rahulsabnis' posterous

WHAT do teenagers and young adults hope to get as holiday gifts? Smartphones? Tablet computers? Video games? If a giant marketer has its way, they may instead find face wash dispensers under the Christmas tree or Hanukkah bush.

The dispensers are being introduced by the Reckitt Benckiser USA division of Reckitt Benckiser, which sells products bearing brand names like Calgon, Clearasil, Finish, French’s, Lysol and Woolite. The Clearasil PerfectaWash automatic face wash dispenser, with a suggested retail price of $19.99, will be backed with an unconventional campaign that is meant to appeal to consumers ages 17 to 21.

The campaign includes video clips to be projected onto buildings in eight cities, a concert by the singer JoJo, social media like Facebook and QR codes, the scannable data squares that resemble bar codes — in other words, the types of nontraditional approaches that are used to sell young people on high-technology products like smartphones, tablets and video games.

Other efforts to build excitement for Clearasil PerfectaWash that emulate marketing methods for electronic gear include giving dispensers to bloggers to try out and review, along with naming three consumers to serve as “all access agents” for the product on the Facebook fan page.

And in an unusual step for Reckitt Benckiser USA, Clearasil PerfectaWash is being presold to consumers, who are being offered a chance to pre-order it on Amazon.com before the official introduction on Dec. 26.

The initiative is meant to be like campaigns for Apple products, said Rahul Sabnis, executive creative director on the Reckitt Benckiser account at Euro RSCG Worldwide in New York, part of the Havas Worldwide division of Havas.

“We want that same type of innovation and energy,” Mr. Sabnis said, to “shift the conversation from advertising to cultural relevance.”

“It’s not just about putting a commercial out there,” he added. (There will also be television commercials for Clearasil PerfectaWash, scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2012.)

The budget for the campaign is $30 million, according to executives of Reckitt Benckiser USA. That is more than twice what the company spent to advertise Clearasil acne medications and skin-care products in 2009 or 2010, according to data from the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

The Clearasil PerfectaWash campaign is indicative of why many forecasters are predicting that ad spending this year will increase compared with last year and ad spending next year will increase compared with this year. Despite the uncertain economy, major marketers like Reckitt Benckiser USA are making ambitious plans to bring out new products while continuing to advertising existing ones.

Among Reckitt Benckiser USA brands for which Euro RSCG New York has recently produced new campaigns are Woolite. And more are planned for the new year.

“We are putting a lot of money behind this, quite a lot for the category,” Jiri Kulik, general manager for marketing at Reckitt Benckiser USA in Parsippany, N.J., said of the Clearasil PerfectaWash introduction.

The dispenser will compete not only with face washes and acne medications sold in drug stores and mass-merchandise stores but also with the Proactiv line of acne treatments sold in infomercials, online and in print ads by the direct marketer Guthy-Renker.

Signs in stores like Wal-Mart that are to sell Clearasil PerfectaWash will stress its lower cost: “one-third the price of Proactiv,” Mr. Kulik said.

The “key message” of the campaign, he added, is the promise that the dispenser provides, to quote from the video clip, “the perfect dose for visibly clear skin.” The claim is to be reinforced by testimonials from younger consumers who include the bloggers receiving the free dispensers.

Each dispenser comes with two 10-ounce refills and shoppers who buy through Amazon.com will be invited, Mr. Kulik said, to sign up for the Web retailer’s automatic delivery program known as Subscribe and Save.

“It’s the good old Gillette model of seeding the gadget and getting people to get the refill,” he added, then amended his remark to call it “the Reckitt Benckiser model.”

Because the dispenser “sits on your sink,” Mr. Kulik said, it will encourage owners to “use it every day.”

Mr. Kulik and Nathan Marafioti, senior brand manager for Clearasil, acknowledged the risk of marketing personal-care products “like iPhones or iPads,” as Mr. Kulik put it, “with buzz and presell.”

“Maybe we are getting too excited about something other companies think is normal,” Mr. Kulik said, laughing.

Mr. Sabnis said he believed the benefits of adopting the electronic device marketing model— “the intersection of digital and experiential marketing and advertising” — outweigh the risks.

The target audience likes “to try products before they’re on the shelf,” Mr. Sabnis said, and “they appreciate peer-to-peer influence” in the form of testimonials, reviews and comments.

