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Melissa Burgess
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Melissa Burgess is Director of Business Development at IMPAQT. She manages all aspects of Business Development activities ranging from partnership development to direct sales initiatives for corporate brand marketers. As a recognized expert in Search Marketing, Melissa has helped develop and execute search strategies for clients in the Retail, Pharmaceutical and CPG industries. You can contact Melissa at Melissa.Burgess@impaqt.com.

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Delivering the Goods: How Consumer-Packaged Brands Can Break Through Online

Written on
Apr 5, 2006 
Author
Melissa Burgess  |
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Delivering the Goods: How Consumer-Packaged Brands Can Break Through Online

Bounce is doing it; Cottonelle is doing it too. What are these brands doing? They’re harnessing the power of the Internet to engage with their customers and to connect with them on a level far beyond their everyday usage.

According to eMarketer, the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry is projected to spend over $470 million on Internet advertising in 2006. Companies such as P&G and Kimberly Clark are pushing the boundaries on how to effectively communicate with their audience, far beyond the everyday usage of their products.

Communication is Key
As a CPG marketer, how you communicate with your audience on that one to one, relationship level will lead to a longer lasting emotional impact. At the end of the day, as marketers, we want to provide a meaningful engagement or experience, for the consumer, something that brings them out of the realm of just “brand X user” to a point in which they are “brand X participant.”

If you have reached this point, you have gone far beyond brand loyalty, and into an area in which you are actively having a conversation with the consumer, and they have brought you into their home not only as an everyday “product”, but as part of their “lifestyle,” or part of the affinity groups in which they deem important to them personally.

The key to effectively communicating not only brand value, but understanding of your audience is trust. Women rule the roost when it comes to purchasing power, not only in the household, but also online. If you can make an impact in conveying that you care about your audience, building the one-to-one relationship and conversation with them, then ultimately it will produce value to you in the long run; whether it be through increase product revenues, site traffic or a willingness, as a consumer, to share information with you through registering on your site to be communicated with via email.

Building Relationships Online
It goes without saying that P&G, the largest CPG manufacture, is undoubtedly a huge supporter of the Internet, and has substantially increased their spending through various online channels, including Search Marketing. Building a relationship with your consumers goes beyond creating a product website to communicate your brands attributes.

We all know what toilet paper is for, and why it should be soft. Going far beyond product descriptions, marketers are creating destination, sites, a place for the consumer to interact one on one with their brands. CPG sites have come a long way over the years and have incorporated various elements such as games, sweepstakes, promotions, video, blogs, message boards, user generated content, coupons, newsletters, as well as a wide variety of other dynamic content that keeps visitors coming back.

The lines between online and offline are blurring. Just the other day I happened to open a new box of Bounce dryer sheets and came across a game piece that directed me to BounceEverywhere.com where I could register for a $5,000 wardrobe makeover; not that I needed it, the stylish person that I am, but $5,000 is a nice chunk of change. Um, no-brainer.

But here’s the funny thing, I actually took the game piece over to my laptop to register on the site, totally forgetting to switch out my laundry from the washer to the dryer. Yes, I did go back and take care of my laundry, but my actions made me sit back and think about how seamless the relationship is, and how easily Bounce got my information; which, of course, is what they wanted from me in the first place.

Other neat features on the BounceEverywhere.com site included a co-promotion with Curves, style ideas from Philip Bloch, Message Boards, a Media Room where they house all of their commercials, as well as a section dedicated to the usage of dryer sheets in other areas of the home.





Reader Comments.

As one who has been loured by sweepstakes and product offers and had their information sold to online marketers, I’ve vowed, “Never again!”

Companies wanting to establish an online relationship with customers need to treat their information as precious and vigilently protect the privacy of their customers. Else that positive moment turns into resentment and anger. And we know how powerful an enraged prosumer can be!

Posted by Lisa Wellman | 2:31 pm on April 5, 2006.

After using Bounce on my sour clothes, it leaves a fresher sent.

Posted by Victoria | 3:01 pm on April 9, 2006.

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