P&G Integrate Social Networking in Marketing plans
Procter & Gamble Co.'s top digital-advertising executive had some serious reservations about Facebook as a marketing tool. Now, the world's biggest marketer wants all of its brands to get a presence on Facebook this year and has recently opened a research-and-development office not far from Facebook's headquarters, in an effort to co-develop capabilities in digital and social media.
It's a clear sign that Facebook, by its sheer mass of 400 million global users and the leading Social Networking site in Ireland is a marketing force not even the world's biggest media spender can ignore.
"What Facebook does is connect people into communities," said P&G Global Brand-Building Officer Marc Pritchard. "It's also just a pretty good way to reach consumers through messages." That doesn't necessarily mean giving up on brand or campaign websites, he said. "You can use Facebook and websites in different ways," he said. "You can go deeper in content on your website in many cases."
Focus on partnerships
Facebook tried banner ads earlier this year and faced a user backlash, so abandoned this appraoch for Social Ads. But Facebook's focus on integrated partnerships -- lucrative or not -- in lieu of display advertising is a big reason it's at least on the same page as brands, rather than pushing products marketers did not want.
Clearly the messaging part stood out when P&G launched its Winter Olympics sponsorship with a 60-second "To their moms, they'll always be kids" ad from US Agency Wieden & Kennedy. Most of the 18 P&G brands involved in the corporate effort posted messages on their Facebook walls the next day linking to the ad on YouTube. Click here to see P&G Ad
Some, such as Olay, put their pages up for the first time just this month, ahead of the Winter games, garnering about 9,000 fans within the first 10 days. Pringles, with 2.9 million fans, already had a substantial presence that had grown largely organically.
The reality is that branded Facebook pages, still relatively rare only a year ago, became commonplace for a variety of marketers in the past year, particularly as Facebook gave them a chance to control and own their URLs such as Facebook.com/Pringles. Bebo also offers such branded pagesbut target a younger demographic
Among the more-interesting signs of Facebook's emergence as a marketing tool over the past year have been marketers trying to channel the intrinsic power of the social networking site rather than using it as a place to host content they might once have parked on their brand sites.
We expect to see new and creative ways marketers will find to use Facebook's ability to connect with consumers. With the biggest consumer brands now clearly committed to tapping the network's potential, we'll soon see more globally and locally.
See Pringles Case Study on following pane.
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Pringles and eMarketing
Pringles a key brand in the P&G stable, already on Facebook with a substantial presence of over 2.9m fans that has grown largely organically through a wide range of eMarketing efforts. Pringles use a mix of Branded sides such as www.Pringles.com which is an umbrella site allowing Pringle fans to pick regional sites and each one provides a mix of games, competitions as well as community features. Participants can upload photos which can be super-imposed on Pringle cans as well as look at video content uploaded by other fans.
The obvious hook is to develop brand awareness, product loyalty and to influence new product development. The Pringles Facebook site mixes Social content such as consumer generated videos and photos with branded content. A key component of the Facebook site links back to the Thanks Mom Winter Olympics Ad Campaign which provides P&G the opportunity to raise brand awareness of the full consumer product stable.
More recently iPhone Applications have been launched allowing fans to play the Pringles Cans as drums, which can be recorded and uploaded to Facebook and the Pringle Branded website and we expect to see more such applications targeted at the almost 3m fans worldwide.
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