And the appearance in the campaign of JoJo — including a sponsored concert in Los Angeles on Saturday and music from her coming album being featured in the commercials — could serve as a “cultural accelerant,” he added, and “speed up how a message gets out.”

Reckitt Benckiser plans to introduce Clearasil PerfectaWash in European markets after it makes its debut in the United States.

Reckitt Benckiser USA spent $12.8 million to advertise Clearasil in 2010 out of total spending for all brands of $416 million, Kantar Media reported, compared with $14.8 million in 2009 out of total spending for all brands of $426.2 million.

The financial advisor, Euro RSCG Worldwide knew, is always on-the-go, and needs bite-sized information to help influence clients' investment decisions. For the campaign, therefore, the emails broke down hard concepts into easily translatable story lines. Meanwhile, a multimedia campaign introduced the rallying cry, "Globalize Your Thinking," while targeted banner ads asked provocative questions. QR codes led to mobile quizzes, and animated infographics brought key facts to life. As a result, 55 percent of advisors who saw the campaign said they were more likely to recommend Oppenheimer Funds global and international funds, while sales of those Oppenheimer funds are up 34 percent year-over-year.

Teaser banner ads will appear on youtube.com to promote the Volvo S60 Augmented Reality Driving Game.

For a car that is sold on being safe, Volvo rarely plays it safe when it comes to advertising, as demonstrated by a campaign to get under way on Saturday.

In addition to its mainstream campaigns in media like television and magazines, Volvo, owned by the Chinese automaker Geely, has been among the most experimental of the automotive marketers in trying to figure out what works — and does not work — in new media.

For instance, in 2005, Volvo commissioned a racing video game for the Microsoft Xbox system. And two years later, Volvo sponsored a series of humorous webisodes on msn.com about a make-believe driving school.

The next effort in new media is for the new Volvo S60 sports sedan. Volvo and its agency, Team Volvo, part of Havas, are joining forces with the YouTube unit of Google for a campaign centered on augmented reality.

Teaser banner ads that are to start appearing on youtube.com will promote what is officially called the Volvo S60 Augmented Reality Driving Game. There will also be a contest — lasting one day, Saturday — that incorporates Android and the iPhone along with YouTube, with an iPad as a prize.

Consumers will be invited to download the game applications to their iPhones or Android devices, then play the game on Saturday. The apps, which are free, function only in tandem with YouTube.

One reason that Volvo makes forays into new media is that “there’s more buzz, chatter, when we do these things,” said Linda Gangeri, national advertising manager at Volvo Cars of North America in Rockleigh, N.J.

Another reason is that innovating in media is meant to represent “innovation to move our brand forward,” she added.

There is a third reason for Volvo’s willingness to try new media, according to Ms. Gangeri.

“It’s important not just because it’s cool,” she said. “Our budgets are a lot less than our competitors’,” meaning that campaigns in new media, which often have lower price tags than those in traditional media, “allow us to do more for less.”

There are, of course, potential problems with ads that run in new media.

“Innovation inherently contains a lot more risk than traditional advertising,” said John Steward, creative director at Euro RSCG New York, part of Euro RSCG Worldwide, which is one of the agencies that belongs to Team Volvo.

“Yes, certain things will be more successful than others,” Mr. Steward said. “So we make sure it’s a calculated risk.”

For instance, the Volvo S60 campaign will appear in what YouTube calls a masthead ad, which is a large display unit at the top of a page — hard to miss or ignore.

Another risk is that Volvo, Team Volvo and YouTube are counting on consumers to want to take a couple of steps: download the apps at the iPhone App Store or the Android Market and then play the game.

“The payoff is an entertainment experience at the end of it,” Mr. Steward said, so the hopes are high that the participation rate will also be high.

There are other new-media elements to the S60 campaign, including social media and search. Traditional media is represented with television and print ads.

Helping young women avoid unplanned pregnancy is the focus of a new PSA campaign from the Ad Council and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The multimedia effort, created pro bono by Euro RSCG, New York, is designed to reduce the rates of unplanned pregnancy among unmarried women ages 18 to 24.

According to the National Campaign, nearly one in 10 unmarried women ages 20 to 29 has an unplanned pregnancy each year, or 1.3 million pregnancies annually, giving the U.S. one of the highest rates in the developed world and a 13% increase among this age group between 2001 and 2006. While 84% of women in this age group believe it's important to avoid pregnancy right now, National Campaign research found that fewer than half are using birth control consistently.

