Gillette is the ‘genius’ when it comes to digital

02-Oct-2013 - Last updated on 03-Oct-2013 at 15:37 GMT

Gillette's Man Of Steel campaign was a 'genius' highlight

Procter & Gamble’s Gillette brand has been labelled ‘genius’ and is the number marketing brand in the US for its use of social and digital media campaigns to communicate and engage with consumers, according to a new report.

Gillette has been a market leader for years and its efforts have not gone unnoticed by digital information analyst L2 ThinkTank.

The New York-based agency has just launched its latest Digital IQ Index: Personal Care which attempts to quantify the digital performance of 75 US Personal Care brands, diagnosing strengths and weaknesses, and has named Gillette as one the top ‘genius’ brand.

Digital competence

“Digital competence is a point of competitive differentiation for [genius] brands. Creatively engineered messaging reaches consumers on a variety of devices and many online environments,”explains L2.

Leading Unilever’s Dove brand as the only other with ‘genius’ status, Gillette has been commended for its use of email marketing, mobile, customized brand shops, online product finders and online campaigns to drive consumer interest and connect on another level.

Gillette is helped further in its cause as it is one of the only brands in the personal care arena that chooses to integrate its digital efforts to support a business strategy, and this helps it stand out from the crowd further.

Setting the example

The brand’s ‘Share Your Thoughts’ email encourages subscribers to write a product review in exchange for a $3 coupon, engaging consumer and starting a conversation about the products.

Customized brand shops across five retail sites also include banner advertising, coupons, videos, and enhanced product descriptions.

P&G’s shaving line recently used QR codes and social media as part of a bigger campaign to encourage consumers to take a poll.

Campaigns and content

The ‘keep it smooth shaven’ multichannel campaign polled women on if they preferred to kiss a clean-shaven or stubbly face and centered around the survey to help the brand introduce new sensitive-skin razors and shaving gel; with 34 percent of traffic generated via mobile.

Another (‘How Does He Shave?’) campaign features video theories about the Man of Steel’s shaving habits, and received more than 2.5 million views and 4,000 comments across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

The Gillette Venus product finder and shaving how-to videos are also among the brand’s site content investments.