Calling B.S. on P&G

I sometimes recommend strategies that are about differentiating through brand integrity – how a brand treats its customers, employees, community and the environment. Lately it seems everyone is jumping on this bandwagon, even more than ever. Or maybe I am just noticing it more. But as friend, former colleague, fellow strategist John Karlson and I were discussing recently, there is a big difference between making a quick buck off of a cause marketing promotion and making an authentic long-term commitment to a social mission, corporate responsibility, brand integrity, whatever you want to call it.

For example, which one do you think this is, from Dawn dish soap (P&G)?

Smells like the former “quick buck” strategy to me, and the very healthy discussion of the spot on YouTube seems to mostly agree, though it’s definitely the “Skeptic” segment pitted against the “Pollyanna” segment who ran out and bought Dawn because the commercial is cute and the music is great. If you know me, read my blog regularly, or follow me on Twitter, you know which segment I fall into ;)

The commenters point out that P&G tests its products on animals, while the company states that such testing is a last resort. Which, in effect, is sort of a corporate escape hatch, IMHO. Further, the company has formed a “strategic partnership” with the American Humane Society “committed to the elimination of animal use for consumer product evaluation.” Was the objective of that strategy really “doing the right thing”? Or was it “form a defense against PETA”? Either way, if I can be super tactical for a moment, the fact that the spot is a Simulated Demonstration calls its authenticity into question.

Lo and behold, Dawn’s actual Good Guide rating is a whopping 5.7 out of 10. Not “Terrible” – though of couple of their products are rated “Terrible” in the health category – but certainly not good enough to call themselves the environmental good guys. So I’m officially calling BS on this Good Guy strategy, folks.

GoodGuide Rating for Dawn

What do you think? Do you think P&G is for real in this case? Or do you think its corporate whitewashing? If you know anyone from P&G, feel free to invite them to weigh in. I would love to be proven wrong.

For more on brand integrity, I highly recommend the brilliant Marketing Meritocracy blog by John F. Karlson. For more explanation of Good Guide ratings, go here.

  • http://www.tommartin.typepad.com Tom Martin

    Interesting post/take Sue… maybe you’ve hit on something a bit deeper here… silos.

    From a strictly advertising POV – the spot is great. Draws you in, makes you feel good about Dawn and directly ties back and reinforces Dawn’s key point of differentiation — cuts grease better than other dish washing liquids.

    But then you have the whole PETA product testing side of the house.

    Which begs the question — how many Dawn users really care about product testing. Sure, there is that vocal minority that actually care, follow and probably make purchasing decisions based on such things, but if you look at the size of the CPG/Beauty segment where animal testing occurs, you pretty quickly figure out that the majority of American’s really aren’t that worried. They still purchase those goods.

    So if the marketing dept’s job is to generate purchase, did Dawn really make a mistake? Or maybe they just decided that they could further leverage fence sitters –those that like to feel like they are buying things for a greater cause but don’t actually take the time to do that heavy background research like you did above.

    What do you think?
    @TomMartin

  • admin

    Tom,

    Thanks for making me think deeper. I guess how one feels about it comes down to personal values and expectations for corporate values. I’m certain you are very right that there are a lot of people that couldn’t care less, they just want clean dishes and cute fuzzy animals.

    Judging by the numbers for GoodGuide.com and the number of people that have downloaded the GoodGuide iPhone app, though, as well as the comment string on this spot on YouTube, I believe a growing number of people do care and do make brand judgements based on actual corporate integrity. Or maybe that’s just idealistic thinking on my part. Having a rare Pollyanna moment, of sorts. ;)