Conversation replaces communication
While a lot Fast Company articles are ideal airplane reading—light and not necessarily to be be taken too seriously—this month's issue has a fascinating article on Proctor & Gamble's experiments with re-thinking marketing and branding in the age of the internet that in some ways is turning P&G's traditional practices inside-out. Perhaps the central theme is the change in the balance of power between corporations and consumers, which means companies need to think about "conversations" rather than "communcation."
"We've been voted the best marketer of the 20th century," [says a P&G executive], referring to a ranking published by Advertising Age magazine. "But that's because we were the biggest shouters. In the 21st century, we want to be the best listeners."
The point has been made before, but it's intriguing to see a large corporation actually trying to walk the talk. (And if P&G is successful with it, it could have huge repercussions through industry—after all P&G invented brand management.)
Among some of the interesting experiments:
- » Traditionally, P&G new product research was under legendarily tight control. However, the "Try & Buy" section of P&G's site, which consumers can buy new products before they show up in stores, is the site most visited section. And P&G is using both as a virtual test market and as a way to get feedback on ways to improve the product, as well as suggestions about new products.
» P&G discovered that customers actually preferred getting information about stain removal from P&G's branded Tide.com than the unbranded clothesline.com that P&G initially tried. "Consumers told us that Tide actually had a right to be the sources about cleaning your clothes." But before marketeers fall all over themselves dreaming of branded content sites, it's important to note that Tide has been used by families for more than 50 years and thus has earned people's trust.
Interestingly, P&G representatives said consumers preferred the branded sites over the numerous unbranded sites that P&G had bought—such as beautiful.com, flu.com, thrist.com—because they knew who was behind the branded sites. Consumers were even receptive to some brand selling, because they recognized someone had to pay the bills for the site, as long as there was good content.
» Instead of doing just tradition test marketing in selected cities, P&G is now also doing test marketing over the web—with a sales conversation rate four times that of most consumer web sites. Web testing also helped broaden its demographic reach and provided quick ways of testing traditional marketing efforts—including the discovery that placing ads in one magazine that P&G hadn't normally advertised in was the one of the most successful placements.
» But perhaps P&G's most radical experiment, Reflect.com, lets women create their versions of beauty products by mixing and matching options. While brand is predicated on providing a predictable experience, at Reflect.com, customers are largely designing the experience themselves.
It'll be interesting to see how well any of these experiments succeed, and even more interesting to watch what happens along the way. ::
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Your thoughts…
The analysis following P&G's first quarterly loss in eight years (due to restructuring) does offer some cautionary thoughts. One analyst attributed P&G's recent problems on a failure to come up with innovative products and having products that were too expensive compared to competitors.
Certainly a user-focused approach might've helped with the innovation, but P&G's trouble illustrates the importance of pricing strategies, something that UXs aren't--nor should they be--involved in. As I've said previously, a great product that's too expensive is just as much a failure as one that's unusable.
– george @ 08.08.2001
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