Comments on: Don’t Squeeze The What?

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:27:06 +0000

Good point Pulis.
Perhaps soft and strong are what make a good TP?
Frankly, though, I have to say that P&G knows the answer to this much, much better than I. For some reason, though, this conversation has been a lot of fun from the beginning.

By: Dana Pulis

Dana Pulis — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:58:15 +0000

I have to chime in my two bits about the relevancy of “softness” in toilet paper. Of all the characteristics I hope to experience in toilet paper, softness is not in my top three. What I want to know is 1) will it get the job done well? Some of the softer brands take more runs at it (no pun intended) then the less soft brands. 2) Am I going to punch through? 3) anti-dingleberry qualities. Now, put me on the P & G task force to figure out how to convey those messages! Personally, I think that toilet paper companies choose to peddle the “soft” button because they don’t have to deal with the real issues. Soft is just that–a soft sell.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:16:22 +0000

What I want to know is what has changed in our society to make “Ultra Strong” a value proposition for TP?
For duct tape and security fences, give us Ultra Strong; for TP, soft will do just fine.
Who are these people that go in for Ultra Strong TP? And how are they different (market segments) from those who go in for Ultra Soft?
All I have to say is I hope we don’t have “Ultra Strong” dads influencing the next election. God knows who they would support.
P&G, honor the memory of “The King of Soft.” Take back soft! And get rid of Ultra for God’s sake. Nothing is Ultra unless it flies.

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 12:31:23 +0000

Thanks for an insightful “rant”, Mike. As a customer, you have something valuable to say to P&G about their Charmin products and their marketing. Hope they pay attention to their customers on this.
Neil, thanks for your input on the subject, too, as well as the short but eloquent send-off for Dick Wilson, aka Mr. Whipple, who passed away this week. As many news reporters have stated, he was an icon and many of us have fond memories of him.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:50:51 +0000

May the king of soft rest in peace.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:50:15 +0000

Mike, your point is well taken, with the help of Mr. Whipple, they owned the “soft” position once. Am I right or am I right?
So why do they go to Ultra this and Ultra that? Doesn’t that confuse matters?
Has something changed in our society so radically that we need Ultra strong TP?
Why not re-capture the soft position, my friends. Why not?

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:41:49 +0000

Dick Wilson, the actor who play Mr. Whipple, has died. He was 91. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_en_tv/obit_mr__whipple;_ylt=ApsjThWNniPlBzHjPqUsc8MDW7oF

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 23:42:38 +0000

I hope this observation from a non-ad pro is relevant.
Sometimes it’s not just the storyline, it’s the product.
I came across this discussion because I’m a very disgruntled Charmin customer, and was searching the web for the name of the Charmin brand manager so I can write a complaint to him (And I’ve NEVER written a letter like that to a company before.) Not that I expect it will do any good. I’ve bought Charmin for about 20 years and I think I’m close to done with this brand.
The recent changes have all the appearance of some overpaid brand manager trying to earn his keep by doing _something_.
Here are my beefs with ‘new’ Charmin:
1. Which customer, in their right mind, ever bought Charmin because it was ’strong?’ I used to know exactly what I wanted: Charmin ‘regular’ with the red label. This was regular Charmin, soft and reliable. When they introduced the roll sizes at different prices that was a little wierd, but I could then adjust to a bigger or smaller roll depending on how ‘flush’ I was feeling.
Now the Red label Charmin is something called ‘Charmin Ultra Strong’
“Excuse me?” if I wanted ’strong’ why would I be buying Charmin? Frankly, this ’strong’ Charmin stuff reminds me of some kind of industrial belt material. Not soft, not nice and plush, not Charmin!
From the Charmin site:
“Our New Charmin® Ultra Strong has a 2-ply Diamond Weave texture that makes it more durable.”
“Diamond Weave?” How about “Diamond Plate!!!”
I bought it once, felt fooled and never will again.
2. Charmin Ultra – The softest, plushest around. More expensive, but hey, sometimes you just would say what the heck and go for it. The Blue label was an Ultra version of the already great Charmin product, the ultra-softest around and, while not always what I wanted or needed, I knew what Charmin in the bue label meant.
Now everything is ‘ultra.’
Hint: If everything is ‘Ultra’ then nothing is.
I really hate that now if I want Charmin softness, I have to buy the more expensive Ultra.
3. Charmin Basic – Charmin customers don’t want Basic. Basic TP customers buy single ply rolls of bleached cardboard! I suspect good old regular Charmin in the red label is now Basic. I’m not sure. I’ll try it, but I don’t have high hopes.
4. These ads with the dancing bears hoovering each other’s butts? Where do I even begin? Moronic and offensive. But not offensive in a “hey did you see that commercial” buzz-building offensive, like Paris Hilton fellating an Arby’s burger or something. But offensive to me as a customer. Yes, it deals with a particular aspect of Charmin (how far do I go down this path without getting gross?) But Charmin customers know what they are getting. Now we’ve been ‘dumb, dirty bears’ for all these years?
Well, I don’t know if this is the type of comment you guys want on this blog. I thought I’d share a point of view of a customer, not an ad or marketing pro. And rant a little.
Regards,
Mike
NYC

