.The marketers behind the popular pain killer ginned up an online ad about moms and the the back pain that comes from carrying babies in shoulder pouches, or slings. It wasn't particularly original or funny, and it had zero utility content (i.e. it didn't tell would-be consumers anything usefully new).In other words, it was pure branding, and it seems the goal was to get people talking about it online.
It's via such conversation that marketers are supposed to reach consumers, now that it's been deemed politically-incorrect to actively (and honestly) try to sell them something.Converse they did. Well, more like rant, one another another, in a process that my friend Alexander Wolfe over at InformationWeek calls versation
The primary engine was Twitter, a service whose 140-word message limit seems intended to keep people from sharing anything substantive. However, these tweets -- I think the notes should be called twits -- are perfect for expressing either pointless or blunt emotions, like bordeom, or anger.
Thousands of messages declared that the campaign was offensive, more than a few calling for a boycott to protest Motrin's trivialization of women's pain and a favorite baby-carrying technique. A day later, the campaign was pulled, and apologies were issued from a clearly chastised corporate spokesperson.So prepare to get lectured on what Motrin did wrong in communicating with the twittersphere: this self-annointed, often anonymous collection of people is an "influencial audience" you should talk to prior to running any new marketing.
Create more forums for them to use, and spend more time and money getting their approval. And, whatever you do, do more of it next time, because there are always more and newer technologies and services that let people connect. I'd like to offer up a slightly different, perhaps apocryphal epistle for any marketer about to recieve the accepted wisdom of Motrin's parable:It's about your branding, stupid.
If you choose to market pointless, irrelevant things, chances are there's at least one community somewhere, online or off, that will hate you for it. A far larger percentage of consumers will simply like and trust you less. The idea that any marketing strategy would get invented exclusively to use social media is itself just plain dumb; you'd never invent a unique reason to run billboards, or hire people to walk the streets wearing placards, would you?
There's no reason that you have to use any media, unless your brand strategy calls for it.Those who live by the sword... Trying to guesstimate what people will think is funny or cool is a losing proposition, with a downside far greater and more likely than any upside. So trying to earn recognition for it, let alone hope that it'll somehow, someday translate into purchase-influencing memories is, well, kind of like throwing dice in craps: it's not branding, it's gambling.
And if you think that there's some inherent value to just doing it (or your CEO does because of that latest story in a business magazine), you should plan for any and all reactions. I guarantee you that somewhere there's an expert who believes that Motrin's campaign was an uttter success because it got people talking. Full stop. Give them something to do other than complain. I think that social media programs need a purpose other than buzz or conversation. It's just too easy for it to become a vehicle for sharing anger or a complaint.
You need to envision motivations for doing good things (could there have been some collective vow to buy J&J products because of something it did?). The fact that in this example the network was buzzing about an ad, and not about things that might matter -- like ethical sourcing, employee benefits, career advancement for women, etc. -- tells me that the complainers were less influenced by broad principle than they were irritated by immediate circumstance.
But coming up with a behavior you want to get out of a social media program is a good litmus test of whether or not you should get into one.Like I said, we're going to see the Motrin story added to the theology of social media. Get prepared for the sermon at your next marketing conference, or hearing about it in the next agency pitch. Everyone is going to try to teach us things about it.I just wonder if there's really anything there to learn.
Link to original post