Brand: Escada (Procter & Gamble)
Execution: Online Serial Web Video Drama, Blog, Podcast
Target: Men who buy perfume for women
Rating: *
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
The perfume Escada by Procter & Gamble gets full new media treatment with a website, podcast, blog and a serial drama (of sorts) intended to promote the brand.  The drama features short vignettes revolving around fashion including “The Dress” where the drama is supplied by Eva, who borrows a dress from Sophia only to find Jenny wearing the same dress.

What Works:
It is important for brands to try to understand social media and new media and to experiment with these media.  Sometimes these experiments will fail.  It does not mean that the lesson will not be worthwhile.

What Doesn’t:
To the casual brand observer, it looks like Procter & Gamble took a cosmetics brand and said to a new media agency “Do that web 2.0 stuff - you know, blog, podcast, webisodes, myspace.”  And that is exactly what the brand received - all of the stuff with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

It is easy to count the successes of brands in new media because they are so visible.  When you’ve been forwarded the Smirnoff Raw Tea Video or a link to Brawny Academy for the ten-thousandth time, it seems obvious that these companies have done something useful.  Because new media is promoted by consumers, it is much harder to spot the failures.

Escada’s “Sunset Heat” is a failure.  It is so bad, in fact, that we are tempted to rank it as the worst of 2006 but we are certain there is worse that we simply have not seen.

The problems with this campaign?  Here they are by the numbers:

1. Shallow Characterizations -  The very short webisodes have no character development and virtually no plot.  They may be ironic, but they make the characters look unbelievably shallow, even by soap opera standards.
2. No Brand Positioning - With P&G as the author, we find it difficult to believe that there is no discernable positioning for the Escada brand but try as we might we cannot find it here.
3. Scattershot Approach - The choice of new media here seems to have been ‘try everything’.  Almost everything is tried here - badly.  It would have been better to choose one platform and devote real resources to it.

This campaign falls into the ’scrap it and move on’ category - we really don’t see enough that is useful to attempt to salvage any of it.

Branding Bottom Line:
Watching Sunset Heat is more painful than reading Ulysses at the beach.

Brand: Charmin (Procter & Gamble)
Execution: Experiential Marketing
Target: New York Visitors
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David

Description:
Starting yesterday, Procter & Gamble’s Charmin Toilet Tissue is sponsoring free bathrooms in Times Square. The billboard promoting the sponsored restroom says, “You’re in New York. Go in style.” over the brand logo and an arrow pointing to the restroom entrance. There are 20 restrooms including two with disabled access. Each of the restrooms will be hand-cleaned by an attendant after each use. The restrooms will operate until the end of the year and the end of the holiday period.

What Works:
At first glance, the high costs of New York real estate and Times Square billboard advertising might make this experiential marketing tactic (experiential because the restrooms are stocked with Charmin toilet tissue) a risky bet. However the marquis value of Times Square combined with the publicity value of solving a genuine issue for the neighborhood and its millions of tourists (lack of access to clean, free toilets) and the goodwill of consumers makes this a slam dunk from our perspective.

More importantly, it points to an intriguing way for brands to build deeper relationships and more loyalty from their consumers. Find a social problem that fits within your area of expertise. Divert advertising money to solve this problem. Repeat.

At the moment, with temporary and very limited program, Procter & Gamble is just staging the equivalent of a pricey sampling event with good PR for Charmin. But if Procter has a good experience over the next month, the opportunities for the Charmin brand are significant. $100 million spent in advertising against the Charmin brand will boost sales, but only in the short-term. Advertising spending in mature categories with little product news tends to be a zero sum game - someone’s gain is at someone else’s loss and because brand loyalty is relatively low, there is a tremendous danger of promotional activity sparking a price war which hurts everyone’s bottom line.

Charmin as the sponsor of clean, free public toilets in places where they are hard to find nationwide would have a different profile. The brand could find intense loyalty from grateful consumers who have been spared the indignity of pleading with a surly bartender or restaurant owner and parents who might otherwise be cleaning up a bigger mess. It would also be very difficult for other toilet tissue brands to copy Charmin’s move.
What Doesn’t:
As any big-city mayor knows, great execution of public services is everything. If the Charmin bathrooms are really kept spotless and if Procter & Gamble have correctly anticipated demand and manage to avoid excessively long lines, Charmin will benefit greatly from this promotion. Bad execution will hurt the brand and damage its hard-won credibility.

