, we have quite a well-developed line of Sensitivity toothpaste using what I might call traditional technologies and Pro-Relief is what we believe sets a new standard and we have that on top.

And then just on the other expense line in the P&L, because it's just -- it's twinning around a lot. Could you tell us how should we think about it for the rest of the year because there's about $38 million, $39 million a quarter in the back half last year, $2 million in June. So I guess that's a pretty being big swing factor.

I think, Lauren, if you take a general look at the balance of the year, you should see it reducing.

Year-over-year?

Yes. Well, thanks everyone for the questions. Thanks for being disciplined to ask almost one, and we look forward to catching up with you again as the year continues to unfold. Thanks very much.

And this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.