P&G empowers teens and moms

Background Information:

The case discusses about how a leading manufacturer- Proctor and Gamble used online communities to generate word of mouth (WOM) advocacy for its brands by building two online communities viz. tremor.com and vocalpoint.com. These communities were very effective in increasing the sales of the products.

Main issues:

Building up of two website, increasing their popularity and then leveraging on that popularity to instigate word of mouth marketing. The main issues are

Targeting the right segment

Wonderful promotion strategy- buzz marketing through internet

Simultaneous R & D and promotion

Brand image

Analysis:

Choosing the target customer is one major decision which is to be taken by all the companies. P&G did it very carefully by choosing teenagers and mothers. Every teenager was not allowed to a part of the campaign as they were to act as influencer or connector. They chose them on the basis of their deep social networks and propensity for talking about ideas. However, the selection criteria for mothers was not their friendship circle but nature and the time they spent chatting.

I think that it was a wonderful strategy of promotion. It was a two way relationship. The connectors got exclusive information, music, movie dvds, stickers, free sample products, etc. In return the connectors were expected to share their experience with their peers and provide feedback to the company in case of any improvement required in the product. This way, the company was not required to spend a lot of money on the research and development separately as it got the feedback directly from the customers. The strategy was serving double purpose of promotion and research and development.

There were a few critics of the campaign stating that P&G was involved in “deceptive marketing” by not making it mandatory for the connectors to disclose their association with the company. WOMMA wanted the company to make all such disclosures. Also the company was using many minors for these commercial transactions at an impressionable age. So, the critics claimed that legally and ethically it was wrong. This could have a very bad effect on the image of the company. The marketing strategy could have backfired.