P&G's
Secret deodorant began supporting the
Women's National Soccer team in 2018.
Their efforts included soccer-themed YouTube videos, and special
packaging.
In
July, P&G contributed $529,000 to members of the National Soccer team -
$23,000 for each of the World Cup-winning players, to highlight the pay
difference between men's and women's clubs.
Beginning
today, P&G will buy up to 9,000 seats for soccer teams - 1,000 in each of 9
cities, and donate the seats to women's organizations and sports teams. (Bednarski,
2019)
Clearly
Secret, a product that is used by
athletes and non-athletes alike, could have picked a variety of different
tribes to associate with. Why do you
think they picked woman's soccer?
What target are they trying to reach? Why? Do you think any other tribes will be motivated? Which ones?
What Cialdini principles are behind this strategy? Do you think this effort will be successful? Or do you think alignment with a different tribe would yield better sales results?
What target are they trying to reach? Why? Do you think any other tribes will be motivated? Which ones?
What Cialdini principles are behind this strategy? Do you think this effort will be successful? Or do you think alignment with a different tribe would yield better sales results?
Bednarski,
P. (2019, September 17) P&G's Secret Brand Will Buy 9,000 Tickets to
Women's Pro Soccer Games. mediapost.com. Retrieved September 18, 2019, from
10 comments:
Women’s National Soccer team is a brilliant choice for P&G's Secret deodorant. As for today, United States achieved 4 times champions in the total 8 FIFA Women’s World Cups (1991, 1999, 2015, 2019). In other words, the chance rate for a champion of USA women soccer team is approximately 50%. Besides, the soccer is the dominant sports in the world. According to the survey by the Nielsen Company, the soccer potential fan with a total 105 million population is the largest group in American female supports. (Andrews 2018)
Thus, their target audience is working-class female whose age from between 15-35. The price is very accessible because Secret deodorant only listed for $2.99. However, I think this campaign may even reach to any male audience.
Based on Cialdini principles, the liking and authority strategy applied during this campaign. First, USA women soccer team is a regular champion. It demonstrated the leading strength of American female soccer level. As a result, It is a symbol of a nation pride. Ultimately, it form the likeness of audience to purchase the products. Second, the accessories of national soccer team is the representative of the highest quality. If the national team use the P&G's Secret deodorant, it automatically proves its reliability. Therefore, it creates the authority inside audiences.
Besides, the donation for supporting national female soccer players is a good move because it can catch attention from the general public to care about the big cap pay difference between the male and female players. It generated phenomenal electronic word of mouths on social media platform. (Ilchi 2019) I think this effort will be successful.
In my opinion, Women National Basketball is another good fit for P&G's Secret deodorant. In fact, USA female national basketball team gained a 10 champions out of total 18 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cups. They even had a higher rate for champions which is 55.55%.
Andrews, Ross. “Women's Sports Popularity Is Growing, According to Nielsen Study.” GlobalSport Matters, Arizona State University’s Global Sport Institute , 13 Nov. 2018, https://globalsportmatters.com/business/2018/11/13/womens-sports-popularity-is-growing-according-to-nielsen/.
Ilchi, Layla. “Secret Deodorant Donates More Than $500,000 to U.S. Women's Soccer Team.” WWD, WWD, 15 July 2019, https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/us-womens-soccer-secret-deodorant-donation-equal-pay-1203220534/.
Christopher Diaz
The USWNT has been a great story to watch, they have inspired the movement for equal pay between male and female athletes. Secret I think made these donations to strategically gain an advantage on their market. I truly feel after reading Professor Lehrer's blog that Secret wants to target woman that use deodorant with this move. Think about it for a second, deodorant is a tough market especially for woman. A recent article from June 2019 has secret among the top 11 female deodorants, in fact they had two of their products on the list (nymag,online), but there were also other powerhouses like Suave there as well with two of their products as well. How can secret gain a competitive advantage on their counterparts? Reach the million of woman that love soccer and the USWNT! By making this gesture the product for certainly will reach more crowds and create a higher brand recognition. They could set themselves apart and stand for something that many woman feel strong about as well. The fact that they are standing by that would draw attention from woman that are using other products and basically win them over in my opinion. Something that stood out to me after researching this topic was the fact that P&G had a pay gap between genders themselves(marketwatch,online)! Is this just a publicity stunt to cover up their own mishaps? I am curious but nonetheless if it was a stunt or truly sincere what secret did was amazing. The fact that P&G took a full page ad in the New York Times mean they could honestly be trying to make a difference (Forbes,online). I feel more brands or products will take this leap of faith as well, the first one that comes to mind is Nike. I think Nike which has already made a commercial celebrating the USWNT will go further and donate money or possibly some of their shoes to female athletes. When and where is still a mystery but I feel this company is the nest to make some type of stance against equal pay among athletes. This story is truly fascinating because it inspires the young girls that are soccer players and may want to pursue that in their careers. There shouldn't be restrictions or unequal compensation for female athletes because they are woman. I feel within the next couple of years this will get addressed and all athletes will get treated the same because it's the way it should be.
