Digital CPG Blog

Pampers tested livestreaming an online TV show to its UK & Ireland Facebook page earlier this year:

The session featured baby sleep expert Wendy Dean, who shared her advice with those watching.

P&G UK marketing innovation manager Ben Tatlow said that this is the first livestream the company has run within a social media platform in the UK.

It is exciting to be able to test and learn this new approach of providing streamed content not only to our core brand fan bases, but also to our wider target audiences through live streaming through Facebook ads. We look forward to piloting similarly innovative projects in the future.”

Streaming live into an event tab adds a new level of engagement to Facebook-based activity, since it allows a brand to invite its community to join the event – while providing a permanent reminder that it’s happening.

He added that an additional benefit of hosting a webchat via Facebook is that you get an instant idea of how popular ait will be, bearing in mind that the vast majority of views always come afterwards, on-demand.

Already we can see in Pampers’ case that 876 people have said that they’ll be attending, which is great.”

P&G will be running a video ad campaign within Facebook to drive more views over the two-hour period that the show airs.

Clicking one of the ‘watch now’ style messages in the right-hand column on Facebook will open a lightbox, with the player embedded, which will also feature its own mini wall. This means that P&G will be able to compare engagement according to viewers watching and commenting from within its page, to those clicking on an ad.

This is a proof of concept project for P&G, but Goldsmith says that he already believes it will be successful based on engagement levels from other client projects.

He also quotes stats from Facebook that suggest a brand only reaches 17% of its community with a simple wall post, since posts that friends’ have commented on or liked are more likely to be given top billing. It’s harder than ever to ‘be seen’ without paying for it.

Therefore the solution is to create content that your community wants to engage with, be that click on, share, like, comment or whatever’s appropriate. Although I’m naturally biased, video is far more engaging, and it’s what people love to share and talk about within social environments.”

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Here’s an interesting report via E-Consultancy regarding Axe and Facebook:

As part of the launch of a new fragrance called Anarchy, Axe is to use Facebook to create a graphic novel that fans will help to write.

A far cry from its usual – and often controversial – creative, the brand is for the first time launching a scent for women as well as men, and hopes that this campaign will appeal to both genders.

The plot will follow the exploits of the ‘Anarchy Girls’ as they unleash chaos around the world. In an interactive twist, fans will be able to direct the characters, plot and outcome of the story.

But appealing to women could be difficult. Axe and its UK counterpart, Lynx, have until now promoted the brands with campaigns agressively targeted at a male demographic.

Not only that, but will this send a confusing message to an already well-defined audience?

David Vinjamuri, author of Accidental Branding and an adjunct professor of marketing at New York University told New York Times that historically a teenage boy would look at Axe’s advertising and see: “the girl that you want and the guy that you are”.

What was brilliant about Axe is they said make the girl hunt you based on your smell.”

However, he warned that when when you start talking to those outside of your core audience, you lose credibility. “The moment you start talking to girls, you lose credibility with teenage boys.”

As a creative idea, Axe’s use of Facebook is interesting. The graphic novel market has been enjoying a renaissance for perhaps the past decade, thanks in large part to Hollywood’s continuing love affair with an array of superhero characters.

While the Gen Y, or people born between 1980-2000, are in fact “digital natives,” that doesn’t mean theyare actually most reachable via social media marketing.

When looking at which types of decisions influence purchase decisions for electronics, 46.9% of Gen Y’s are most influenced by in-store promotions, 44.3% by word-of-mouth marketing and 39.8% by Internet advertising.

Only 28.7% were influenced by social media, which makes sense given the fact that you are whatyou’re more likely to be what you “like” on Facebook, not “what your friends like.”

Have you tried consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-generated content (UGC)? Does it provide value?

Major consumer product brands think they do, and among them is Procter & Gamble who is putting so much stock in the word-of-mouth approach that it’s relying on it to promote a new mouth-themed campaign.

The “Life Opens Up” Project – and related “Life opens up when you do” tag line – launched in recent weeks with the objective of creating a correlation between maintaining a healthy mouth and “living life to the fullest.” Developed to promote P&G’s Crest and Oral-B brands, the campaign revolves around a contest that invites consumers to share their stories of how “a healthy mouth has played a role in opening up to life and the world.” To participate, consumers must submit a two-minute video of themselves describing their experience to LifeOpensUpProject.com. They can view and vote on the user submissions – including one made by spokesperson and host of NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” Alison Sweeney – on the P&G campaign microsite, as well as on the Crest, Crest Whitestrips, and Oral-B Facebook pages.

A CGM contest and CGM marketing content are a natural fit, but more than that, P&G’s digital marketing strategy demonstrates an understanding of the web 2.0 media that’s so effectively connecting consumers with brands. With this campaign, the advertiser does a number of things right: it leverages authenticity while maintaining relevance, employs social media to promote the contest, and rewards consumers for their participation, and eschews traditional digital advertising for more personal messaging (while the Glam Media buy does include rich media ad units, it’s the personal stories from bloggers that represent the bulk of the campaign).

