Engaging Employees with the roll of some dice
The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today on P&G's marketing of Prilosec OTC, the company's over-the-counter heartburn medication, titled "An Old Dice Game Catches On Again, Pushed by P&G; In Bunco, It Sees a Way To Pitch Heartburn Drug; Living the Joanne Lifestyle."
Who is Joanne? Joanne is the name that the P&G staff has given to a common Prilosec OTC customer - a middle-aged woman who enjoys socializing.
Now here is what sets P&G apart from other companies. They could have sat in a boardroom and speculated on how to connect with Joanne, or surveyed a bunch of women in hopes of capturing valuable data. Instead, they decided to live as Joanne, see what she sees and feel what she feels:
"Studying Joanne has led Prilosec OTC marketers to attend NASCAR races, camp in RVs, travel by Greyhound, listen to country music and tailgate at NFL games."
However, the most significant discovery was the relationship between the target audience and a little-known dice game Bunco.
"Acting on a tip, Ms. Niese (P&G assistant brand manager) emailed the entire Prilosec OTC division in the summer of 2005, asking whether anyone knew somebody who played bunco. A man in product development responded, reporting that his wife was an avid fan. Ms. Niese arranged to tag along to the next game."
Research bore out the fact Bunco players are ideal Prilosec customers and these women value the opinions of their fellow players. As a result, Prilosec OTC has sponsored the Bunco World Championship and several other Bunco events and online resources.
What can we take from this?
1) Find ways for your employees to know your customer - While this is particularly important for comms, marketing and sales staff, it is important for everyone. You don't get to decide what your brand is and what drives trust and decision making, your consumers do. Embrace this!
2) Take a comprehensive approach to customer/market research and let it inform communications - This is a beautiful example of blending quantitative data on market demographics with qualitative, experiential data from customers. Companies rarely invest in this level of research and it makes initiatives more targeted and effective (actually often reducing costs).
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