Marketing 2.0 – P&G Microblog Instrumental in Launching New Products

Consumer packaged goods giant, Proctor & Gamble Co., is using a critical new Web-based tool to gain feedback and viral marketing buzz for new products under development.  Vocalpoint.com is a microblogging site the company originally launched in 2001 as a teen-oriented site known as Tremor.  It soon became clear that teens were just a fragment of the audience that P&G could tap into online. 

A recent example of Vocalpoint’s power and effectiveness is a campaign for P&G’s new Bounce Dryer Bar, an evolution of the dryer sheet which attaches to the dryer drum.    Because there is nothing like the Bounce Bar on the market, brand managers wanted to gain feedback and insights from its targeted market.  They sent out information via Vocalpoint.com to 5,500 female subscribers and within one day, received 30,000 requests for more information about the product. 

Brand managers also use the site to gain consumer insights that they use in tuning up their marketing messages.  For instance, during a promotion of the Venus Breeze gel bar shaver, marketing managers learned that rather than the convenience of the two-in-one functionality of the product, respondents were more interested in the quality of the moisturizer in the gel.  Thus marketing messages were tweaked to better emphasize this benefit.  Likewise, with the Bounce Bar, P&G discovered that more than the ease and quality of the product, consumers were interested in how long the bar would last. 

Vocalpoint.com has 250,000 active members, predominantly females, 73 percent of whom work outside the home and who nurture a social network five to six times the norm – or roughly 25 conversations a day.  P&G uses a number of methods to target messages that appeal to various segments within this audience and the results of these efforts speak for themselves.  Fifty percent of the Bounce Bar emails sent by Vocalpoint were opened; this compares to a national open rate average of about 18 percent.  

Vocalpoint is seen as critical not only to gaining insights into the products and consumer response to marketing messages, but is also credited with generating significant viral marketing buzz for new products before they are launched.  This can easily be attested when considering that the original 5,500 emails sent out regarding the Bounce Bar generated a response from 30,000.

For more information on Vocalpoint.com, read the story in the Business Courier of Cincinnati