Insights
P&G was a top sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics and was looking for a way to align itself directly with the event. This was a challenge because at first there seemed to be no obvious connection. However, P&G found a way to align the two through a simple universal message; ‘behind every great sports star, there is a wonderful mum’.
Strategy
To make its brand strong amongst the clutter of heavy-spending competitors, P&G needed to create an emotional connection.
P&G realised that the common solution in all markets lay in the stories of the athletes. By using this P&G intended to give Mums, and the whole world, the chance to discover both the amazingness and difficulty of being a mum.
This new central theme allowed P&G to create a social platform, not only for mums to share their own experiences, learn from one another and support each other, but also to those who simply wanted to say “Thank you, Mum”.
Moreover, the theme allowed P&G brands to send a coherent and consistent message, to promote multiple products across a long time frame.
Execution
The campaign was put into action by revealing the stories of mums of great sports stars. While the content was powerful and emotional, P&G needed time to build its message and truly connect mums and sport.
In Mexico, P&G undertook several activities. Firstly, the brand built a first-ever joint venture with Mexican TV Channel Televisa to create a five-month long branded content programme that shifted mums from morning-magazine shows and soap-operas toward sports shows. Secondly, P&G gave people the chance to win a house by telling a life-changing story about their mum, and how they had been raised like a champion. The 24 best stories aired on TV´s Top Sunday Sports and during the Olympics, and TV hosts invited the audience to vote for a winner.
In Poland and Central Europe, P&G extended its partnerships further, incorporating TV (TVP, Polsat), print (Edipresse) and digital providers (Facebook, YouTube) to create standout via non-standard solutions. Morning TV to gave mums the chance to send their kids to a special sport camp, with further engagement via social media promoting their content – memories of mums of local Olympians.
In China, the scale was even wider. P&G created five large-scale business partnerships from scratch with Baidu, Sina, QQ, CCTV and Youku to distribute its Olympic content. In particular, it targeted the social opportunity given to China’s heavy use of these platforms and built a media-first social listening unit. This enabled them to change content instantaneously and deliver best ROI on engagement.
Results
P&G’s message of “Thank you, Mum” got its target markets talking and extended the message well beyond paid media.
In Mexico, TV hosts and celebrities embraced the movement and decided to talk about it on air (free of charge) sending their own “Thank you, Mum” messages, and giving P&G a presence in a morning news programmes that were ad free. P&G generated more than 20,000 ‘Thank you, Mum’ stories and increased its campaign awareness eight-fold. Their TV ROI was up 60% on single brand activity and sales of participating brands rose by 5%.
In Poland and Central Europe, P&G reached 42% brand awareness, overtaking L’Oreal (20%), Henkel (34%) and Unilever (12%).E-Commerce sales reached their highest ever mark +320% vs. YA. 500million Central European consumers thanked their mums via the P&G Facebook app.
In China, P&G delivered 66bn impressions and 25million consumers participated. ROI beat P&G benchmarks by a factor of three and individual partnerships delivered up to 5.2:1 return on every Yuan invested in the campaign. P&G was consistently in the medals for Olympic buzz generated by brands in China.