Creative Agency: OTO Labs
-- Mitchel Ahern, director of product management, OTOlabs
Overall, the Cottonelle Kleenex puppies campaign works really well for me. It includes fun stories to read with young kids that include cute puppy videos and a quiz at the end to make sure you were paying attention. PDFs to print out and color and two fun games about helping puppies find their favorite toys put huge smiles on the face of my five year old niece (Hi, Hannah! Isn't Uncle Corey's job fun?).
This warm and fuzzy, feel-good-and-giggle site offers ringtones and a downloadable desktop puppy application. So now there's a little yellow lab walking across the bottom of my desktop. You can make him chase his tail, or dig a hole, or play with a roll of toilet paper. Cute idea, but ultimately doesn't do much for me. It's not that I'm a cruel or heartless puppy hater. I love puppies. But the graphics aren't all that good, and I think even a kid would get bored after a few minutes with it (right, Hannah?).
And in a completely unacceptable oversight, the e-Card feature doesn't just send a graphical email. Instead, your puppy e-card is an .exe file that needs to be downloaded and run in order to view the message. With today's spyware and viruses and other nasties lurking out there, downloading random executable files from unsolicited emails is pretty high on the list of things you simply just don't do.
As for the ringtones, obviously they are for mom and dad, and if your five year old has a cell phone, we should talk. But again, I'm not sold on the execution. Dogs barking to the tune of Old Macdonald, Row Row Row Your Boat and the William Tell Overture have to get pesky after the first few times your phone rings. However, I completely support the donation made to the Guide Dogs of Australia for each ringtone purchased, so download one anyway.
-- Corey Kronengold, director of corporate communications, Tremor Media
How do you sell toilet paper? Usually, you go with "soft" as the main selling point, and what is softer than a cute and cuddly puppy? And since puppies work great as toilet paper mascots, Cottonelle imagines that you might just be interested in downloading a desktop app centered on their cute little toilet paper puppy, known officially as the Cottonelle Puppy.
Okay. I'll play along.
Win a giant stuffed Cottonelle Puppy. Get a virtual puppy jumping around on your desktop, reminding you to feed it and performing tricks. Cottonelle Puppy ringtones! Puppy e-Cards and backgrounds! Puppy games! It's all part of Cottonelle Kids Puppy Club -- and remember -- it's all about toilet paper.
I have to hand it to the folks who did this; they've taken a hard-to-sell product like toilet paper and built a huge kid-friendly site about dogs. Are little Australian children now shopping with their mommies in Sydney and Perth, jumping up and down in the toilet paper aisle, insisting, "Get the one with the Puppy!"?
That's the plan.
--Dave Wilkie, creative director, Dexterity Media and author of the advertising blog, Where's My Jetpack?