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Marketing and advertising isn’t as easy as it used to be. The momentum of technology and fragmentation of media delivery vehicles make it almost impossible to know where to invest advertising dollars. This, of course, has led to the insistent rise of "word-of-mouth" and "viral marketing" as THE tools to use in the near future.
The danger comes when marketers and advertising agencies glom onto said techniques, transforming themselves into "Advertisers Gone Wild" without much thought about actually persuading a customer to buy a product or service.
Is Procter & Gamble a company that has fallen under this spell?
Take a look at this: a faux website that takes a tongue-in-cheek view at the issue of Men With Cramps (or as they call it, "cyclical nonuterine dysmenorrhea"). The website includes a documentary, a historical timeline of men with cramps throughout history, and a link to their "official" medical institute website. Point of the website? To push sales of Thermacare, P&G’s line of heat wraps.
The subject matter actually doesn’t bother me. I lived and worked with musicians in New York for 15 years… I love fart jokes, scatological humor and the like with the best of them. It’s just that the attempt of Men With Cramps falls flat. It’s just not funny. It doesn’t offend me… it does nothing for me. Actually, left me wondering if they’d even considered consulting a female humorist before putting it together.
But humor aside, it still makes me wonder what led P&G to spend upwards of a million dollars on this project. Are you sure you want to sell Thermacare products? There’s a banner for Thermacare on the homepage, but no link attached. If you want Thermacare, you’re going to have to type in the URL.
The website is a creative exercise that does nothing to connect the consumer with the actual product. The attention this particular site gets will be mostly due to an article in today’s New York Times. The word-of-mouth formula contains an element most companies are missing… the power to connect the consumer with the product and persuade her to take action.
Don’t get sucked into the viral vortex just because it’s what everyone is talking about. If you can’t "make the connection," don’t try this at home. Instead, watch and learn from corporations that have lots of money to spend on projects like this, that go nowhere. That way, you won’t need a heat wrap to soothe the spot where your wallet resides.
[Update: The Thermacare banner on the website now works... bravo!]
Michele Miller is a writer, speaker, and consultant on ways to capture the heart of the female customer. The co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth, she consults with businesses of all sizes across North America
Great “Out of The Box” marketing with ThermaCare Menstrual cramps heating pads. The questions remains will it in anyway help sales? As a female I know that each month I love using these portable, air activated heating pads when I have to go into work or leave the house. I have now found myself just wearing the heating pads all month long during our cold winter months in Michigan. But I prefer the HEAT TREAT Personal Heating Pads from GRABBER just because their product is not as puffy as the other brand, it lasts longer and tends to stick to my clothes better…Not to mention heat treat brand it’s less expensive. However, only negative is that it is hard to find in stores. Try asking your drug store or grocery store, otherwise I just purchase it online from drugstore.com
Stephanie,
I see you work for the company you talk about so positively. I do hope you really do believe in the product and aren’t just planting a promotional post. I’ll leave it up for now and will continue to leave the comment up if you do indeed read this blog on a regular basis and comment on other posts that aren’t product-related in your industry.
Best,
Michele
Michele -
The link to ThermaCare does work..I just tried it. I actually think this campaign is pretty brilliant (being a 27 yr. old female – maybe this is just my kind of humor?). My friends and i had a great laugh – nice to see the shoe on the other foot. I’m excited to see the next installment – I don’t think they’re done yet with the story. Maybe the next phase will tie more closely to the product?
carrie
Michele-
I don’t think viral marketing has to connect the consumer to the product. It’s like the recent product placement on 30 Rock and The Office. Or the way that TV shows in the 50s were brought to you by Tide laundry detergent. Now I’ve heard of ThermaCare. And ThermaCare made me laugh. So I think that makes me one more potential customer. We’ll see if I do anything about it in another week or two.
