"I recommend today's marketing model is broken. We are precisely applying antiquated thinking and work systems to a higher life of possibilities...The traditional marketing model is obsolete."- Jim Stengel, Global Marketing Officer, P & G, Association of National Advertisers, Oct 2004.
The notion that marketing and advertising attitudes must change is not any longer a theory just banded about by Internet marketers. Even big boys and the major world players are actually accepting that the mass marketing techniques, of your last half a century, are not used penetrating audiences like they utilized to. There's planning to should be a shift in the whole approach of advertising if it's visiting maintain any relevancy with an increasingly cynical consumer.
When discussing marketing it doesn't get any bigger than Proctor & Gamble, among the largest suppliers of household products on the earth, and certainly one of the biggest advertisers. With brands like Ariel, Head and Shoulders, Pampers and Crest, they should be at the forefront in utilising new methods to have a few into people's homes. With the mega brand no more revered as some variety of deity, P & G should have to master how to communicate with the influential consumer networks, and persuade these to talk positively about a few.
P & G uses a long tradition of innovation and groundbreaking the way they tend to have broadcast their messages. They have been the first one to start advertising nationally, way back in 1880, and also have taken the concept of product placement to another level with your Soap Opera productions devised to hook female viewers onto their shows and shampoos.
Recently, P & G enlisted a multitude of 600,000 'connectors' to spread what it s all about in their 'Vocalpoint' campaign (an extension within their earlier 'Tremor' scheme amongst teenagers). Their 'connectors' were provided with coupons to distribute with their colleagues, and free samples to impress conversations about P & G products. As Steve Knox, Vocalpoint CEO, recognised, "we all recognise that the number one sort of marketing is surely an advocacy message from a trusted friend." With Vocalpoint, P & G are utilising the rule and relevancy of social sites to enhance many through interaction and trust. People might not any longer take heed to brands, but they are going to take heed to advice of friends.
The perception that change was on your horizon had already been identified by their former global marketing officer, Bob Weiliing. In a 2002 interview, Bob's view could be that the Internet isn't likely to exchange the mass 'push' medium of TV, but instead can be tailored towards the individual. An internet environment work extremely well for when there's a personal passion to learn more about a services or products. Gaining advice, direction and also the latest product news are services not pre-made on only a 'push' medium. TV is about the mass market message, whereas the internet is ideal for individual relationship building.
Bob's conclusion, on your way forward for P & G's marketing success, lay in working out how to combine each. They had to preserve the relevancy of your 30 second TV ad, whilst also utilising the extended attention and interaction accessible on the internet. Also this meant persuading the two warring marketing factions to work together to find a solution - to get the technophobes dealing with the net evangelists. Previously it was been obvious in recent times that Bob's successor, Jim Stengel, subscribes firmly to your latter camp.
In 2005, P & G cut their TV ad spend by 8% with a mere $677.3 million, a bold move along with a definitive shift onto non-traditional media. Earlier this year, they contacted digital and interactive agencies in the UK helping put together its first digital agency roster for Western Europe, and also to find innovative new ways of populating their brands online.
We are precisely now watching the rise of interactive websites created to keep hold of consideration and encourage return visits. One year ago a music themed site for Old Spice was launched with free downloads and song samples to appeal to the 16-24 iTunes generation. Another notable example was the campaign for Pringles crisps in the course of the FIFA World Cup. A web site created where people could upload videos of themselves imitating the TV ad, mirroring the appeal of YouTube to get a young internet savvy audience. Both content driven sites designed to develop the brand through interaction, relevancy and value.
P & G have often learnt the lessons preached by legions of venture bloggers. By rendering information of value you develop trust and confidence; consequently, people will desire a relationship with your brand and turn to be customers. Their Pampers website builds an affinity with its audience throughout the provision of suggestion and help. Being a valuable way to obtain young mums, it enriches their association with the brand and shall provoke a desirable response next time they depart shopping for nappies.
P & G's Handmade Simple website is really a flagship in online marketing, having its own Show on tv and guides on good housekeeping. As an alternative being blasted with product placement, the website simply develops relationships with its audience through its news and articles. Once your trust is gained you might inevitably enroll in the newsletter, with further promises or free samples, coupons, special offers and sweepstakes all pulling you into their trap of growing to be a convert on their products. 'Home Made Simple' offers the perfect buying environment by developing trust, and the yearning to have a very relationship along with their brand, what are the new style of online marketing is all about.
At the Association of National Advertisers Conference, earlier this month, Jim Stengal and P & G's CEO, A.G. Lafley, outlined their mission to carry their brands into the 'pull' age of relationship marketing.
Lafley reinforced the views of Bob Weiling, that they had to learn how to make relationships to their audience through the various 'touch points'. Their future lay in learning how to integrate their strategy across all the mediums available, rather than looking forward to the old a technique 'push' bombardment of selling messages. His key point was that they needed to learn how to "let go" as "the more consistently dormant we are the more due to touch we become." P & G required move beyond thinking in terms of merely transactions, and instead specialize in building relationships if you find yourself more responsive and receptive to what their audience, the 'boss', wanted.
Jim Stengal opened his speech by using a plea to his fellow marketers to "stop brooding about consumers and begin brooding about people." He was suggesting a paradigm shift in how they approached marketing and advertising. Their customers were no longer just demographics, but individuals to be empathised and engaged with. They had to be able to listen to what people wanted coming from the brand rather then letting them know just what the brand should mean to the people. A whole new stage of understanding required build on why people should place trust in a relationship P & G's brands instead of simply superficially appealing to their desires (a tactic having served copywriters since their inception).
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Many proctor and gamble Web entrepreneurs are eager to hammer the nails into TV's coffin, whilst traditional advertising execs take a seat on their hands looking forward to the 'web 2.0' bubble to burst. P & G have, for the reason that start of the last decade, been steadily moving using a monolithic, lumbering marketing dinosaur into a website savvy, feedback focused livewire. By being an early adopter of your new 'trust' focused marketing philosophy, P & G should be in order to solving the puzzle of selling online and maturing their brand's message of the proctor and gamble coupons sceptical consumer.
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