Welcome to the latest edition of Marketer's Brief, a quick
take on marketing news, moves and trends from Ad Age's reporters
and editors. Send tips/suggestions to [email protected].
Procter & Gamble's Olay did not have a great performance in
the widely cited USA Today Ad Meter. But CMO Marc Pritchard is
talking up how the brand scored during the Super Bowl in other
ways. Find out more below, along with how Dove is making its latest
female empowerment play. But first, details on what a home shopping
network is doing to update its image.
Home shopping network QVC is giving itself a makeover. The West
Chester, Pennsylvania-based brand has updated its logo with a
square and unveiled a new app, "Q Anytime," that delivers shoppable
videos in five-to-eight-minute segments. Mary Campbell, chief
merchandising officer for parent Qurate Retail Group says that 80
percent of QVC's new customers come to the company through digital
platforms. QVC's in-house team worked with Moxie initially,
and the project was then executed internally.
Olay wins digital, if not popularity
contests
Olay's #KillerSkin Super Bowl spot may not have won popularity
contests–ranking 30th in USA Today's Ad Meter for
example–but it did far better on digital amplification. Olay
won Merkle's "Digital Bowl" because it "never stopped engaging on
social, updating Instagram stories, reposting user-generated
content, and leveraging influencers until the final whistle,"
according to the agency. The brand finished top three among
advertisers by creating a Super Bowl-focused landing page and
optimized YouTube video visible for campaign-related queries,"
according to Merkle. The brand also generated the fifth most
social-media likes among Bowl advertisers with nearly 288,000,
according to Engagement Labs, though the NFL won handily on that
front with 1.1 million likes worth an estimated $3.1 million in
earned media. Saatchi & Saatchi created Olay's ads, with Small
Girls PR handling PR.
Procter & Gamble Co. Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard says
in an interview that Olay's effort, including two videos before and
one after the game, have driven 17 million views to date, 4 billion
impressions. Sessions on the Olay Skin Advisor app doubled during
the game "and sales grew very high double digits online at
least."
Dove's newest empowerment play
Unilever's Dove has enlisted seven-time platinum recording
artist Kelly Rowland to write and produce original song "Crown" to
help "break down the narrow definition of beautiful hair and
encourage girls to feel confident in wearing it how they choose,"
the brand says. The song draws on real-life stories of young girls
who've faced bullying or discrimination over their hair and who
star in the video. A recent Dove study found half of girls say
their hair makes them feel self-conscious. WPP's Ogilvy,
Paris, is agency behind the work.
Natural femcare gets love
One sure sign natural feminine products are big: The established
players are buying in fast. Procter & Gamble Co. announced
Tuesday it has agreed to buy This is L for an estimated $100
million. This follows the prior-week announcement that Combe,
marketer of Vagisil and Just for Men, has made a "strategic
investment" in Sustain Natural, marketer of "earth-friendly"
tampons, condoms, and lubricants. Sustain was co-founded by Meika
Hollender and her father Jeffrey, who previously founded Seventh
Generation, another player in natural feminine-care products now
owned by Unilever.
Conquering textile dysfunction
Menswear brand Mizzen + Main is hoping to bring awareness to
an-oft ignored affliction—textile dysfunction, or the
inability to maintain lasting performance in clothing due to
circumstances such as sweat. The seven-year-old company developed
its new TD-focused campaign through an in-house team helmed by
creative director Richard Ross. In one spot, a man laments, "Going
to the dry cleaners wasn't enjoyable for me… or my wife,"
before explaining that he now washes his Mizzen + Main shirts at
home. We get it.
Would you buy this?
JNSQ Rosé Cru and Sauvignon Blanc come in curvy bottles
reminiscent of oversized perfume bottles. While the $29 wine's name
plays on the French phrase "je ne sais quoi," the grapes come from
California's Central Coast region. It comes from The Wonderful
Company, which also owns Pom Wonderful, Wonderful Pistachios, Fiji
water and Justin wines. The company says JNSQ is aimed at
millennial women.
Number of the Week
$1.9 billion: What the average National Basketball Association
team is worth, up 13 percent over last year, according to Forbes' new report on team values. The New York Knicks
are No. 1, at $4 billion, which does nothing to soothe fans of the
long-struggling franchise.
Comings and goings
Growing scooter brand Lime is gaining more flexibility with the
appointment of its first chief marketing officer. The San
Francisco-based brand named Duke Stump, who most recently served as
executive VP of brand and community at Lululemon. At the Canadian sportswear brand, Stump
was responsible for large campaigns including "This is Yoga."
Sallie Mae has tapped banking vet Donna Vieira as executive VP
and chief marketing officer. Vieira most recently spent five years
as CMO of consumer banking and wealth management at JPMorgan
Chase.
Networking software company Gigamon has a new chief marketing
officer in Karl Van den Bergh. He most recently was CMO at
DataStax, a data management company.
~ ~ ~
CORRECTIONS:
The chief merchandising officer at Qurate Retail Group is Mary
Campbell. Her name was misstated in an earlier version of this
article. Also, Sustain was co-founded by Meika Hollender and her
father Jeffrey. He was incorrectly described as her husband in a
previous version of this story.
Contributing: E.J. Schultz, Jessica Wohl, Adrianne
Pasquarelli, Jack Neff