nymag.com, The Strategist
Multimedia, online 2019
http://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-womens-deodorant-reviews.html
Marketwatch.com, Leslie Albrecht
Multimedia, online 2019
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/procter-gamble-donated-529k-to-help-us-womens-soccer-win-equal-pay-while-paying-some-of-its-uk-female-workers-28-less-than-men-2019-07-18
Forbes,com, Lee Igel
Multimedia, online 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/leeigel/2019/07/15/pg-donating-529000-to-us-womens-soccer-team-isnt-a-cheap-shot-in-pay-gap-debate/#66f2d2694a79
Within the last 10 years we have witnessed an exponential growth when it comes to women’s empowerment. Women’s march, the #metoo movement, equality pay or even more recently when top model Emily Ratajkowski was proudly flaunting her armpits hair for a magazine shooting are all major reflections of women’s discontent in not being treated as men’s equal.
I believe supporting the Women’s National Soccer team in 2018 was a very clever maneuver from P&G. Firstly, defending women’s rights has become a duty by our society, even maybe sort of a trend. I mean the movements are certainly a trend (#metoo, Women’s march…) but the cause has been an on-going battle for many years. Also, let’s face it, nowadays anyone who dares to say “I am not feminist” will get instantly tons “bad reactions” from his audience. When P&G supports the Women’s National Soccer team, they don’t just support the team, they support women’s battle: being treated as men’s equal. Eventually this will create brand affinity (liking cialdini principle) and will boosts P&G sales. Proof is P&G’s sales were at USD65.1B in 2017 and are at USD67.7B in 2019 (2019 Financial Highlights/ P&G).
Also, every brand wants to be associated with a winning team. Not only the U.S. Women’s Soccer team have won the 2019 World Cup but since the creation of the tournament, they have won it 50% of the time. Betting on them was an easy call! If they wouldn’t have won it this time, they would have won’t it in four years time.
The target P&G are trying to reach is definitely women and defendants of the women cause. Target audience would be 18 to 55 years old.
The U.S. Women's Soccer team is an inspiration of greatness, success and respect for all the defendants of the Women's cause in the world.
Allan C.
LH
I believe Secret chose women’s soccer, because it is currently trending and gave them an opportunity to reach their target based on their egalitarian values. I think Secret is trying to reach Generation Z, because they are sending the message of equality, which is highly valued by Gen Z’ers. (Francis, Hoefel, 2018) I believe that Millennials will also be motivated, because they are said to be “the generation behind the Women’s March and the resurgence in feminist activism.” (Risman, 2018) I also think males in both generations will be motivated, because they also use women’s deodorant. (Prabhakar, 2007) Both generations can be found attending women’s soccer games, possibly as predominantly white mother-daughter duos. (Allison, 2018) The Cialdini principles behind this strategy are reciprocity, consistency, and liking. This strategy has the potential to fail, because less Millennials and Gen Z’ers are using deodorant, but I believe this effort may be successful. (Cross, 2019) In order to appeal to Gen Z’ers, companies must “practice what they preach when they address marketing issues and work ethics,” which I believe Secret has done with their pay match. (Francis, Hoefel, 2018)
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/true-gen-generation-z-and-its-implications-for-companies
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/gender-questions/201812/good-news-attitudes-moving-toward-gender-equality
https://www.forbes.com/2007/07/13/style-products-men-forbeslife-cx_hp_0716style.html#6878ab751ba8
https://thesocietypages.org/engagingsports/2018/09/11/engendering-fandom-audience-building-in-womens-professional-soccer/
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/millennials-gen-z-using-less-deodorant-study-says1
I think the reason why they picked woman's soccer is that they won the World Cup and getting more and more fans, which means the woman's soccer team can have a big influence on society. Meanwhile, the spirit and the image of athletes are usually positive and powerful, thus, it can better persuade people to purchase and trust the products, which is the Secret Deodorant.
The target of the P&G's Secret Deodorant should mostly be female working people. Since this campaign aims to arouse the awarenesses of equality and encourage female people to fight for their benefits. Besides, the price of this product is just like the other daily supplies, which is accessible. Some males may also be motivated by this campaign.
The principle of authority should be applied to this campaign because the woman's soccer won the World Cup in 2018. A successful soccer team is using this product, which makes this product more credible and attractive. I think this effort is definitely successful. First, it supports a winning team in a sports game, which automatically did advertising for the brand. Second, this campaign helps female tribes fight for their equal pay, which can definitely gain support from female customers. Third, this campaign helps the company convey a positive image: P&G is caring about social problems and making contributions to the vulnerable groups. Therefore, people are willing to support this brand and its products.