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 15:16:51 +0000

Eden,
I like it. If the “strong” Charmin is that strong it should be good for a lot of things. Q from could issue some to James Bond to repel or bungy jump out of bad situations.
The soft version could somehow transformed into a bed later in the movie. Q is good. He can get these things done.

By: Eden Mondanaro

Eden Mondanaro — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:30:58 +0000

Neil,
Ha! That last line was great.
Maybe you’re on to something though. . . Maybe that is the demographic they’re shooting for – but people who may not be here in ten years?? Doesn’t seem like a smart growth strategy if you want your brand to be around in twenty.
Here’s one: Get radical and do some product placement. Throw that puppy into a movie like “Transformers.”
When Pepsi did that with Michael J. Fox in the 80’s it was legendary. Picture Shia LaBeouf grabbing a puffy roll of Charmin out of the clearly-recognizable-but-not-too-blatant bag of product, throwing the roll at an oncoming transformer [which of course somehow saves the young star] and exclaiming, “Wow! I never knew you could use THAT stuff for more than one thing!”
Bam. Of course you know it would be just that easy
Here’s a tagline – “Charmin: It Can Save Yo Ass”

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:40:04 +0000

Eden,
What I find funny is they are asking the sixties house wife to re-discover Charmin!
Is that really their market now? And, plus, choose the one that is best for you!!??
If there were numerous version, I maybe could see it, but there are two versions. That does not seem very custom made.
Let’s face it, custom made is not really the value proposition for toilet paper.

By: Eden Mondanaro

Eden Mondanaro — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:36:22 +0000

Thank you Ted.
“Rediscover Charmin. Choose the one that’s best for you.”
Phew!!
(Insert your auto, feminine care or financial securities product here Great discussion.

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 17:34:04 +0000

You make more great points here, Eden. And thanks for being so articulate and succinct in recapping the old “corporate cycle”. I wrote a blog post last year to point out that no company has a greater asset than it’s ‘human capital’. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on how much value seasoned, quality personnel bring to a company for many in the C-Suite. . .but try to run a successful company without them. Employees who prove their worth and bring great value to a company should never be viewed as expendable. . .especially if they embody that company to its other employees and its customers. Unfortunately, for many companies, this simply isn’t the case and guess what? It ultimately impacts sales, growth potential and profitability more adversely than anything else. Thank you for adding a rich dimension to this conversation, Eden. I appreciate it.

By: Eden Mondanaro

Eden Mondanaro — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:49:05 +0000

Ted, thanks for the excellent discussion.
Also thanks for your kind words – luckily I was not the person who got canned! But it was frustrating to see the overall product quality suffer after she left.
You also bring up a good point, something many younger folks in the business would do well to heed: “Proving your own value” is a constant process. It is often good practice to make your own Microsoft excel spreadsheets and/or develop your own metrics, and be ready to share.
Corporate Cycle [reprised]: New decision-makers come in, want to cut expenses, staff gets cut. The bottom line goes up. Product quality suffers, churn rate goes higher, customers leave and new ones are harder to attain. The bottom line goes down. Old decision-makers fired. New decision-makers hired; “Whoops! Where’s the human capital we need to make this better?” New people get hired [sometimes even the same ones who were previously fired], productivity goes up – but so do costs. Repeat cycle.

