Social Media Marketing Example #3: Clorox
October 6, 2008
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For the third example in the series, “26 Social Media Marketing Examples In Detail“, I’m taking a look at Clorox (a personal favorite brand of mine).
What are they doing?
- Widgets
- Cafemom Widget: Clorox has a widget featured on Cafemom called the “Laundry Scavenger Hunt“. The widget is promoted through banner ads on the site, as well as in the branded widgets section. The concept of the game is that you download the widget to your desktop, and then as a player you are sent to other player’s profiles to grab clothes to wash. Different items are worth different points, and particular combinations of clothing give bonus points as well. The bummer is that these points accrued can only be redeemed for a bigger “virtual laundry basket” and a new washing machine (also virtual) - rather than Clorox coupons or something that makes it worth my time. However, even though I personally hate laundry (and don’t really understand why you’d want to do it for fun), this widget is genius because it forces you to bounce from profile to profile and meet other women in the process. It also appears to be quite popular on Cafe Mom, with one top user having over 11 million points (to put that in perspective my first basket was only worth 260).
- Blogging:
- Dr Laundry: This blog functions as a Q&A, where readers ask “Dr. Laundry” a question about laundry. The blog discloses the identity of Dr. Laundry as Harold Baker, an Associate Research Fellow at Clorox. This identity works very well, because Harold holds over 30 years studying stains and his writing is very personal and practical. After visiting the site, I found myself reading multiple posts to find out the answers to questions like, “How to remove pit stains” or “Brightening white towels”. In my opinion, the site itself needs a re-haul in functionality (like the ability to rate up articles that really resonate, or clicking on the icon to go back to the homepage), but with its valuable content it should at the very least be connected to the Clorox homepage.
- Social Networking:
- Cafemom: In addition to the Laundry Scavenger Hunt widget, Clorox also has a group formed as well. Upon first review, I thought it may be a fairly inactive group, but found it to be quite the opposite. Managed by CafeMom, this group has consistent conversation, and garners hundreds of comments and thousands of pageviews (one post with over 80,000 page views).
- Facebook & MySpace: Currently there are multiple user-generated profiles for Clorox. One of the most popular was on Myspace for 245 friends (specifically for Clorox disinfecting wipes). On first glance, it appeared to be corporate, until I noticed the details within the profile listing it’s status as a “Swinger”, and its body type as “More to Love”. This was humorous to me, but I doubt it would be to the folks at Clorox.
- Video
- Clorox currently houses its commercials on its corporate site, but does not allow these to be easily grabbed.
- TheBlueSkyProject: Clorox currently has a You Tube channel dedicated to The Blue Sky Project, an album of songs used in popular Clorox commercials, extended to full-length tracks by the original musicians, with half the purchase price benefiting Music In Schools Today, a charity that supports music programs in public schools (mustcreate.org). This channel seems to be working in Clorox’s favor, with one such video garnering a half million views.
Do you know of other things Clorox is doing within the realm of social media marketing? If so, feel free to add it in the comments below!
Comments
6 Responses to “Social Media Marketing Example #3: Clorox”
Got something to say?
Cool post and a great example with Clorox. I like the BlueSkyProject idea.
Brett Tilford’s last blog post..How Much Will This Cost?
Hi Lisa,
Great stuff here. My only concern, which I presume most marketers would have as well, is regarding the metrics used to determine the success of these types of programs.
Widgets can be a great way to connect with your custoemrs, but I can’t imagine a great value for them unless they’re attached to some kind of offline reward. For example the Southwest Ding widget is valuable becuase you can actually save money on flights by using it. So, my question is, are clorox customers gaining anything by doing this (in real life) - how about Clorox itself? Are you privy to any numbers? Analytics perhaps.
For Blogs, I can see the value of being a Q&A section - taking the burden off of your customer support staff. Your suggestions are very insightful by the way.
It seems like Clorox is trying to do something, and it appears to be catching on.
As I said,any follow up on this with lots of numbers to support value would be great!
Shailesh Ghimire’s last blog post..Relevant Social Media News and Articles
I’m curious how companies that once had Facebook widgets are keeping them or resorting to “pages” that carry more weight, not to mention higher viral marketing in the news feed.
It’s great Clorox is engaging with customers in multiple areas, but how receptive is the company to communicate? Or are they merely pushing content?
Ari Herzog’s last blog post..How YouTube Helps Us Vote
Shailesh - Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, I think there is a difference between social media marketing and traditional marketing, and that difference also includes metrics.
If you measured the success of this by traditional metrics, it is easy to come to the conclusion that there may not be a measurable correlation with offline sales. While I agree there is an opportunity for Clorox to connect the dots (connecting this online widget with an offline reward like coupons), customers are still interacting with it on a very large scale on Cafemom. This to me, shows that Clorox used this to give back to the community, and in turn build its brand value. It’s a soft sell, but this can be measured in the number and type and frequency of interactions with the widget, downloads, and the involvement members have with the associated group.
I wish I had numbers to give, but if I did I’m afraid this would devalue the types of conversations and interactions customers are now having with this brand. I agree that numbers should be used to show value (after all, we have clients!) , but I do feel as if success in social media is even more apparent through the qualitative data we see in user participation.
@ Ari - I think there are some efforts within social media that you may consider “pushed content”, but I don’t consider the Laundry Scavenger Hunt in the same way - since it provides users with a fun experience, with no sales push involved. Sure it has a clorox logo, but it is a fun game for Cafemom users.
On the other hand, I do see a need for Clorox to engage with their customers on a closer level. The blog attempts this, but it has barriers to entry (you have to submit a question via email, and then it is hand selected). A closer look at the group on cafemom, which is managed by CafeMom and it seems evident that they just haven’t invested the time and resources into this type of approach. One possible reason for this is that the budget is currently owned by the marketing department, who may not be able to cross efforts with customer service. To me, it appears that Clorox needs a little help from Ignite
It would be much more benefitial if the points did mean something, I like fun games but I would have to have more motivation than community to play it.
I love Clorox though, as long as they’ve been around they still know how to change with the times and get with their consumers. I can forgive them for not being perfect!
I am in love with the commercials. We all know we avoid ads like crazy now or don’t pay attention to them, but it’s been days and the little girl and the mermaid commercial are still stuck in my head! That’s genius, appealing to something in moms and kids with dreams. And it would make a pretty picture on my wall.
Michelle / chelpixie’s last blog post..Review: Addictomatic