A few days ago, I wrote about the cultural sea change that’s just getting underway – a movement that will give female customers more power than ever.
The two areas I told you to put on your radar – technology and transparency – have already to come back to haunt Johnson & Johnson’s Motrin brand just this past week.
A new ad for Motrin talking directly to moms about the aches and pains of using a baby carrier has been soundly rejected by customers and has led to what amounts to a virtual uprising against the brand. While Motrin has pulled the ad from TV and its website, you can still find it on YouTube:
Whether or not you like the ad is not the point of this post. What IS important is that women around the globe made their voices heard through blogs and a blizzard of conversation on Twitter (you can read the tweets here). They were talking to each other rather than beating their heads against the monolithic wall of the Johnson & Johnson corporation. Social media tools brought the voices of unhappy consumers together at a decibel level that the company could not ignore. Technology is the marketing mouthpiece of the 21st century, and it has to be a two-way conversation.
Which leads me to the second “T” – transparency. Now, Johnson & Johnson is reacting to the situation in traditional, old-fashioned ways. They’re not being transparent or authentic enough in their response to consumers. Seth Godin wrote a great post today on this very newsworthy situation, and he says it better than I can – read his reaction here.
This is the just the first of what I know will be hundreds of examples of the female customer staking her claim in the new era of business. Noted bloggers like Queen of Spain won’t let this drop, and neither will I because in the end, it’s for your own good. To succeed in 21st century business, you’re going to have pony up big time – your reputation and revenue depend on it.
Research:
Online Video Streaming Reels in Women, Older Adults
(Marketing Charts)
Coupons Make a Comeback This Holiday Season
(Harris Interactive)
News:
Will Economy Eat Whole Foods' Organic Lunch?
(Marketing Daily)
Study Unearths Super-Connected Digital Divas
(Marketing Vox)
Blogs:
Dopey Digital Diva Dumbness
(response to above news - Ad Contrarian)
Helping Others Makes You Hot!
(NeuroScienceMarketing.com)
Meet Jeff Sexton, one of the brainiest men I've ever met who also happens to be one of my Wizard of Ads partners. Jeff is today's guest blogger, on a topic that hits home when it comes to what advertising will look like in the coming decade. Read on and you'll see why I'm so lucky to float in his orbit. And for some other mind-blowing posts, check him out at GrokDotCom. Welcome, Jeff!
An Interesting Look at a New Style of Celebrity Ad
By Jeff Sexton
Before this, I’d never seen a Celebrity ad that wasn’t either an explicitly stated or implied endorsement.
You know: something along the lines of “Hi, I’m Tiger Woods and I drive a Buick [because **cough*** that’s what I’d naturally pick to drive even if I wasn’t being paid enormous amounts of money to do so ***cough***].”
Or something “lower key” like a picture of Pierce Brosnan wearing an Omega dive watch, and the ad itself utterly without any kind of explicit claims but implying something along the lines of “masculine manly-men like James Bond wear Omega watches, and you can show [or get] your he-man qualities by doing the same.”
This ad was different. Take a look:
This is the first ad I’ve ever seen where the celebrity was nothing more than a reality hook. Sure, one can’t help but seeing Beckham amidst the sea of copy surrounding him. But the ad is for a Sharpie pen, and Beckham is neither using the pen nor explicitly endorsing it.
Placed in a women’s magazine, the ad does nothing more than refer to Beckham as what he obviously is, a male sex symbol. And then it uses that shared reality to poke fun of the reader for reading the ad copy about the Sharpie pen instead of enjoying the picture of Beckham.
That’s it. No endorsement. Just a way to grab the reader's attention while connecting with her (through a humorous reality hook) and to very subtly make the message seem more important than it is – because it has to be pretty important if she’ll ignore Beckham’s picture to read it, right?
Genius.
But more than that, too. This ad talks to you like a friend; it borrows the language of intimacy and uses it brilliantly.
And it does all that while expressing a profound shift in societal values from an Idealist generation to a Civic one. So if you haven’t read Roy Williams explanation of this phenomenon – of how 2003-2008 was a societal tipping point equal that of 1963-1968 - then go read those memos now.
In terms of the ad, the Civic outlook approaches Celebrity differently. Celebrities aren’t idolized. They’re not larger than life. And no, their appearance in an ad doesn’t contain magical powers that they can be transferred onto the product.
In a Civic Generation, celebrities just acknowledged for what they are: famous for something. Beckham is famous as a Soccer player, but even more so as a sex symbol. So the ad simply acknowledges that. To do otherwise would be passé, and so NOT ‘keepin’ it real.’
