Fresh Thinking Published January - February 2008 P&G connects with teenagers via an online community BeingGirl.com (http://www.beinggirl.com) is an online community for adolescent girls that Proctor & Gamble created to subtly promote its Tampax brand, is a great example of fresh thinking. Forrester Research claims BeingGirl.com is four times as effective as a similarly priced marketing program in traditional media. According to Forrester, Procter & Gamble (P&G) wanted to build an online destination for teen girls seeking information related to feminine care. The site it built, BeingGirl.com, provides health content, product information, to a teen community in a safe, entertaining environment. By investing in content, offline marketing of the site, and strategic partnerships, P&G has created a successful teen destination that drives not only visits and engagement, but also sales. An executive from Forrester is quoted as saying that initiatives such as this require a long-term commitment. Such projects are also likely to be more successful if they can be leveraged across more than one country. In fact BeingGirl.com home page allows consumers to log in from 43 countries - but not Australia or New Zealand.  It would be interesting to know why. Source: AdWeek.Com  Toilet paper marketer goes the extra mile US toilet paper marketer Charmin (www.charmin.com) showed it was prepared to go the extra mile to interact with consumers, by offering temporary fully-staffed, and free, public restrooms in New York’s Times Square for the second year - stocked with two of its favourite brands of course. Aimed principally at visitors to New York, the restrooms were backed by a launch media conference (including a ceremonial first flush), plus print, online and blog activities. Also included among interactive features was a voting booth that registered consumer product preferences- The Charmin Ultra Soft or the Charmin Ultra Strong - on a ‘Flush-o-meter’. Source: PR Week (US) Unilever uses kids as ‘green ambassadors’ in a word of mouth campaign Citizen marketing, which sees consumers acting as brand ambassadors, continues to exhibit thinking that is outside the square, although often contentious, especially when campaigns involve children. Unilever mounted one such campaign supported in conjuntion with 'All detergent' that targeted US elementary school kids. It reached them via an in-classroom magazine, web advertisements and a contest that looked for the greenest grade school in the US. It was called “Go Green and Small with All” (http://gogreenwithall.com/home) The campaign revolved around its ‘ambassadors’ being encouraged to get their families to make small, green changes at home (of course using All detergent) to spread branded, eco-friendly messages. The ‘ambassadors’ and their parents then submitted report cards on their progress, and the school with the highest percentage of report cards received a $50,000 grant for eco-friendly school improvement, a solar powered iPod Shuffle MP3 player for every student, a one-year supply of All and an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.  Reportedly more than 3000 elementary schools entered. A Unilever spokesperson said using young students as ambassadors helped reach mothers of school-age children and encouraged word-of-mouth. Source:  AdWeek.com Network PR, publisher of PR Influences, specialises in Online PR including both social media and search engine optimisation.  To read more about their services click here. To make a no-obligation enquiry click here.

PR Influences: Fresh Thinking