AdverNET '99 COVERAGE: Offline Integration

From: jon huntress <jon.huntress_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Tue 9 Nov 1999 15:06:04 -0600

In our continuing coverage of the Advernet Conference in New
York, this article covers a presentation on integrating
online and offline campaigns including difficulties
encountered and benefits learned. The questions of the
effectiveness of traditional and online advertising and how
agencies dealt with these issues kept returning during this
presentation. It was given by a couple of heavy hitters,
Marianne Caponnetto from IBM and Vivienne Bechtold, the
interactive marketing director for Proctor and Gamble.

Marianne Caponnetto is the Vice President of Worldwide and
Digital Media for IBM. She is responsible for the corporate
management of IBM 's global advertising media operations and
investment strategy including all media buying and planning.
She also has strategic responsibility for planning, creative
direction and measurement of all digital advertising.

Marianne covered the top lessons learned for online vs.
offline advertising, company brands and sub-brands, global
vs. local strategy, cross disciplinary teams, and client and
agency partners.

IBM started their e-business campaign in 1997 when the talk
about the internet began to get loud. IBM had the objective
of being the identity leader and also had a need to rebuild
their leadership. At this time the market was focused on the
browser wars and content was king. IBM saw this as a chance
to gain competitive advantage by helping businesses do real
business on the internet. At that time it was still widely
believed that nobody was making money on the net. IBM wanted
to help their clients find more customers and to collaborate
with them more effectively by finding new opportunities,
evaluating, focusing on the offerings and creating custom
demonstrations. Marianne showed several commercial clips
illustrating IBM's current efforts. She said these ads on
radio and TV were very effective, generating calls from
commuters on their car phones and from homes during the time
the commercials were running.

They began with an integrated campaign approach based on
education and driving e-business. They launched in the fall
of 1997 with lots of TV ads explaining what e-business is.
The purpose was to educate the public on e-business issues
and show that there were opportunities in this area. This
effort also led to increased sales of ThinkPads and servers.
IBM claims to have coined the term "E-Business". So far they
have gotten a lot of positive feedback. People associate the
term e-business with IBM four times more than with any other
competitor. This has sold IBM on the idea of an integrated
campaign.

Marianne said it was important to build the skill set first
and include everybody. There is usually a separation between
interactive and traditional people within a company and it
is easy to start something and not have an essential
element, group or person in place. She said that it is
important to get everyone on board and the people at
headquarters need to know this and share the results. She
gave the credit to the strength of the IBM team to their
early recognition of the need to cooperate.

Vivienne Bechtold is the Director of Interactive Marketing
for Proctor and Gamble. She was recently recognized by
"Advertising Age" as the Interactive Marketer of the Year.
Two years ago, P & G realized they needed to jump-start
their interactive marketing effort on brands. There was no
clear model for them to follow and they had no idea of what
was effective strategy for internet branding of products
such as toilet paper. Vivienne's interactive marketing team
began by choosing ten different brands representing a cross
section of Proctor and Gamble's product line. During the
first year they had a difficult time synergizing the
online/offline marketing effort. They started a program that
encouraged divisions to apply for matching funds for an
interactive effort where the team set the objectives. 30
brands applied and the integration effort began.

One of the first was Pert Plus, known on television for the
"Sink Guy", a man-on-the-street who talks women into getting
their hair washed right there. The decided to take the sink
guy, with his light hearted approach to hair, online to test
the concept and also to introduce a new formula for the
product. In one campaign they asked the viewer to place some
of their hair on their monitor screen for an "instant hair
analysis". Many people ended up doing just this and it
reminded me of Oral Roberts in the 50s when he asked his TV
congregation to pray with their hands on the screen. Some of
this interactive stuff isn't so new after all.

Vivienne said they go a lot deeper than just looking at the
click-throughs. Those who did go looked at seven out of ten
pages on the average, and 50% requested a sample of the
product. 65% of those people wanted to do more in the
future. These are very good numbers.

The next product she talked about was Always, a feminine
protection product with a large market. P & G was looking
to increase sales specifically for teens. Proctor and Gamble
knows that the satisfaction level of feminine products
significantly increases when the right product for the
person is chosen, a decision that is hard to make in a
supermarket with 35 different brands and styles on the
shelf.

The Always web site is a very gentle site designed for women
and is consequently not the same as a site directed to
teens. To be more effective, the Always advertising copy
directed at teens was completely different. They used a
pull-down banner with eight questions that led the person to
the right product for them and linked to the Always home
page through a special "teen entry website". They had a very
good interaction level. Teen girls did want help in picking
the right product. The privacy of the interaction was also
appreciated.

The next product she covered was Noxzema and they used a
different approach here, creating a special ad with no
branding to drive people to the web site where they could
get a free sample. 250,000 samples were requested. The
offline campaign established new equity and the online
effort gave education of what new brands would be offered.

Vivienne echoed the importance of cooperation within the
corporate entity and pointed out that there are many
functions that completely depend on headquarters, such as
access to the corporate database and infrastructure.

Both IBM and Proctor and Gamble are doing excellent work in
developing the tools and methods that will be the standard
for the integration of online and offline marketing. The
techniques are often unique and ambitious, and the results
are gratifying. Communication between the two seems to be
the most important factor.

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Received on Tue Nov 09 1999 - 15:06:04 CST