Is your marketing in touch with this societal shift? Are you using the language of intimacy and keepin’ it real?
I do a lot of radio interviews, and I have to say that this one was one of the best by far. I spent 90 rapid-pace minutes with Zane from ZaneSafrit.com, discussing everything from tips on connecting with the female customer to my rants on General Motors' and Revlon's big-time drop of the marketing ball.
Zane is a natural interviewer because he's a great conversationalist. You can listen to the interview here, or check out his channel to download the interview for listening on your player of choice. I had a great time and look forward to our next interview together.
The morning of November 5, 2008 I was in the middle of an email exchange with my publishing think tank about tweaking the editorial direction of my next book, when a remark made by one of my (male) colleagues struck me as very prescient:
No matter which candidate you voted for, the election of Barack Obama as president signals what future historians will call a massive change in the cultural and societal ideals of the United States. Just as Roy H. Williams predicted back in 2004, the pendulum has begun to swing back toward a “civic” generation mentality.
I would take it one step further – the pendulum is swinging back toward the feminine side of our society. The inclusive ideology of “we the people” is based on connection and a big-picture view of the world – a very right-brained way of thinking that is predominantly feminine.
The presidential election was just the first ripple in a sea change of perspective, and it will impact your business in ways you never dreamed, because now women are more important than ever. In fact, the satisfaction and happiness of your female customers and employees may very well be the deciding factor in whether or not your business survives our current economic crisis.
56% of American women voted for Barack Obama, compared to John McCain’s 43%. Here are just two underlying factors in the Obama campaign’s strategy that not only helped to attract female voters, but also foretell the future of what women will be looking for when determining whether or not to do business with you:
Technology
The Internet became the soapbox of the 21st century in the 2008 election, not just for the candidate, but for supporters as well. For the first time, voters were having multi-faceted conversations with campaign staff and other supporters. The creation of a Facebook-type social network meant that every individual had the opportunity to create a customized “My Obama” page where they could do things like track donations, sign up for phone banks, blog, and create events. It’s estimated than 200,000 campaign events were created by My Obama website users. Millions of supporters connected with each other and created a viral campaign that changed the face of American society.
So, no more sticking your head in the sand – it is imperative that your business utilize technology as a tool for communicating with your customers and employees through dialogue, not monologue. Don’t have a website? Better get one. Have a website? Probably not good enough. Women, through a desire for connection and communication, will be demanding to have conversations with the brands they choose, and will want to customize their experience with you as much as possible. Time for reading newspapers and magazines, and sitting down to watch TV are on the decline; time for research, personalized shopping experiences and conversation through Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are on the rise. Forward-thinking uses of technology will have to become an important part of your marketing budget.
Transparency
The Obama campaign’s “open conversation” model was successful due in part to a promise made to voters that the campaign would be as transparent as possible. When controversial decisions were made (such as Obama’s decision to decline public campaign financing), the news and reasoning were presented to voters through emails and videos. Action was proactive, not reactive. Whether or not supporters agreed with a decision, they still felt plugged in directly to the central source. And it didn’t take a high-end video with a flag waving in the background; it was not uncommon to receive an email from David Plouffe that he’d just recorded on his web cam, sitting at his computer in shirt and jeans.
Now, president-elect Obama has launched a new website, www.change.gov, which aims for the same level of transparency with all U.S. citizens. While still in its infancy, it has the potential to become a one-stop system of communication with all members of government that until now, voters could only dream about.
With four times as many connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, a woman’s BS meter is in hyper-drive, so authenticity and transparency are key to making the connection with another individual, a political campaign, or a brand. The more she can “see you real” as a consumer, the more she’ll love you (warts and all). And the more transparent you are with your female employees, the more confidence they have in their employer, leading to ironclad loyalty.
In the next three to five years, the traditional top-down, hierarchical, whisper-campaign way of doing business will have to change. Those that continue down this road will simply dissolve into the ether; companies that suck it up and embrace truthfulness and humility will experience tremendous profit.
Change is here, and it’s just the beginning. A word to the wise: the very existence of your business depends on whether or not you choose to evolve with the world and that which makes it spin. It’s the business challenge of the 21st century – what an exciting time. The only question that remains, is, how will you make history?
Lisa Hoffman just posted an excellent piece on her blog, News Media Lisa, about how her mother was tricked for giving treats on Halloween, all in the name of Avon.
Check out this quick read.
Now I know YOU would never do something like this, right? RIGHT?
I thought not.
