Happy Valentines Day. Now that I got the positive out of the way, let’s talk about what’s going on/wrong in the world of Dove, the skin care/beauty company. First, they try to get in on the user-generated trend. This video was posted on YouTube and explains that if you’ve ever dreamed creating your own commercial, then you can do one for Dove! OMG REALLY!! No other incentives?! Sounds great…
Apparently a ton of other people felt the same way, and YouTube had to turn off the comments for the video, because of the backlash. Some people even posted their own responses, and Schmuly’s video (found via Whistle Through Your Comb, a great blog by a planner/friend) is one of the best. Schmuly paints a pretty clear picture: Marketers read Wall Street Journal and think they know how to market to YouTubers, but they really have no idea what they’re getting into and are going to keep failing over and over again.
So I thought Dove might lay low for awhile after that screw-up. I’m reading Advertising Age today and I find this article, and see that Dove is using naked grannies in its newest ad for Pro Age products…
Anybody else think Dove’s taking the “be real/be yourself/everyone is beautiful” thing too far here? Watch the Dove Pro Age ad and let me know. Maybe I’m just off my rocker. Wait, I don’t even own a rocker.
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P & G, the world’s largest advertiser with an annual ad budget of $6.7 million, is launching 2 websites aimed at creating online communities for data mining and market research…essentially online focus groups on a mass-scale.
One site will be tied to the People’s Choice Awards and the other site, Capessa, will be a community for women to discuss subjects such as parenting and weight loss.
It’s about time someone realized the potential to tap into what people like/dislike through social networks. It remains to be seen whether or not the sites will be popular like Google/Nike’s Joga.com or will tank like Wal-Mart’s social network for teenagers.
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NPR did a segment today about how social/user-created content is changing our economics. The segment featured Don Tapscott, co-author of Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. You can listen to the segment here.
Basically the main thing to take from this is that the new way of solving problems, gathering information and reducing costs involves tapping into the world’s human capital, instead of just relying on the ideas of people from the company itself. In order to take advantage of the millions of ideas out there, a company must open itself up to the public and share its private data.
The power of user-created content speaks for itself and according to Tapscott, major brands are taking advantage of this concept in creating new, innovative products and services. P & G will soon have 50% of all its new ideas coming from outside the company, Tapscott says.
It will be interesting to see how brands will attempt to control the marketplace of ideas. One area that many brands have yet to realize that they can’t/shouldn’t control is the world of blogs.
Blogs are by nature irreverent, spontaneous, and fun, though some companies have insisted on trying to censor comments, create fake blogs and misuse them to their advantage. Ultimately, however, the truth will come out and the remarkable brands will be the ones that listen to customers, acknowledge their mistakes and improve. They will create products and services that will enrich their customers’ lives, not just market things that help their margins. As the spread of ideas increases and more companies become transparent and ask for customer input, the brands that aren’t remarkable will slowly die and be forgotten.
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On Sunday, my gf and her mom were craving a $1 sweet tea from the McDonald’s inside Walmart, only to find that at this particular McDonald’s tea was $1.29. The cashier looked like he wanted to crawl under a rock and die as they questioned why there was no $1 tea, even though it’s always advertised. His excuse didn’t say much but this whole thing is a good lesson. Companies shouldn’t say one thing and do something else. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure there was some kind of fine print or speed talker at the end of each ad saying “only good at participating McDonald’s blah blah” but that’s crap. Your experience should be the same at each and every McDonald’s, and $1 sweet tea should be $1.
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In re-reading some of Reid Overcash’s “Whose Brand Is It Anyway?” I’m reminded that consumers are just as dependent on brands as brands are dependent on consumers. People want stability, consistency and trust from the products and services they use. Reid reminds us that a brand is a reputation. This is obvious, but it’s important in that people treat brands almost like good friends. If they have a good reputation, people brag about them and want others to meet them, but if they have a bad reputation, there is no reason for them to trust them. People don’t go out looking for bad brands; they want something with a good reputation. So make sure the reputation of your brand is in good hands. If not, people will find a new best friend/brand.
Reid Overcash is ??? at Strategic Insights in Raleigh, NC.
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Ok, it’s not like I believe Alltel(my cell phone service) has superior commericials or anything, but Sprint’s “wheel of adjectives” commercial is horrible. Yeah, night time calling that starts at 7pm is pretty sweet but every time the wheel goes for a spin I secretly pray that it spins out of control and becomes the wheel of death and destruction. To describe how bad the commercial is I could spin my own wheel of adjectives. But I won’t, because wheels of adjectives are stupid.
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