Motrin Ad Controversy – Who Gained from it?

Last week there was a lot of uproar in the social media space about a Motrin Ad that caused Motrin to pull the ad within 2 days of launching it and post an apology on their site. Judging by this and the negative press it got, it seemed like a failure. However, in my last post I outlined few key measures to see if the ad was a success or a failure.

As I expected, Motrin site saw a huge increase in traffic on its site. According to Compete Pro Motrin’s site saw a 10X increase in its Daily Reach on the Web, jumping from .002% to .02% in one day. That is a huge. An ad without a controversy would have not generated that kind of traffic. Motrin should send a big thank you and some motrins to #motrinmoms , a twitter group that started this whole controversy.

Source: Compete Pro

Note: 15th evening is when the ad went live and by 17th evening they pulled the ad and posted an apology.

#motrinmoms, you were successful too because you got the ad pulled out and got an apology. Now go take some motrin to ease the pain caused by this ad, don’t forget to print a coupon at Motrin.

Comments? Questions?

Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra
—————————————————————————-
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position? Post your open jobs on http://www.web-analytics-jobs.com/

Latest Postion
Technical Consultant for Internet Marketing and Web Analytics at Unica (Waltham, MA)

Was Motrin’s Baby Wearing Ad a Failure?

Last week, Johnson & Johnson’s video ad for Motrin caused a lot of uproar in the media. There were a few moms, dads and media upset with this ad and voiced their opinions on blogs, twitter and other social media. But there were also many who voiced their opinion on the social media and said they did not see any issue with the ad. It was amazing to see how the negative voice of few people carried such a huge weight (as it does most of the time) that Motrin was forced to remove the ad and post an apology on the home page of Motrin.com.

So should we say that this ad was a failure? It sure does seem like it, doesn’t it?
However, in my opinion, there are several ways to look at it. Let’s look at various KPIs and see if the Motrin ad was a success or failure.

1. Number of Video Views – I think this was huge, way more than Motrin or their agency ever imagined. If Motrin calculates the percentage increase in actual v/s anticipated video views of this Ad then I am pretty sure they will find it that this ad was a huge success. (Related Post, Video Analytics)
2. Buzz created – Huge. A lot of buzz was created. The blogosphere, Twitter, Social Media, TV, Newspapers – everybody was talking about it. Honestly, I never even considered Motrin when I was looking for pain killers, but now I know it is another option made by Johnson and Johnson. Also, some people have told me why Motrin might be better than the other pain killers I have been taking.
3. Buzz Sentiment – Yes, there was a lot of negative press about this ad that forced the ad out (there were a lot of positive sentiments as well) . I am not sure if opinions about an ad from Motrin would really impact Motrin’s brand image that much. A lot of people I talked to did not view this ad negatively, but also did not voice their opinion in any social media so their sentiments were not taken into account. Yes, all sentiment measures will show an issue, but is there really an issue with the product or was the issue just with an ad? If you just look at the buzz sentiment in isolation then this ad appears as a failure.
4. Brand Awareness – A lot of people, like me, who never even considered the Motrin brand before, became aware of it. I think this is a huge positive.
5. Change in visits to the site from pre-video launch- I am sure it was a great success. I am sure a lot of people went to the site to see what all the fuss was about and to read the apology by Motrin. The apology got the blogosphere and social media world buzzing again driving even more traffic to Motrin’s site.
6. Change in Motrin Sales – This will really tell us if the ad and this backlash had any negative (or positive) impact in Motrin or not. As I asked above, was the backlash against Motrin, or just against the ad? If it was the ad then they apologized and took the ad away. The product “Motrin” did not have any negatives attached to it. As mentioned above, a lot of people might have to gone to the site. If you look on Motrin’s site there is a link on the top called “Special Offers”. You click on that link and get a coupon with the option to forward the page to a friend. I am sure that this increase in traffic would have resulted in an increase in coupons being printed and forwarded to a friend. This in return will possibly drive more sales. This seems like a success for Motrin.

In the future when Motrin comes up with a new ad they’re automatically going to get some additional coverage. I think that also makes the Baby Wearing ad a success. Free publicity; what more can you ask for?

So what do you think was it a success or a failure?

Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra
—————————————————————————-
Looking to fill your Web Analytics or Online Marketing position? Post your open jobs on http://www.web-analytics-jobs.com/
Latest Postion
Technical Consultant for Internet Marketing and Web Analytics at Unica (Waltham, MA)<

Increase in subscribers with longer gap between posts

Ryan Turner has a great post titled “Going Viral is not a Marketing Strategy” on his blog.

In this post, he says

“Anil Batra noted a while back that his number of subscribers increased when he had a longer gap between blog posts. Goodness gracious! What could that mean? Apparently Anil has a theory. Yo Anil, care to share?”

He is referring to the pattern that I had noticed in terms of posting frequency and number of subscribers to the blog. I observed that that when there was a longer gap between my postings the subscribers to my blog increased far more than when I was posting regularly. So why was it happening?

Here is my theory

Visitors see the blog, like the blog, bookmark it (they reason why they don’t subscribe are listed below) and come back to check it. Since I write regularly they come back directly or via bookmark. If I keep writing regularly, visitors make it a habit to come back and check for the new content. But if there is a break in writing, they still want to read what I have to say, they just don’t want to keep coming back only to find that there is no fresh content. So they resort to subscribing to the feed (via feedburner link and a form that is on the right hand side panel).

I think the reasons why some visitors don’t subscribe to the feed blog in the first place are

1. It is probably much easier to bookmark the blog and come back to check.
2. The location of the subscribe form and link are probably not highly visible (right panel), even though most blogs have them at similar locations. To overcome this problem I should have something like the following in every post.

“If you like this post, you might want to subscribe to my blog feed.

Click here to subscribe to Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Online Advertising

I will try above link in next few posts and see if that makes any difference.

Now I need your feedback:
Readers of this blog, I would like to hear your views on this theory.
1. If you are subscriber of this blog then when do you subscribe, first time when you visited, after few times when you got interested in what I was writing or when you saw that there was nothing new for few days?
2. If you read this blog regularly and have not subscribed then what have you not subscribed? Is the subscription link hard to find? Any other reason?

Bloggers, have you noticed similar pattern? What is your theory?

I will further explore the traffic patterns, subscriptions and gap in the postings. If I find anything interesting I will post them on this blog.