Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins
Last week, Procter & Gamble’s Pampers brand faced down a massive public outcry on its new Dry Max diaper brand, started by irate mommy bloggers and their Facebook friends. Angry parents bombarded local news and social media channels claiming the new diaper was giving their newborns serious chemical burns.
Fast-forward a week and P&G has contained the uproar thanks to a quick and clever PR response, deemed highly successful with restoring sales and the share price. Here’s how they did it:
1) Act fast
The bulk of P&G’s response happened in the first 28 hours after CNN ran the initial report on the morning of May 6th. By 4 p.m. that day the company released two SEO-friendly official statements addressing the concerns and set up a team to constantly monitor social media chatter. The wording in the releases, P&G told Advertising Age, was intentional, designed to create a distance in search engine results that mention the words “Pampers,” “diaper rash” and “dry max diapers.” But as seen from the screen shot below of a Google search this morning for “pampers dry max”, this was only partially effective:
2) An integrated media response to a social media uproar
P&G knew that this sort of story was the preferred cannon fodder of smaller local TV stations. They also understood that it wasn’t wise to seem overly aggressive by going on CNN and immediately counter-attacking the claims. Instead, P&G granted two lengthy explanatory TV interviews with local TV stations on the night of May 6th that were picked up nationally. Also, P&G made use of its YouTube channel with a follow-up video to debunk the rumors.
3) Understand your customers, isolate the haters, and offer another explanation
P&G knew that its customers would fight tooth and nail to get back at anyone who hurt their newborn bundle of joy. In terms of who was talking on Facebook and other social media outlets, P&G noticed that it was often a few angry parents venting constantly about the ins-and-outs of the diaper rash phenomenon. The “Boycott New Pampers Dry Max” group on Facebook (at press time, consisting of 750 members) were seemingly less credulous parents asking about the stories of those who suffered the problem. Some moms even defended Pampers:
Statements released by P&G highlighted their expert use of social media monitoring. P&G’s crisis control team referenced (correctly) in their statements that the angry posters were “a small group of parents” who “have specifically sought to promote the myth that our product causes ‘chemical burns.’”
4) Be clear about your new product on every media channel
P&G now admits that its Dry Max brand launch lacked detail. For example, the first Dry Max diapers came in sample packs within the older versions of the brand with little to no explanation. So, when Dry Max finally hit the shelves in its own newly designed pack, parents naturally started pinning blame on their newborn’s rash to the new mysterious diaper. Since parents seem to be so keen at using Facebook and other niche social networks, P&G could have launched a better media campaign through social media channels to inform parents about the change.
5) Never underestimate the power of social media to rock your brand
The entire situation started because of angry Facebook parents. It continued because these few angry parents persistently posted on Facebook walls about the dangers of the diaper. Scared parents joined into the discussion and began asking questions and complaining. The stock price fell, as did sales.
P&G noted that directly responding to angry parents on Facebook was not effective at stopping the storm. Instead, it noted that short and professional posts illustrating that the company understood the parents’ concern and was looking into it help the most to calm people down online.
Editor’s Note: Want to learn more about social media best practice? Join our LinkedIn Group and enjoy a great discount on attending the Social Media Conference, June 22.
Correction: In an early version of this story, we reported the Boycott Pampers Facebook page soared to 2,500 members. That was not the case. We regret the error.
17 Comments »
Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins – Last week, Procter & Gamble’s Pampers brand faced down a massive public … http://ow.ly/17k6yu
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Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins http://bit.ly/av309E
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Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and win-what we all can learn from this! http://ht.ly/1J6Fw
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Brand and issue mngt model – good case study. RT @danielmorier: Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins http://bit.ly/bJDFEC
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Pampers: How Procter and Gamble Overcame a Social Media Crisis! Take a look and learn…. http://ow.ly/1JufZ
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Pampers: How Procter and Gamble Overcame a Social Media Crisis! Take a look and learn…. http://ow.ly/1Jv8K
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins http://bit.ly/av309E
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Social Media Influence: Social Media News & Intelligence » Pampers … http://bit.ly/btyYYA
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Social Media Influence: Social Media News & Intelligence » Pampers …: Angry parents bombarded local news and soc… http://bit.ly/btyYYA
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Social Media Influence: Social Media News & Intelligence » Pampers …: Angry parents bombarded local news and soc… http://bit.ly/btyYYA
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Social Media Influence: Social Media News & Intelligence » Pampers …: Angry parents bombarded local news and soc… http://bit.ly/btyYYA
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You really need to get your facts straight! You have mixed up your face book pages. The boycott pampers page has NEVER been to 2500 members! You are probably referring to the page “Pampers Bring Back the old Cruisers/Swaddlers” Their page is now past 9,000 members and GROWING. Next time do a little more research and make sure what you post is right!
Thanks for pointing that out, Huh. We’ve corrected the miscalculation and, of course, regret the error.
Procter & Gamble and Brenda Kidd:
Unlike Pampers, why can’t Procter & Gamble just sit down with Brenda Kidd and talk about her Actonel adverse side effects, injuries that occurred, before Procter and Gamble sold Actonel, which is a drug for osteoporosis to another company? This has been going on way to long.
[...] month, we reported that P&G’s marketing response to a mommy blogger-driven social media attack on its [...]
This is not true at all. Parents have made their own mind up. The babies are the ones that lost and Pampers have certainly not won. Its not about winning tho, It SHOULD be abour Proctor &Gamble doing the rigth thing and working out what IS triggering an extreame reaction to a small percentage of babies. Any decent company with morals would be trying to help sort this out. Instead they stil pretend its nothing to do with them (then why is it that our babies were wearing the product before it changed without any problems?). So, Parents just switch to another brand or cloth and as Pampers roll out Dry Max into ALL their nappies effecting even more babies their sales will drop even further – funny they were trying to increase the market share!
[...] Pampers takes on mommy bloggers and wins | SMI – not a win as this is a running battle but an interesting insight into their playbook [...]
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