I think that the reason Secret chose the USWNT was probably due to people within their marketing department doing the research and realizing how talented this team was before they won the World Cup. By figuring out that this team was going to make headlines even before the World Cup began Secret had a hunch that this was the right partnership for them. By giving the green light to this ad campaign Secret executed it perfectly. Their product was able to reach fans of the team which are women that range in all ages. Deodorant is a product that you can sell to a wide range of people and by using the USWNT to advertise it comes off as a stroke of genius.
Secret picked women’s soccer, as firstly they are a brand created by women, marketed specifically for women. Choosing a men’s sport would be counterintuitive as there it does not make sense to support or endorse athletes that would not use the product. Additionally, soccer is a great sport to choose as its one of the most widely watched sport in the world. It makes perfect sense to choose the sport with the largest overall fan base. The attempted broad target is simple, women. Narrowing down this target one could assume that they are trying to connect with athletic women, or women interested in physical fitness but it reaches much farther than that. By purchasing seats to give away to women’s organizations and sports teams, undoubtedly many prepubescent or pubescent young girls will be benefiting from this action. These young women may not have been exposed to deodorant/antiperspirant previously so it’s a brand new target audience they are reaching. Consumers create habits so reaching these young women early can convert them into lifetime consumers. Other tribes that would become motivated from these actions include feminists or people fighting for women’s equality. While it’s easy to recognize that this is an obvious marketing campaign they are still attempting to close the gap between men and women gender inequality.
Cialdini principles are definitely being used in this campaign. First, they effectively use reciprocity by giving away tickets to soccer matches. The people that use these tickets will feel unconsciously indebted to Secret and this will push them towards buying their brand. Next, they use commitment, as what Secret is doing is consistent with their values. Anybody who wants to be seen as supporting equality for women will now be more attracted to Secret as they are perceived in that light. Lastly, they also use the principle of liking as they are now connecting their product to an enjoyable experience one will have at the soccer game.
Dillon Keay.
Huiwen Xu：
I think this is a great marketing tool. First of all, in society, the issue of women's rights is a social issue that has always been concerned. P&B's secret deodorant has provided support to the national women's football team, which is precisely the ability to establish a link between the brand and the public. The people are not only the national football team but also the female members of society. P&G chose the women's national football team. The first is to defend the power of women. Secondly, the national football team represents a symbol of a country. Their audience is very extensive and indirectly promoted.
First, P&G's goal is to promote self-products to a greater extent. The second point is to promote a spirit of equality between men and women. The victory of women in groups also means that women in society can also succeed. I think this is very similar to Gillette's advertisement: poisonous masculinity, one is to promote the equal status of women, and the other is to call on men to reduce the "toxic" masculinity, such as sexual assault, shackles. The same is to promote feminism, P&G seems to be more powerful, because P&G starts from a positive perspective.
This follows the social identity principle of the Cialdini principle. Social identity, this may be negatively expressed as "the pressure of peers." This is not necessarily a direct pressure, because people are naturally affected by the people around them. Sometimes public opinion is a kind of pressure. P&G concentrates on social hotspots and contributes to help. This is a wise decision.
I think aligning Women National Soccer team is a good move for P&G's Secret deodorant. I think picking women’s soccer team was a good idea for them and for the female gender as a whole because it supports a good cause which is fighting for equal pay for women and prove the power of women working together. Their target audience is the female gender both young and old. This is because of their marketing strategies which apart from aligning themselves with the Women's National Soccer team, their strategies also involves donating seats to women’s organizations and contributing money to the team to highlight the difference of pay between men and women. This strategy empowers the female gender and gives them a platform through which they and to have a voice and also empower their position in the sports industry especially soccer which has long been dominated by men. Through this, young girls are also inspired to be unafraid to try sports, work together and realize they have a chance in sports and even dominate in them. Cialdini principles behind this strategy include commitment, reciprocity and social proof. I think this effort will be successful and yield results as most women’s organizations and other women will fully support this campaign.
Because Women's Soccer has been getting a lot of attention recently, it was only right for Secret to produce partnerships and advertisements that supported the topics that Americans were invested in and following. I think it was a smart move for the Marketing Department to reach women's soccer to go along with their product of deodorants. Deodorants are typically used to prevent the odor of sweat, and when else do you sweat more than after a game of soccer? Women Athletes are a big customer base for Secret, so it is only right to continue to advertise towards them. Staying with the current events going on in the world makes Secret come off as an aware, educated, and engaging company, which can in return support revenue.
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