Indie-Film Marketing For CPG? Crest Weekly Clean’s Unconventional Launch.

Here’s an intriguing little tale of bloggers and bicuspids. molars and marketing, word-of-mouth and Wal-Mart.

Can you launch a new, unconventional product — one that requires consumers to adopt entirely new behavior, no less — with 5 second TV tags and a whole lot of blogging?

P&G sure seems to think so.

According to an article in today’s Ad Age, they’re launching Crest Weekly Clean (a “weekly addition to daily tooth brushing, giving a ‘just-from-the-dentist’, smooth, clean feeling”) mostly via sampling to bloggers and P&G’s Vocalpoint buzz-marketing program.

Is This Indie-Film Marketing Applied to Consumer Packaged Goods?

Launching a new product at mass retail is not for the faint of heart, or light of wallet.

Consolidation at retail has given retailers unprecedented power. Today, one in four dollars spent at retail in the U.S. is spent at Wal-Mart.

What this means that a product launch today is like marketing a Hollywood film: if you don’t have a ginormous opening weekend (first few months of sales), you’re in trouble.

This makes me wonder whether P&G isn’t deliberately stealing a page from the indie-film marketing playbook.

First, work hard to generate some buzz and groundswell.

Then, air commercials as if you’re shocked by the early “spontaneous” buzz: “Gosh really, our little brand? How nice of everyone to notice. We really weren’t expecting this, are we blushing?”

I’m as big a proponent of interactive as you’ll find in any CPG company. But still, mass retail demands fast product turns and has little patience for waiting around for a new product to find its customers. If I’m honest, I’d have to say I’m not sure I’d have the guts to launch a product like Crest Weekly Clean using online only.

Can A Major Marketer Wait For The Groundswell?

If there’s not a 1-2 punch planned (buzz marketing first and TV second), I’ll be very surprised.

More than that, I’ll be watching it very carefully. If P&G can pull off a product launch with only a smattering of TV, that changes the game quite a bit, doesn’t it?

Four Ways To Be Astonishing

Jim Dietzel posted this Victor Wooten performance of “Norwegian Wood” in the FriendFeed Jazz Lovers room today. It was so great I had to share it.

Why is this performance so astonishing?

1. Surprise – He takes things we thought we knew (a classic Beatles tune, and the electric bass) and reminds us that there are always new creative possibilities.

   What could you do — right now — to reinvent something you’ve been thinking about the same old way?

2. Solo – Victor plays this entirely on his own. It’s a risk. Will people understand the song right away? How far out can he stretch the melody until he loses us?

   How many of us are hiding behind the rest of our group, because we’re afraid to step out and take a chance on our own?

3. Soul – Virtuoso technique is obviously a big part of what’s happening here. But it wouldn’t be compelling if we couldn’t feel the emotion underpinning it.

   If your work doesn’t reflect who you really are as a person, it may be technically perfect but it will always feel impersonal and unsatisfying to the people around you.

4. Smile – I love Victor Wooten’s smile at the end of his solo. He enjoys his work and it shows.

   The Dalai Lama (who isn’t half the bass player Victor Wooten is) says, “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions”.

   We should all play more. If we did, we’d smile more.

The Humpty-Dumpty Problem: Can Addressable TV Pick Up The Pieces?

UPDATE 8/24: Steve Smith has a fantastic interview with Mitch Oscar about addressable TV. Read it here.

Once upon a time, a massive audience cheerfully gathered in front of a box of blinking lights during prime-time. They watched CBS, NBC, or ABC.

They had their wallets out. They were ready to buy. And life was good.

Today it’s less fairy tale and more nightmare. I call it The Humpty-Dumpty Problem: audiences have fragmented into a zillion micro-audiences, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s media buyers can’t put Humpty back together again.

Or can they?

An Addressable TV Breakthrough?

For some time now, our beloved idiot box has been slowly growing a brain. The promise? Everything we love about advertising online — optimization, the ability to test multiple versions of the same creative, and improved ROI — will come soon to a TV near you.

It’s all about hitting the target, even when it looks impossible. Check out this basketball trick shot video and you’ll see what I mean.

Today there’s a piece of big news from Joe Mandese in Media Post that I’ll bet most people will miss.

“Visible World (has created) an open standard that will enable advertisers and agencies to easily and seamlessly integrate any method they use to target TV viewers, and then have those ads served to specific dayparts, programming genres, geographic zones, or even individual households. The breakthrough (is an) application (that) allows advertisers to utilize any source of data they use to define their consumer targets, and then have those ads served to any platform capable of delivering targeted TV advertising, including network television, local broadcast, local cable, broadband, as well as household-specific addressable television outlets.”

… As part of the announcement, which is being made public today, Visible World is disclosing deals with both Acxiom and Experian, two of the leading sources of data used by agencies to target consumers across media, but Walpert-Levy says the system will easily port data from virtually any source an advertiser or agency prefers, including their own proprietary consumer databases, and that the system is capable of serving TV ads to as “granular” a target as an advertiser can define and as a media platform can distribute.”

Addressability has always been possible.

What’s exciting here is the idea that it might actually become practical.

If Visible World’s solution works as advertised, we may have a shot at solving our Humpty-Dumpty Problem after all.

P.S. The basketball video is fun, which is why I posted it first. The below presentation from Visible World’s Tara Walpert Levy is a bit more practical, especially if you’ve never seen a Visible World demo.