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:53:48 +0000

Hi Eden,
Thanks for adding another dimension to this discussion. FYI: I believe it was Paul who mentioned the idea of a sandpaper convention, but didn’t everybody, including Neil, offer some creative ideas for new Charmin ad campaigns?
As a creative, I know what you’re talking about, Eden. But whether we’re copywriters, graphic artists or multidisciplinary designers, we need to prove our value to our organizations, just as everyone else does. Budget cuts are painful, and seem unjustifiable to us because we understand the value we bring to our companies. Bottom line: the onus is on us to get our companies to see and understand our value. Then, it’s out of our hands, but we will have done what we can to prove our worth.
It’s easy to feel that corporate accountants make business decisions without always understanding the ramifications of those decisions; in the end, I don’t think anyone relishes having to make cuts. Sometimes when we move on to the next chapter in our lives, we’ve grown a bit and taken some valuable experience and lessons with us, though. I wish you the best, Eden; on to the next of life’s challenges.

By: Eden Mondanaro

Eden Mondanaro — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:41:23 +0000

I like Neil’s sandpaper contest idea. . .
Michael raised an interesting point back there – “copy supervisor (a position they abandoned quite a while ago)”
At my old corporate marketing dept they also got rid of the “copywriter” position. For some reason the ability to write creative, coherent copy is now seen as some sort of redundancy by many corporate bean-counters. In the end, being a really good graphic artist or enthusiastic account rep does not mean you’re an expert in the subtleties of language. That’s what happens when you put accountants in charge of the creative process! (of course we do love all of our bean-counter friends

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:17:47 +0000

It would be funny if the Cat were named Mr. Whipple.
The commentator could say things like, “face it Mr. Whipple, Charmin is irresistibly soft.”
I can’t see telling a cat that something is “Ultra” anything. It was “squeezably soft” with the classic MW but the new Mr. Whipple lacks opposable thumbs.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:29:10 +0000

Incidentally, the strong version would *really* have to be able to withstand cats for this to be credible lest it be blogged that the cat in question must have been de-clawed.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:22:21 +0000

Well, someone noted that the strong and the soft were sort of separate products.
One version = super soft and plush.
The other = stronger than a cat.
I am just wondering if Kitty would go after both versions with the same vigor or would he be stopped in his tracks immediately by the irresistible softness of the super soft version?

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:11:53 +0000

In creative spots of our own devising, we can advertise the product in the way we find most effective. To answer your question, Neil: absolutely.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:00:29 +0000

Can the cat (the new Mr. Whipple) revel in the plush, softness after his failed attempts at shredding or is this a separate thing?

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:48:13 +0000

Barbara,
Great idea, and well thought out in a logical fashion. You illustrate the point that a story can be memorable. . .of course, it helps if we remember the products or services being advertised. Cats are in; Mr. Whipple is out. Thanks for adding something substantive to the conversation.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 02:21:59 +0000

Yeah, forget MW, let the cats try to shred Charmin to no effect. I love it.
But also show the soft side…

By: Barbara Phillips Long

Barbara Phillips Long — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 01:36:43 +0000

With the new “double rolls” of toilet paper, the product seems to have become thinner in order to fit on standard bathroom fixtures, so strength is probably a more important attribute than it used to be.
P&G might want to consider doing an ad featuring cats — known to shred and unravel toilet paper — in an effort to get the message across about the features it is selling, while still catching the eye of people who want either stories or cuteness or both in their ads.
Some ads could feature children discovering the cat with the toilet paper, in order to appeal to the mom market.
Maybe they could play off lolcat images in some markets or online to broaden the appeal of the campaign.
I think the most interesting advertising commentary about toilet paper was the beer ad where the guys buying the beer didn’t have enough for the toilet paper. The cashier asked “paper or plastic?” They chose paper. (Sorry, I can’t remember the beer — I don’t drink beer.) I guess this puts me in the “story ad” camp, except that I never cared for Mr. Whipple.

