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[As promised, guest poster Lois Kelly explains why P&G stumbled with their “Have a Happy Period” Maxi pads. Enjoy and play 
nice with the comments, okay?]
Beware: Testosterone marketing at work
In an attempt to be creative and get a little viral buzz going companies often do some really stupid things.
My friend Kevin Clancy, author of Counterintuitive Marketing and The Marketing Revolution, calls this testosterone marketing, where marketers make decisions based on their gut. It just feels right. Let’s go with it. Not worry about getting bogged down in asking customers what they think.
(Can you imagine the COO opening a new manufacturing plant in China based on his or her gut instinct? No wonder we marketing people get no respect from the C-suite.)
And boy oh boy, has some of this testosterone marketing come back to slap marketers in the face.
Putting a “Have a Happy Period” on Procter & Gamble’s Maxi pads is one example, as Walter recently wrote about The brand manager, a guy, clearly doesn’t understand his target market at all. No woman in this universe has ever had a happy period, unless she was in a coma or a morphine induced haze.
Or consider the big hoo-ha a couple of years ago when Oprah “gave away” 276 new cars to everyone in her audience? She was hailed as all goodness and generosity. Of course, the back story is that Pontiac paid $7 million to have those cars given away on Oprah. And did that $7million promotional spend increase sales of (the Pontiac G6? Nope. Did anyone even remember what brand of cars Oprah gave away? Nope again. While 86 percent of U.S. adults were aware of the giveaway, very few could recall the car brand.
A way cool idea by the Pontiac guys to generate some buzz. But at what cost?
Marketing experimentation is necessary; I advise people to allocate at five to 10 percent of their marketing budgets for this purpose as marketing is changing so fast. But a $7m experiment in buzz marketing is irresponsible.
With the ability to listen to and connect with customers today through so many online channels there’s really no excuse for making such blatantly silly decisions.
Even if your gut tells you otherwise.
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Thank you, Lois!
Not only did she address the issue she also threw in another stunning stumbler — the Oprah/Pontiac debacle. Well, debacle for Pontiac, great for Oprah. She got a lot of publicity out of it while no one else remembers the make of car.
Btw, while all the posts and emails were flying back and forth about the P&G marketing mistake, I did a quick check with The Redhead and she agrees with Lois about women tending to not experience periods as “happy.” And to add a flourish to her point, she asked me to recall one of her happy periods.
Yikes! I couldn’t and the girl makes the scoring point by the sheer weight of statistical data.
How do you feel about it? What are your thoughts? Or have you got your own juicy marketing missteps you’d like to contribute?
Also, remember to check out Lois’ marketing and communications blog over at Foghound.com.
And be sure and get her book on conversational marketing:
Like what you read? Then click here to buy me a coffee.
By Walter |
Topics: Lessons Learned, Pro Analysis |
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