P&G and Social Networking
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Ugg. We're about to launch a zone where IBOs and their customers and the general public can come in, see what people have to say, drop a comment here and there, and generally be a part of the dialog about the Quixtar business opportunity and all it entails. Yesterday I read a Wall Street Journal article about P&G's "plunge" into social networking with a web site for people to "buzz" about The People's Choice Awards and another called Capessa for women to talk about parenting, pregnancy, weight loss and other topics.
Why Ugg? Well, for starters, when we launch our zone some may perceive it as a "me too" product, which it ain't. We began plans for development of our zone long ago. I guess most major companies are exploring how to tap into social networking online, so that shouldn't be a suprise. The other ugg moment for me was the line about P&G's ad budget -- $6.7 billion annually. Their ad budget is more than Alticor's global sales! But, then again, that's their business model ... they've got to drive all that traffic to the store shelf and somehow convince people to select their products over all the others sitting next to them on the shelves. I love it when a store like Meijer puts a little "Compare!" sign pointing out how much cheaper their store brand product is to the P&G product.
We just pay our IBOs to spread the word! Incentivized Word of Mouth Marketing, right?!
The final Ugg moment is that the P&G-created Capessa property will not feature a lot of advertising. Yahoo, for whom P&G created Capessa, "doesn't want to overcommercialize the site given the serious nature of subjects being discussed." If anyone thinks P&G created the site as an act of goodwill toward Yahoo, we need to get them to sniff their Folgers and wake up a little. "Capessa will occasionally offer some links to P&G experts offering tips about specific issues such as parenting or offer up a P&G newsletter on a particular subject," the article continues. It may be too early to tell, but I'm guessing that regular visitors to this health site will not be fully aware that P&G is behind it. I'm also interested to see if competing brands can be kept out of the conversation there. -- Kia