When Procter & Gamble sought PR help in launching a new product last year, the cosmetics maker wanted more than the usual talk of timeless grace and nature adorned. The
Olay Regenerist skin care product incorporated a new, proprietary peptide-based compound that was clinically proven to reduce the effects of photo-aging.
P&G asked the PR professionals at Manning Selvage & Lee to help position Olay Regenerist based on the product's scientific merits. "Consumers are becoming more savvy
all the time ... and we wanted to make it clear to the consumer that science was the basis of this product," says Anita Walter Kern, a communications manager at Procter &
Gamble.
No one figured on a war breaking out the night before the product launch, but the PR team took that setback in stride.
Changing plans
The PR team began by preparing a pre-launch audio news release, featuring the voices of a Stanford University dermatologist and a P&G executive discussing the merits of the
new peptide technology. "The goal was to soften the market and build some credibility for this technology, while at the same time connecting that to P&G's Olay brand," says
Michael Echter, a senior vice president at Manning Selvage & Lee. The ANR got widespread pick-up through its release on the syndicated Radio Health Journal.
With a product launch due March 19, the PR team had planned a big kick-off event timed to coincide with the American Academy of Dermatology meeting in San Francisco, which was
scheduled to occur the same week as the launch. Procter & Gamble researchers would be there presenting data, along with their colleague Dr. Alexa Kimball from Stanford. With
20 interviews lined up for a satellite media tour the PR team was ready roll. Then the U.S. went to war in Iraq. "We shut things down to save on the costs of execution, and for a
couple of days we went silent," says Anne Fitzsimons-Unger, senior account supervisor at Manning Selvage & Lee.
The PR team fell back on Plan B: Specifically, a move to more "controlled" media. With local news stations unlikely to pick up the VNR, the agency paid to get the release on
the syndicated American Scene. The VNR ran on March 21-22 and reached 4.3 million consumers. The team also paid for a matte release that eventually ran in 72 local papers for 6.2
million impressions.
Have another go at it
When the media returned to business as usual, the PR team decided to try again. They timed an April 29 re-launch effort to coincide with the Society for Investigations
Dermatology meeting in Miami. This time, the tools included a new ANR pegged to the Miami meeting, a re-release of the VNR from the planned original launch and a satellite media
tour with Dr. Kimball, which drew 20 interviews from metro news stations. These stations included News 24 in Houston, WTVF in Nashville, and radio stations KLAY-AM in Seattle,
WIOD-AM in Miami, and American Urban Radio Network out of Pittsburgh.
By this time the product was no longer news since it had been on the market for some time. So the PR team tried to pitch the story as a feature. "We had to adjust our pitching,
but I think what we got out of it was a lot more depth," Echter says. While the goal was still to keep the story on the science pages, the PR team also tried to make the themes
more accessible for writers who were not coming at it from a science angle.
The results
Through the nationally syndicated show Radio Health Journal, the pre-launch audio news release aired on 345 stations during the weeks of March 2 and March 9, 2003. Coverage
totaled 4.6 million impressions and accounted for 88% of U.S. geography. The matte release scored 6.4 million impressions through 72 local newspaper stories and is still
accumulating.
An ANR was fed on March 25 to three national radio networks -- AP Radio Network, Westwood One, USA Radio Network/Business Talk Radio Network. The story resulted in 4.6 million
impressions in 764 broadcasts, despite the war. A VNR distributed through the syndicated American Scene reached 4.3 million consumers. Stories in trades such as BioTechnology News
and Drug Topics reached some 420,000 professionals.
Finally, the re-launch effort with its outreach to consumer health writers, its ANR re-release and its satellite media tour scored some 15.7 million impressions altogether.
Kern says she's pleased with the results, though the real test is in the bottom line. "So far so good," she says. "Sales are off to a good start."
Echter, meanwhile, says the campaign answered consumers' changing expectations about the nature of beauty products. "Today, consumers are much more intelligent and much more
knowledgeable about the products they select," he says. "We are seeing in the case of Procter & Gamble a willingness to really get at the science beneath their products.
Because they recognize that these are the questions consumers are asking."
Contacts: Michael Echter, 212.213.7211, [email protected]; Anne Fitzsimons-Unger, 614.221.2039, [email protected]; Anita Walter Kern, 513.945.5075, [email protected]
Campaign staff: Michael Echter, SVP; Kristen Neese, VP/Media; Anne FitzSimons-Unger, Sr Acct Supervisor; Adriane Hirsch-Klein, Acct Supervisor/ Media; Joe Duraes, Acct
Supervisor/Media; Christiana Sutor, Sr Consultant; Jessica Beattie, Senior Acct Exec; Rachel Gil, Account Coordinator
Selling Science
Here's how the PR pros at Manning Selvage & Lee helped Procter & Gamble launch the new skin care product, Olay Regenerist, based on its scientific merits:
- Events: The PR team timed major news moments to coincide with scientific conferences where scientists would be discussing research related to the product.
- Voices: VNRs and ANRs presented the voices of researchers who could speak directly to the technology behind the product.
- Faces: Satellite media tours offered not P&G spokesmen, but rather a practicing scientist who, again, could talk substance.
- Documentation: A CD ROM explained the science in detail, offering an illustrated explanation of the technology at work.