Rob Walker at
murketing (also author of the "Consumed" column in the New York Times Magazine), notes the following from
an NYT article:
"The centerpiece of the campaign is the Web site, artofthecookie.com, which is meant to help women — the target audience for Pepperidge Farm — improve their social lives." Is it possible that this will still exist in six months?
Indeed. "Connecting through cookies" - totally unironically - is the slogan/tagline of this site. Though it's perhaps not even as absurd as other campaigns mentioned, including,
In addition to Pepperidge Farm, the marketers going into the social media business include Jockey, with a humorous site for young men (jockeyunderwars.com) devoted to a video contest, and Dove, with an earnest site for women (campaignforrealbeauty.com) devoted to subjects like body image and self-esteem.
Social networking around young men's underwear? I mean, I know there's a market online for that sort of thing, but is it really something that Jockey wants to associate itself with?
3 comments:
While the Jockey and Pepperidge farm seem to me like they are kind of doomed to failure and ridicule, i would think this is because of what the company perceives to be its way into customer loyalty vs. what these brands really represent to the consumer public. What I mean is that perhaps the brand is misinterpreting what their product creates in terms of satisfaction: pepperidge farm
(soccer moms and soap opera watching housewives) or the boys of summer for jockey - both demographics that may be less likely to be net-active than, say, the young liberal arts student with a sweet tooth. It just seems to alienate just about everyone else.
But i do disagree with the same assessment on the campaign for real beauty: Dove advertisers basically became the representation for diverse beauty portrayal, and are often cited by feminist blogs, fat rights, women's magazines etc as being the messiah for anorexia this generation. So it does make sense that they have a group, though they may be late in doing so (and to that i would attribute potential failure, not the group itself) Because they hit upon such a representational vacuum, many were quick to form groups and forums that got people talking - sometimes citing the campaign, but loosening the association with dove- the brand - and the campaign for real beauty, as a movement (which is perhaps, less well moisturized)
I wonder if the "fans" function of Facebook isn't a better ploy for biz videos and product-related social networks.
Early on failures of this kind include Ragu Sauces which had a not bad idea of a Mama character who would give out recipes and encourage others to submit theirs. It was ignored widely.
Then there was the Brawny Academy where husbands were trained to be more like the Brawny Man! This won awards, but few actually hear of it. Did you? http://ana.blogs.com/maestros/2007/04/by_barbara_bacc.html
make that fawning marketing blog entry on Brawny Academy
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