Remember Mister
Whipple? - that old guy in the toilet paper commercial who kept telling people
not to squeeze the
Charmin?
There's a good chance that you do. You
see, Mister Whipple was one
of the most successful "continuing characters" in the history of
advertising.
Thanks to the "Please, don't squeeze the Charmin"
campaign, the brand became
the category leader and made Proctor & Gamble a ton of money. (Factoid: In a 1978
poll, Mister Whipple was named the third best-known American behind former
President Nixon and Rev.
Billy Graham!)
Let's take a look at what Mister Whipple
did for the brand and learn a
bit about what he can teach us!
Toilet paper, as I'm sure you'll agree, is
not the sexiest product on
the market. Nope. Toilet paper is not up there with sports cars, PDAs, or
luxury watches.
Like many other "package goods," toilet
paper falls, quite
predictably, into the "low interest" category. Which means Benton & Bowles
Advertising had a tough problem trying to promote the
brand.
They decided on a "Charmin is the soft
one" positioning and created
Mister Whipple to make the positioning come alive. The logic was that Charmin was so
irresistibly soft, that
people just couldn't help squeezing it. Mister Whipple, the old fuss-budget, had
to keep their urge to squeeze
the Charmin under control. He became the Taliban of aisle five.
Mister Whipple, therefore, is the
metaphoric embodiment of the
product positioning ("Charmin is the soft one"). Instead of simply asserting that Charmin
is soft or proving it by
tests or testimonials, Benton & Bowles used Mister Whipple to humanize the
product positioning.
That's what all continuing characters do.
Take the lonely Maytag
repairman. Maytag's product positioning centers on reliability. Thus, the sad-sack
Maytag repairman has nothing
to do (since he's never needed) and sits around bored and unloved. Again,
the continuing character
serves to imaginatively restate the product positioning and imbue it with
humanity and personality.
What does this have to do with YOUR
business? What can YOUR
company learn from Mister Whipple and the Maytag repairman?
Simply, that humanizing your
marketing-communications materials can help you connect with
prospects. Let's face it. Many companies, especially
high-tech outfits that focus
on product specifications, often forget that their customers are flesh and
blood people with emotions
that can be appealed to.
Sure, data sheets and specs are important, but
they're not the whole story.
Apple computer, in the early days, understood that. They didn't dwell on the technical
features of the Mac. They
created a sense that using a Mac was super cool. That, in fact, you were super
cool if you put your feet up
on your desk, sipped a cup of coffee like the handsome model, and wrote that great
American novel with MacWrite
and 128K of memory. (Apple has been playing the "cool" card very
effectively ever since.)
You know, it really isn't hard to add a
little humanity and
personality to your marketing materials. For example, you can:
+ Show people using your
product
+ If you talk about great "customer
care," show your support
staff
+ Put photos of people on your Web
site
+ If you use customer testimonials,
include their photos
+ Sign your e-mail with a name (instead
of leaving it anonymous)
+ Instead of photographing your
fulfillment piece by itself,
photograph a hand holding
it
+ In a self-mailer, have a message from
the president along with
a
friendly photo
And that's just for starters.
The take-away message this month? Product
facts and information are
important - but so is the human touch. Betty Crocker, Uncle Ben, Mrs. Olsen, The
Jolly Green Giant, the
Pillsbury Doughboy, and countless others have made products come alive for
consumers. Doesn't it make
sense to bring a bit of the human touch to your
marketing efforts?