As far as humor goes, I found the personal stories much more enjoyable than the documentaries. I recommend the JRZYK storyline. I feel like maybe the humor is aimed at a younger crowd, quite possibly a “masculine” crowd, but the male vs. female sense of humor is not to be sweepingly generalized. I would like to know what a “female humorist” would write as opposed to a male. -Jodi
Agreed! I am loath to throw my support behind a giant like P&G who simply doesn’t need it, but let’s give credit where credit is due. The story about the lumbering corporations flailing to get into the viral game and falling on their faces is a funny one, but I don’t think it’s applicable here because they simply did a good job.
The fact that the ThermaCare link goes somewhere isn’t just a correction to be appended, Michele – it deletes your argument. And with all due respect, because I do love your blog, I think the fact that you don’t find it funny demonstrates that you don’t speak for all women. Maybe they did a better job of targeting their audience than you give them credit for?
Good points, Sara. P&G should get some credit for the effort but while they have now created a link to Thermacare (as I said, Bravo!), it doesn’t disqualify my post because the message of making sure whatever you do persuades a consumer to take action is still a valid point to make with anyone who’s thinking of doing something like this. Just some food for thought, for the reader. And absolutely… I don’t speak for all women. Any readers out there who think I do should start reading more blogs and opinions.
I guess in the end, the question is, was this a good investment of marketing money? Only time will tell. Thanks for commenting!
Advertisers gone wild
Michele Miller writes about the P G attempt at viral marketing with their Men with Cramps campaign.
The danger comes when marketers and advertising agencies glom onto said techniques, transforming themselves into Advertiser…
I’m not so sure the old rules apply, at least not in the same way. Certainly in advertising, persuading customers to act is a goal. But in contemporary marketing, it is not always primary, or sometimes not even secondary. In a broader, data-age sense conventional action-oriented messages are important and have a place, but so does the job of building relationships, or laying foundations to create them down the road. These goals are very different, and while some products lend themselves to both (iPods, sneakers, lifestyle consumables like beer), most do not. Fortunately web-based marketing can address each seperately or together, depending on what works for the product.
In our on-demand world, consumers actively filter and avoid marketing until the message applies directly to them or their circumstances. When the “moment of decision” eventually comes, younger consumers then actively engage and seek out the same messages they filtered yesterday. Which links they click can be influenced strongly by relationships. Relationships with friends and co-workers, other customers, and obliquely, with brands themselves help us narrow down myriad choices.
While I grant that this approach falls flat in older demographics, it’s proving to be a critical factor with younger people. When we advertised with atoms and linear media, getting to the point was logical and necessary. On any given day, millions of toilets will clog, so daily RotoRooter spots will find SOME receptive ears. Now that we market with bits, and our attention is as precious as dollars, there are fewer eyes/ears watching each individual channel, making such marketing much less effective. Google rankings and ad-words further distort market visibility: just a few years ago any company could buy nearly ubiquitous presence in any media. Today, even P&G can be locked out of a search, by accident or design.
Consequently, achieving “top of mind” status is as valid a goal as successful calls-to-action. A successful site today might not generate a single sale directly, but build brand identity and relationship that create in-store sales. This isn’t being taught, and flies in the face of conventional marketing wisdom, but it’s reality. The challenge is defining new metrics that reflect this reality.
To answer your final question, I would argue the campaign was indeed successful, no need to wait. We’re talking about it here. NYT’s has covered it. The potential for “Eppybird-like” virality is there, but not necessary for success, since readers of your blog commenting above clearly “get it”, and are responding to the humor and effort. Indeed, it may be aimed PURELY at women, who can use it to needle men, leading to much wider visibility, bypassing spamfilters and marketing to male peers and associates who get it. It can be a one-liner, and go away tomorrow, and still be a winner. Clicks is clicks, eyeballs is eyeballs! They’re simply internalizing a much older truism (not necessarily a truth!): there’s no such thing as bad pub.
At any rate, I see a limited long term future for conventional “action-oriented” push ads. They can work on corporate home pages and as ad-words, but as time goes on they will be less effective, and eventually less pervasive, until this rule mutates into something more reflective of contemporary media consumption.
Good piece, Michele, thanks!
-d-