Topic: Online marketing
Procter and Gamble Canada is metaphorically holding its breath as it unleashes a playful new microsite intended to create viral buzz for its staid Scope brand.
The testyoutbreath.ca site, which goes live this week, invites visitors to check their breath by blowing into their computer microphones. An on screen gage rates users’ breath on a scale that goes from “fragrant” to “noxious,” but the action of blowing also causes a guy in an elevator to recoil in a variety of ways –ranging from whimpering, to him imaging a rhino excreting on up to him grabbing a skunk to mask the odor and his head exploding. In all, there are 14 reactions, none of them flattering. At the end of each, an arm holds up a bottle of Scope and users are invited to try again.
The site was developed for P&G by Dentsu Canada, under the direction of the agency’s creative director, Interactive Michael Gramlow.
The aim of the effort, says Alex Glover, P&G brand manager for Scope, is to engage younger consumers with the mouthwash brand in an environment where they are increasingly spending a lot of time. But mainly, Glover admits, it is simply an experiment in viral and word of mouth marketing for P&G. “We’re really excited to explore the online environment and learn form it,” she says. “We hope this site gives us new insights, new understanding.”
Dentsu creative catalyst Glen Hunt says the agency and P&G will be closely monitoring traffic parents like unique visitor levels and time spent, and while they do have target levels they expect to meet he and P&G declined to reveal them.
Dentsu and P&G also declined to be specific on the budget for the effort, although Hunt did suggest that the production cost for a site like testyourbreath.ca –which involved film production through Sons & Daughters, and post-production with Crush, both of Toronto- would be in the $200,000 to $400,000 range that is typical of a Canadian-made 30 second commercial.
Hunt notes P&G is being bold on at least a couple of levels with the testyourbreath program. First, it is not doing any traditional advertising to promote the site, instead relying on some inhouse PR and a small blogger relations effort through Toronto’s Glossy Inc. to get the viral ball rolling.
More importantly, Hunt says, P&G is embracing the notion that it has to move beyond the hard sell rational brand utility proposition that has generally typified its mass advertising in the past. In the online environment, Hunt says, messages work best when the selling is subtle and there is an element of interactive engagement.
And finally, Hunt notes that Dentsu is not a P&G roster agency, but when the shop approached the company with the idea for the site it readily agreed to try it out.
“We’re always looking for anew and exciting ways” to reach our consumers, says Lara Banks, P&G Canada’s senior external relations manager. “We work with some core agencies across our brands, but we are really excited about this new medium. So we are open to exploring opportunities as they are presented to us.”
Banks agrees the site needed to avoid forcing itself on consumers, and they think they’ve succeeded in creating something fun that younger consumers online will want to spend time with. “We want this be seeded but truly interactive,” she says. “These people are sitting at their computers all day, and we just want them people to find it, love it and share.”
Glover adds that while testyoutbreath.ca’s content may be a bit edgier than the kind of messages what P&G might have traditionally used in other channels, it is still in keeping with Scope’s positioning. “Scope as a brand has always stood for fun, connecting with people and being very social,” says Glover. “So we don’t think this execution is anywhere removed from the fun brand that we are.”
For now the site is strictly a P&G Canada initiative, but given the nature of viral marketing it could easily travel well beyond the border.
“Being in this new space, we have the opportunity to go global. It just depends on how excited our consumers are and if they want to share,” says Glover. “The possibilities are endless. This is a completely new space for us, and so we’re willing to go down the path that it takes us. It’s like a waterslide.”
Originally written for and posted on In:fluencia Digital, a beta site created with Editions Infopresse to serve the Canadian online and interactive marketing, communications and media communities. The site’s development is in hiatus.