The new PSAs, which include television, radio, print, Web, social media and nontraditional advertising, use humor to emphasize the importance of birth control and end with the line: "You didn't give up on sex. Don't give up on birth control either."

The ads direct women to go to Bedsider.org, a new online and mobile program offering information on birth control options. Bedsider, developed by design firm IDEO, also allows users to set up birth control and appointment reminders, see videos of their peers discussing personal experiences and view short animated videos that debunk some myths surrounding birth control.

The effort will include outreach and engagement on Facebook and Twitter, such as a new application debuting later this month that will invite users to anonymously submit their funniest or most awkward romantic moments.

"The Bedsider PSA campaign has an important message that we wanted to communicate in a world full of important messages," said Lee Garfinkel, co-chairman of Euro RSCG, New York, in announcing the effort. "In order to get this cynical young woman to pay attention, and break through the clutter, we had to do something that was relatable and would have a high impact."

It's rare to find a consistently creative or insightful person who is also an angry person.*

They can't occupy the same space, and if your anger moves in, generosity and creativity often move out. It's difficult to use revenge or animus to fuel great work.

Ironically, when you decide to teach someone a lesson they richly deserve, you often end up strangling the very source you were counting on.

(*Angry is not the same as being a jerk. For some reason, there are plenty of creative jerks--I think because they mistakenly believe that being a jerk is a useful way for some people to wrestle with their lizard brains).

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The New York office of the Euro RSCG Worldwide agency is continuing to add senior managers with a new chief strategy officer, who arrives from London with a distinctive social media sideline.

Tom Morton

Tom Morton will join Euro RSCG New York next month from the British operations of the Publicis Worldwide unit of the Publicis Groupe, where he had the same title.

And before that, Mr. Morton, who is 37, had been chief strategy officer of the London office of TBWA Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group.

Mr. Morton is known in British advertising circles for his humorous feed on Twitter in the persona of the literary figure Dr. Samuel Johnson. The Twitter account, @DrSamuelJohnson, has more than 36,400 followers who read Mr. Morton’s wry quips on current events written in Johnson’s 18th-century style.

For instance, a comment that @DrSamuelJohnson offered last week about the news of strategic upheavals at Hewlett-Packard read: “Huzzah for Messrs. Hewlett & Packard’s 18th Century Business: they shall make their Fortune in India-Ink and Soft Wares.”

“One of the joys of moving to the United States is that you get a lot of new material to write about,” Mr. Morton said in a phone interview.

He added, laughing, that he hoped his followers in Britain would “get used to me coming onstream later in the day.”

Although the job at Euro RSCG New York will be “my first role based in the U.S.,” Mr. Morton said, “when I was at TBWA I did lots of work with the TBWA New York office.”

Mr. Morton said he was looking forward to joining Euro RSCG New York as the agency seeks to move ahead after executive and account changes.

Euro RSCG New York is perhaps best known for its campaign for Dos Equis beer that features a character called “the most interesting man in the world” and its work for the Charles Schwab brokerage that urges investors to “Talk to Chuck.”

“I get a real sense of determination and moxie from the place,” Mr. Morton said, praising the way the agency has integrated its digital and traditional operations.

Jeff Brooks, chief executive at Euro RSCG New York, said that Mr. Morton’s role would be to seek the types of “powerful insights” into consumer behavior and brand communications that are typified by the agency’s Schwab and Dos Equis campaigns.

Mr. Morton has an “inherent curiosity,” Mr. Brooks said, and an ability to understand “the implications of broader cultural trends for brands.”

Mr. Brooks also pointed to Mr. Morton’s social media experiment with Dr. Johnson as a reason for hiring him.

It seems strange to try finding out if Dr. Johnson would still be relevant today, Mr. Brooks said, “but once you know Tom, it all makes perfect sense.”

Mr. Morton will report to Mr. Brooks. Mr. Morton will be part of the executive management team of Euro RSCG New York.

In becoming chief strategy officer, Mr. Morton is succeeding Michael Fanuele, who left in December to join Fallon Minneapolis, part of the Fallon Worldwide unit of Publicis, as chief strategy officer.

Euro RSCG New York is part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide unit of Havas Worldwide, a division of Havas.