A bigger problem may be the planned closing of the project just after the holiday season. The need that the Charmin restrooms are filling in Manhattan will not disappear as 2006 passes into 2007. Charmin risks consumer alienation by closing these restrooms if they are successful. This advertising blog strongly suggests Charmin rethink this policy and keep the restrooms open long enough at least to judge whether they can have a continued impact on the brand. If the answer is “yes,” Charmin should divert some money from television advertising and expand to other markets and needs.

Branding Bottom Line:
Charmin makes Time Square more friendly. Consumers are grateful.

Brand: Always Clean Panty Liners (Procter & Gamble)
Execution: TV, Print
Link: Click Here
Target: Women
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David

Description:
A straightforward product introduction shot for a feminine menstrual protection product with an attached pre-moistened wipe. The spot opens with a shot of the panty liner inside the familiar folded paper outer wrap moving towards a small package that looks like it might contain a wet wipe. The female voiceover says, “”Introducing the first and only liner pads to come attached with individually-wrapped wipes. New Always Clean. Now you can feel shower clean without the shower. Have a happy period. Always.” In the middle of the spot, the small package tears itself and the animated wipe peeks out. When the line about feeling ’shower clean’ begins, a shower rains on the package which rotates slowly like a shower faucet being turned on or off. At the end of the spot, the tagline “Have a happy period. Always,” shows at the bottom of the screen.

What Works:
As we would expect of a Procter & Gamble spot executed by Leo Burnett, this commercial is clear and easy to follow with excellent branding. Unlike many product improvements in this category, this one makes obvious and intuitive sense and the visuals make the wipes look appealing and easy to access. The improvement takes off on the success of the adult personal wipes category which grew out of research showing that a measurable percentage of baby wipe sales were to adults using them for their own intimate hygienic needs. The product-as-hero execution of this spot has the product and the brand front and center for virtually the entire spot. Also unlike many of the spots in this category, the advertising is overly fussy or sentimental and does not patronize or talk down to women (with one exception discussed below). Although it presents a purely functional sales pitch, this spot accomplishes what it sets out to do.

What Doesn’t:
We were impressed with this spot until the end. When we heard P&G’s new tagline for Always, however, we had the unmistakeable sense that P&G and Leo Burnett had finally fallen into the trap of much of the advertising in this category. It tells some women something they will not believe and will find insulting with the tagline “Have a Happy Period.”

This advertising blog knows that P&G will say that this line is meant to empower women, to let them feel that their menstrual cycle is a positive affirmation of their reproductive power rather than an unpleasant experience. And we recognize that different women have different attitudes towards their reproductive health. Research shows that some women will significantly deviate from their normal activities during their period, often avoiding social engagements. On the other side of the spectrum there are women who make few if any concessions to their period and do not limit their activities or change their attitute when they are menstruating. Of course there are also numerous shades of gray in between. Marketers have done a good job of pegging attitudes to different sanitary protection products and modifying their advertising accordingly.

The tagline, “Have a Happy Period,” will appeal most to tampon users (if it appeals to anyone). They are the most likely to keep their routine unchanged and to regard their period as something positive and healthy.

The problem is that this tagline seems to attach itself to the entire Always brand (which encompasses all the different types of women). It doesn’t work with all of the products within the brand and particularly not this particular line extension. Panty liners are tricky because they are used by multiple psychographic segments within the sanpro category. Many women use them between periods to guard against ’spotting’ or unexpected menstrual bleeding. But they are also used by tampon wearers during the period as an additional level of protection for nice underwear.

The innovation here - putting a hand-wipe on the liner - will be interesting to many women but most interesting to those who are more concerned about leakage and more embarrassed by odor or feeling unclean. Those are the same women who may be most offended by the new tagline which seems to argue with their underlying beliefs about menstruation.

So in spite of an excellent line extension, a straightforward advertising concept and a good execution, we believe that Always fails to connect with this spot.

Branding Bottom Line:
We’ve just joined Always in telling half of the population more than they wanted to know.