At a conference recently, I engaged in a conversation with a woman from the technology side of the business. She was wondering how consumer packaged goods brands that don't sell product on the web benefit from interactive marketing.
Smart brands, I told her, engage their audiences through such things as games, like M&Ms and Cheerios have created for their young consumers, or recipes and cooking tips, like Kraft Foods provides busy moms.
The key is figuring out what the desired audience will find valuable, and providing that value to them. For example, Procter & Gamble, maker of Always and Tampax feminine products, offers young girls "a place where girls can come together to learn, share, communicate with each and have loads of fun with games, quizzes, polls and lot's more," at specialty site beinggirl.com. "Being a girl is like being part of a club where everyone knows what you're going through … at least on some level," it says on the site. "Girls have fun. Girls have opinions. Girls have a lot of questions about stuff like PMS, dating, their bodies and even serious subjects like addiction and abuse -- just about anything you can think of that has to do with being a girl."
And, oh yeah, the girls can get free samples of and information about Always and Tampax on the site as well.
P&G originally launched beinggirl.com in July of 2000 with the goal of providing a forum for girls to explore their collective interests and receive guidance in choosing the right feminine protection products at the very start of their cycles. The site has consistently involved health care experts and teens themselves to create an environment encouraging active participation and the desire to return. Beinggirl.com works closely with a teen advisory board to develop interactive features, including games and downloads.
Highlights include "Girl 2 Girl Talk," where girls can connect directly with each other; an "Express Yourself" portion that provides a creative outlet for girls to showcase their individuality and style through poems, short stories and tales of personal moments; and a "Create A Date" game where a girl can design the boy of her dreams. In addition, girls can receive style, beauty and fitness tips from beinggirl.com's partners. An advice section, "Ask Iris," receives more than 3,000 questions each week.
With 500,000-plus monthly visitors, the site also recently featured a sweepstakes, offering girls the opportunity to win such prizes as a trip for two to the Los Angeles movie premiere of "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," gift certificates, free movie passes, soundtracks from the Warner Bros. Pictures movie, t-shirts and more.
Beinggirl.com and Warner Bros. teamed up for a joint promotion aimed at the same audience. "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"/beinggirl.com promotional partnership includes the sweepstakes rolled out through the P&G site, and an 11-city tour that's allowing girls to meet stars of the movie and obtain movie and beinggirl.com gear.
"'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants' addresses teen issues that are at the heart of beinggirl.com," says Mary Woods, beinggirl.com marketing specialist. "Since we're a site that is created for girls, by girls, we listen to girls and stay in tune with what they connect with and find relevant in their lives. It only makes sense that we would be a promotional partner with Warner Bros., so we can let girls know that this movie and the site are great resources for both entertainment and education and are relevant to any type of girl."
Alcon Entertainment's "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," based on Ann Brashares' best-selling novel, is the story of four lifelong friends, separated for the first time, during an extraordinary summer. On a shopping trip, the young women find a pair of thrift-shop jeans that fits each of them perfectly, and they decide to use these pants as a way of keeping in touch over the months ahead, each one wearing the jeans for a week to see what luck they bring her before sending them on to the next. Though miles apart, the four friends still experience life, love and loss together in a summer they'll never forget. The movie opened last week.
Gunjan Bagla, global advisor to the entertainment industry (whose first interactive company, PeopleLink, provided online community to TeenMag, Bolt, IGN, MTV, and other popular teen sites), considers the partnership a brilliant move.
"Beinggirl is a community site where young women can maintain a two-way conversation with P&G brands, besides talking among themselves. Warner Brothers is being astute to join this conversation in the marketing of 'The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,'" says Bagla. "Letting young women hear about the movie in context and letting the consumer have some control of the conversation is the best way to market to this demographic today. The runaway popularity of blogs has convinced big brands that it is a good thing to let consumers have some control in an interactive world."
Herbal Essences and Thermacare, two more Procter & Gamble products, are also sponsors of the film.
Dawn Anfuso is editor of iMedia Connection.