Twitter and Facebook may be hot now, but blogs were what started it all. So, are blogs still relevant for your brand? Or should you focus all your energy on social networks?

Spark Sheet looks at the pros and cons:

Blogs are a pain to maintain. Readership grows slowly and not always steadily. And it’s hard to communicate your company’s values without sounding like a worn-out press release.

But a survey of the blogosphere reveals a slightly more optimistic picture. In spite of the challenges, smart companies are maintaining successful blogs by telling relevant stories to well-defined and engaged communities.

Corporate blogging works well for brands that create a distinctive voice people trust. Many technology-related businesses find success by providing expert opinions about developments in their industry. Tech companies also benefit from a sophisticated understanding of the Web; they just ‘get it’ when it comes to capitalizing on a blog’s strengths, giving them an advantage over, say, a scuba gear company.

Once a company finds its voice and establishes the best way to engage customers, a corporate blog can focus on building communities around its brand.

In a sense, Lululemon can be credited for fostering an entire lifestyle community built around yoga.

So, what do you think? Does your brand focus on blogs? Is there an alternative? Are corporate blogs still relevant?

I love this – and it’s something fun as we near the end of the week. Sometimes it’s those small touches that really make you love a brand:

“Package design has become so artful, it has come to this: Even the barcode, the style runt of product labeling, is getting gussied up,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

You’ve heard of vanity URLs, but vanity barcodes? It’s all the rage.

“Consumer-goods companies hope these vanity barcodes will better connect with customers. The trend is popular with smaller companies, and even one of the world’s largest food companies, Nestle SA, is trying out vanity barcodes on its smaller brands,” continues WSJ.

Very cool, and that extra touch of delight is great for packaging.

Melissa Sowry, Content and Social Media Manager of Burt’s Bees has grown the brand’s Facebook fan base from 98,000 to more than 370,000 by creating compelling content that consumers want to interact with and discuss, reports eMarketer. That content, ranging from quizzes and video to sampling offers and behind-the-scenes access into the world of Burt’s Bees, is helping extend brand loyalty and generate powerful online viral engagement.

Here are some of her insights:

What drives word of mouth?

Beauty is a category where people take recommendations from their friends and talk about what’s new. They also look to experts for suggestions. For example, if we get a placement in Marie Claire or Lucky where they’re raving about the new tinted lip balm, we might share the link to the page.

We also find fans of the brand are recommending products to one another in this space. That’s the normal activity that takes place around beauty products. It’s mostly women talking to other women and finding out what works, but it’s taking place online in social media venues. For example, a mother might ask other moms about products that stop diaper rash: “What works for you?” These are important conversations and I think online social media is a place where people trust one another to get that information.

What’s your Facebook strategy?

Facebook is a channel for us to provide compelling content. When I came on board, we started doing simple things—posting content and behind-the-scenes images on a daily basis and discussing new products coming to market.

We use social media and Facebook in particular as relationship-building tools. We also create opportunities for consumer education around skin care, for example, and sampling offers. We ran successful sampling programs on Facebook for our relaunched body lotions and new tinted lip balm.

We talk about our products on Facebook but we also spend time talking about the culture at Burt’s Bees through our involvement with Habitat for Humanity, sustainability efforts, product ingredients and so forth.

How does your strategy stack up against Burt’s Bees?

Five big brand marketing campaigns are betting big on social gaming including Century 21, MasterCard, Psych, New York Public Library, and Expedia.

Big brands are “jumping into the game — so to speak — with branded virtual goods, integrated ads and offers as well as games that combine digital and real-world incentives. For example, marketers like Century 21 have started using branded virtual goods — inexpensive, non-tangible items people buy to use in digital games — in order to gain brand recognition and tap into the profitable social gaming trend.”

This is a huge opportunity for CPG brands as well, particularly national brands who want to build loyalty and show off their couponing offers. Notice it’s all about the branded goods and the cache associated with those. National brands could make a comeback with social gaming to combat private label.

Just remember: “Great social games begin with an obsessive understanding of how people are socializing. The marketers’ task is to translate everyday socializing behaviors into meaningful actions for their brands.”

Pepsi is going to try. They just introduced  a “social” vending machine that lets users buy beverages for friends by delivering a code that can be redeemed at any such machine.

“Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase,” said Mikel Durham, chief innovation officer at PepsiCo Foodservice. “Social Vending extends our consumers’ social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they’ll want to return to, again and again.”

Hm… perhaps this would work well in schools, but if I were going to buy something for my friends, I don’t know that I would buy them a pop over offering to grab a coffee. Perhaps not every experience needs to be social?

What do you think – is this going too far or is it the next big thing?