By: Ted Mininni

Ted Mininni — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 13:21:00 +0000

Lively interchange and I thank you all for adding a lot to the conversation here. You’ve all made some great points. I agree with Toad: safe, dull advertising is never memorable. . .and maybe resurrecting Mr. Whipple isn’t the answer, either. Maybe a new contemporary storyline ought to be developed for Charmin. Regardless, we’ll see how well P&G fares with its new campaign.
Thanks to Neil, Michael, Toad and Daryl for a terrific discussion.

By: Neil Anuskiewicz

Neil Anuskiewicz — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 04:12:06 +0000

Fair enough, TToad, I do accept that are clearly much more experienced and wiser than I.
That said, why could they not bring back a more likeable, cool Mr. Whipple? It seems like he is an asset that sold a lot of toilet paper. Instead of building on that, they are going off in a direction that seems trite and uninspiring to me.
I got to the store and all the toilet papers make the same claims, though some now are Green, too. How does re-discovering how soft or strong Charmin is and how customized(!) for your family going to build the brand and sell the paper? I don’t see it.
Give Mr. Whipple his due, he could sell paper in massive quantities. Maybe people won’t admit it but in some ways they liked ol’ MW. Maybe it even was fun to hate him.
I do honestly think an updated MW could inspire some nostalgia (and retro), while making new generations laugh. The new MW would have some big shoes to fill, though. We’d have to see if he could move the paper like the classic.

By: Michael Goodman

Michael Goodman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:40:35 +0000

Yes, TToad, I know. Being the person between the official P&G position and the agency creatives (and account team), I often had to mediate between the two sides after they had drawn lines in the sand.
There have been several commercials over the years in which P&G departed from the “mold,” and most of them didn’t work as well as the bad, safe, over-tested creative. It was frustrating for everyone.
Even the Proctoids are sensitive to the overly conservative image. They just find it difficult to stop doing something that seems to be working (in terms of business results).
Maybe things are finally changing!
P.S. This exchange has motivated me to go back and re-read my autographed Rosser Reeves book! It’s amazing how many of the principles still apply.

By: Tangerine Toad

Tangerine Toad — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:56:38 +0000

Read on, Neil, and you’ll find this: “Offensive, dull, abrasive, stupid advertising is bad for the entire industry and bad for business as a whole.”
Sullivan also points out that annoying consumers with shrill, unlikeable characters was a tried and true practice… back in the 1960s.
@Michael: Thanks for the reminiscence, but I’m sure you know that until last year, P&G was synonymous with bad, safe, over-tested creative that no one remembered or liked. Even P&G reached that conclusion when they decided to take a chance on Saatchi’s Tony Granger.

By: Michael Goodman

Michael Goodman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:53:03 +0000

Ted, I seriously doubt that P&G’s objective was to create ” …ad spots that [are] all that inventive, or provocative.” I suspect they want to communicate the benefits of soft and strong.
P&G has long been very bottom-line oriented with its advertising. They expect every commercial and every print ad to pull its weight, not win awards for creativity. When you spend only 8-9% of sales on advertising for a billion dollar brand, you want a return on your investment. You don’t much care if it’s inventive or provocative. You want it to sell stuff.
We’ll soon see how smart they are (or aren’t). I’m still holding my P&G stock.

By: Michael Goodman

Michael Goodman — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:13:25 +0000

TToad,
Thanks for that reminder of a truly great book. It really takes me back to my days as a copy supervisor, when my job was trying to “sell” the P&G learnings about what works in advertising to our advertising agencies without totally stifling their creativity.
Of course, the job also entailed encouraging some creative experimentation so that we could either validate or refute the “truths” in advertising that we worked so hard to develop (with rigorous quantitative analysis of business data and consumer research).
And, FWIW, Lewis, I doubt that P&G researches its advertising primarily with focus groups or other qualitative techniques. They’re very quantitative, and they want to be certain they’re making decisions based on statistically reliable and projectable information. Maybe I have too much faith in their good business judgment, but I’m pretty sure that focus groups have not become a mainstay in the P&G research diet. They’re too smart for that.