Does P&G's marketing on social networks make sense?

19 December 2008

Consumer products company Procter & Gamble (P&G) deserves credit for trying to use social networks for marketing its brands, though questions remain about the degree of success it has had. Dhruv Tanwar reports

Consumer products company Procter & Gamble (P&G) deserves credit for trying to use social networks for marketing its brands. Though questions remain about the degree of success it has had with campaigns on Facebook, its attempts to explore the high-traffic opportunity as a marketing platform have generated varied responses within in the marketing fraternity.

Social networks have grown for a multitude of reasons, with the common thread being interacting with people. While MySpace, Orkut and Friendster came about as a great way to stay in touch with friends and possibly find long lost ones again, or meet new people and share ideas, LinkedIn is more of a professional network leveraged by entrepreneurs and professionals alike who use the network to hire or outsource, besides explore opportunities. Flickr, on the other hand, works as a simple tool for sharing photos.

Online social networks create participative social spaces online, as against using the internet for search. They form communities based on likes, dislikes, interests, etc. that are the binding factor, which thrive in the online environment on account of a lack of the traditional barriers to communication, mainly time and space. As a marketing tool, social networks empower word-of-mouth and viral marketing. They are more suited, typically, for spreading the marketing message, as opposed to driving traffic and sales.

Also, unlike typical netizens, social networkers have different expectations of interaction and privacy. They have predefined rules about what is private, and what is public information. And they can quickly organise themselves into groups dedicated for, or against, a cause. This calls for marketers to respect their target audience as people, something of a foreign concept when it comes to traditional marketing.

A couple of days ago, The New York Times carried a report by Randall Stross, who tried to ascertain the hurdles that marketers face while advertising on social networks.

P&G earlier ran a campaign entitled "America's Favorite Stains" on Facebook that asked for members' ideas, and recently displayed 18 submissions. Quoting independent experts on web advertising, the report said there was a "myriad of difficulties" in making brand advertising work on social networking sites, since members of the networks come online to spend time with friends, and not brands.